Burwood was hanging.
Feet dangling, arms bound behind him, he twisted and writhed in his last death agony. Diane shuddered, turning away, striking her head sharply against the hard metal of the Robot. When her vision cleared again, she was on the ground, another Robot stalking soundlessly toward her for all its great bulk, a noose identical to the one from which Burwood dangled suspended from its metal hand.
But the scene had changed, Diane realized wildly. A great air-ship, a rocket, had landed midway between the file of Robots and the burning village. Vaguely, she remembered that Starbuck had once said only Robots from the Citadel itself used the rockets, since only a few remained from man's last great War.
Starbuck was nearby, shaking but holding his ground, shouting at the Robots as if his very life depended on it. And, Diane thought despairingly, it did.
"Leave her be!" Starbuck cried. "You're making a terrible mistake. We're not from the village. We're Shining Ones. We're Shining Ones, I tell you. We came here to join you, to be conscripted. We want to work for the Robots. See, we're Shining Ones!"
Did they understand? Diane couldn't tell. The Robots with the noose reached down and grabbed her, drawing her aloft again. She wanted to scream, but all her energy could bring forth only a whimper. She wanted to shut her eyes tightly and wake up, trembling but otherwise all right, in her tent. She could feel a lurching motion as the Robot began to move.
Burwood hung slackly now, twisting gently from side to side, like a rag doll, with the motion of the rope. Diane fainted.
Within half an hour, all the Robots had filed into their waiting ship. It blasted skyward on a jet of flame which was all but lost against the fires which consumed Hamilton Village.
CHAPTER V