XXVI.
"It's a strange feeling," Jason said. "I've never really seen theperimeter from this side before. Ugly is about the only word for it."
He lay on his stomach next to Rhes, looking through a screen of leaves,downhill towards the perimeter. They were both wrapped in heavy furs, inspite of the midday heat, with thick leggings and leather gauntlets toprotect their hands. The gravity and the heat were already making Jasondizzy, but he forced himself to ignore this.
Ahead, on the far side of a burnt corridor, stood the perimeter. A highwall, of varying height and texture, seemingly made of everything in theworld. It was impossible to tell what it had originally been constructedof. Generations of attackers had bruised, broken, and undermined it.Repairs had been quickly made, patches thrust roughly into place andfixed there. Crude masonry crumbled and gave way to a rat's nest ofwoven timbers. This overlapped a length of pitted metal, large platesriveted together. Even this metal had been eaten through and burstingsandbags spilled out of a jagged hole. Over the surface of the walldetector wires and charged cables looped and hung. At odd intervalsautomatic flame-throwers thrust their nozzles over the wall above andswept the base of the wall clear of any life that might have come close.
"Those flame things can cause us trouble," Rhes said. "That one coversthe area where you want to break in."
"It'll be no problem," Jason assured him. "It may look like it is firinga random pattern, but it's really not. It varies a simple sweep justenough to fool an animal, but was never meant to keep men out. Look foryourself. It fires at regularly repeated two, four, three and one minuteintervals."
They crawled back to the hollow where Naxa and the others waited forthem. There were only thirty men in the party. What they had to do couldonly be done with a fast, light force. Their strongest weapon wassurprise. Once that was gone their other weapons wouldn't hold out forseconds against the city guns. Everyone looked uncomfortable in the furand leather wrappings, and some of the men had loosened them to cooloff.
"Wrap up," Jason ordered. "None of you have been this close to theperimeter before and you don't understand how deadly it is here. Naxa iskeeping the larger animals away and you all can handle the smallerones. That isn't the danger. Every thorn is poisoned, and even theblades of grass carry a deadly sting. Watch out for insects of any kindand once we start moving breathe only through the wet cloths."
"He's right," Naxa snorted. "N'ver been closer'n this m'self. Death,death up by that wall. Do like 'e says."
* * * * *
They could only wait then, honing down already needle-sharp crossbowbolts, and glancing up at the slowly moving sun. Only Naxa didn't sharethe unrest. He sat, eyes unfocused, feeling the movement of animal lifein the jungle around them.
"On the way," he said. "Biggest thing I 'ver heard. Not a beast 'tweenhere and the mountains, ain't howlin' 'is lungs out, runnin' towards thecity."
Jason was aware of part of it. A tension in the air and a wave ofintensified anger and hatred. It would work, he knew, if they could onlykeep the attack confined to a small area. The talkers had seemed sure ofit. They had stalked out quietly that morning, a thin line of raggedmen, moving out in a mental sweep that would round up the Pyrran lifeand send it charging against the city.
"They hit!" Naxa said suddenly.
The men were on their feet now, staring in the direction of the city.Jason had felt the twist as the attack had been driven home, and knewthat this was it. There was the sound of shots and a heavy booming faraway. Thin streamers of smoke began to blow above the treetops.
"Let's get into position," Rhes said.
Around them the jungle howled with an echo of hatred. The half-sentientplants writhed and the air was thick with small flying things. Naxasweated and mumbled as he turned back the animals that crashed towardsthem. By the time they reached the last screen of foliage before theburned-out area, they had lost four men. One had been stung by aninsect, Jason got the medikit to him in time, but he was so sick he hadto turn back. The other three were bitten or scratched and treatmentcame too late. Their swollen, twisted bodies were left behind on thetrail.
"Dam' beasts hurt m'head," Naxa muttered. "When we go in?"
"Not yet," Rhes said. "We wait for the signal."
One of the men carried the radio. He sat it down carefully, then threwthe aerial over a branch. The set was shielded so no radiation leakedout to give them away. It was turned on, but only a hiss of atmosphericstatic came from the speaker.
"We could have timed it--" Rhes said.
"No we couldn't," Jason told him. "Not accurately. We want to hit thatwall at the height of the attack, when our chances are best. Even ifthey hear the message it won't mean a thing to them inside. And a fewminutes later it won't matter."
The sound from the speaker changed. A voice spoke a short sentence, thencut off.
"_Bring me three barrels of flour._"
"Let's go," Rhes urged as he started forward.
"Wait," Jason said, taking him by the arm. "I'm timing theflame-thrower. It's due in ... _there_!" A blast of fire sprayed theground, then turned off. "We have four minutes to the next one--we hitthe long period!"
* * * * *
They ran, stumbling in the soft ashes, tripping over charred bones andrusted metal. Two men grabbed Jason under the arm and half-carried himacross the ground. It hadn't been planned that way, but it savedprecious seconds. They dropped him against the wall and he fumbled outthe bombs he had made. The charges from Krannon's gun, taken when he waskilled, had been hooked together with a firing circuit. All the moveshad been rehearsed carefully and they went smoothly now.
Jason had picked the metal wall as being the best spot to break in. Itoffered the most resistance to the native life, so the chances were itwouldn't be reinforced with sandbags or fill, the way other parts of thewall were. If he was wrong, they were all dead.
The first men had slapped their wads of sticky congealed sap against thewall. Jason pressed the charges into them and they stuck, a roughlyrectangular pattern as high as a man. While he did this the detonatingwire was run out to its length and the raiders pressed back against thebase of the wall. Jason stumbled through the ashes to the detonator,fell on it and pressed the switch at the same time.
Behind him a thundering bang shook the wall and red flame burst out.Rhes was the first one there, pulling at the twisted and smoking metalwith his gloved hands. Others grabbed on and bent the jagged piecesaside. The hole was filled with smoke and nothing was visible throughit. Jason dived into the opening, rolled on a heap of rubble and smackedinto something solid. When he blinked the smoke from his eyes he lookedaround him.
He was inside the city.
The others poured through now, picking him up as they charged in so hewouldn't be trampled underfoot. Someone spotted the spaceship and theyran that way.
A man ran around the corner of a building towards them. His Pyrranreflexes sent him springing into the safety of a doorway the same momenthe saw the invaders. But they were Pyrrans, too. The man slumped slowlyback onto the street, three metal bolts sticking out of his body. Theyran on without stopping, running between the low storehouses. The shipstood ahead.
Someone had reached it ahead of them, they could see the outer hatchslowly grinding shut. A hail of bolts from the bows crashed into it withno effect.
"Keep going!" Jason shouted. "Get next to the hull before he reaches theguns."
This time three men didn't make it. The rest of them were under thebelly of the ship when every gun let go at once. Most of them wereaimed away from the ship, still the scream of shells and electricdischarges was ear-shattering. The three men still in the open dissolvedunder the fire. Whoever was inside the ship had hit all the gun trips atonce, both to knock out the attackers and summon aid. He would be on thescreen now, calling for help. Their time was running out.
Jason reached up and tried to open the hatch, while the others watched.It was locked
from the inside. One of the men brushed him aside andpulled at the inset handle. It broke off in his hand but the hatchremained closed.
The big guns had stopped now and they could hear again.
"Did anyone get the gun from that dead man?" he asked. "It would blowthis thing open."
"No," Rhes said, "we didn't stop."
Before the words were out of his mouth two men were running back towardsthe buildings, angling away from each other. The ship's guns roaredagain, a string of explosions cut across one man. Before they couldchange direction and find the other man he had reached the buildings.
He returned quickly, darting into the open to throw the gun to them.Before he could dive back to safety the shells caught him.
* * * * *
Jason grabbed up the gun as it skidded almost to his feet. They heardthe sound of wide-open truck turbines screaming towards them as heblasted the lock. The mechanism sighed and the hatch sagged open. Theywere all through the air lock before the first truck appeared. Naxastayed behind with the gun, to hold the lock until they could take thecontrol room.
Everyone climbed faster than Jason, once he had pointed them the way, sothe battle was over when he got there. The single city Pyrran lookedlike a pin-cushion. One of the techs had found the gun controls and wasshooting wildly, the sheer quantity of his fire driving the trucks back.
"Someone get on the radio and tell the talkers to call the attack off,"Jason said. He found the communications screen and snapped it on. Kerk'swide-eyed face stared at him from the screen.
"_You!_" Kerk said, breathing the word like a curse.
"Yes, it's me," Jason answered. He talked without looking up, while hishands were busy at the control board. "Listen to me, Kerk--and don'tdoubt anything I say. I may not know how to fly one of these ships, butI do know how to blow them up. Do you hear that sound?" He flipped overa switch and the faraway whine of a pump droned faintly. "That's themain fuel pump. If I let it run--which I won't right now--it couldquickly fill the drive chamber with raw fuel. Pour in so much that itwould run out of the stern tubes. Then what do you think would happen toyour one and only spacer if I pressed the firing button? I'm not askingyou what would happen to me, since you don't care--but you need thisship the way you need life itself."
There was only silence in the cabin now, the men who had won the shipturned to face him. Kerk's voice grated loudly through the room.
"What do you want, Jason--what are you trying to do? Why did you leadthose animals in here ..." His voice cracked and broke as anger chokedhim and spilled over.
"Watch your tongue, Kerk," Jason said with soft menace. "These _men_ youare talking about are the only ones on Pyrrus who have a spaceship. Ifyou want them to share it with you, you had better learn to talk nicely.Now come over here at once--and bring Brucco and Meta." Jason looked atthe older man's florid and swollen face and felt a measure of sympathy."Don't look so unhappy, it's not the end of the world. In fact, it mightbe the beginning of one. And another thing, leave this channel open whenyou go. Have it hooked into every screen in the city so everyone can seewhat happens here. Make sure it's taped too, for replay."
Kerk started to say something, but changed his mind before he did. Heleft the screen, but the set stayed alive. Carrying the scene in thecontrol room to the entire city.