"Yeah, anybody bring anything for tunneling?" Rosen asked, only half joking.

"Knock it off, team," Maslovic responded. "Nothing we haven't seen before there."

"Maybe, but when you look at the amplitudes they're using, they could short out these suits breaking through," Ndulu put in. "To get through we're going to have to break the web ahead of time."

Maslovic concentrated on the main lodge. "A number of people in there. I wish we could tell how many. Broz, what about the ferrets?"

"See if you can drop one between the fence and the shield," the tech responded from the command center. "They might be plastic enough to breach that web at some point. No place to climb, though, so we're talking going straight through on the ground."

"No good, then," Maslovic replied. "There's a base band that ties the webbing together. No way a ferret's getting through at the base. Whoever did this knew their stuff."

"Schwartz," Darch put in from the command center. "That sort of thing is what she's good at. It should also absorb a pretty good series of energy bolts, I'd say, and the moment they know they're under attack, webs like that automatically go to lethal strength."

"Maybe. But why have the perimeter fence if you have that?" Maslovic wondered.

"Maybe the thing's a series of waves going to that central cap," Nasser suggested. "That would mean that right at that base would be the weakest point. Your lethal pulses would come from that ring up until they met that cap and were dissipated. I think the distribution's uneven in any event. You can almost see it."

"Not much room between outer and inner, though," Ndulu pointed out. "Which of you wants to volunteer to try it?"

It was an interesting point, and a potentially lethal one. If you blew the outer fence, the alarm would go off all over and then, even if the inner web was as weak as the theory went, there would be time for it to concentrate lethal energy on that small area.

"I think maybe we're going at this wrong," Maslovic said after thinking a moment. "One missile and this place is history. This isn't designed to repel an army, or anything like one. It's a defense against spies, thieves, and large animals. Too bad we don't have some large animals around. We might be able to panic them into all that and short it out."

Back in the command center, Captain Murphy moved forward. "Darch? You got a high-up view of the animal life in the area?"

The tech frowned at the interruption but switched one of the screens to a broader view. "Yeah. So?"

"Hmmm… Forget them big suckers in the shallows there. They're hippos. They'd do the job but they don't exactly herd. But there's some grasslands off to the east of the lake. They wouldn't generally come into the jungle, but they could probably be convinced. See 'em?"

"No, I-oh, yeah! Look mostly asleep, though."

"Indeed they would be. They're daytimers mostly. Still and all, I don't think we're gonna sneak into that pretty place out there. That means we either just watch it or we take it down. What do you say, Sergeant? Take it down?"

Maslovic heard the exchange and examined the options. "I think he's right, troops. But it's going to take a while to set up, and in the meantime maybe we ought to sit it out for several hours. See who appears tomorrow morning. By then, maybe, we'll be in position to take this damned place and all that's in it."

They both looked like something out of another world and a far earlier age. Georgi Macouri wore a lightweight but semiformal coat and tie and matching dark Bermuda shorts; Magda Schwartz was in a long flower print dress. Both wore substantial chukka boots that provided substantial if incongruous protection.

"What a gorgeous morning, darling!" Schwartz gushed, looking at the sunrise over the lake beyond.

"Indeed. Shall we have some breakfast, my dear?" Macouri asked her.

"Oh, yes. Out here, of course."

Marcouri turned towards the front door and called, "Joshua! We will take our morning repast on the porch!"

Within a minute, a huge bearded man, easily two meters tall and dressed in white jacket and black pants, emerged from the house carrying a silver tray with two pitchers and twin cups and saucers on it. Only his gunbelt and holstered pistol seemed unusual. He approached the duo now seated at a small table on the porch and professionally put the cups and saucers on the table and then poured for both of them.

Magda Schwartz turned and looked out to her right, frowning. "Frightful noises over that way, darling! I wonder what in the world that can be?"

Marcouri nodded and turned in the same direction, cocking his ear, as he sipped his morning coffee. "Can't say, but it's not quite anything I've heard before from here."

"Goodness! You can feel the ground shaking a bit! If I didn't know better, I'd swear that was a herd of elephants approaching at full gallop! I hope the vibrations don't set off all the alarm systems!"

"Elephants! Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like!" Marcouri was on his feet. "Joshua!" he shouted. "Come at once! Everyone else to their places! I don't like the sound or feel of this!"

Schwartz looked confused and concerned. "A herd of wild elephants? Why would they be coming this way? My god, there's swamp and dense forest between their area and here! They must be frightened as hell of something!"

"Or being driven! Joshua! Bring me the shotgun!" He turned to his companion. "You wish anything, my dear?"

Magda Schwartz pulled up her flowered print dress along her left leg and withdrew a nasty looking energy rifle from a leg holster. "Not exactly in period, but sometimes one must do what one must do."

Joshua emerged, handing a double-barrelled shotgun of the type approved by the Barnum's World gamekeepers to Macouri and then drawing his own very large pistol. It looked exactly like a large caliber projectile sidearm of the approved sort, but in reality it was a powerful tight-beam ray device that could burn a hole in a hippo at short range. Its only drawback was that its power was quite limited by the need for imitation; although he had more powerpacks in his jacket, he would have only a few seconds of sustained shooting before he'd have to manually eject the dying cartridge and insert a new one.

Georgi Macouri stared in the direction of the steadily increasing sounds and vibration and shouted over the rising noise, "Magda, what would happen if a dozen full-grown elephants hit that outer fence?"

She looked suddenly at a loss and shook her head. "I don't know. It wasn't designed for an entire herd. More worrisome is the inner grid. At that speed, while the lead couple may well be barbecued, it might displace the connector foundations and bring the whole thing down!"

Macouri looked over at Joshua. "Get most everybody out here, now! Leave somebody to look over the guests, but otherwise, emergency! And call in the aerobus!"

The sound and vibration were almost unbearable now, and there was, in addition, the cracking noises and shaking of trees just beyond their direct view, telling them that whatever was coming was almost here. They almost wished that whatever it was, in fact was already here. The suspense was worse than fighting off a threat.

A half-dozen burly gunmen burst from the lodge and began fanning out along the porch, heavy weapons in hand. They were huge brutes, heavily tattooed from head to foot, mostly dressed in work pants and sleeveless undershirts. They looked like nothing so much as a cartoon of someone's vision of an old pirate crew; one or two even had nasty-looking side swords to complement their much more modern laser pistols.

Macouri felt better just seeing them there. Any one of them could blow a couple of rampaging elephants to the next planet.