The Star Fox

The terror had gone from Heim. He felt a cold uplifting: no pleasure of combat, for he knew how thin their chance was, but total aliveness. The matter grew crystalline in his mind, and he said: “Don’t. You’ll wear yourself out in no time. This is a walking race. If we can get to Thundersmoke, or even to those boulders, ahead of the bullets, we may be able to hide. No, don’t shed your packs. We won’t be allowed to retrieve diem. Walk.”

They struck out. “Shall I sing for you?” Vadász asked. “No need,” Heim said.

“I thought not. Good. I do need the breath.” Heim took the rear. The engine coughed and banged behind. Again and again he could not control himself, he must stop and turn about for a look. Always death was closer. Old, old, crumbling, crazed, half blind and half palsied, the thing which had never been alive and would not die shivered along just a little faster than a man could stride on Staurn. The poise from it was an endless metal agony. Once he saw an armor plate drop off, once the air drive went awry and almost toppled the ponderous bulk; but it came on, came on. And the rocks of refuge ahead grew nearer with nightmare slowness.

Jocelyn began to stagger. Heim moved to give her support. As if the change in configuration had tripped some relay in a rotted computer, the slug-thrower spat anew. Several of the bullets buzzed past them.

Bragdon joined Heim on the woman’s other side. “Let me help,” he panted. She leaned on them both. “We … won’t make it,” Bragdon said.

“We might,” Heim snapped, for he dreaded a return of that negation he had seen in Jocelyn this dawn.

“We could … maybe … if we moved steady. You could. Not me. Not her. Got to rest.” Bragdon left the remainder unsaid: The pursuer needs no rest.

“Get into that water, among those rocks,” Vadász said. “Lie low. Then maybe that pokolgep cannot see us.”

Heim followed his gesture. Somewhat to the left, a scatter of stones lay in a muddy pool. None were bigger than a man, but—A light artillery shell passed overhead. The cannon crack rang back off the unattainable cliffs. The shell struck, splintered a boulder, but did not explode. “Let’s try,” he agreed.

They splashed through muck and crouched belly-down in shallow red water. Heim was careful to hold his automatic free, Vadász his laser. Pistols seemed pathetic against the monster’s size and armament; but a man took care of his weapons. Mist blown from Thundersmoke pattered upon them. Heim wiped his faceplate and stared between two rocks.

The machine had halted. It snarled to itself, jerked guns right and left, swept detectors through a hemisphere. “Good Lord,” Vadász whispered, “I think indeed it has lost us.”

“The water cools oww our in’rared radiation,” Uthg-a-K’thaq replied as hushedly. “We are maywe Under its radar weams, and maywe the owtical circuits are wad. Or the memory system has gone to wieces.”

“If only—No.” Heim’s pistol sank in his fist.

“What did you think?” Jocelyn asked, frantic.

“How to disable what’s left of the detector lattice. Could be done by a laser beam—see that exposed power cable? Only you’d never get close enough before you were spotted and killed.”

The short pulse-stopping hope, that the machine might give up and go away, crashed. It started grinding about a spiral, a search curve. Heim plotted that path and muttered: “Should be here inside half an hour. However, first it’ll move away. Which gains us some slight meterage. Be ready to start when I give you the word.”

“We’ll never make it, I tell you,” Bragdon protested.

“Not so loud, you crudhead. We don’t know that the thing hasn’t still got ears.”

As if in response, the robot stopped. It rested a moment on the whirr from its air blowers; the lattice horns wove around, tilted, came to a halt … It continued along the spiral.

“You see?” Vadász said with disgust. “Keep trying, Bragdon. You may yet destroy us.”

The Peaceman made a strangled noise. “Don’t,” Jocelyn begged. “Please.”

Uthg-a-K’thaq stirred. “A thought,” he belched. “I do in truth weliewe we cannot outrun the enemy to shelter. But can Slaughter Machines count?”

Vadász’s breath hissed inward. “What’s this?”

“We hawe lit-tle to lose,” the Naqsan said. “Let us run, excewt for one who waits here and keews the laser. Can he get unnoticed in cutting range ow the wistol weam—”

“He could be killed too easily,” Heim said. But hope shuddered anew in him. Why not? Better go down fighting, whatever happen?. And I might even save her.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Give me the gun and I’ll bushwhack our friend.”

“No, skipper,” Vadász said. “I am no hero, but—”

“Orders,” Heim said.

“Gunnar—” broke from Jocelyn.

Uthg-a-K’thaq plucked the laser out of Vadász’s grasp. “No time wor human games,” he snorted. “We were not here without him, and he is the least usewul. So.” He thrust the weapon at Bragdon. “Or dare you not?”

“Gimme!” Heim snatched for it.