“For the love of God, colonel—!”
“ Listen, Sawyer, you’re the autocyber man. You helped train Grumbler. Can’t you think of some way to stop him without detonating the mined area?”
A protracted silence. Grumbler finished feeding and came out of the fissure. It moved westward a few yards, so that a clear stretch of flat land lay between itself and the hill at the edge of the pain perimeter, half a mile away. There it paused, and awoke several emissary ears, so that it might derive the most accurate possible fix of the enemy’s position. One by one, the emissary ears reported.
“Well, Sawyer?”
“My leg’s killing me.”
“Can’t you think of anything?”
“Yeah—but it won’t do me any good. I won’t live that long.”
“ Well, let’s hear it.”
“ Knock out his remote energy storage units, and then run him ragged at night.”
“ How long would it take?”