Someone cleared his throat. The man with the microphone shifted his position and lay stretched out. He had sought cover behind the hummock near the speaker stand and now he raised his head cautiously, to watch the silent windows of the house. Other men lay in similar positions, their attention on the windows, their weapons 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——"