"Harle Waern, this is the Enforcement Corps. We know you are in there. You were seen to go into that house with your friends. You have one minute to throw out your weapons and come out with your hands in the air. This is your last chance." There was another click from the loud-speaker. Then the scene was quiet. Someone cleared his throat. The man with the microphone shifted his position and lay stretched out. He had sought cover behind the hummock near the speaker stand and now he raised his head cautiously, to watch the silent windows of the house. Other men lay in similar positions, their attention on the windows, their weapons ready. The windows stared blankly back. The camera shifted back to the weapons carrier. A low voice spoke. "Let's have a look at that scope, Walton." A man's back moved aside and the light and dark pattern of the range detector showed on the screen. The low voice spoke again. "Four of them," it said. "Looks as though they've got a small arsenal in there with 'em. See those bright pips?" "Khroal?" queried another voice. "A couple of those, yeah," the first voice said. "But that isn't too bad. Those are just antipersonnel. They've got a pair of rippers, too. Good thing we've got screens up. And there's a firebug. They could give those guys on the ground a real hard time." A finger appeared in front of the detector. "See that haze with the lines in it?" "Them the charges?" "That's right. They show up like that on both scopes, see? You can always spot heat-ray charges. They look like nothing else. Only trouble is, they louse up the range scale. You can't tell----" * * * * * Don looked critically at the carrier. There was, he thought, evidence of carelessness. No deflector screens were set up. A Moreku tribesman could put a stone from a sling in there, and really mess them up--if he could sneak in close enough. He grinned inwardly. "Of course, if he hit the right spot, he'd go up with 'em," he told himself. "Be quite a blast." He continued to study the weapons carrier arrangements, noting that the chargers were hot, ready for instant activation. Even the gun current was on. He could see the faint iridescence around the beam-forming elements. He shook his head. "Hit that lens system against something right now," he muttered inaudibly, "or get something in the field, and that would be the end." The loud-speaker clicked again and the camera swung to center the house in its field of view. "Your time is running out, Waern." The amplified roar of the voice reverberated from the hills. "You have twenty seconds left." Abruptly, the speaker became a blaze of almost intolerable light. The man near it rolled away hurriedly, dropping his microphone. Another man quickly picked up a handset and spoke briefly into it.