Who Needs Men by Edmund Cooper

Author:Edmund Cooper [Cooper, Edmund]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

19

They came up the loch at high speed two burnished, metallic beetles, racing to their destruction. There was a chopper with them. The chopper circled lazily at an altitude of perhaps five hundred metres.

Diarmid crouched in the gefcar. The two other men had blackened themselves and lay sprawled in the ashes of the camp, reasonably camouflaged as dead pigs. But they were pigs capable of an instantaneous and devastating resurrection with laser rifles and grenades.

There was no breeze; and already the air smelled of impending death. Rura had only seconds in which to do something. But what was there to do? Her hands were tied", her legs were hobbled, she had no weapon, Diarmid was between her and the radio. There was only one thing to do. Run to the water's edge, gesticulate, try to warn the gefcars away. Diarmid needed the element of surprise. If he or his men killed her, the gefcars or the chopper would see it. If they did not kill her, there was a chance.

But if she managed to warn the gefcars, that would probably be the end of Diarmid MacDiarmid. Please goddess, it would also be the end of Rura Alexandra. Life was worth nothing when the only possibilities were: kill, be killed, or betray.

Rura began to run. Stupidly she forgot about the short rope round her ankles. She fell down. Somehow, she picked herself up and began to shuffle to the edge of the loch in the tiny, grotesque steps the rope allowed. She waved her bound hands, hoping the gefcars would interpret the gesture correctly, hoping they would see that she was tied so that she could hardly move.

Any moment now, she thought, my head will be burned off. Any moment now there will be everlasting peace. But perhaps Diarmid had planned it this way. Perhaps he wanted her to do something like this. Perhaps he thought it would distract attention from the trap. She couldn't think any more. She couldn't think. She fell down once more, picked herself up, waved, tried to run, fell down again.

She lay on the ground, winded, watching the gefcars execute a stylish turn, skim in from the loch and up towards the burned-out camp. Time seemed to slow down, almost to freezing. The chopper hung in the sky like a giant bird of prey. The gefcars touched down, a few metres away from her, spewing out the black figures of Border exterminators.

"Go back!" screamed Rura. "Get out! Get the hell out!"

The noise of the chopper and the dying gefcar engines swallowed her voice.

And then it was all transformed into stills, a series of photographs, each picture taken, developed, destroyed, second by second.

There was a girl with lovely blonde hair. First out of the first gefcar. An. eager girl, swinging her laser rifle, surveying the camp, registering everything. Snap one. Then the others tumbled out after her. Snap two. Then they came out of the second gefcar. Snap three.

"Go back! Go back!"

It was too late.

The blonde hair flamed, the face blackened and steamed.

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