“Repair themselves?” Killeen asked, though somehow he already knew the answer.
“Yeasay, and quick,” Shibo said.
Toby said, “Mechs did that sometimes. Mantis—”
“Not this fast,” Shibo said.
“Makin’ ground?” Killeen asked.
“Some.”
“This’s all too easy,” Killeen said.
Shibo studied his face. “You mean howcome we’re hitting them this time.”
“And they miss us, too.”
“Something’s here.”
“Yeasay.”
“Your Cyber?”
“Feels like. Can’t say how.”
She shook her head. “Don’t understand.”
“Me either.”
They all peered between two boulders at the valley floor below. Cermo’s party was pouring down through the last rank of foothills before the dusty plain. Jocelyn was maneuvering the reserves through a maze of arroyos that gave good shelter. The star formation was ragged but moving. Her tack would take the reserves into the vanguard once they emerged from the thick scrub. Killeen could just barely recognize the distant figures with his highest telescope setting.
“We got Cybers in among us now,” Toby said, and told the women about the screen-thrower they had hit.
Shibo nodded. An IR burst crackled nearby. “Won’t be long before Jocelyn hits the plain.”
“See any Cybers comin’?” Besen asked. Her round face held a slight grin that occasionally, for no visible reason, broadened into a sunny smile.
No one answered for a long moment as they surveyed the valley’s dun-colored jumble sprawling to the horizon. Runoff from the mountain range was cutting a broad new river down the center, fed by several white-water tributaries.
Shattered mech factories covered the once-flat valley floor. Broken walls stood like snaggled teeth, casting pointed shadows in the late afternoon sun. Evidently Cybers had fought a large battle here before, because mech carapaces littered the ground. Burnt-out mech carcasses of every class were beginning to rust. Killeen reflected uneasily that the Cybers probably knew this terrain quite well.
Killeen found himself uneasy also at the eager way Besen longed for combat. The years aboard Argo had perhaps given him a sentimental coating that would take a while to wear off. Family Bishop was again a grimly practical band of foragers. He would have to get used to that.
“Spotted two,” Shibo said. She sent the image into the arrays of the others. Fuzzy forms rippled and danced among the fractured terrain near the broad, muddy river. “They’re messing with our sensoria some way.”
Toby said, “I get just darts and splashes.”
“Where?” Killeen asked.
“Spread all ’cross the valley. Movin’ slow but I can’t get a fix on ’em.” Toby fiddled irritably with the controls on his collar tab.
Killeen saw the same fitful hints. If each momentary flicker was a Cyber, and not some ruse, the enemy was closing in and there were a lot of them.
“Let’s get down there,” Shibo said. She sent a call to her party, which was spread across the nearby hills.
Faint calls over comm told Killeen how matters were going below, even without expanding his sensorium. Halfhearted shouts and the ragged pang-pang-pang of Family microwave volleys implied uncertainty, confusion. As he moved and searched for targets Killeen automatically kept the running tally that anyone, once a commander, never neglected. How many casualties so far? Were their skirmishing lines moving uniformly? Was a salient vulnerable to a flanking attack? Was the star formation closed up, distances between parties short enough for mutual support? Did tactical alignments fit the terrain? Did the constantly shifting fields of fire leave any opening to the enemy?
The elusive Cybers were harder to judge. How steady was their fire? Were they holding off? Clearly the flitting forms were advancing down the valley, trying to cut off the salient under Cermo’s command.
For some reason, a firm and unhurried approach was far more intimidating than attackers at a run. But the Cybers’ pace was furtive, odd, seemingly running at angles to what Killeen expected. Still, the Bishops were drawing the main force away from the Tribal attack point for the breakout.
Up from the fractured valley crisp bolts came echoing. Jocelyn’s vanguard was spilling down onto the plain. A fault line ran straight through the floor of the valley and already streams had converged on the cleft. Waterfalls crashed down from steep jutting ramparts, cutting at the freshly exposed strata. The newly formed river was a muddy finger pointing at the horizon. Against this image Killeen saw the ghostly, wavering dabs of momentary fog-thin light that might be Cybers.
“Time for the Tribe to make their run,” he said.
Shibo nodded. “Cybers comin’ fast.”
Their comms suddenly sprang to life: general call. Jocelyn cried,—Shibo! I’ve hailed His Supremacy three times. I get no answer.—
“Sure you’re getting through?” Shibo said.
—Must be. I can pick up his carrier.—
“You give ’em the start-down code?”
—Course. Cybers closing in.—
Killeen said worriedly, “She’s pretty exposed down there.”
