Word of the new game spread psionically from child to child, and was repeated vocally. One tiny girl bounced up and down in glee, dancing, first on one foot and then the other, as if she were skipping rope.
A shrill whistle launched the attack. Five squads converged on the clearing. The bronze faces of Huth's men were impassive. Their long legs covered nearly three yards at a stride. Each man carried a short, silver-colored tube.
Once again the adults were first to project themselves into psi focus. But this time the children were not so slow to join and reinforce them.
The rain had stopped. The hot, humid air was motionless.
And it was a motionless wind that seemed to strike Huth's men. They were swept off their feet and spun around as if caught in a tornado. The huge leader of the squad bearing down on Lucifer's sector shot backward in a rising trajectory that cleared the compound. He screamed once. A hoarse, wild scream.
The freckled boy in Lucifer's arms clapped his chubby hands.
Some of Huth's men smashed into dwellings and fell in broken heaps. Others landed in open spaces and rolled like tumbleweeds. The survivors crawled or ran, screaming and sobbing, toward the spaceship.
"We'd better get that ship now!" Fetzer urged.
"Perhaps Huth will try to talk to us first."
Five minutes passed. No sign came from Huth.