The other three tentacles swept across the top of the Looter machine, ripping the tripod signal mast free and hurling it to the street. More electrical fireworks. Then Blade wound all three around the beam tube and jerked them sharply upward. The ten-foot tube bent upward into a curve, then ripped free of the turret. A tremendous cloud of smoke spewed out of both tube and turret, momentarily blanking out the screens.

Blade didn't wait for the smoke to clear or bother retracting the tentacles. He drove the machine forward against the side of the other one, like a bull goring a farmer. The other machine slammed hard into the nearest wall. Bits and pieces showered down with clangs and thumps. Blade charged again. This time both the wall and the side of the other machine gave. Great slabs of wall crashed down on both machines. Two of Blade's screens went dead, and metallic screeches sounded as tentacles were ripped out of their sockets.

A third charge. This time it sounded as though the end of the world had come, in a hideous, ear-splitting din of metal twisting and crumpling and tearing apart. Something smashed into Blade's turret hard enough to dent the armor and send most of the fighters sprawling. A purple glare filled the cabin as the beam-tube shorted out. Pungent smoke followed it.

Blade cut off the power. The machine dropped with a final crash six feet to the street. Everyone who had stayed on his feet until then went sprawling.

Blade unbuckled his seat belt and sprang to his feet. For a moment he felt a little unsteady on his legs, and hoped that all his teeth and internal organs were still in place. Then he drew his sword and pointed at the hatch.

«Up and at them, oh people! Capture them if possible, for they may tell us even more than their machines!»

Chara stabbed at the hatch button with the hilt of her sword. With squeaks and squeals the hatch slowly opened. Four people dove out through an opening Blade would have sworn was too narrow for one. No one was worrying about depriving Mazda of any honor now. They were all too eager to get at the Looters.

As Blade's feet hit the platform outside, something went pfffuttt from the Looter machine and something else went spannnngggg! beside Blade. One of the men let out a gasp of pain and clapped a hand to his thigh. A small metal dart gleamed there, the blood just staring to well out around it.

But the Looter machine was less than twenty feet away. Before the Looter with the dart gun could fire again, the other attackers converged on a hatch that gaped open below the nose dome. One of the women flattened herself against the hull, then threw a wad of blazing cloth in through the hatch.

The black smoke of burning teksin oil poured out of the hatch. A moment later came a raw-throaty gurgling scream. A human figure stumbled out of the hatch and fell to its knees, clothing and hair blazing. Somehow it lurched to its feet, one hand holding a small tube out in front of it. The tube spat out another dart-and this one took one of the women in the throat. She dropped her sword, swayed, and raised both hands to her throat. Then slowly she folded forward to the ground, kicked for a few moments, and lay still.

For a moment a red haze seemed to flicker in front of Blade's eyes. To bring the people so far, and now-! His breath stuck in his throat for another moment, then he charged forward.

He knocked two other fighters aside as he reached for the hatch. Both hands closed on the edge. It must have weighed two hundred pounds, but Blade ripped it free and hurled it away as easily as if it had been a playing card. Then he leaped through the opening, into the Looter machine.

Another dart clanged off the floor as Blade landed inside. He flattened himself against the forward bulkhead while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Then he whirled around and sprang up into the cockpit. A glance told him that it was full of strange shapes and strange instruments. But for the moment he didn't care about them. All that interested him now were the two remaining members of the Looter crew.

One of them was a woman. She was backing away into a corner as Blade entered. The other, a lean red-haired man, stood on one of the control consoles and aimed his dart-thrower at Blade with one hand while he drew a sword with the other.

Blade lunged forward and up. One hand chopped upward under the wrist of the hand holding the dart gun. Blade felt the other's bones splinter under the impact, heard the man scream, saw the dart gun go flying. He pivoted and drove his other fist into the man's stomach. The man doubled up and lurched forward off the console.

Blade caught him as he fell, grabbed him around the waist, and hurled him up and back as hard as he could. The man seemed to fly through the air, then jerk to a sudden halt. His mouth opened, letting out a scream and a spray of blood. His arms and legs waved frantically as he hung, impaled on the broken points of the canopy, then went limp.

Blade turned to the woman. She was still backed into her corner and had drawn a short sword. One of the people moved in with his own sword drawn. A flicker and a clack of teksin meeting metal. The attacker's sword went flying. He dove to retrieve it. The woman's sword slashed down at the back of his neck, and he jumped clear just in time.

Blade took a closer look at the woman. She was small and lithe, with curling brown hair piled on top of her head. Her eyes were wide, but with intense concentration on her opponents, not with fear. This was someone who meant to sell her life as dearly as possible.

«Don't kill her!» shouted Blade. The woman might not want to be taken alive, but she was the last chance for a Looter prisoner. He drew his own sword and moved in. The woman thrust, fast and well, but his own down-cut was faster and delivered with a much stronger arm. It beat down the woman's guard. Blade thrust high, aiming to smash the flat of his sword into the woman's head and stun her.

Instead she dropped under his thrust and came up with her sword darting at his groin. The point drove into his teksin loinguard and was held there for a moment. Blade's left hand chopped down at the woman's sword arm. She jerked it back from under the chop just in time. Blade's hand came down on the sword itself, knocking it out of the woman's hand.

Instantly she dropped into an unarmed-combat stance. One small booted foot darted out at Blade's chest in a high kick. He pivoted so that it struck his left shoulder. Then he clamped both hands on the woman's ankle and twisted, hard. The woman screamed but had to turn over on her face to keep her ankle from being twisted apart. The moment she did so, Blade lunged forward and brought the edge of one hand down across the back of her neck, just below the hairline. He struck with only a fraction of the force he could have used. The woman went limp, but a quick check told Blade that she was unconscious rather than dead.

Blade quickly stripped off the woman's belt and tied her hands tightly behind her back. He lifted her across his shoulders easily-she could not have weighed much more than a hundred pounds. Then he turned to the fighters behind him.

«Two of you go and bring our comrade with us. We shall not leave her. But we must get away from here as fast as possible, before the smaller machines come.»

The five nodded. Blade shifted the woman to a more comfortable position and led the way out into the street.