“Better get the rifles,” the bruin said, stepping into the shelter of the gray boulders and grabbing up the two power guns. He came back and handed a weapon to Jask.
“They have rifles, too,” Jask said. “They can't be Pures, not here in the Wildlands.”
“Whoever they are, they aren't friends.”
Six of the front-rank soldiers fell forward, raised their guns and fired rapidly. Violet bolts of light sizzled along the length of the field, passed Jask and Tedesco with ten yards to spare.
“Terrible shots,” Jask said.
A group of soldiers split from the main pack and ran toward the woods under cover of a line of limestone rocks. Once in the trees, they ran forward in doubletime, hurried past Jask and Tedesco's post and on toward the open end of the meadow, as if their enemy lay that way.
Tedesco lowered his rifle and said, “Did you see them? Dressed in bright blue clothes, carrying blue rifles? I don't think they even know we're here.”
“Then what—”
At that moment half a dozen red-clad soldiers, toting red weapons, clambered into the limestone ring where Jask and Tedesco had made camp. They paid no heed to the espers, trod across the bulging rucksack and the fresh fruit that had been picked earlier in the day. Pears, apples and berries squashed beneath their feet. They took up positions at breaks in the limestone and began firing on the blue soldiers.
“INADEQUACY OF FORWARD MOVEMENT NOW PUTS BLUE ON DEFENSIVE AND RED ON OFFENSIVE.''
“I don't understand at all,” Jask said.
“I think I do,” Tedesco said. He walked up to the nearest red soldier and tapped him on the shoulder.
The soldier kept shooting at the enemy.
Tedesco tapped harder.
The soldier ignored him.
Tedesco lifted the steel barrel of his rifle and slammed it down on the top of the soldier's head.
The soldier didn't flinch.
Jask walked over and inspected the shallow dent in the top of the red soldier's head. He said, “They're just machines.”
“Unquestionably,” Tedesco said.
At that moment half a dozen blue soldiers appeared from the open end of the field, entered the limestone-circled camp behind the red troops holding it, and deactivated the enemy with several bursts of violet light. The six red troopers tottered a moment, without uttering a word of surprise or pain, then fell over with loud, metallic clanging noises. These triumphant intruders, Jask realized, were those who had earlier split from the main body of the blue army, had entered the woods and circled behind the advancing red soldiers.
“BLUE CAPTURES A VITAL STRONGHOLD AND STRENGTHENS ITS POSITION ON THE SOUTH END.”
“Some ancient form of entertainment?” Jask asked.
“More likely, a training ground for military strategists,” the bruin said. “The disembodied giant's voice you hear is to call observers' attention to special points of interest. The machines are set up to fire only at their own kind, with beams that probably wouldn't hurt a man. And since they ignore us altogether, while carefully avoiding us, we are able to walk among them for firsthand observation.”
A blue soldier, bent over to avoid the crisscrossing plentitude of purple lightning bolts, dashed for the opening to the limestone formation, gingerly sidestepped Jask and Tedesco as if they were not there, and joined his clockwork comrades behind the palisades. His face was set in a caricature of courage and determination, the steel lips tight, the glittering eyes staring straight ahead.
“HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT INITIATED BY RED COMMANDO UNIT AT SOUTHWEST CORNER. THREE BLUE MECHANICALS INACTIVATED. RED LOSSES: ONE.”
“But what started all this going?” Jask wondered.
“Perhaps our presence did it,” Tedesco said. “Or maybe there are regular mock battles here all the time. I've noticed that some of the robots are in good repair, while others are dented, rusted, and some are missing parts of their bodies.”
As if anxious to provide an example of what Tedesco had said, another blue soldier shambled up to join his fellows in the limestone ring. He was missing his right foot and one bright eyeball, but seemed undeterred by his injuries.
“I have a feeling this might go on all night,” Jask said. Around them the soldiers clanked, fired sizzling bolts of light, all to the booming commentary of the unseen announcer.
“There's one way to be sure it doesn't,” Tedesco said. He lifted his power rifle and destroyed the nearest blue soldier. The blast did not merely deactivate it, but tore it in two. “We'll make sure that one side or the other wins as quickly as possible.”
Jask grinned. “Shall we begin?”
They wiped out the blue soldiers who had intruded into their campsite. None of the mechanicals offered a defense or even seemed to be aware that they were under attack by anyone but the red army.
“MAJOR COUP BY THE RED FORCES. CREATIVE STRATEGY AS YET UNANALYZED. MORE TO FOLLOW.”
“I see about a dozen blue soldiers over there,” Jask said, pointing, leading the way.
They sauntered across the field, violet streaks of light hissing by them, mechanical soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand combat on both sides, and they destroyed fifteen of the blue soldiers, leaving their red enemies standing stupidly in the tall grass, looking this way and that, perplexed.
“UNPRECEDENTED CROSSFIRE INITIATED BY RED FORCES, INFLICTING CATEGORY AB LOSSES ON BLUE. MORE TO FOLLOW.”
Ten minutes later Tedesco stepped in front of the last blue unit and charred it into a smoking lump of metal and plastic. “That's that,” he said, lowering the rifle.
“Now what?”
“We'll wait and see.”
For five minutes the surviving red soldiers stood dumbly where they were or took a few tentative steps in search of the enemy only to stop in confusion when their visual and audio receptors informed them that no blue survived.
At last the giant's voice said: “NIGHT GAMES CONCLUDED. VICTORY TO RED. BLUE SUFFERS UTTER DEFEAT. NO SURRENDERS. DETAILED ACCOUNTING OF INDIVIDUAL BATTLE INITIATIVE, AS APPLIED TO THE GENERAL PLAN, CATEGORY SITUATION KK, WILL BE OFFERED ON A PRINTOUT TO INTERESTED STRATEGY STUDENTS AS SOON AS TAPES OF THE ENCOUNTER ARE ANALYZED.”
At the closed end from which the blue army had originally come, squares of bright light appeared in the darkness, like doors opening magically in the air and giving access to secret, unseen rooms. Indeed, when Jask and Tedesco walked down there to have a look, they found that this was more or less the case. Four large elevator cabins had risen out of the meadow and were waiting for the mechanical soldiers to come aboard. The red troops filed into them, as did a few blue troopers who had been deactivated by the violet light beams and not utterly destroyed by Jask's and Tedesco's power rifles.
The last of the undamaged soldiers stepped into the elevators.
The doors remained open.
“UNITS MISSING,” the giant said.
The night was quiet.
“MUCH HIGHER THAN AVERAGE ACTUAL LOSS AMONG MECHANICAL BATTLE UNITS. ANALYSIS OF WEIGHTS IN RETURNING LIFTS INDICATES THIRTY-NINE UNITS MISSING.” There was a light humming sound while the disembodied voice thought things over. Then: “EXPLANATION INCLUDED IN PRINTOUTS, POST-BATTLE ANALYSIS. STUDENTS MAY HAVE ACCESS TO THIS DATA.”
The doors slid shut.
The elevators sank into the earth. The roofs were covered with plugs of earth and grass and blended perfectly with the meadow surrounding them, although, Jask soon discovered, the grass was plastic and the earth beneath was painted concrete.
“Maybe we should have taken a ride down there to see what's under us,” he told Tedesco.
“And we'd never be let out again.”
Jask nodded.
That was a possibility.
They walked back to their littered campsite in the limestone, carefully stepping over and around pieces of the demolished blue soldiers. They dragged the fallen mechanicals away from their camp and heaved them into the tall grass, and they straightened up the gear, which the red and blue men had thoroughly trampled.