I asked the computer what the lasers’ temperature limit was, and it printed out TR 398-734-009-265, “Some Aspects Concerning the Adaptability of Cryogenic Ordnance to Use in Relatively High-Temperature Environments,” which had lots of handy advice about how we could insulate the weapons if we had access to a fully-equipped armorer’s shop. It did note that the response time of automatic-aiming devices increased as the temperature increased, and that above some “critical temperature,” the weapons would not aim at all. But there was no way to predict any individual weapon’s behavior, other than to note that the highest critical temperature recorded was 790 degrees and the lowest was 420 degrees.
Charlie was watching the display. His voice was flat over the suit’s radio. “Sixteen this time.”
“Surprised?” One of the few things we knew about Tauran psychology was a certain compulsiveness about numbers, especially primes and powers of two.
“Let’s just hope they don’t have 32 left.” I queried the computer on this; all it could say was that the cruiser had thus far launched a total of 44 drones and that some cruisers had been known to carry as many as 128.
We had more than a half-hour before the drones would strike. I could evacuate everybody to the stasis field, and they would be temporarily safe if one of the nova bombs got through. Safe, but trapped. How long would it take the crater to cool down, if three or four-let alone sixteen-of the bombs made it through? You couldn’t live forever in a fighting suit, even though it recycled everything with remorseless efficiency. One week was enough to make you thoroughly miserable. Two weeks, suicidal. Nobody had ever gone three weeks, under field conditions.
Besides, as a defensive position, the stasis field could be a death-trap. The enemy has all the options since the dome is opaque; the only way you can find out what they’re up to is to stick your head out. They didn’t have to wade in with primitive weapons unless they were impatient. They could keep the dome saturated with laser fire and wait for you to turn off the generator. Meanwhile harassing you by throwing spears, rocks, arrows into the dome-.you could return fire, but it was pretty futile.
Of course, if one man stayed inside the base, the others could wait out the next half-hour in the stasis field. If he didn’t come get them, they’d know the outside was hot. I chinned the combination that would give me a frequency available to everybody echelon 5 and above.
“This is Major Mandella.” That still sounded like a bad joke.
I outlined the situation to them and asked them to tell their troops that everyone in the company was free to move into the stasis field. I would stay behind and come retrieve them if things went well-not out of nobility, of course; I preferred taking the chance of being vaporized in a nanosecond, rather than almost certain slow death under the gray dome.
I chinned Charlie’s frequency. “You can go, too. I’ll take care of things here.”
“No, thanks,” be said slowly. “I’d just as soon. . . Hey, look at this.”
The cruiser had launched another red dot, a couple of minutes behind the others. The display’s key identified it as being another drone. “That’s curious.”
“Superstitious bastards,” he said without feeling.
It turned out that only eleven people chose to join the fifty who had been ordered into the dome. That shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.
As the drones approached, Charlie and I stared at the monitors, carefully not looking at the holograph display, tacitly agreeing that it would be better not to know when they were one minute away, thirty seconds. . . And then, like the other times, it was over before we knew it had started. The screens glared white and there was a yowl of static, and we were still alive.
But this time there were fifteen new holes on the horizon-or closer!-and the temperature was rising so fast that the last digit in the readout was an amorphous blur.
The number peaked in the high 800s and began to slide back down.
We had never seen any of the drones, not during that tiny fraction of a second it took the lasers to aim and fire.