Hard-faced, Mac ordered a fishmen to go out into the enclosure with him. While Mac kept back the horde with a hail of fire, the shivering native pulled a tank into the compound. Mac increased the size of the raiding parties. Again and again they sallied out, until the bulk of the abandoned fuel was saved.
Sweating, Mac signaled to Limpy in the blockade house. The hermetic doors in the wall slid shut. The natives stood on the ledge on the inner side of the rampart, watching with horror-filled eyes as the fiendish beasts tried to scale the concave surface.
Mac called Swede by radio, then trudged through the mud to the blockade house. The three men met in the lookout room.
Seeing Swede, Mac realized for the first time how dirty, wet and exhausted he was himself. They were both blackened with mud and flame blasts, their clothing grimy and sopping.
Limpy's good eye was harrowed, the frozen side of his face contorted in an evil grin.
"Poor Al," muttered Swede. He sank down ponderously on a chair. "He was a game little fellow. I'll miss him."
Without replying, Limpy turned around. He stared sightlessly through the infra-red windows at the white fog and the eternal mud, the seething mass of centaurpedes and the shaking, gabbling fishmen. All around the mine, seeming to reach every horizon, stretched the completely encircling army of vermin. But that was not what Limpy was seeing.
Mac came over to the window. "I saw Al die, too," he said in a harshly gentle voice. "If I have to kick off that way, I hope I'll be as brave as he was."
"Maybe you'll get your chance sooner than you think," Limpy snarled. "Six armies against us, one dead, our boat no good, the fence useless, the fishmen demoralized—" He whirled. "What are we waiting for? Why don't we blow up the place and quit?"
"Because we still have a chance," Mac answered. "They've taken our first line of defense, but we still have the second."