They waited. Andy scooped out an opening where he could watch without being seen. Frieda, sitting below him, whispered to him several times, but his only answer was a terse command to shut up. He was watching the three men who had now begun to move stealthily down the opposite hill.
They came slowly, taking advantage of every bit of cover. Andy watched and grimly waited, pushing his blaster into position. He had no illusions on this matter, but he was aware that the girl was protesting.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to blow those crooks clear to Jupiter," he answered, finality in his tone.
"No," she protested. "Can't you hold them and disarm them?"
"Don't be an idiot! How?"
"I don't know. But it's murder to shoot them down like that."
"Yeh? They been asking for it. Ah...."
The three men were standing in a cleared space looking across at the bluff, evidently deciding on what to do. Andy squinted through the sight, lifted his head to estimate the distance and the drop, dropped the rear sight a notch, and squinted again. He was aiming for the blaster in the hands of the first man, a tough-looking, bearded brute. If the pellet from his gun hit the blaster in the man's hands—well, there wouldn't be enough left of the three men to smell bad. He steadied his gun, started to squeeze the trigger.