The vehicle rocked backward on its bubble of supporting air. The projectile, flattened and a white blaze from frictional heating, dropped to the ground without having touched the body of its target.
The turret traversed. The male Gerson knew what was coming. He ran to the side in a desperate attempt to deflect the stream of return fire from his family. His head and the empty rocket launcher vanished into their constituent atoms as the powerful turret weapon caught him at point blank range. The high-temperature residue of the sundered molecules recombined an instant later in flashes and flame.
The Ichton gunner continued to fire. Projectiles scythed across the field, ripping smoldering gaps in the vegetation.
The refugees threw themselves down when the shooting started. As the gun traversed past, a juvenile leaped upright and waved his remaining arm. Before the gunner could react, the screaming victim collapsed again.
The turret weapon ceased firing.
The entire column entered the field. The leading and trailing vehicles were obviously escorts, mounting powerful weapons in their turrets. The second and third vehicles in the convoy were hugely larger and must have weighed a hundred tonnes apiece. They didn’t appear to be armed, but their defensive shielding was so dense that the vehicles’ outlines wavered within globes of blue translucence. The remaining vehicle, number four in the column, was unarmed and of moderate size, though larger than the escorts.
Dresser’s mind catalogued the vehicles against the template of his training and experience: a truck to supply the new colony en route . . . and a pair of transporters, armored like battleships, to carry the eggs and larvae which would populate that colony.
The Ichton convoy proceeded on a track as straight as the line from a compass rose. For a moment, Dresser thought that the Gerson survivors—if there were any—had been overlooked. Then the supply truck and the rear escort swung out of the column and halted.
A Gerson jumped to her feet and ran. She took only three steps before her legs and the ground beneath her vanished in a red flash. Heat made the air above the turret gun’s muzzle shimmer.
The supply truck’s sidepanel slid open, and the defensive screen adjacent to the door paled. A pair of Ichtons stepped out of the vehicle. Heavy protective suits concealed the lines of their bodies.
“Big suckers,” said Thomson. Her hands hovered over the console controls. Flight regime was up on the menu.
“Three of us ‘re gonna take on a whole army of them?” Codrus asked.
Dresser thought:
It’s not an army.
It doesn’t matter how big they are—we’re not going to arm wrestle.
You guys aren’t any more scared than I am.
He said aloud, “You bet.”
One of the Ichtons tossed the legless Gerson—the body had ceased to twitch—into the bag he, it, dragged along behind. The other Ichton spun abruptly and sprayed a 90° arc of brush with his handweapon.
Though less powerful than the turret gun, the projectiles slashed through the vegetation. Branches and taller stems settled in a wave like the surface of a collapsing air mattress.
The Ichton with the bag patrolled the swath stolidly. He gathered up the bodies or body parts of three more victims.
“Don’t . . . ,” Dresser whispered. Codrus and Thomson glanced sidelong, wondering what their commander meant.
The armed Ichton pointed his weapon. Before he could fire, the Gerson female with the infant in her arms stood up.
“Don’t. . . .”
Instead of shooting, the Ichton stepped forward and reached out with its free hand. It seized the Gerson by the shoulder in a triaxial grip and led her back toward the vehicle. The remaining Ichton followed, slowed by the weight of the bag it was dragging.
Dresser let out the breath he had been holding longer than he realized.
* * *
“Now relax, Sergeant Dresser,” said the mechanical voice. “Let the backbrain control your motions.”
Dresser got to his feet, his four feet. His eyes stared at the ceiling. He wanted to close them, but they didn’t close. A part of his mind was as amazed at the concept that eyes could close as it had been at the flat, adamantine images from Dresser’s memory.