resistance to the native life, so the chances were it
wouldn't be reinforced with sandbags or fill, the way other parts of the
wall were. If he was wrong, they were all dead.

The first men had slapped their wads of sticky congealed sap against the
wall. Jason pressed the charges into them and they stuck, a roughly
rectangular pattern as high as a man. While he did this the detonating
wire was run out to its length and the raiders pressed back against the
base of the wall. Jason stumbled through the ashes to the detonator,
fell on it and pressed the switch at the same time.

Behind him a thundering bang shook the wall and red flame burst out.
Rhes was the first one there, pulling at the twisted and smoking metal
with his gloved hands. Others grabbed on and bent the jagged pieces
aside. The hole was filled with smoke and nothing was visible through
it. Jason dived into the opening, rolled on a heap of rubble and smacked
into something solid. When he blinked the smoke from his eyes he looked
around him.

He was inside the city.

The others poured through now, picking him up as they charged in so he
wouldn't be trampled underfoot. Someone spotted the spaceship and they
ran that way.

A man ran around the corner of a building towards them. His Pyrran
reflexes sent him springing into the safety of a doorway the same moment
he saw the invaders. But they were Pyrrans, too. The man slumped slowly
back onto the street, three metal bolts sticking out of his body. They
ran on without stopping, running between the low storehouses. The ship
stood ahead.

Someone had reached it ahead of them, they could see the outer hatch
slowly grinding shut. A hail of bolts from the bows crashed into it with
no effect.

"Keep going!" Jason shouted. "Get next to the hull before he reaches the
guns."

This time three men didn't make it. The rest of them were under the
belly of the ship when every gun let go at once. Most of them were
aimed away from the ship, still the scream of shells and electric
discharges was ear-shattering. The three men still in the open dissolved
under the fire. Whoever was inside the ship had hit all the gun trips at
once, both to knock out the attackers and summon aid. He would be on the
screen now, calling for help. Their time was running out.

Jason reached up and tried to open the hatch, while the others watched.
It was locked from the inside. One of the men brushed him aside and
pulled at the inset handle.