Telt hummed to himself hoarsely as he drove. He broke off suddenly and looked at Brion. “What you want the dead Dis for?”
“A theory,” Brion answered sluggishly. He had been half napping in the chair, taking the opportunity for some rest before the attack. “I’m still looking for a way to avert the end.”
“You and Hys,” Telt said with satisfaction. “Couple of idealists. Trying to stop a war you didn’t start. They never would listen to Hys. He told them in the beginning exactly what would happen, and he was right. They always thought his ideas were crooked, like him. Growing up alone in the hill camp, with his back too twisted and too old to be fixed when he finally did come out. Ideas twisted the same way. Made himself an authority on war. Hah! War on Nyjord—that’s like being an ice-cube specialist in hell. But he knew all about it, though they never would let him use what he knew. Put granddaddy Krafft in charge instead.”
“But Hys is in charge of an army now?”
“All volunteers, too few of them and too little money. Too little and too damned late to do any good. I’ll tell you we did our best, but it could never be good enough. And for this we get called butchers.” There was a catch in Telt’s voice now, an undercurrent of emotion he couldn’t suppress. “At home they think we like to kill. Think we’re insane. They can’t understand we’re doing the only thing that has to be done—”
He broke off as he quickly locked on the brakes and killed the engine. The line of sand cars had come to a stop. Ahead, just visible over the dunes, was the summit of a dark tower.
“We walk from here,” Telt said, standing and stretching. “We can take our time, because the other boys go in first, soften things up. Then you and I head for the sub-cellar for a radiation check and find you a handsome corpse.”
Walking at first, then crawling when the dunes no longer shielded them, they crept up on the Disan keep. Dark figures moved ahead of them, stopping only when they reached the crumbling black walls. They didn’t use the ascending ramp, but made their way up the sheer outside face of the ramparts.
“Line-throwers,” Telt whispered. “Anchor themselves when the missile hits, have some kind of quick-setting goo. Then we go up the filament with a line-climbing motor. Hys invented them.”
“Is that the way you and I are going in?” Brion asked.
“No, we get out of the climbing. I told you we hit this rock once before. I know the layout inside.” He was moving while he talked, carefully pacing the distance around the base of the tower. “Should be right about here.”
High-pitched keening sliced the air and the top of the magter building burst into flame. Automatic weapons hammered above them. Something fell silently through the night and hit heavily on the ground near them.
“Attack’s started,” Telt shouted. “We have to get through now, while all the creepies are fighting it out on top.” He pulled a plate-shaped object from one of his bags and slapped it hard against the wall. It hung there. He twisted the back of it, pulled something and waved Brion to the ground. “Shaped charge. Should blow straight in, but you never can tell.”
The ground jumped under them and the ringing thud was a giant fist punching through the wall. A cloud of dust and smoke rolled clear and they could see the dark opening in the rock, a tunnel driven into the wall by the directional force of the explosion. Telt shone a light through the hole at the crumbled chamber inside.
“Nothing to worry about from anybody who was leaning against this wall. But let’s get in and out of this black beehive before the ones upstairs come down to investigate.”
Shattered rock was thick on the floor, and they skidded and tumbled over it. Telt pointed the way with his light, down a sharply angled ramp. “Underground chambers in the rock. They always store their stuff down there—”
A smoking, black sphere arced out of the tunnel’s mouth, hitting at their feet. Telt just gaped, but even as it hit the floor Brion was jumping forward. He caught it with the side of his foot, kicking it back into the dark opening of the tunnel. Telt hit the ground next to him as the orange flame of an explosion burst below. Bits of shrapnel rattled from the ceiling and wall behind them.
“Grenades!” Telt gasped. “They’ve only used them once before—can’t have many. Gotta warn Hys.” He plugged a throat mike into the transmitter on his tack and spoke quickly into it. There was a stirring below and Brion poured a rain of fire into the tunnel.
“They’re catching it bad on top, too! We gotta pull out. Go first and I’ll cover you.”
“I came for my Disan—I’m not leaving until I get one.”
“You’re crazy! You’re dead if you stay!”
Telt was scrambling back towards the crumbled entrance as he talked. His back was turned when Brion fired. The magter had appeared silently as the shadow of death. They charged without a sound, running with expressionless faces into the bullets. Two died at once, curling and folding; the third one fell at Brion’s feet. Shot, pierced, dying, but not yet dead. Leaving a crimson track, it hunched closer, lifting its knife to Brion. He didn’t move. How many times must you murder a man? Or was it a man? His mind and body rebelled against the killing, and he was almost ready to accept death himself, rather than kill again.
Telt’s bullets tore through the body and it dropped with grim finality.
“There’s your corpse—now get it out of here!” Telt screeched.
Between them they worked the sodden
