“Dan- and Red-and Loften got it. Nice bag for Pax,” his fellow sniper muttered. “Now was that just a lucky shot -or do they have our range?”
The forces of Pax had the range. A second ragged tear was sliced across the rock and earth dam. Before the stones stopped rattling down, Dard was shaken out of his crouch roughly.
“If you ain’t dead, kid, come on! Santee’s passed the word to fall back, to the next turn of the canyon. On the double, because we’re going to blow again, and if you get caught on this side-it’s your skin!”
Dard tumbled down the barrier behind his guide, falling once and scraping both sleeve and skin from his forearm in the process. Seconds later eight defenders, their sides heaving, their dirty faces haunted and drawn, gathered around Santee and were waved on down the canyon. Santee himself stood counting off seconds aloud. At “ten” he plunged his hand down on the black box beside him.
There was a dull rumble, less noise than the burper shots had made. Dard watched in a sort of fascinated horror as the whole opposite cliff moved majestically outward into space before it crashed down to make a second and taller wall. The stones and earth had not ceased to roll before Santee was leading his force up it to dig in and face the enemy. Once more Dard lay in wait with a rifle, this time alone.
The burper sounded regularly, systematically pounding down the first barrier. But, save for that, there was no sign of Pax activity. And how long would it be before they brought the burper up to this assault? Then would the few left retreat again and blow down another section of the mountain?
There was a flicker of movement down at the first barrier, and it was answered by a shot from the defense. A second later more shots, all down by the battered dam. Dard guessed what had happened, wounded and left behind, one of the Cleft dwellers was firing his last round to delay the victors. The flurry of fire was only a prelude to what they were waiting to see-the black snub nose of the burper rising above the rubble.
8. COLD SLEEP
UNABLE TO SEE the burper’s crew the defenders had only the narrowest and most impossible mark to shoot at-the gun’s muzzle. Perhaps that action was only to occupy their minds, by concentrating on that menace, by seeing or thinking of nothing else, they could, each and everyone, forget for a space that the ship they fought for could only take a numbered few-that when it blasted off, some of the Cleft would still be here.
Dessie! Dard twisted in the hole he had hollowed with his body. Surely Dessie would be aboard. There were so few children-so few women-Dessie would be an asset!