Jodi frowned. “Well, it’s a furblungit mess, I’ll say that. But Clint, you tell me: is that picture one of an animal or a person?”
“Person,” I said without hesitation.
“Well, then?”
The family was silent for a long moment. Then Grandpa heaved a long sigh. “Girl, you have a tongue for sure, and I don’t know whether I envy Clint now. But damn-all, I guess you’re right. Can’t keep going down there takin’ a man’s stuff without even askin’. Even if the man’s made of stone.”
Jodi failed miserably to hide a look of superior triumph. “So you’ll go return this last batch, right? Maybe that will start a communication going with them!”
We winced, and Adam bit his lip. “Um, Jodi? Can’t rightly do that. Don’t have them any more.”
“What?”
“Most of ’em are already sold. We kept some as a reserve, but given the way they work it’s not like we’re gonna try to hide ’em in the cellar. They’re in the safety deposit down to the bank.”
She grabbed my keys off the table. “Okay, then, Clint, let’s head on down to the bank and make that withdrawal.”
There was a distant rumble of thunder. I opened the door, expecting to see clouds, but the sky was clear blue. “What in—?”
Then I saw the cloud of gray-brown dust rising from the trees. “Father!” I started running towards the forest. Jodi and the rest of the family followed.
I skidded to a halt a hundred yards into the forest. “Holy Mother!”
The prior damage to the road had been nothing. A yawning pit over a hundred feet wide dropped straight into the earth, edges surrounded somehow by upthrust rock that formed a barrier that even my truck would never pass. It would take weeks to make a new way around.
Grandpa came puffing up behind everyone else, his bum leg having slowed him up. “Kids! Kids! Get back to the house now!” He caught sight of the hole in the mountainside and cursed. “Listen!”
We listened. The forest was as silent as a grave.
Then we heard faint, deliberate movement. Heading towards us.
Slades aren’t cowards, but we’re not stupid either. The Nomes couldn’t drop the homestead, sitting on that massive, unsuspected foundation of nickel-iron, but they could take the ground where we stood out from under us. And they were aboveground, in force, in the daytime.
“Something about this last raid,” I said, “seems to have really pissed them off!”
“Never done this before?” Jodi asked.
“Nothing on this scale,” said Mamma Bea, handing Jodi a length of steel bar.
As we rounded the bend towards the gate, something burst from the underbrush, a shining stone weapon leveled at Jodi, screeching like a berserk set of rusty springs running over potholes. In bright daylight, there was little human about it—sparkling crystals on its head, faintly fluorescent violet eye-crystals, and that howling screech from the tube in its face which made me and Father jump back.
Jodi didn’t even flinch. Her steel bar parried the stone sword and carried it around in a disarming arc that sent the weapon spinning away.
“What, don’t get pushy with me! I’ve seen taxi drivers scarier than you!” Her New York accent was strong enough to cut, the only sign of how scared she really was. Jodi poked her bar in its stony chest, making it shrink back in disorientation, holding its arms up defensively. “Back off!”
It stumbled backward, bumping into another one that had belatedly decided to try to back up its buddy. We took advantage of the delay to make it through the gate and lock it.
“Power on, boy!” shouted Grandpa.
“Way ahead of you, Grandpa!” Jonah shouted, outsprinting me as he streaked towards the house. We saw a dozen—two dozen—gray figures at the fence, pulling at it. Strong and well fastened as we’d made it, I could see that they’d be through it in minutes.
Then tearing-metal shrieks echoed from stone throats and the Nomes leapt away from the now-electrified fence. A few of them shook weapons in our direction, but I swore that I heard a note, not of fury, pain, or anger, but desperation in the voices.