The pistol—he decided to call it that—was much lighter than a Colt of comparable size. There was a narrow trigger and trigger guard in the same position as on an earth-made revolver. That was logical, as the hands of the aliens were, barring the color, perfectly human. Trace decided he'd have to take a chance and fire the thing. The unchancy weapon would come in handy if he could work it. He bit his lip. Maybe it had just one shot. Oh, blazes. He had to find out.
On their next halt, he aimed it at a tree (there was no sight and he aimed by feel, like a gunman) and pulled the trigger. It had a hard pull, so hard that only a strong man could have budged it at all. It made no sound. There was a thin streak of green light, and the trunk of the tree commenced to smoke and steam. Then it burst into yellow-green flame and exploded, fragments of bark and splintered wood showering out to a great distance. Trace ducked, let up on the trigger, and the beam died. He was reasonably sure now that it wasn't a one-shot.
"And that's what you want us to go against," said Johnson. "A million Martians armed with those. What right have you to make us?" he shrieked. "What authority?"
"This authority," said Trace, hefting the pistol. "Likewise the supreme authority of the United States Army, as I have declared martial law. And then there's the authority of me, Sergeant Trace Roscoe, who will mop up this whole damn valley with your fat puss if so be it you are disinclined to obey my orders, buster."
"Thinks he's so tough," grumbled Kinkaid.
But they all followed Trace when he marched on. Jane Kelly kept up easily with the men, and Trace was especially proud of her; but he had to admit that most all of them were whipping into shape better than he'd any right to hope for. "Few more days and I'll have me a real fine belly-achin' fighting-mad platoon here," he said to himself.
Unfortunately he didn't have a few more days. He made contact with the green-skinned destroyers no more than half an hour thereafter.
CHAPTER V
They lay on the crest of a hill. Before them was a rolling plain spotted with patches of old snow. A thousand yards from the base of the hill was a small town, with figures moving among the houses. It had not been blasted by the saucers, but Trace's people did not run down the slope toward it, because along that plain from horizon to horizon rested a line of the great green spacecraft; and the moving figures, there was little doubt, had olive skin and horny bird-feet and a single eye apiece.