The alien engines of hellfire terminated lateral movement and hovered over the shore of the wooded lake. With startling abruptness they settled into the trees. Humans daring to look into hell watched the columns of flaming exhaust explode into the forest and shoot sideways, their obscene power supporting the landing modules ever lower, lower, until they were obscured by billowing smoke. The explosive chaos ceased.
The silence was worse. Nerve endings deadened by sensory onslaught triggered into paroxysmic action. Ringing ears and glare-shocked eyes sent belated pulses of energy to the brain. Muscles reacted randomly, and stomachs, bladders, and bowels rejected the tenuous control of the nervous system. Human thought groped for references, but all logic dictated panic; men and women screamed.
The first recognizable sensation was the blast of heat rolling over the settlement, followed by the fragrance of burning wood. Sensations! Links to sanity; the hypnosis of terror was broken. Fenstermacher staggered to his feet and looked about. Shannon, eyes slit with ferocious intensity, had unslung his rifle and was poised to shoot. Chastain, great brown eyes surrounded with white, was crouched low, ready to spring. Shannon was shouting, but Fenstermacher was unable to distinguish any words, only an infernal buzzing. O'Toole stumbled in circles, wide-eyed and witless. Shannon grabbed the Marine by the elbow and slapped him. Confusion reigned. Fenstermacher realized that Shannon was shouting at him. Concentrating with all his might, he could hear Shannon's voice, a tinny whisper under a waterfall of ambient noise. It increased in volume and fullness.
"— get back to the stockade!" Shannon shouted.
Fenstermacher dumbly nodded, grateful to hear again. He turned toward the stockade and stumbled uphill. He halted as Buccari sprinted toward them.
"W-What are we going to do?" Shannon asked.
"Let me think!" she shouted. She held her hand over an ear, trying to hear.
An acrid stench, like kerosene burning, assaulted Fenstermacher' s senses. Vivid tongues of flame danced above the treetops, and black billows tumbled into the sky. Wilson and MacArthur came running along the shore and joined the collection of haggard humans on the cove beach.
"Sarge!" Buccari shouted. "Collect the women and children and get out of here. Take the horses, and get moving into the woods."
"Mac," she continued, louder than necessary. "I want you to round up everyone else and report back here—with weapons! When Shannon's clear I want you and Chastain to come down the shore until you can see me or Chief Wilson. Wait for signals. Stay spread out and don't get closer than three hundred meters, unless I call you in. If you can't see us, don't do anything stupid. Fall back and try to stay alive."
"Aye, aye, Lieutenant," MacArthur replied, but his eyes showed concern—concern for Buccari. She waved him away and turned to Wilson.
"Gunner, you and I are the reception committee! Let's go." "Yeah, that's exactly what I was hoping we were going to do,"
Wilson muttered, jaw tight. "Must be my friggin' lucky day."
The clutch of frightened humans broke apart. Fenstermacher sprinted for the palisade gate, his fishing gear lying in the mud.
The spring thermals were weak. It had taken Brappa and Kibba two days to make the downwind trip. Full-fledged warriors, the proud young hunters had been selected to make the first contact of the year with the long-legs—a great honor. They were still far away when the engines of terror broke through the clouds. Brappa screamed warning signals and accelerated his glide. With a freshening wind carrying them southward, the cliff dwellers lifted high on firming updrafts. The scar gouged out of the forest by the alien vehicles was a carbonized gash on the shores of the lake. Everything within bowshot of the sinister black cylinders was cauterized into ash.
Two long-legs stood on the verge of the destruction; Brappa recognized Short-one-who-leads and One-who-cooks. Two more long-legs, Brave-crazy-one and Giant-one, ran along the lake shore toward the landing site. All carried weapons. Brappa returned his scrutiny to the alien ships. An open entrance was visible in each vessel, and uniformed aliens—immense beings carrying weapons— were descending to the ground.
"Bear people! The long-legs are in peril," Braan whistled. "Stalwart Kibba, return and inform Braan-our-leader of what we have seen. We will have war!"
Kibba screamed and climbed for altitude, weariness in his wings eclipsed by his mission. Brappa soared over the troubled valley.
Buccari and Wilson rounded the charred trees. A thick smell of ash and smoldering wood permeated the smoky air; the ground was fused into crusty blackness. The alien vessels loomed high, easily the height of a lunar yard booster. Their massive engines had excavated prodigious craters over which the heavy craft were suspended, supported by articulating buttresses. Buccari looked back along the beach and saw MacArthur and Chastain in the distance. She turned to the konish landers. Three aliens dressed in burgundy suits approached, crawling on all fours.
"Stay here, Gunner," Buccari ordered. "Keep MacArthur in sight. Take this." She handed Wilson her pistol and left the lakeshore. Heat from the hot cinders crept around the soles of her sandals. Forty paces from the approaching aliens she halted and held her ground; other kones were visible at the lander hatches. She searched for Hudson, to no avail, but she saw Et Silmarn in his distinctive gray suit; he stood erect in a hunched cluster of black-uniformed kones. She counted twenty.
The three burgundy-uniformed kones crawled up and stopped ten paces from her. The leader lifted gauntleted hands from the ground and stood erect, towering disconcertingly. It removed its helmet and nodded, looking beyond her as if searching. Buccari nodded curtly. The other kones kept their helmets on. One of them, carrying a blaster, removed a black box from a commodious uniform pouch and placed it on the ground.
The leader spoke loudly in his own language. After a short delay the disembodied translation came from the electronics box: "I greet you."
Disgusted, Buccari looked down at the box as if it were dog offal. She did not need a talking box. Where was Kateos? Where was Hudson?
"Et Silmarn!" Buccari yelled past the kones. "Where is Hudson?" The soldiers guarding the noblekone rose on their hind legs and adjusted their positions, blocking the noblekone from her sight.
"Talk to me," said the uniformed kone, the monotonous, mechanical translation giving no hint of emotion or inflection. "Speak slowly."
Buccari squared her shoulders and stared up at the hulking monster. "You have one of my people," she said. "Where is Hudson?"
The kone listened as the box translated. Buccari was frustrated and angry, her fears completely forgotten. The shock of the tumultuous landing had passed, and her fury boiled at the thought of what had happened. There was no reason for them to land this close. Just a few meters closer and her people would have been crippled or killed.
"Yes, we have Huhsawn," the box replied. "He—"
"Where is he?" Buccari shouted, shouting over the kone's words. "If you have him with you, then bring him here! Now!" The translator emitted garbled noises.
The kone spoke again, slowly and with more volume: "Please wait for me to finish speak—" Buccari's jaw jutted out. She gave the alien an iron glance, stomped over to the electronics box, and kicked it tumbling backwards. Her sandaled toes hurt like hell.