"Right." He submerged.
Eleanor felt insufferably weary. Just wanted it all to be over. The infusion must be wearing off, she thought.
Victor came up without his hood, hair plastered across his forehead.
"Smile, man."
"Victor," the voice blared, "Hell, it is you. Are these people genuine? We've got them covered if they try and force you. Nod for yes. Shake for no."
"Jesus wept," said Teddy. "Paranoid or what."
"All right," said the voice. "And just how do you reckon on getting across the lawn? We can't shut off the masers, and the ground floor's sealed tight."
The message laser flashed out a long complicated story.
"No way!" the voice called.
"Screw you, arsehole," Suzi shouted.
"Throttle down, gal," said Teddy, and even he sounded tired. The message laser flashed once more.
"All right," said the voice. "Listen good. Only Victor may use the cannon. If one of those plasma shots lands anywhere but on a maser you are dead."
"And up yours, too," said Teddy. "OK, let's get the Rockwell together."
Eleanor started kicking again, her legs like lead. Teddy and Victor were moving forwards, towards the shore.
"Touching ground," Teddy said. He was five metres short of the lawn.
Eleanor came up beside him, toes prodding the viscous lake bed.
"Let's have it, gal."
Victor drifted up on the other side. He and Teddy started muttering at each other as they mated the Rockwell's cable to the power unit by touch alone.
With the Rockwell gone, Eleanor thought she'd be able to fly. She weighed nothing at all.
Victor stuck the Rockwell's targeting imager over his right eye, its cable coiling down below the water.
"Ready," he said.
Eleanor saw that Des, Suzi, and Nicole had swum up level with her. Unidentifiable, blind tumours of crêpe fabric. Behind them, on the shore where the trees bordered the lawn were two swift-moving red blobs. No, her mind cried. Enough, we've had enough. "Sentinels," she called out, voice rasping in her throat. "Sentinels, they're coming."
Victor fired the first plasma bolt. A solar-bright fireball tearing through the night, overloading Eleanor's photon amp. A near-ultrasonic whine ending in a stentorian thunderclap. One of the manor's chimney stacks exploded.
The sentinels were sprinting for the lake shore. Eleanor watched the two people closest to them churn about, trying to reach their weapons. Steam billowed up around one of them as the frantic motion lifted their shoulders out of the water. Eleanor started to swim breaststroke. Suzi had said the Braun was waterproof, although she had no idea if it would work in the water.
Both sentinels leapt together.
MASER ATTACK, Eleanor duckdived fast.
Surfacing, just in time to hear the second concussion as more of the manor's masonry was vaporised. Three more to go. A locust-swarm of slate fragments tumbled through the air high above Wilholm.
The sentinels were in the water, two whirlpools of surf. Des was screaming. Eleanor headed for the nearest conflagration. Couldn't even remember if she'd recharged the Braun.
MASER ATTACK. Plunging.
A sentinel shrieked in mortal terror, a keening that sliced right through Eleanor. The sound electrified, freezing her limbs. What in God's name could a sentinel possibly fear? She saw it disappear below the surface of the lake, sucked down backwards in a maelstrom of bubbles. Something was floating inertly where it'd vanished, undulating with the swell.
The third plasma bolt speared a small ornate rotunda, its detonation shockwave flinging smoking chunks of stone halfway across the lawn.
Eleanor was looking straight at a sentinel three metres away. Its jaws were open showing a double layer of shark-teeth, huge eyes staring at her. Powerful bands of muscle rippled along its back as it paddled towards her.
Cats can't swim!
Her feet sank into muck up to her ankles and she stood, MASER ATTACK. Counting off the seconds. One. A storm-cloud of steam raged around her. Two. THERMAL INPUT APPROACHING MAXIMUM SHUT CAPACITY. The sentinel was a metre and a half from her when its fur ignited. It yowled in pain, skin crisping, cracking, thick fluid oozing out. Three. Eleanor could feel her skin beginning to blister as a wave of searing heat poured through the jumpsuit insulation. The sentinel gave a convulsive shudder, its back was flayed down to its ribcage, skull exposed, eyes roasted. Blood gushed out of its mouth, splattering on her suit. Four. THERMAL SATURATION ALERT. Dead.
Eleanor collapsed back into the lake, her own body on fire. Somewhere inside her belly she could feel dampness. The sentinel's corpse sank as she floated up.
A plasma bolt flashed overhead. Part of a very distant universe.
Something shot up out of the water nearby. "Got the bastard!" Nicole.
The marine-adept woman swam clumsily over to the floating shape. "Eleanor, hey, Eleanor, give me a hand with Suzi. Think she's still alive."
"Go on, gal," Teddy called. "Masers are out."
Eleanor moved sluggishly. Between them they dragged Suzi on to the lawn. The girl's jumpsuit was in tatters, blood soaking the grass. Eleanor knelt beside her, and tugged her hood off, water flooded out. Suzi's tongue protruded.
Victor appeared and bent to breathe air into her. Eleanor was thankful, she certainly didn't have the strength left to resuscitate her.
"Lost the aid kit," Nicole said dully. Her forearms were lacerated, tatters of skin hung loosely.
"They'll have something for her in the manor," said Teddy.
Suzi spluttered weakly, liquids gurgling inside her.
There was no sign of Des.
"OK, let's move," Teddy urged. "Remember the ground traps."
Eleanor slowly pulled her own hood off, sobbing softly. Proper colours deluged her eyes. The foam across her abdomen was flaking off, blood mingling with water in her lap.
"Come on, gal," Teddy said. "You made it now. Jesus must really love you." He handed her his AK. "Safety's off. Cover us if any more sentinels show."
Rabbits, she'd shot rabbits back at the kibbutz.
Victor hoisted Suzi on to Teddy's back, and the big man set off towards the manor, message laser banging against his side. They followed in single file as he traced a path across the lawn, Wilholm's floodlights casting long spidery shadows as they wove round the traps.
Flat metal slabs had slid out of the manor's stonework to seal the ground floor's doors and windows. Teddy set Suzi down against the wall and unslung a small pack.
Eleanor and Victor watched the grounds, AKs held ready, as Teddy slapped a thermal-slice tape on the slab of metal covering a window. It was a thick flexible tube which hissed as it adhered to the slab.
"OK, don't look."
Startlingly bright blue-white light glared out, buzzing and sizzling. Eleanor saw sparks skipping along the paving slabs around her feet. She could feel its warmth on the back of her neck.
"Here it comes." The light dimmed, and there was a loud resonant clang, smashing glass. A fan of milder biolum light spilled out across the grass.
Eleanor kept looking over the lawn. Her nerves raw-edged. She expected to see a mass charge of sentinels coming at her. They'll never let us get in. Not those devils.
There was grunting and shuffling from behind her. "Don't touch the edge," she heard Teddy warning, He was shoving Suzi through the hole. "Got her? OK, for Christ's sake go easy. You next, Nicole."
Eleanor began to back towards the window, shivering uncontrollably.
"You make it with that leg, Victor? OK, I'll boost you." Silence. Eleanor knew she was alone. Sweeping the AK in wild arcs. Nothing moved on the lawn.
"Move it, Eleanor."