"Keep it going! Keep it going!" Janus was yelling. "These beams are good for hours!"
The very silence of the attack made it the more terrible. No yells, no screams of fury came from the heavy-furred Perlacs as they littered the terrain by the score.
Then, as suddenly as they had come, they retreated. The seven sweeping beams had done the work well, but in an unexpected manner. Flames were leaping in the lush grass between the defenders and the forest!
"Respite!" Janus yelled. "Ten minutes, maybe. They'll be back when that grass is burned down!"
But there was no resting now. A score of men were dead and twice that many wounded, who had to be carried back from the battle line. Three of the barricades were wrecked, and they strove to get these into place again.
Mark noticed Mari, sweat-grimed and weary, her golden hair streaming down. But she was magnificent still, a tower of strength as she hurried along the line giving aid and encouragement to her people.
"I wonder where the robots are?" Mark suddenly remembered as he worked beside Janus. "If the Perlacs have learned to reactivate those monsters, as Donli thinks—"
"Encouraging, ain't you? As if we're not having a hard enough time as it is!"
And then Mark remembered something else. Remembered so suddenly that he began laughing, a little wildly, and Janus slipped him a light one on the jaw.
"Come out of it, lad! None of that, now—we're not licked yet!"