"Well, here they come." Don Michaels looked out of a weapons embrasure.
From the port, the advancing men were far more visible than they intended to be. One after another, they crawled and dashed through the grass, their weapons held before them. They concealed themselves from the house as best they could behind hummocks and clumps of grass. Then, weapons probing toward the house, they waited.
A couple of hundred meters from the house, a weapons carrier purred into position, wheeled to face the house, and stopped, the muted roar of its motor dying to a faint rumble.
Closer to the house, there was a hollow in the earth, a scar from some long-forgotten skirmish. Over the years, rain and wind had worked on it, softening its once harsh outlines. Grass had grown in, to further mask the crater, till now it was a mere smooth depression in the ground. From the edge of this depression, rose the slender rod of a speaker, a small, directional loud-speaker blossoming from it.
Michaels grinned and turned aside for an instant.
"Just like the big broadcasts, Pete," he remarked. "Feel important? You're going to have a big audience."
"Kind of like it better if I were making a personal appearance. Be a lot nicer if I could talk to them—and they could see my face."
"They can't let you do that," Don grinned. "You don't look enough like any of those guys they're supposed to be hunting. Spoil the whole effect that way."
Pete looked at him thoughtfully.
"You know, they always tell people to throw their weapons out and come out with their hands in the air. What would happen if someone took 'em up on it—like the wrong someone—like me, for instance?"