Radar can see farther than the eye, of course, but it cannot see as accurately.
In addition we did not dare use anything but short-range selective weapons—our own mates were spread around us in all directions. If a Bug popped up and you let fly with something lethal, it was certain that not too far beyond that Bug was a cap trooper; this sharply limits the range and force of the frightfulness you dare use. On this operation only officers and platoon sergeants were armed with rockets and, even so, we did not expect to use them. If a rocket fails to find its target, it has a nasty habit of continuing to search until it finds one…and it cannot tell a friend from foe; a brain that can be stuffed into a small rocket is fairly stupid.
I would happily have swapped that area patrol with thousands of M.I. around us, for a simple one-platoon strike in which you know where your own people are and anything else is an enemy target.
I didn’t waste time moaning; I never stopped bouncing toward that anchor-corner crater while watching the ground and trying to watch the radar picture as well. I didn’t find any Bug holes but I did jump over a dry wash, almost a canyon, which could conceal quite a few. I didn’t stop to see; I simply gave its co-ordinates to my platoon sergeant and told him to have somebody check it.
That crater was even bigger than I had visualized; the Tours would have been lost in it. I shifted my radiation counter to directional cascade, took readings on floor and sides—red to multiple red right off the scale, very unhealthy for long exposure even to a man in armor; I estimated its width and depth by helmet range finder, then prowled around and tried to spot openings leading underground.
I did not find any but I did run into crater watches set out by adjacent platoons of the Fifth and First Regiments, so I arranged to split up the watch by sectors such that the combined watch could yell for help from all three platoons, the patch-in to do this being made through First Lieutenant Do Campo of the “Head Hunters” on our left. Then I pulled out Naidi’s lance and half his squad (including the recruits) and sent them back to platoon, reporting all this to my boss, and to my platoon sergeant.
“Captain,” I told Blackie, “we aren’t getting any ground vibrations. I’m going down inside and check for holes. The readings show that I won’t get too much dosage if I—”
“Youngster, stay out of that crater.”
“But Captain, I just meant to—”
“Shut up. You can’t learn anything useful. Stay out.”
“Yes, sir.”
The next nine hours were tedious. We had been preconditioned for forty hours of duty (two revolutions of Planet P) through forced sleep, elevated blood sugar count, and hypno indoctrination, and of course the suits are self-contained for personal needs. The suits can’t last that long, but each man was carrying extra power units and super H.P. air cartridges for recharging. But a patrol with no action is dull, it is easy to goof off.
I did what I could think of, having Cunha and Brumby take turns as drill sergeant (thus leaving platoon sergeant and leader free to rove around): I gave orders that no sweeps were to repeat in pattern so that each man would always check terrain that was new to him. There are endless patterns to cover a given area, by combining the combinations. Besides that, I consulted my platoon sergeant and announced bonus points toward honor squad for first verified hole, first Bug destroyed, etc.—boot camp tricks, but staying alert means staying alive, so anything to avoid boredom.
Finally we had a visit from a special unit: three combat engineers in a utility air car, escorting a talent—a spatial senser. Blackie warned me to expect them. “Protect them and give them what they want.”
“Yes, sir. What will they need?”
“How should I know? If Major Landry wants you to take off your skin and dance in your bones, do it!”
“Yes, sir. Major Landry.”
I relayed the word and set up a bodyguard by subareas. Then I met them as they arrived because I was curious; I had never seen a special talent at work. They landed beside my right flank and got out. Major Landry and two officers were wearing armor and hand flamers but the talent had no armor and no weapons—just an oxygen mask. He was dressed in a fatigue uniform without insignia and he seemed terribly bored by everything. I was not introduced to him. He looked like a sixteen-year-old boy…until I got close and saw a network of wrinkles around his weary eyes.
As he got out he took off his breathing mask. I was horrified, so I spoke to Major Landry, helmet to helmet without radio. “Major—the air around here is ‘hot.’ Besides that, we’ve been warned that—”
“Pipe down,” said the Major. “He knows it.”
I shut up. The talent strolled a short distance, turned and pulled his lower lip. His eyes were closed and he seemed lost in thought.
He opened them and said fretfully, “How can one be expected to work with all those silly people jumping around?”
Major Landry said crisply, “Ground your platoon.”
I gulped and started to argue—then cut in the all-hands circuit: “First Platoon Blackguards—ground and freeze!”
It speaks well for Lieutenant Silva that all I heard was a double echo of my order, as it was repeated down to squad. I said, “Major, can I let them move around on the ground?”
“No. And shut up.”
Presently the senser got back in the car, put his mask on. There wasn’t room for me, but I was allowed—ordered, really—to grab on and be towed; we shifted a couple of miles. Again the senser took off his mask and walked around. This time he spoke to one of the other combat engineers, who kept nodding and sketching on a pad.
The special-mission unit landed about a dozen times in my area, each time going through the same apparently pointless routine; then they moved on into the Fifth Regiment’s grid. Just before they left, the officer who had been sketching pulled a sheet out of the bottom of his sketch box and handed it to me. “Here’s your sub map. The wide red band is the only Bug boulevard in your area. It is nearly a thousand feet down where it enters but it climbs steadily toward your left rear and leaves at about minus four hundred fifty. The light blue network joining it is a big Bug colony; the only places where it comes within a hundred feet of the surface I have marked. You might put some listeners there until we can get over there and handle it.”
I stared at it. “Is this map reliable?”
The engineer officer glanced at the senser, then said very quietly to me, “Of course it is, you idiot! What are you trying to do? Upset him?”
They left while I was studying it. The artist-engineer had done double sketching and the box had combined them into a stereo picture of the first thousand feet under the surface. I was so bemused by it that I had to be reminded to take the platoon out of “freeze”—then I withdrew the ground listeners from the crater, pulled two men from each squad and gave them bearings from that infernal map to have them listen along the Bug highway and over the town.
I reported it to Blackie. He cut me off as I started to describe the Bug tunnels by co-ordinates. “Major Landry relayed a facsimile to me. Just give me co-ordinates of your listening posts.”
I did so. He said, “Not bad, Johnnie. But not quite what I want, either. You’ve placed more listeners than you need over their mapped tunnels. String four of them along that Bug race track, place four more in a diamond around their town. That leaves you four. Place one in the triangle formed by your right rear corner and the main tunnel; the other three go in the larger area on the other side of the tunnel.”
“Yes, sir.” I added, “Captain, can we depend on this map?”
“What’s troubling you?”
“Well…it seems like magic. Uh, black magic.”
“Oh. Look, son, I’ve got a special message from the Sky Marshal to you. He says to tell you that map is official…and that he will worry about everything else so that you can give full time to your platoon. Follow me?”
“Uh, yes, Captain.”
“But the Bugs can burrow mighty fast, so you give special
attention to the listening posts outside the area of the tunnels. Any noise from those four outside posts louder than a butterfly’s roar is to be reported at once, regardless of its nature.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When they burrow, it makes a noise like frying bacon—in case you’ve never heard it. Stop your patrol sweeps. Leave one man on visual observation of the crater. Let half your platoon sleep for two hours, while the other half pairs off to take turns listening.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You may see some more combat engineers. Here’s the revised plan. A sapper company will blast down and cork that main tunnel where it comes nearest the surface, either at your left flank, or beyond in ‘Head Hunter’ territory. At the same time another engineer company will do the same where that tunnel branches about thirty miles off to your right in the First Regiment’s bailiwick. When the corks are in, a long chunk of their main street and a biggish settlement will be cut off. Meanwhile, the same sort of thing will be going on a lot of other places. Thereafter—we’ll see. Either the Bugs break through to the surface and we have a pitched battle, or they sit tight and we go down after them, a sector at a time.”
“I see.” I wasn’t sure that I did, but I understood my part: rearrange my listening posts; let half my platoon sleep. Then a Bug hunt—on the surface if we were lucky, underground if we had to.
“Have your flank make contact with that sapper company when it arrives. Help ’em if they want help.”
“Right, Cap’n,” I agreed heartily. Combat engineers are almost as good an outfit as the infantry; it’s a pleasure to work with them. In a pinch they fight, maybe not expertly but bravely. Or they go ahead with their work, not even lifting their heads while a battle rages around them. They have an unofficial, very cynical and very ancient motto: “First we dig ’em, then we die in ’em,” to supplement their official motto: “Can do!” Both mottoes are literal truth.
“Get on it, son.”
Twelve listening posts meant that I could put a half squad at each post, either a corporal or his lance, plus three privates, then allow two of each group of four to sleep while the other two took turns listening. Navarre and the other section chaser could watch the crater and sleep, turn about, while section sergeants could take turns in charge of the platoon. The redisposition took no more than ten minutes once I had detailed the plan and given out bearings to the sergeants; nobody had to move very far. I warned everybody to keep eyes open for a company of engineers. As soon as each section reported its listening posts in operation I clicked to the wide circuit: “Odd numbers! Lie down, prepare to sleep…one…two…three…four…five—sleep!”
A suit is not a bed, but it will do. One good thing about hypno preparation for combat is that, in the unlikely event of a chance to rest, a man can be put to sleep instantly by post-hypnotic command triggered by someone who is not a hypnotist—and awakened just as instantly, alert and ready to fight. It is a life-saver, because a man can get so exhausted in battle that he shoots at things that aren’t there and can’t see what he should be fighting.
But I had no intention of sleeping. I had not been told to—and I had not asked. The very thought of sleeping when I knew that perhaps many thousands of Bugs were only a few hundred feet away made my stomach jump. Maybe that senser was infallible, perhaps the Bugs could not reach us without alerting our listening posts.
Maybe—But I didn’t want to chance it.
I clicked to my private circuit. “Sarge—”
“Yes, sir.”
“You might as well get a nap. I’ll be on watch. Lie down and prepare to sleep…one…two—”
“Excuse me, sir. I have a suggestion.”
“Yes?”
“If I understand the revised plan, no action is expected for the next four hours. You could take a nap now, and then—”
“Forget it, Sarge! I am not going to sleep. I am going to make the rounds of the listening posts and watch for that sapper company.”
“Very well, sir.”
“I’ll check number three while I’m here. You stay here with Brumby and catch some rest while I—”
“Johnnie!”
I broke off. “Yes, Captain?” Had the Old Man been listening?
“Are your posts all set?”
“Yes, Captain, and my odd numbers are sleeping. I am about to inspect each post. Then—”
“Let your sergeant do it. I want you to rest.”
“But, Captain—”
“Lie down. That’s a direct order. Prepare to sleep…one…two…three—Johnnie!”
“Captain, with your permission, I would like to inspect my posts first. Then I’ll rest, if you say so, but I would rather remain awake. I—”
Blackie guffawed in my ear. “Look, son, you’ve slept for an hour and ten minutes.”
“Sir?”
“Check the time.” I did so—and felt foolish. “You wide-awake, son?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.”
“Things have speeded up. Call your odd numbers and put your even numbers to sleep. With luck, they may get an hour. So swap ’em around, inspect your posts, and call me back.”
I did so and started my rounds without a word to my platoon sergeant. I was annoyed at both him and Blackie—at my company commander because I resented being put to sleep against my wishes; and as for my platoon sergeant, I had a dirty hunch that it wouldn’t have been done if he weren’t the real boss and myself just a figurehead.
But after I had checked posts number three and one (no sounds of any sort, both were forward of the Bug area), I cooled down. After all, blaming a sergeant, even a fleet sergeant, for something a captain did was silly. “Sarge—”
“Yes, Mr. Rico?”
“Do you want to catch a nap with the even numbers? I’ll wake you a minute or two before I wake them.”
He hesitated slightly. “Sir, I’d like to inspect the listening posts myself.”
“Haven’t you already?”
“No, sir. I’ve been asleep the past hour.”
“Huh?”
He sounded embarrassed. “The Captain required me to do so. He placed Brumby temporarily in charge and put me to sleep immediately after he relieved you.”
I started to answer, then laughed helplessly. “Sarge? Let’s you and I go off somewhere and go back to sleep. We’re wasting our time; Cap’n Blackie is running this platoon.”
“I have found, sir,” he answered stiffly, “that Captain Blackstone invariably has a reason for anything he does.”
I nodded thoughtfully, forgetting that I was ten miles from my listener. “Yes. You’re right, he always has a reason. Mmm…since he had us both sleep, he must want us both awake and alert now.”
“I think that must be true.”
“Mmm…any idea why?”
He was rather long in answering. “Mr. Rico,” he said slowly, “if the Captain knew he would tell us; I’ve never known him to hold back information. But sometimes he does things a certain way without being able to explain why. The Captain’s hunches—well, I’ve learned to respect them.”
“So? Squad leaders are all even numbers; they’re asleep.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alert the lance of each squad. We won’t wake anybody…but when we do, seconds may be important.”
“Right away.”
I checked the remaining forward post, then covered the four posts bracketing the Bug village, jacking my phones in parallel with each listener. I had to force myself to listen, because you could hear them, down there below, chittering to each other. I wanted to run and it was all I could do not to let it show.
I wondered if that “special talent” was simply a man with incredibly acute hearing.
Well, no matter how he did it, the Bugs were where he said they were. Back at O.C.S. we had received demonstrations of recorded Bug noises; these four posts were picking up typical nest noises of a large Bug town—that chittering which may be their speech (though why should they need to talk if
they are all remotely controlled by the brain caste?), a rustling like sticks and dry leaves, a high background whine which is always heard at a settlement and which had to be machinery—their air conditioning perhaps.
I did not hear the hissing, cracking noise they make in cutting through rock.
The sounds along the Bug boulevard were unlike the settlement sounds—a low background rumble which increased to a roar every few moments, as if heavy traffic were passing. I listened at post number five, then got an idea—checked it by having the stand-by man at each of the four posts along the tunnel call out “Mark!” to me each time the roaring got loudest.
Presently I reported. “Captain—”
“Yeah, Johnnie?”
“The traffic along this Bug race is all moving one way, from me toward you. Speed is approximately a hundred and ten miles per hour, a load goes past about once a minute.”
“Close enough,” he agreed. “I make it one-oh-eight with a headway of fifty-eight seconds.”
“Oh.” I felt dashed, and changed the subject. “I haven’t seen that sapper company.”
“You won’t. They picked a spot in the middle rear of ‘Head Hunter’ area: Sorry, I should have told you. Anything more?”
“No, sir.” We clicked off and I felt better. Even Blackie could forget…and there hadn’t been anything wrong with my idea. I left the tunnel zone to inspect the listening post to right and rear of the Bug area, post twelve.
As with the others, there were two men asleep, one listening, one stand-by, I said to the stand-by, “Getting anything?”
“No, sir.”
The man listening, one of my five recruits, looked up and said, “Mr. Rico, I think this pickup has just gone sour.”
“I’ll check it,” I said. He moved to let me jack in with him.
“Frying bacon” so loud you could smell it!
I hit the all-hands circuit. “First platoon up! Wake up, call off, and report!”