eapons ready. The windows stared
blankly back.

The camera shifted back to the weapons carrier. A low voice spoke.

"Let's have a look at that scope, Walton."

A man's back moved aside and the light and dark pattern of the range
detector showed on the screen. The low voice spoke again.

"Four of them," it said. "Looks as though they've got a small arsenal
in there with 'em. See those bright pips?"

"Khroal?" queried another voice.

"A couple of those, yeah," the first voice said. "But that isn't too
bad. Those are just antipersonnel. They've got a pair of rippers, too.
Good thing we've got screens up. And there's a firebug. They could give
those guys on the ground a real hard time." A finger appeared in front
of the detector.

"See that haze with the lines in it?"

"Them the charges?"

"That's right. They show up like that on both scopes, see? You can
always spot heat-ray charges. They look like nothing else. Only trouble
is, they louse up the range scale. You can't tell----"

* * * * *

Don looked critically at the carrier.

There was, he thought, evidence of carelessness. No deflector screens
were set up. A Moreku tribesman could put a stone from a sling in
there, and really mess them up--if he could sneak in close enough. He
grinned inwardly.

"Of course, if he hit the right spot, he'd go up with 'em," he told
himself. "Be quite a blast."

He continued to study the weapons carrier arrangements, noting that the
chargers were hot, ready for instant activation. Even the gun current
was on. He could see the faint iridescence around the beam-forming
elements. He shook his head.

"Hit that lens system against something right now," he muttered
inaudibly, "or get something in the field, and that would be the end."

The loud-speaker clicked again and the camera swung to center the house
in its field of view.

"Your time is running out, Waern." The amplified roar of the voice
reverberated from the hills. "You have twenty seconds left."

Abruptly, the speaker became a blaze of almost intolerable light. The
man near it rolled away hurriedly, dropping his microphone. Another man
quickly picked up a handset and spoke briefly into it.

Again, the camera picked up the weapons carrier. The crew chief had his
hand on his microphone switch. He nodded curtly and adjusted a dial.
The lens barrel of the projector swung toward the house, stopped, swung
back a trifle, and held