"Hello, Balliwick. Hello, Balliwick. This is Apple Three Three. Can you read me? Come in, please."
O'Mara and Fielding sat and listened while he repeated the call a dozen or more times. His only answer was the heavy static that Beta produced in most electronic instruments. The same static that made radar and space scanners all but useless, that limited aircraft to the big dirigibles and weapons to old fashioned rifles and machine guns.
"I guess we'll know what's going on when we get there!" Terrence said. He wiped his forehead with his arm, noticing that the heavily caked mud was beginning to crack off. He would be in for a bad case of sun poisoning probably.
A rare breeze had sprung up and drifting down it from the west came the sound of gunfire. As one man, everyone in the camp stiffened.
"Did you hear that?" demanded Fielding.
"I think I hear a Banning," Polasky said, "sounds like it's coming from in back of us ... off to the west."
"From what our scouts have been able to pick up, that's the general direction that the Rumi have been moving," Terrence said.
"But there's nothing over that way. What in hell could they be attacking?" Fielding was on his feet, looking off in the direction from which the sounds were coming.
Terrence was aware of an increasingly uneasy feeling. He got to his feet and picked up his gear. "The sounds could be deceiving. We might as well get moving. It isn't going to get much cooler before nightfall."