"No objections to the artillery this time, I take it, Sam?" Joel grunted as he clasped the big buckle, let the weight of the blasters sag their holsters down into position on his thighs. "Damn good of you! And I'm glad you understand these people so well—while we're on our way maybe you can tell me why they bury space ships."
"Maybe we ought to ask them, Skipper," Sam said with a half-smile on his thin lips.
"I get your point. But maybe they should've told us! Come on."
On Joel's order, the task mission's guns had been reversed; drawn about the area where Southard's servounits were noisily sucking up sand, they no longer were concentrated on the excavation site, but instead defended it, slender snouts commanding an immense circular field of fire.
"You don't trust them at that, do you, Nicholas?" Carruthers said above the racket of the servounits. "Lord, you could slaughter an army—"
"This is what it says to do in the goddamn books!" Joel snapped. "You're the guys who were so glad to make a strike."
The heavy, tracked machinery with its towering drill-housings and down-thrust vacuum-scoops whined and growled in a nerve-wrenching discord of power. Men sweated under the mild sun with a silent hurry, with a disciplined excitement.
Southard was fast and efficient.
Dobermann was silent, watching, analyzing.