She risked looking up and saw a Neoander coming out into a place from which he had clear air to that bucky on the boulder. It wasn’t Bard. It was a Red grunt in military kit. He reached out and closed his right hand on one of the chains flying around him, arresting its movement. At the same time the chain parted on the opposite side of his body and turned into a whip. It lashed out directly at the bucky on the boulder. Its shape and course were visible at first. Then it accelerated through the sound barrier and became invisible, known only by its results: a sonic bang, the complete disintegration of the bucky, and the toppling of the little sapling, cut clean through. The whip slowed as it arced back in the general direction of its owner, and, like a snake in space, reorganized itself into another flying aitrain spinning in the opposite direction from before. Having thus eliminated a robotic sentry on what to him was the left flank, the Neoander drew back toward the center of the action and disappeared from Kathree’s view.