I tested my balance. "Uh, fine-"

He scowled. "No, it isn't. You're off balance. They're too low. Hold still." He lifted the tanks off my back and began readjusting the straps of the harness. "This torch-" he said, "-this torch is a truly beautiful weapon. It has a maximum range of sixty meters. Eighty with a supercharger. It makes you a totally independent fighting unit. You carry your own fuel, you choose your own targets, point and squeeze. Vrr-o-oomm! It'll stop a man instantly-or a worm. It'll stop a tank. It'll burn out a pillbox. There isn't anything that can resist a torch-except very thick armor or a lot of distance. It is not"-he gave a hard yank-"humane. You pull that trigger and that's not a man in front of you anymore; it's a private piece of hell. You can watch him turn black and shrivel as his blood boils out of his skin. You can feel his flesh roasting. Sometimes you can even hear the scream of the air exploding out of his lungs." He gave another sharp pull at the straps. "And that's good, Jim, that's very good. You should be right down there next to what you're doing. If you're going to be a killer, you should do it personally, so you experience what you're doing. That's the civilized way." He poked me. "That torch is not humane, but it is civilized."

My mouth was very dry. I managed to say, "Civilized-?"

"It stops them, doesn't it? Hold still, here come the tanks again. A weapon should let you sleep well at night. If it doesn't, there's something wrong with the war."

He caught me unprepared. I almost staggered. I stiffened against the weight. But he was right. The balance was better this way.

He must have seen the look on my face. "Jim-war isn't polite. Especially not this one. We don't have the time to be fair. That torch will burn a Chtorran like fluff, and that's all that matters -you don't get a second chance with worms. They come at you at a good sixty-five kilometers an hour-two hundred and twenty-five kilograms of angry worm. And they're all teeth at the business end. If it's purple, burn it. That's a standing order. You don't have to wait for permission."

"I won't."

He locked eyes with me and nodded sharply; his expression was hard. "There's one more thing. Don't ever balk because you might hit a man. Don't hesitate because you think you might be able to save him-you can't. Once a Chtorran starts eating, there's no way to stop it. It can't stop. Not even if it wanted to. Burn them both, Jim. And burn them fast. He'd thank you for it if he could." He studied my face. "Can you remember that?"

"I'll try."

"It's like that little girl. It's the kindest thing you can do."

I nodded and shouldered the flamethrower. I didn't like it; I probably never would. Too bad. "Okay," my mouth was saying. "Show me how to work it."

SIX

RECONNAISSANCE CONFIRMED that there were only three worms in the valley, as Duke had guessed, but also that they were very busy with something. When Larry reported that, Duke frowned. He didn't like worms being so active-that made them hungry.

Dr. Obama ordered satellite pictures and the USAF ROCKY MOUNTAIN EYEBALL sent us a full-spectrum series, a twelvehour surveillance of the valley and surrounding regions. The frames started arriving within an hour of Dr. Obama's request.

We all studied them, particularly the infra-red ones, but they told us little we didn't already know.

"Look here," said Larry, "the igloo." It was a bright red blotch; the frame was pseudo-color enhanced to show heat sources. "Something very hot in there. They must be large."

"And very active," grunted Duke. "That's almost too much heat." He poked Shorty. "What do you think? How much mass are we looking at?"

Shorty shrugged. "Hard to say. Three tons at least. Probably more. The resolution on the infra-red is lousy. The wavelength's too long."

"Yeah," said Duke. "I guess that settles it. We'll take three teams."

We left just before dawn. Chtorrans don't like direct sunlight, so we figured to drive all morning and catch them in the hottest part of the day, when they were most likely to be torpid. We hoped.

There were twelve of us. Four men with torches, three with grenades and two with rocket launchers. And the three jeep drivers would be carrying laser-sighted AM-280s. The 280 was recoilless and could fire twenty-three hundred rounds per minute. A mere touch on the trigger would put fifty rounds inside a seven-centimeter circle-whatever the target beam touched. You could shoot from the hip and aim it like a flashlight. The 280 could chew holes in a brick wall-it was the high volume of fire that did it. If any gun could stop a Chtorran, it would have to be the 280.

I'd heard only a single complaint about the guns-from Shorty, of course. Denver had sent up some specially loaded magazines for them. Every hundredth round was a needle dart packed with a variety of particularly nasty germs. The reasoning was that if we failed to kill the Chtorrans right away, the bugs might get them later. Shorty had snorted contemptuously. "It's in case we don't come back. That's how much faith they have in us." He looked at me. "Listen, boy-that's not the way we do it here. We plan on coming back. Got that?"

"Uh ... yes, sir."

The Remington hadn't been that hard to master. I'd spent the first couple of days starting forest fires-clearing brush and widening the scorched area around the camp; then had switched to target practice-trying to burn an asbestoid-and-wire framework dragged behind a jeep.

"Now, be careful," Shorty had warned. "If you fire too soon, the Chtorran will veer off-but you won't be able to see that until the smoke clears. By then it's too late. Wait as long as you can before firing."

"Until I see the whites of his eyes, huh?"

Shorty grinned as he got back into the jeep. "Sonny, if you get close enough to a worm to see the whites of his eyes-you're lunch." He drove off and began his run.

I missed, of course. I waited too long and nearly got knocked down by the cage.

Shorty braked to a stop, stood up in the jeep and rang a big triangular dinner bell. "Come and get it, Chtorrans! Dinner is served! Nice fresh human-not dangerous at all! Come and get it!"

I waited till he was through. "I assume that means I was too slow."

"Too slow-? Of course not. You just move too long in the same place."

We tried again. This time he drove straight at me. The jeep bounced across the field, the asbestoid worm in hot pursuit but never quite catching up. I planted my feet solidly and counted slowly. Not too soon, now...

I missed again.

This time Shorty got out of the jeep and strode back to the target. He pulled a fifty-casey note out of his pocket and stapled it to the cage. "There," he said. "I'm betting fifty C's that you can't hit it." He started back to the jeep. "You know, you really ought to learn how to run faster. Make the worms earn their lunch. We don't want any fat Chtorrans on this planet, do we?"

"We don't want any at all," I said.

"That's the idea," he grinned. "I thought you forgot. Want to try it again?"

"Yeah. This time I'll get it."

He hooked a thumb at the target. "I've got fifty caseys says you won't-prove me wrong." He gunned the engine and jolted off. While he circled, I tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. Obviously I was waiting too long to fire-but Shorty had said not to fire too soon or the Chtorran would have time to veer off.

On the other hand, if I held off too long I might not get the chance to fire at all.

Hmm. The best time to shoot had to be at just that moment when it was too late for the Chtorran to change course. But when was that? How close did a Chtorran get before the bloodlust took over? Fifty meters? Twenty-five? Hmm, think of a stampeding elephant. Call it fifteen meters....