The body armor didn't help, nor did the sandbag. But on the other hand, Esau hadn't missed yet; a number of young frontiersmen hadn't. He'd been hunting with a breech-loading single-shot rifle since boyhood, had learned marksmanship at an age when the reflexes channel readily and deeply. And New Jerusalem's version of squirrels didn't hold still longer than a second. "Shooting blasters in bursts, you can't hardly miss," he'd told Jael, "once you get the hang of it. There's no recoil nor windage, and the trajectory's flat. Durn energy pulse would travel around the world and hit you in the back, if it held together good enough."

It wouldn't, of course, and Esau knew it. It would head into space on a tangent. Lieutenant Bremer, the company XO, had told them that. Nor did the pulses fall to earth. They simply lost integrity after a mile or so, and died-"unraveled" was how he'd put it.

At 1100 hours the company ground out another fifteen pushups-all they were asked for, wearing flak jackets, sandbag and helmet-and headed back to camp. They had no notion of what the afternoon held for them. But there'd be something; there always was.

Pastor Luneburger's World grew a lot of barley, so the trainees ate a lot of it as a frequent substitute for potatoes and rice. At the noon meal this day they found roast pork waiting for them, with barley, savory pork gravy, thick slices of hot, buttered whole-grain bread, crisp green beans, and a cobbler of some Luneburgian fruit. And Luneburger coffee. All with seconds if wanted.

Afterward they had thirty minutes to recover. Most napped on their cots. Then whistles brought them out in field uniforms for muster, and afterward they had the rare experience of marching to lecture with Captain Mulvaney leading them. Arriving at the lecture shed, they pumped out the now customary thirty pushups, then filed in. Captain Mulvaney was standing in front, at the lectern. When they were seated, his big voice barked, "At ease!" and the trainee chatter cut abruptly off.

"Men," he said, "today you're going to see something you've only heard about till now. You'll see cubeage of warbots in realistic simulated combat, coordinating with organic troops like ourselves. You'll find the warbots very interesting. After that you'll see cubeage of how they're constructed, and how they operate. You'll even see one of them interviewed." He paused, turning. "Corporal, begin the program."

The shed lights dimmed and the wall screen lit up. The presentation resembled a full-fledged dramatic production, opening with an interior shot of forest that had not been fought through. Artillery thundered in the distance. Squads of infantry trotted through in fighting gear, blasters in hand. Along with several seven-foot warbots roughly humanoid in form, their movements as smoothly articulated as an athlete's, though a bit different. Their laminated ceramic-steel surfaces were protected by camouflage fields whose color patterns fluctuated as they strode, mimicking the immediate surroundings. It was very effective.

A voice-over narration accompanied the visuals. A few weeks earlier the Jerries would have had serious problems with its language, but they'd been immersed in military life, and had already learned a lot.

Now the point of view followed close behind one of the infantry squads, till the organics reached the forest edge and began digging in. "This organic battalion," said the narrator, "has been bivouacked several miles back in the forest, hidden from aerial detection by a concealment field. Meanwhile, seek-and-engage actions have seriously reduced the capacity of both sides to launch aerial attacks."

When Mulvaney had first seen the cube during the briefing the day before, mention of a concealment field had troubled him. The last he'd heard, back on Terra, concealment fields were only theory. But the PR was, science was as fully mobilized as industry, and who knew what might be available by the time they left for New Jerusalem.

As far as that was concerned, who knew what weaponry the Wyzhnyny had?

The Wyzhnyny. How, he wondered, had War House learned what they called themselves?

The camera view cut to panoramic. Ahead of the troops lay farmland, with forest close to a mile away on the other side. A road ran across the middle of the open ground. Now, from the forest on the far side, a wave of armored personnel carriers emerged, supported by armored fighting vehicles. Behind them came another wave, and another-a whole series of them. "The enemy forces are shown in animation," the narrator was saying, "as realistically as technology can portray them."

Mulvaney wondered how close to reality that was. They had to be almost wholly imaginary. But the production was excellent. Neither the animation nor the battle choreography could be faulted. Trashers began to rip the Wyzhnyny as soon as they appeared, but the infantry held their fire until the Wyzhnyny had crossed the road, then began to lay intense fire on them with slammers and blasters. Immediately the Wyzhnyny returned the fire, and the fight became a melee within which Mulvaney's trained eyes could see the basic drilled-in tactics and creative responses of the troops on both sides.

Even the casualties were convincing, though it seemed to him the Wyzhnyny might be dying in unreasonable numbers. Then Wyzhnyny APFs-armored personnel flyers-sliced across the field at perhaps two hundred feet. Not a lot of them. The script writers, he recalled, had decimated them during the aerial preliminaries.

The picture cut to an oblique overhead view a few hundred yards back from the forest edge. The Wyzhnyny APFs hovered close above the trees, lowering troops on individual slings, from doors with short, stout, drop booms. Then it cut to a view within the forest. As the airborne Wyzhnyny landed, they triggered their sling releases and began forming up squads.

Suddenly warbots hit them, greatly outnumbered, but fighting with astonishing speed and power. The Wyzhnyny were slaughtered. The warbots seemed too heavily armored to be harmed by their shoulder-fired blasters. And bots, Mulvaney knew, had a backup "torso" sensorium in case their eyes and ears were knocked out.

Briefly the trainees witnessed special effects sufficient to impress even Terrans. For Jerries who'd never seen dramatic video before-or video at all till they'd come to Camp Stenders-it had to be a truly powerful experience.

The airborne Wyzhnyny were shown as effectively wiped out, the few survivors dispersed and routed. Only a handful of warbots had gone down. The remaining bots did not linger. As if on command, perhaps received by built-in radio, they turned and loped off among the trees. Mulvaney was skeptical that machines on two legs could move so smoothly.

As the final bots disappeared, the viewpoint changed again, to the close-range fighting in the forest fringe. Wyzhnyny bodies were abundant, but many humans also lay "dead." Not as many as you'd expect, Mulvaney thought. I suppose War House doesn't want to shock the trainees too badly. Then the warbots entered the fighting there, too, striking swiftly and powerfully. The Wyzhnyny gave way and, after a brief desperate moment, broke and fled across a welter of bodies. Three warbots lay disabled, presumably by heavy slammers. The camera watched the surviving Wyzhnyny gallop all the way across the fields to the forest on the far side, impelled by human fire that added more bodies to those already sprawled.

As the final Wyzhnyny disappeared into the far woods, the scene froze on the field, and music cut in, restrained but powerful. Mulvaney recognized it as "The Arrival of Alp Arslan," by the Egyptian composer Ibrahim Hakim, in his orchestral suite Manzikert. It ended with a dark and powerful closing phrase, as the visual faded and disappeared.

Then the shed's lights came on, and the recorded narration resumed. "This cube was made to show you the basic function-and the great importance!-of warbots in modern warfare. For every regiment, the table of organization calls for two warbot platoons. Without them, no infantry regiment is complete, or fully prepared for combat. You will learn much more about warbots as your training progresses."