It wasn't Burwood's fight, but if he had thrown in with Starbuck he wanted to remain in the man's good graces, at least until he could figure things out for himself. Besides, his first sight of the Robots had almost choked him with fear. Chasing Diane would take his mind off them. He set out after her, aware that a still half-blinded Starbuck was circling around in another direction.
Diane guessed her best chance for escape would lie along the very edge of the file of Robots. She did not relish the idea, but she had seen the look on Burwood's face when the creatures of metal had appeared and figured he would be loathe to follow her in that direction.
Did the Robots see her? She ran in their direction, her clothing catching and tearing on the undergrowth. She neared the head of the file, could hear Burwood stumbling along behind her. The metal figures stood there, unmoving—watching her? Each one twelve feet tall, they could have stamped her to death.
Behind her, Diane heard a hoarse scream. She whirled instinctively, lost her footing, fell. One of the Robots had taken Burwood, who was thrashing and kicking helplessly as it bore him aloft and held him feet pounding on air, two yards off the ground.
She didn't like Burwood, but she had nothing against him. He screamed again, his voice breaking.
"Put him down," Diane shouted. She might as well have been talking to the ingots from which the Robots had been fashioned for all the heed they paid her. She whirled again, sought Starbuck, couldn't find him. Starbuck always talked of the Robots, perhaps he knew how to communicate with them.
Now the Robot had set a trembling Burwood down on the ground. Now a great noose of rope was drawn about his neck, its other end slung over the branch of a huge, bare-limbed tree. Now....
Something neither warm nor cold touched Diane, grasped her about the middle, lifted her. It was a nightmare. It was unreal, not happening to her. The ground spun giddily, all vision receded behind a wave of vertigo, then returned, still spinning.
Diane clawed at the metal head, at the hard, unblinking eyes, scraping uselessly. She might as well try to scrape down the side of a mountain with her fingernails.