The professor nodded, then added a “Yes,” when the sergeant did not look his way.
“Sounds like there’s a ‘but…’ attached to that.”
“Reinforcements,” the corporal said. “Eight, that we know of. Down from nearly a dozen.”
The sergeant grunted. “It was awfully quiet work.”
“She was just here!”
“Well, now she isn’t,” the sergeant said, with a glance at the professor. “Fix that, so we can get out of here.”
From the distance, in the darkness, there came a flash of bluish light, and the sound of a man’s voice — and then another’s — crying out.
