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its
joints were as flexible as the joints of a living creature, and the way that
the head was moving from side to side as it tried to get its legs through the
jagged split in the wall was surely suggestive of something searching for a
sight of its prey. The head could swivel through three hundred and sixty degrees,
and it was mounted with four shiny black lenses which probably gave it vision
in depth in all directions. It also had a rigid proboscis that looked ominously
like the barrel of a gun.
    But it didn't have vision in depth in all directions
for long, because Susarma Lear had been far enough away on the curving path to
be shielded from the blast, and she already had the Scarid crash gun in her
hand. Whether it was a lucky shot or whether she'd been practising I didn't
know, but the first bullet she fired hit one of those black lenses smack in the
centre, and blew it to smithereens.
    One of those grasping hands immediately reached for
her, striking with awesome speed. I had the uncomfortable feeling that if it
had grabbed her it could have broken her in two with its clutch, but the act of
turning sideways jammed the thing firmly in the narrow fissure through which it
was trying to haul its ungainly body, and when the pincers clicked shut at the
limit of the arm's expansion, she was all of ten centimetres out of reach. The
monster spat fire, dragon-fashion, revealing that its proboscis was some kind
of flamer, but the firebolt missed by a couple of metres.
    Anyone with an ordinary capacity for fear would have
run like hell, but the colonel was anything but ordinary. She watched the
groping hand close and withdraw, not moving her feet at all, and as soon as she
had the space she put her gun-hand forward again, supporting it at the elbow
with her left, and took a quick but careful sight of that wheel- mounted head.
    Her second bullet hit the skull-cap a mere half-centimetre
away from the rim of a second eye, and ricocheted harmlessly away. I couldn't
hear her because of the cacophonous complaints of the insects, but I saw her
lips move and I could easily imagine the manner of her cursing.
    I saw—as she must have seen—that the colossal mantis
had taken advantage of the miss to haul a bit more of its bulk through the
scissored cleft in the wall, and that it only needed one last wriggle to get
its entire carcass into the garden. I think I shouted at her to run, but there
was no way she could hear me. As usual, it was an utterly futile gesture,
because she was undoubtedly better at judging these circumstances than I was,
and she wasn't about to hang around for the next flame-bolt or the next
attempted snatch at her midriff. She was already backing away, although she had
the gun raised, anxious to try a third shot if she could balance herself—the
Scarid gun wasn't an easy weapon to use because of the recoil kick.
    While I was watching, fearful for her life, I'd carelessly forgotten my own
troubles, and it was with a sense of desperate astonishment that I noticed the
second arm flashing out in my direction,
ambitious to grab my shoulder and pluck me out of my hidey-hole in the bushes.
Even with its eyes at seventy- five-percent strength, the monster was obviously
capable of paying attention to two targets at once.
    I ducked, wishing fervently that for once my reflexes
wouldn't let me down—I had long ago come to the conclusion that I was at the
end of the queue when instincts were handed out, and that the stupid set I'd
been born with was absolutely not to be trusted. But my luck was still holding;
like Susarma, I was just out of reach, and the mechanical grab went back
empty-handed.
    Knowing only too well that it would get me next time,
I turned and ran. A purple flower to my left suddenly turned into a firework,
and I knew that the head was pointing my way now. Panic spurred me on, but
running wasn't easy. The plants were just too tightly-packed, and even though
their stems and branches weren't woody at all, they were