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diarrhea. The thought of seeing his wife like that, and of being unable to help her-no, it was better that
he had been spared that.
But the troops that were to come at him! He would glory in their blood! He hoped to take several with
him before he died. He knew that their bullets would make holes in his body, but he also knew that the
first shot was seldom immediately fatal. He steeled himself to keep going, no matter what the pain, until
he could ram his spearpoint into the eye of the enemy, and into the eye of a second if he could, and a
third. Whatever he could manage before he dropped, that would be good enough. He knew that on either
side of him his companions in the defense of their common soil were similarly determined. Their last
supplies of food had been exhausted the day before, despite fractional rations; honorable death was all
that remained.
Now the first soldier appeared, a head bobbing near the ground, coming toward him. If only he had a
gun, he could put a bullet through it now, if he had a bullet. If he knew how to work a gun.
The bobbing head was joined by another and a third. They were coming rapidly; now they were almost
upon the trench. The man braced himself for his final effort, offering up a prayer for the souls of his
dead wife and children and for his own.
A stone flew from the right, striking the lead soldier on the shoulder. The hit was a nuisance, no more,
but the soldier turned to fire at the source-and didn't watch where his feet were going. As a result, he
stumbled right into the trench, issuing a cry of dismay as he fell.
This was so unexpected that the defender did not know what to do. He squatted there, staring at the
soldier. The soldier, disheveled but not hurt, hauled his face out of the dirt and brought his rifle around.
Mym acted. He lifted the spear and jammed it in the soldier's exposed ear, hard. The point broke off, for
it was a flimsy, homemade weapon, but the effort sufficed; the soldier gave one hoarse scream and
collapsed, blood welling out around the wound.
Mym stepped forward and caught the rifle. His experienced eye identified it as of obsolescent design, of
such ancient vintage as to suggest the Czarist Empire, but serviceable nonetheless. He whipped it about
and fired it at the next soldier coming at the trench, holing his heart. The soldier plunged, dead, into the
trench. A third one appeared, and Mym put a bullet up his nose.
Then he stood and peered out across the field. More soldiers were coming, but the defensive farmers
were giving a decent account of themselves and causing the soldiers to move with greater caution. "Take
their rifles!" Mym called to the trenches to either side of him, forcing his thought through the brain and
mouth of his host. "Get the ammunition from the bodies! Quickly! We can hold them off!" And he shot
another soldier, by way of example.
"But we don't know how to use them!" one farmer protested.
"I have figured it out!" Mym responded. "Come singly to my trench, and I will show you. It's not hard
and it's better than dying! There may be food-rations-on some of those bodies!"
Food! That thought cut through to the deepest need of the hungry farmers. One scrambled to join Mym,
who got out new ammunition, set up his rifle, showed the man the trigger, and gave it to him. "Bring it
back here when it's empty," he said; it was too complicated to explain the loading mechanism.
In this manner they soon formed a formidable cell of resistance that expanded as more rifles came on-
line. The farmers were terrible shots, but the fact that there was return fire caused the soldiers to lose
courage, and they began a disorderly retreat. The farmers were winning the day!
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Then, abruptly, it happened. The battlefield froze. No one moved. Even the bullets became anchored in
air.
Mym looked about with confusion. He had not stilled the battle! How had this come about?
Obviously this was the reason he had been brought here-someone else was using a supernatural method
to stop the battle. And that party was the enemy, for now he saw a helicopter flying away. It was above
the battlefield, evidently too high to be affected by the stasis. Perhaps it had dropped a time bomb,
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