"Lie down, dammit." Her left arm looked awful. Cooked. He unsealed an anesthetic ampoule and slid the needle into her shoulder.
He got around to her right side and half carried her to the copter. He strapped her in before he asked, "Is there equipment we should recover?"
She shook her head and swallowed hard. "The flame thrower's dead," she whispered. "It's in the fire."
He squeezed in behind her. She stank. Her arm was cooked from shoulder to fingertips. She lay back against the seat and every now and again she sat up and looked around as if she couldn't believe she was safe. Carlos had always found her attractive, to no tangible purpose. "What happened?" he asked.
"They were coming up the defile. Ida van Don dropped me on the ridge with the Skeeter. She flew around shooting grendels, and I flamed them when they got close enough. Sandra ran out of power and had to take the Skeeter back for a recharge. Me, I kept shooting. A flame thrower works just fine on a grendel. It scares them. They go into speed and burn themselves up inside."
"Sure. Are you all right?"
"I am now. They kept coming. The flame thrower overheated—"
"You're not supposed—"
"I could feel my hands burning. Then the torch nozzle clogged and spit jellied gasoline on my arm. I ran and rolled and kept rolling, and behind me the damn thing exploded. I've been waiting to see what would get here first, you or the grendels."
Which is why we have to be careful with these egregious excuses for makeshift weapons. "Well, we're here. It's all over now." Down below Carlos could see grendels on both sides of the ridge. They'd gone around the other side of the fire. And it is lucky for you we came when we did. Five minutes more—She couldn't see him as he shook his head. Such a waste.
"They kept coming. I shot one with my automatic. Little one, under a meter. I hit it four times, I think. It could have taken me, but it never went on speed. Too hot already. It—" She shuddered. "It fell over. By itself. You saw it. They can die. They can."
"HEAR THIS. HEAR THIS." Cadmann's voice boomed from loudspeakers placed around the perimeter of the camp. "FENCE POWER GOES ON IN TEN MINUTES. TEN MINUTES TO FENCE POWER."
Carlos glanced at his watch. Naturally Cadmann would wait until the last minute of light to power the fences. They needed power to recharge the Skeeters, for the vehicles, to make hydrogen. There was just enough light to see—but they should have had an hour till sunset.
There were thick black clouds across the west.
"Hey, buddy," Greg called. "Running out of steam?"
"No." Wearily Carlos went back to loading Hendrick's wrecked Skeeter.
Small boxes. Lightweight items. Blankets, sleeping bags. Before an item went into the wreck it was placed on the scales outside. The Skeeter itself would be needed uphill, for parts. Might as well use it to carry other gear.
Shooting grendels had been easier work.
Cassandra displayed the cumulative total mass they'd put aboard. "Some to go yet," Greg said.
"Yes." Wearily Carlos flexed his arms and bent over to stretch his back. "A pity."
"Cheer up. You could be laying bricks."
"Not me. I am a warrior."
"You're also a carpenter," Greg said. "But I won't remind them." He jerked his head to indicate the power room, where half a dozen men worked frantically to seal the blockhouse with bricks and mortar and welded bars. Others filled the blockhouse with equipment too heavy to send up to Geographic or ferry to the Bluff.
If the blockhouse held intact it would save months in rebuilding civilization. If it didn't—"It will be terribly inconvenient," Carlos said to himself. "But not deadly." He went back to the commons kitchen for another load. All food would be sent to the Bluff.
Minerva Two must almost have finished recharging the two Skeeters. The third was well uphill, beyond reach of the grendels. George Merriot had spent too much time shooting grendels—until it was too late to return to the Colony. He had taken the Skeeter as high as he could before the fuel cells went dead. Cadmann had been furious. Now there were only two Skeeters in operation, and work enough for ten. But we'll take George up to the Bluff anyway. Carlos felt like telling the idiot to fend for himself.
What could be moved to Geographic was aboard Minerva Two. Lightweight stuff, and all the food, was going into Hendrick's Skeeter; they would carry it to the Bluff. Equipment too heavy to be moved was going into the blockhouse. The grendels would never get through all that brick.
You had to believe that there were things grendels couldn't do.
Then there was the computer shack. It had been emptied of equipment.
Cassandra stood outside, and the shack now held nostalgia items, never more than ten kilograms from any colonist save one. Carlos still only half believed that they had let him put his bed in there.
And they'd brick it up to preserve Avalon's memories of civilization, but only if the grendels gave them time. Carlos set his load inside the wrecked Skeeter and staggered out. They'd almost finished bricking up the power house. Next, the computer shack; and Carlos wanted to help.
The wooden tower stood next to the main entry door to the main power room. Brilliant blue flame danced below as the welders completed their work on the power blockhouse door.
"Hear this. Fence power in thirty seconds. Get away from the fences. Hear and believe. Fence power in thirty seconds." Cadmann put down the microphone and used his binoculars to scan the perimeter area. No flares. No rockets. He lifted the mike again. "Okay, power on."
He had held off on this even after Minerva Two was hooked up. While gunmen could protect the fence, he could repower the Skeeters with all of the Minerva's power. But it was getting too dark to find the monsters and protect the fences. Now the fences would protect them.
Green lights turned to red on the console in front of him. "That ought to hold them," Joe Sikes said. "Fry the little bastards."
"And some of the big ones," Cadmann said. "But not for long."
"How long do you think?" Sikes asked.
"Through tomorrow if we're lucky, but I'll be satisfied to have tonight. Okay, make the last run to Minerva. What are you carrying?"
"Cassandra, mostly."
"Right." Cassandra might as well live aboard Geographic. She didn't use oxygen, and it would be damned hard to rebuild without her.
Landing lights flashed as Skeeter One rose. The dark shape of Skeeter Four, Hendrick's wrecked machine, dangled below it. As the Skeeter crossed the fence perimeter its searchlight stabbed downward, circled, then flowed across the cornfields.
The fields were alive. Stalks fell, disappeared beneath large shapes.
"Holy shit," Joe Sikes said. "We won't be eating that for a while—"
The Skeeter hovered for a second longer. Cadmann reached for his microphone, but before he could lift it the Skeeter wheeled and headed off in the general direction of the Bluff.
Cadmann unslung his rifle. "Play the tower spot out there in the center of the field, will you?"
"Sure thing."
He sighted where the dark seemed to move and squeezed off a round. For a moment, nothing: then a feral scream from the field. More screams, and the area exploded with grendels. Cadmann smiled in grim satisfaction. "As long as they clump up like that. Find me another clump, will you?"
"Shouldn't be difficult."
A gust of wind blew mist across his face. Cadmann grimaced. "Joe, shine the spot up for me."
"For what?" But Joe Sikes was already doing .it. The beam swung up and blazed against thickening cloud cover.
"We won't like it if it rains," Cadmann said.