"They're following us—!" he gasped. "The first time they ever chased us after a raid!"
"They must know we have the body," Brion said.
"Leave it behind—!" Telt choked. "Too heavy to carry ... anyway!"
"I'd rather leave you," Brion snapped. "Let me have it." He pulled the corpse away from the unresisting Telt and heaved it across his shoulders. "Now use your gun to cover us!"
Telt threw a rain of slugs back towards the dark figures following them. The driver must have seen the flare of their fire, because the truck turned and started towards them. It braked in a choking cloud of dust and ready hands reached to pull them up. Brion pushed the body in ahead of himself and scrambled after it. The truck engine throbbed and they churned away into the blackness, away from the gutted tower.
"You know, that was more like kind of a joke, when I said I'd leave the corpse behind," Telt told Brion. "You didn't believe me, did you?"
"Yes," Brion said, holding the dead weight of the magter against the truck's side. "I thought you meant it."
"Ahhh—" Telt grumbled. "You're as bad as Hys. Take things too seriously."
Brion suddenly realized that he was wet with blood, his clothing sodden. His stomach rose at the thought and he clutched the edge of the sandcar. Killing like this was too personal. Talking abstractedly about a body was one thing. But murdering a man, then lifting his dead flesh and feeling his blood warm upon you is an entirely different matter. Yet the magter weren't human, he knew that. The thought was only mildly comforting.