They had collected extra weapons from their own fallen and from guards they had killed in the building, and with these they crouched down behind the barrier of the wrecked car.
Birrel watched the technicians out on the shelf. He had gathered that they had ways of surmounting what would have been insurmountable difficulties on Earth, using types of impulses and rectifiers and carrier-beams unknown there. The equipment did not particularly resemble television equipment as he knew it. Anyway, the technicians seemed to know what they were doing. He hoped they did. It would be a pity to go to all this trouble for nothing.
He saw Thile, and then Kara, making animated gestures as they talked into the transmitter. They were, apparently, going to have time at least to get the message on its way. Then, with terrifying unexpectedness, the voice of God seemed to speak from the air, deafening them.
"Lay down your arms!" it said. "Surrender—you are surrounded on all sides—"
"Amplifiers," said Birrel. "They must have needed them to order things done, in a place this size. Look out, now. They'll rush us any minute—"
And they did, coming out of the dark tunnel in a fury of flashing beams from their weapons.
From behind the wrecked car someone threw an energy-grenade and then another. The results were a little too good. The whole roof of the tunnel fell in, effectively blocking it to the enemy, but also sealing off any possibility of fighting their way back out through it.
Birrel looked around. Thile and Kara and the technicians were still sticking to their task. Down below, on the cavern floor, Shannock had driven back an attack, but from up here Birrel could see the men hiding among the looming machines and knew how badly Shannock was outnumbered.
He flung himself down the spiral stair, and the others followed. The loudspeakers roared monotonously overhead, ordering them to surrender. Birrel took up a position behind a huge looming metal bulk and then looked up at the shelf. Thile, Kara and the technicians had disappeared. A second later he saw them coming at breakneck speed down the stair, and in almost the same second something exploded with a blinding flash on the shelf and the transmitter vanished.
"Surrender," said the amplifiers. "We will grant you a fair trial if you do, but if you do not you will be killed to the last one. Surrender—"