Kathryn was reloading her own rifle, I heard her swearing as the cartridge clip jammed in the rusty old weapon. I’d have given her my own, except that it wasn’t much better. It’s no fun fighting with arms that are likely to blow up in your face but it was all we had—all that poor devastated Terra had after the Baldics had sacked her twice in fifteen years.

I fired a burst and saw the big gray barbarian spin on his heels, stagger and scream with all four hands clutching his belly, and sink slowly to his knees. The creatures behind him howled, but he only let out a deep-throated curse. He’d be a long time dying. I’d blown a hole clear through him, but those Gorzuni were tough.

The slugs wailed around us as I got myself down under the wall, hugging the long grass which had grown up around the shattered fragments of the house. There was a fresh wind blowing, rustling the grass and the big war-scarred trees, sailing clouds across a sunny summer sky, so the gas concentration was never enough to put us out. But Jonsson and Hokusai were sprawled like corpses there against the broken wall. They’d taken direct hits and they’d sleep for hours.

Kathryn knelt beside me, the ragged, dirty coverall like a queen’s robe on her tall young form, a few dark curls falling from under her helmet for the wind to play with ‘If we get them mad enough,” she said, “they’ll call for the artillery or send a boat overhead to blow, us to the Black Planet.”

“Maybe,” I grunted. “Though they’re usually pretty eager for slaves.”

“John—” She crouched there a moment, the tiny frown I knew so well darkening her blue eyes. I watched the way leaf-shadows played across her thin brown face. There was a grease smudge on the snub nose, hiding the little freckles. But she still looked good, really good, she and green Terra and life and freedom and all that I’d never have again.

“John,” she said at last, “maybe we should save them the trouble. Maybe we should make our own exit.”