Pete looked around the courtyard. Broken tiles littered the ground. Here and there, lay bricks and bits of mortar. Some freak of backblast had torn a shutter off the house and it lay brokenly a few feet from him. He looked back toward the house.
One corner of the roof had been shattered and he could see broken roof beams. A cornice from the wall had crashed into the house front and bits of it lay strewn through a gaping hole in the living room wall. Stucco littered the narrow border of shrubbery around the house, whitening the green of the leaves.
And a twisted bit of metal caught his attention. Obviously, it was part of a flier. He shook his head and looked at the sky over the western mountains.
"Quite a blast," he said. "Look, Don, are you sure anything's coming to back us up? A couple more of these and we'll be standing in an open field."
Michaels reached up to stroke his face. "Right now, I'm not too sure about anything," he admitted. "Except that next time they try to comb us over, they'll take a few less chances." He frowned.
"Mr. Masterson was pretty certain about things, but——"
He spun around and walked toward the flier port.
"You know, I think we'd better play it safe," he went on. "Right now, we've got clear air. That explosion put everything around here on the ground, but hard. But that won't last. Stern's people will be flocking around here in a few minutes to see what went on. We better not be around when they arrive. Go get your father."
He pulled the flier door open.