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. There had been nine in that rolligon and all of them were dead.
Gwen and I got five of them between us; the gunners of the giant doughnut killed
the other four. The body count was certain because there is no mistaking a
bullet hole for a bum.
I am not counting the two, or three, I shot of the super-doughnut's crew
... because they left no bodies to count; they were somewhere over the horizon.
Our own casualties: four.
First, our own gunner, riding shotgun in the turret above the driver. I
crawled up and had a look-at one-sixth gee I can climb a vertical ladder almost
as easily as you can. Our gunner was dead, probably that first flash marked his
end. Had he been asleep on watch? Who knows and who cares now? He was dead.
But our second casualty. Aunt Lilybet, was not dead, and that was Bill's
doing. He had slapped two pressure patches onto her, fast, one on her left arm,
one on the top of her helmet-had known enough to cut off her air as he did it,
then had counted sixty seconds before he cracked the valve and let her suit
reinflate. And thereby saved her life.
It was the first evidence I had seen that Bill was even bright enough to
pound sand. He had spotted where the kit with the pressure patches was kept,
near the driver's seat, then had gone through the rest like a drill, no lost
motions and paying no attention to the fighting going on around him
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