Gordon R. Dickson by The Spirit of Dorsai

Author:The Spirit of Dorsai [Dorsai, The Spirit of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-24T05:00:00+00:00

The difference in the tone of her voice brought him around. He froze at the sight of Amanda’s heavy handgun pointed at his middle. Ineffective as they were at ordinary rifle distance, the energy handguns were devastating at point-blank range like this. Even if Amanda’s aim should be bad—and she held the gun too steadily to suggest bad aim—any pressure on its trigger would mean his being cut almost in two.

“Just keep talking,” said Amanda softly. She held the gun low, so that the sentry’s own body shielded any view of it from the compound or the house. “You and I are just going on with our conversation. Wave these two to the compound as if you were referring them to someone there. There’ll be other skimmers coming—”

“Yes…two more. On the way now,” Mene’s voice almost hissed, close by her ear.

“—and after each one stops here for a moment, you’ll wave them to the compound, too. Do you understand?” Amanda said.

“Yes…” His eyes were on the steady muzzle of her handgun.

“Good. Mene, Reiko, go ahead. Wait until enough others catch up with you before you make a move, though.”

“Leave it to us,” said Reiko. Their skimmer lifted and hummed toward the compound.

“Just stand relaxed,” Amanda told the sentry. “Don’t move your rifle.”

She sat. The sentry’s face showed the pallor of what was perhaps illness, now overlaid with a mute desperation. He did not move. He was not as youthful as some of the other soldiers, but from the relative standpoint of Amanda’s years they were all young. Other skimmers came and moved on to the compound, until all the adults had gone by her.

“Stand still,” Amanda said to the sentry.

Off to one side, a movement caught her eye. It was a figure slipping around the corner of the house and entering the door. Then another. Arvid and Bill with their men—at last.

She turned her head slightly to look. Five…six figures flickered around the corner of the house and in through the door. Out of the other corner of her eyes she caught movement close to her. Looking back, she saw the sentry bringing up the barrel of his rifle to knock the energy weapon out of her hand. Twenty, even ten years before, she would have been able to move the handgun out of the way in time, but age had slowed her too much.

She felt the shock against her wrist as metal met metal and the energy gun was sent flying. But she was already stooping to the scabbard with the pellet shotgun as the sentry’s cone rifle swung back to point at her. The stream of cones whistled over her bent head, then lowered. She felt a single heavy shock in the area of her left shoulder, but then the shotgun had, in its turn, batted the light frame of the cone rifle aside and the sentry was looking into the wide muzzle of the heavier gun.

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