"Attacks!" his companion repeated incredulously."Attacks?" He waved his long, dirty fingers in an arc across the horizon of brush, grass, and silence. "Do you see an attack? Do you see anything? You've been listening to the radio, haven't you?" Dwyer pointed accusingly atDel 's chest. "Seven years in this business and you don't know that whatany government says is a lie? Look, when there's going\ to be an attack, I'll tell-"

High overhead to the west, they caught the flash of the starship starting its bombing run.

Del Hoybrin was dumb as a post, but he was; experienced and his reflexes had kept him alive before. The big man jumped up, heading for their shelter, and Churchie Dwyer tackled him before those reflexes could get his friend killed.

Delcame down on his face with a thump and a squawk. "Not there!" Churchie screamed, "here!" He began to slap madly at the coals with the butt of his gun. Some of them scattered into the brush. The rest stirred into bright orange life.

"Huh?" saidDel.

The big man might just have been able to bound three hundred meters uphill in the time available, Churchie knew. WhatDel could not have done, no way in hell, was to run full-tilt up the crooked path without stumbling into a mine. That left one choice, a bad one, but better than no shelter at all when the shrapnel sleeted in. Furiously, Churchie Dwyer tried to brush the coals out of the trench. After a moment, Del began to help. He was used to doing things which he did not understand.

They were veterans. They ignored the sonic boom, ignored also the siren that panicked the indigenous troops in the compound. When the clusters began to separate in the sky overhead, however, Del paused and looked at his companion. "Churchie?" he said.