stopped--probably because they couldn't be depressed far enough to aim
at him, now; that was a notorious fault of some of the newer Pan-Soviet
tanks. He had the bomb out of his pocket, when the machine guns began
firing again, this time at something on his left. Wondering what had
created the diversion, he rocked back on his heels, pressed the button,
and heaved, closing his eyes. As the thing left his fingers, he knew
that he had thrown too hard. His muscles, accustomed to the heavier
cast-iron grenades, had betrayed him. For a moment, he was closer to
despair than at any other time in the whole phantasmagoric adventure.
Then he was hit, with physical force, by a wave of almost solid heat. It
didn't smell like the heat of the tank's engines; it smelled like molten
metal, with undertones of burned flesh. Immediately, there was a
multiple explosion that threw him flat, as the tank's ammunition went
up. There were no screams. It was too fast for that. He opened his eyes.

The turret and top armor of the tank had vanished. The two massive
treads had been toppled over, one to either side. The body had collapsed
between them, and it was running sticky trickles of molten metal. He
blinked, rubbed his eyes on the back of his hand, and looked again. Of
all the many blasted and burned-out tanks, Soviet and UN, that he had
seen, this was the most completely wrecked thing in his experience. And
he'd done that with one grenade....

Remembering the curious manner in which, at the last, the tank had begun
firing at something to the side, he looked around, to see the crumpled
body in the pale violet-gray trousers and the plum-brown coat. Finding
his carbine and reloading it, he went over to the dead man, turning the
body over. He was an old man, with a white mustache and a small white
beard--why, if the mustache were smaller and there were no beard, he
would pass for Benson's own father, who had died in 1962. The clothes