"Grenade!" yelled Nelson. "Back, Tark!"
He and the wolf recoiled and leaped to escape from the turbine interior as the bumping, rattling thing came out of the tube. As they burst out of the turbine, a terrific explosion blammed behind them. Murderous bits of steel thudded into the turbine walls, and a few that found openings whizzed over their heads.
Then Nelson heard the sharp rattle of submachine-gun fire, heard bullets ricocheting inside the huge turbine.
"I will not flee without killing!" flared Tark's thought. The wolf had turned, his hair bristling, great fangs gleaming.
"You wouldn't have a chance, Tark! They're clearing the way ahead with guns now! We may be able to evade them back in the shadows."
* * *
Nelson knew with a cold and terrible certainty how small that chance was. Sloan and the Dutchman would methodically hunt them down, and he had not a shot left in his gun.
He and Tark ran between the platinum pillars of the thought-record, too swiftly to hear that mechanical epic message begin again. They reached Nsharra, back in the shadows.
"I failed," Nelson told her bitterly. "They will come on now. You should not have come here, Nsharra!"
She looked at him steadily, her face a white blur in the shadows. "I think L'Lan dies tonight and, if it does, I have no wish to live."