They lay in a kind of shallow ditch just under the outer edge of the
great saucer, watching the orange lights from the helmets bob and duck
nearer. Bill said quietly, "We're cut off from the hill now."
"That's okay. The women will wait; and we can fall back on the ruins of
the town if they chase us. They may just investigate the ship here, and
not bother with us. We are only vermin, after all."
Hafnagel said, "What if they see the changes you made in that panel?"
"They shouldn't, unless they look almighty close."
"And will it work?" asked the big man.
"Who the hell knows?" retorted Trace irritably. "Maybe it's too late
now. Maybe we're spinning around Tsloahn already. Who can tell? We
can't see the stars, the clouds are too thick."
The aliens were very close now and the four men fell silent. The lamps
drew up to the deserted ship, hesitated, and at last one lifted and
disappeared, as its wearer vanished into the open port. Trace shut
his eyes and said a quick private prayer of thanksgiving; then he
whispered, "We're okay now. Let's head for the ruins." They crawled out
of the ditch and like a quartet of raiding Comanches, their work done,
made for the empty wreckage at top speed.
Behind them a shout went up, a raucous croak of triumph. Then a voice
said weirdly in English, pitched high and carrying, "Not run, die!"
Trace got the idea, disagreed with it, and put all his strength into
a terrific sprint. He found himself bathed in orange radiance, as
the distant Graken focused their helmet beams; just before the first
green ray was fired, he saw a very low wall of bricks miraculously
uncrumbled, jinked and made for it, dived over and landed on his chest
with a scarce-felt smack of pain. The others followed him, and hugged
dirt as the rayguns sliced the cold air harmlessly.
After a while the orange glow went away. Trace cautiously looked over
the wall. He couldn't see anything but he had a feeling. They hadn't
all gone into the ships, he knew that.
He was not quite unprepared, therefore, when the Graken came over the
bricks on top of him.
It was probably the largest and heaviest of all those whom the band
had seen. It fell on Trace like the side of a collapsing barn, and
Trace felt all his breath leave his lungs in one excruciating wheeze.
He fought to bring the muzzle of the raygun against it, but could not
move his arm, which was pinned under the creature's knee. Only the
soldier's left arm was free. He flailed a blow that landed solidly,
but the alien only squalled, and chopped at his face with its clubbed
pistol. Trace felt skin and flesh give way along his cheekbone, blood
gush from the slice of the metal. He heaved up as heartily as he
could, at the same time aiming another left jab for the brute's face.
His knuckles took it square in the eye. It shrieked, reeled back on
its knees, and Trace fought tigerishly and was free. He delivered
his finest right cross to the throat, and the Graken writhed on the
frozen earth. Then Slough and Bill were there--the fight had taken only
seconds--and the magician in a frenzy of rage booted the green head
with the toe of his heavy shoe. That was that.
Slough's voice said softly, "_Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui
lurmen ademptium._" He rolled the big head up to the dusky light, and
the broad single eye gaped blankly. "Virgil said that about another
Cyclops, luckily of a mythical breed. 'A horrible monster, misshapen,
vast, whose only eye had been put out.'" He signed. "Trace, the only
real work we had is done, for failure or success it's finished, and we
can't do any more good here. Let us go back to the women. If so be it
our plan succeeds, they'll need you to watch over them in the--ah, the
post-war world, which may be a little wild for a time. And if we've
lost our gamble, then you should be with your girl when the end comes.
You can't do any good by fighting guerrilla-fashion down here."
"My girl?" asked Trace, who had no idea of how he had been moon-calfing
at Jane Kelly.
Hafnagel laughed. It was a joyous sound, the expression of a troubled
man who had found release. "Go on, Sarge," he said. "Go to the hill,
all three of you. I'll cover your withdrawal from here." He hefted the
raygun he carried. "Don't argue with me," he said before Trace could
speak. "You know a retreat needs a rear guard--and I mean to have
another Graken scalp or two before I quit. Go on."
Trace argued in passionate whispers, but shortly found himself creeping
on all fours across the razed town, without fully remembering how he
had left the wall. There was no sound or sign of movement on all the
wide plain; and as they came to the beginnings of the slope, he said,
"I shouldn't have left him. He ought to have come with us."
Then they saw in the distance the streaks of green fire, and a pair of
orange spotlights which almost immediately went out. The ray pistols
kept darting their beams along the ground, and Trace said again, "I
shouldn't have left Hafnagel."
"He never meant to follow us," said Slough.
"It was right to leave him," said Bill Blacknight quietly. "You gave
him a few minutes of glory. That's no bad deal, you know."
When they crested the hill, the green shafts had vanished, and the
plain was dark under the heavy clouds that hid the sky.