Cade’s voice trailed off as he registered alarmed voices around them. Faces were turning skyward. He looked up, and at the same instant felt Marie tense. An object that looked like a blunt, black arrowhead had appeared overhead, silhouetted against the brightening sky. It appeared about the size of a dime held at arm’s length, hanging practically stationary but getting perceptibly larger—evidently descending. A second became visible behind and to the side, smaller but also enlarging. Then a third. More . . . They were unlike anything that had ever emerged from assembly shops on Earth. Cade felt his mouth turning dry, a knot tightening in his stomach as the realization came that the rest of his life might be measured in minutes or less.
Klaxons and alarm sirens were sounding in all directions. Across the slopes below, figures scattered to take cover in foxholes and trenches. In the gun pits and antiaircraft emplacements, barrels and missile racks were swinging to near vertical. Nyarl was already unslinging his camera, resolved to see it through to the last, whatever the futility. “Looks like they’ve decided to save Washington’s ground forces the trouble,” Davis commented dryly. Beside him, Gerofsky just stood staring upward incredulously, at a loss for coherent words.
Still the shapes were enlarging, now taking on a sinister aspect, with rows of bulges, nacelles, studs and rodlike protuberances becoming discernible along the dull black of their undersides. As finer levels of detail continued to resolve themselves, awareness came over Cade slowly that these structures were huge. He had thought of them as aircraft and unconsciously assigned them a comparable scale. But although just covered by the palm of his hand now, they were still high up. “Large warship” might have been a better comparison; or even small town. A dull pulsing, hinting of immense power being contained and ready to unleash, throbbed in his ears and seemed to permeate his body through his legs from the ground, as if the entire basin to the far wall of mountains were resonating. A second formation was becoming visible above and beyond the first, diamond-shaped this time.
A series of whooshes sounded from somewhere along the ridge to the left. Cade jerked his head away to see a salvo of missiles streaking upward from some hidden battery. Then more came from immediately behind. They were antimissile types, with fearsome acceleration; even so, seconds passed by with the flaming tails dwindling as they climbed toward the shapes looming above, telling of the distance that still intervened. The first salvo exploded in a string of crimson bursts like a fireworks display. Cade watched, looking for some sign of damage inflicted; then he realized that they had never gotten close but been destroyed by some kind of shield or defensive beam. The second salvo fared no better, nor the others that followed. The shapes were impregnable: self-contained battle units built for combat of a different kind, on a scale that was incomprehensible.
A flight of aircraft appeared from the rear. Nyarl turned to catch them releasing their missiles and breaking away, and then followed the missiles toward their targets until they exploded harmlessly like the rest. He moved his face away from the eyepiece of the camera to look up at the craft directly for a few seconds. He seemed puzzled. Then he peered through the sighting lens again. Finally, he looked away toward Hudro, still at the field kitchen, and shouted something in Hyadean. Cade saw then that Hudro had been looking up with the same bemused expression. Nyarl called again. Hudro looked toward him, seeming to hear for the first time, and called something back. There was a brief exchange in Hyadean. Nyarl saw Cade looking at him. “The markings on those craft. They’re not of any Chrysean military units, Roland. They’re Querl!”
Only then did what should have been obvious become clear: The ships weren’t engaging in any acts that were hostile. Everything they had done was defensive. Gerofsky was the first to snap out of the trance that had gripped all of them. Not saying anything, as if unwilling to come to any premature conclusion as to what it might mean, he climbed the parapet out of the entrenchment and set off almost at a run back up the ridge toward the brigade headquarters. Hudro and Koyne were already heading across the slope to meet him higher up. Cade and Marie followed Gerofsky. Davis grabbed Nyarl’s carrying case as they brought up the rear.