“Down there.” Toby pointed. “See? Heat waves.”
But the rippling images on the next hillside had a fuzzy quality unlike the effect of refracting air. “False image,” Killeen said.
“Hard tellin’ where the Cyber is.”
“Wish we knew more ’bout their tricks.” Killeen looked at Toby’s bandaged hand. Jocelyn had decided the boy could stay back from the skirmish line, carrying reserve ammunition in his pack. “How’s it feel?”
“Not bad. Glad it wasn’t my right hand. Couldn’t shoot then.”
“Keep back, you won’t need shoot today.”
Toby bit his lip soberly. “You think so?”
On Snowglade Killeen would have given his son an optimistic, offhand remark. Here… “We’re point party for the whole Tribe on this one. Be hard to pull back, once the Cybers are on us.”
“I figured the same.”
“One good thing ’bout not bein’ Cap’n, I can move around less.”
Toby grinned. “Almost as good as a burn hand.”
“Bum Cap’n, yeasay.” Killeen put his hand on Toby’s shoulder. “Look, stick close. We’ll cover for each other.”
Toby nodded silently, his eyes always following the scanplane of his own sensorium. “Wish I knew where that Cyber is.”
“Let’s circle ’round.”
They used standard fire-and-maneuver. One loosed a quick, gaudy infrared pulse while the other sprinted in the cover provided by the afterimage effect. They covered ground rapidly this way, leaving the last stands of umbrella-topped trees. Tangled scrub in the foothills beyond offered a thousand pockets for human concealment, but few spots big enough to hide a Cyber. Toby went dashing freely from cranny to cranny, Killeen noted, far faster than his father could. There was also a certain unthinking bravado in his son’s manner, despite the Snowglade years Toby had spent on the run.
“Getting somethin’ over left,” Toby called.
Killeen cut through some brambles and reached his son, puffing hard. Through a swampy clearing he saw a large form moving in the trees beyond. “Don’t shoot yet.”
“You figure one Cyber’s puttin’ out this whole screen?”
“Could be.” But the creature seemed to be staying as well camouflaged as it could. It did not fire, even when a distant Bishop momentarily appeared in the open, charging downhill.
“What’s it doin’? Listenin’?”
Killeen whispered, “Or looking for somethin’.”
“What?”
“Maybe wants His Supremacy for supper.”
Toby laughed. Killeen settled down and watched the Cyber clamber up a far rock shelf. The gray slice in Killeen’s sensorium narrowed and thinned.
He watched telltale Bishop spikes work their way through the surrounding hills, headed for the valley. It was a plausible-looking excursion, designed to draw the Cybers in force. But how long could they go without being cut off and systematically hunted down? He handed Toby a sugar-rich lump saved from breakfast and got up. “Let’s go left from here. Keep low—no high jumps.”
“Yeasay. Besen’s with Shibo, y’know.”
A crisp buzz snapped by Killeen. Both of them dropped flat.
“Damn!” Killeen spat out dirt. “Somethin’ close by.”
Toby fired a burst toward the last place they had seen the Cyber. “Looks like we do it the hard way,” Toby said.
They crawled away, banging into rocks with their heavy leggings and shank shields.
Killeen stopped and examined his shoulder padding. With a small thrill he found a neat brown burn-hole through it. The laser pulse had not severed any important control systems. To his surprise he felt no fear, only exhilaration.
“Squeeze down your sensorium,” Killeen said tightly.
They cut through a draw half-filled with fresh slumped soil and pebbles, evidence of the latest quakes. The Cyber was on the far side. It was a tubular sheath of glistening, moist skin that seemed to be sweating. Insets of brushed metal and tan ceramic made a patchwork across the crusty brown hide.
Toby shot it first, burning its hind antenna. Killeen knew they had only an instant before retaliation. Into his mind flashed a sudden understanding of the Cyber’s underlayers, a picture sharp and sure and unbidden. He snatched at a projectile from his precious hoard and clicked it into place on its stubby launch rod. He aimed at a middle bulge in the shiny carapace and snapped off the shot without thinking. The small, birdlike cylinder blew away a small hatch—seemingly insignificant, but Killeen knew the master controls for its transmitters ran close to the skin there. Abruptly the gray screen vanished from his sensorium.
“Come on,” Killeen said, not waiting to see what the Cyber would do. As they slipped away it went into what looked like spasms, effervescing a yellow electrostain. Killeen sensed the thing was immobilized and did not question how he knew.
Shibo’s telltale winked, not far away. They scrambled through two patches of scrub and rushed up a fractured face of dark strata. Besen was guarding her party’s flank and could have tripped Toby as he came charging forward. Shibo was approaching from the other direction, calling orders as she ran. Killeen found himself panting so hard he could not speak, and just gazed inquiringly at her.
“Starting take hits,” she said calmly, but Killeen could see the small signs of worry in her thin, drawn lips.
“We knocked out two already!” Besen said cheerily.
“Great, great,” Toby said, gazing cautiously around. “We got one.”
“Cybers don’t stay down, though,” Shibo said.
