There was a long pause. He listened to the static. Then a voice came,
hard, thin, metallic. The same as the other. "This is Leone."
"Hendricks. I'm on the surface. At the bunker entrance. I want one of
you to come up here."
"Come down."
"Why come down? I'm giving you an order!"
Silence. Hendricks lowered the transmitter. He looked carefully around
him. The entrance was just ahead. Almost at his feet. He lowered the
antenna and fastened the transmitter to his belt. Carefully, he
gripped his gun with both hands. He moved forward, a step at a time.
If they could see him they knew he was starting toward the entrance.
He closed his eyes a moment.
Then he put his foot on the first step that led downward.
Two Davids came up at him, their faces identical and expressionless.
He blasted them into particles. More came rushing silently up, a whole
pack of them. All exactly the same.
Hendricks turned and raced back, away from the bunker, back toward the
rise.
At the top of the rise Tasso and Klaus were firing down. The small
claws were already streaking up toward them, shining metal spheres
going fast, racing frantically through the ash. But he had no time to
think about that. He knelt down, aiming at the bunker entrance, gun
against his cheek. The Davids were coming out in groups, clutching
their teddy bears, their thin knobby legs pumping as they ran up the
steps to the surface. Hendricks fired into the main body of them. They
burst apart, wheels and springs flying in all directions. He fired
again through the mist of particles.
A giant lumbering figure rose up in the bunker entrance, tall and
swaying. Hendricks paused, amazed. A man, a soldier. With one leg,
supporting himself with a crutch.
"Major!" Tasso's voice came. More firing. The huge figure moved
forward, Davids swarming around it. Hendricks broke out of his freeze.
The First Variety. The Wounded Soldier.
He aimed and fired. The soldier burst into bits, parts and relays
flying. Now many Davids were out on the flat ground, away from the
bunker. He fired again and again, moving slowly back, half-crouching
and aiming.
From the rise, Klaus fired down. The side of the rise was alive with
claws making their way up. Hendricks retreated toward the rise,
running and crouching. Tasso had left Klaus and was circling slowly to
the right, moving away from the rise.
A David slipped up toward him, its small white face expressionless,
brown hair hanging down in its eyes. It bent over suddenly, opening
its arms. Its teddy bear hurtled down and leaped across the ground,
bounding toward him. Hendricks fired. The bear and the David both
dissolved. He grinned, blinking. It was like a dream.
"Up here!" Tasso's voice. Hendricks made his way toward her. She was
over by some columns of concrete, walls of a ruined building. She was
firing past him, with the hand pistol Klaus had given her.
"Thanks." He joined her, grasping for breath. She pulled him back,
behind the concrete, fumbling at her belt.
"Close your eyes!" She unfastened a globe from her waist. Rapidly, she
unscrewed the cap, locking it into place. "Close your eyes and get
down."
* * * * *
She threw the bomb. It sailed in an arc, an expert, rolling and
bouncing to the entrance of the bunker. Two Wounded Soldiers stood
uncertainly by the brick pile. More Davids poured from behind them,
out onto the plain. One of the Wounded Soldiers moved toward the bomb,
stooping awkwardly down to pick it up.
The bomb went off. The concussion whirled Hendricks around, throwing
him on his face. A hot wind rolled over him. Dimly he saw Tasso
standing behind the columns, firing slowly and methodically at the
Davids coming out of the raging clouds of white fire.
Back along the rise Klaus struggled with a ring of claws circling
around him. He retreated, blasting at them and moving back, trying to
break through the ring.
Hendricks struggled to his feet. His head ached. He could hardly see.
Everything was licking at him, raging and whirling. His right arm
would not move.