To Prime the Pump - A. Bertram Chandler [56]
He scrambled to his feet. This time he did not have to help the girl up. Together they ran around the clump of weatherworn boulders. Grimes half-tripped over something soft, which yelped. The dogs were still with them.
He stood there, reloading.
From the ground Marlene said, "You hit it, John."
"Yes. I hit it. Like hitting a dreadnaught with a peashooter. Keep down. Here comes the bastard again!"
It seemed to be slower this time and erratic in its flight. The wavering laser beam started a flaring, crackling fire in the gorse. But it straightened up toward the finish of its run, came in fast. Grimes let fly with both barrels at once and dropped hastily. The Princess snatched the smouldering cap off his head.
"John! John! Are you . . .?"
"I'm all right. My brains are no more addled than usual. Come on!"
Like a game of musical chairs, he thought. And, somebody has to be the loser . . .
This last time it came in slowly, using wings and not reaction drive. And its laser seemed to be out of action. It came in slowly, a mechanical bird of prey, climbing, finally hanging directly above the man and the girl and the two cringing dogs, high, but not too high to be a good target.
As we, thought Grimes, are good targets for its bombs, if it carries any.
Standing, he could not bring his gun to bear, so lay supine, the weapon aimed directly upwards. The air in the shallow hollow was blue with acrid smoke and the turf was littered with empty shells as Grimes fired again and again and again, as the Princess matched him shot for shot. Something hot stung his cheek; it was a pellet from his own gun or from Marlene's. They must be falling all over this circumscribed area like a metallic hail.
One of the dogs cried out sharply; it must have been hit and hurt by the fall of shot. Yelping, its tail between its legs, it dashed out from the barely adequate shelter of the outcropping. Its companion followed it. Then, screaming, the rogue dived. Grimes scrambled erect somehow, kept the butt of the shotgun to his shoulder, led the thing as it plunged and let it have both barrels.
Perhaps he hit again, perhaps he did not, but it made no difference. The killer bird swooped down upon the leading dog, and its long, straight beak (rapier as well as laser gun) skewered the hapless animal just behind the ribs, hooked it up from the ground, shrieking, and then with a peculiar midair twisting motion tossed it up and away. The body, its legs still running in nothingness, fell against a rock with an audible crunch, and then was still.
The other setter howled dismally, kept on running, but it could never be as fast as the rogue. It almost made the protection of a clump of gorse, and then the murderous machine was on it. This time it did not use its blood-dripping beak. It banked, like an old-fashioned aircraft, and the leading edge of one stiff wing slashed the animal across the hindquarters. Howling still, it tried to drag itself along with its forelegs.
Marlene was saying something. "I must go, John. I must put him out of his misery."
He caught her arm. "No. Don't be a fool."
She shook him off. "I must. Cover me."
She was running out over the uneven turf, slipping and staggering. Grimes dropped his shotgun, pulled the pistol from his pocket, started after her. The rogue reached her before he did. She screamed as the deadly beak grazed her shoulder, tearing a ragged square of fabric out of her shirt; she fell to her hands and knees. But she was up again, still staggering toward her dying dog, then knocked sprawling by buffeting metal wings. Again there was the thrust of the rapier beak, and this time most of the back of her upper garment was carried away on the point of it.
I must fire, thought Grimes, before it gets too close to her. In case it blows up. The rattle of the Minetti set on full automatic, was startlingly loud, and the butt vibrated in the moist palm of his hand. The rogue, obligingly, was making a