VII
He looked at his watch, as the light airjeep let down into the street.Oh-one-fifteen--two hours and a half since the mutiny at thenative-troops barracks had broken out. The Company reservation wasstill ablaze with lights, and over the roof of the hospital anddispensary and test-lab he could see the glare of the burningbarracks. There was more fire-glare to the south, in the direction ofthe mine-equipment park and the mine-labor camp, and from thatdirection the bulk of the firing was to be heard.
The driver, a young lieutenant, slid back the duraglass canopy for himto climb in, then snapped it into place when he had strapped himselfinto his seat, and hit the controls.
They lifted up, the driver turning the nose of the airjeep in thedirection of the flames and explosions and magnesium-lights to thesouth and tapping his booster-button gently. The vehicle shot forwardand came floating in over the scene of the fighting. The situation-mapat the improvised headquarters had shown a mixture of pink and whitepills in the mine-equipment park; something was going to have to bedone about the lag in correcting it, for the area was entirely in thehands of loyal Company troops, and the mob of laborers and mutinoussoldiers had been pushed back into the temporary camp where theworkers had been gathered to await transportation to the Arctic. As hehad feared, the rioting workers, many of whom were trained to handlecontragravity equipment, had managed to lift up a number ofdump-trucks and power-shovels and bulldozers, intending to use them asimprovised air-tanks, but Jarman's combat-cars had gotten on the jobpromptly and all of these had been shot down and were lying inwreckage, mostly among the rows of parked mining-equipment.
* * * * *
From the labor-camp, a surprising volume of fire was being directedagainst the attack which had already started from the retakenequipment-park.
Hovering above the fighting, aloof from it, he saw six longtroop-carriers land and disgorge Kragan Rifles who had been releasedby the liquidation of resistance at the native-troops barracks. Alittle later, two air-tanks floated in, and then two more, going offcontragravity and lumbering forward on treads to fire their 90-mm.rifles. At the same time, combat-cars swooped in, banging away withtheir lighter auto-cannon and launching rockets. The titaniumprefab-huts, set up to house the laborers and intended to be takennorth with them for their stay on the polar desert, were simply wipedaway. Among the wreckage, resistance was being blown out like thelights of a candelabrum.
He took up the hand-phone and called HQ.
"Von Schlichten; what's the wavelength of the officer in command atthe equipment-park?"
A voice at the telecast station furnished it; he punched it out.
"Von Schlichten, right overhead. That you, Major Falkenberg? Nicegoing, major; how are your casualties?"
"Not too bad. Twenty or thirty Kragans and loyal Skilkans, and eightTerrans killed; about as many wounded."
"Pretty good, considering what you're running into. Get many of yourKragans mounted on those hipposaurs?"
"About a hundred; a lot of 'saurs got shot, while we were leading themout from the stables."
"Well, I can see geeks streaming away from the labor-camp, out thesouth end, going in the direction of the river. Use what cavalry youhave on them, and what contragravity you can spare. I'll drop a fewflares to show their position and direction."
Anticipating him, the driver turned the airjeep and started toward thedry Hoork River. Von Schlichten nodded approval and told him torelease flares when over the fugitives.
"Right," Falkenberg replied. "I'll get on it at once, general."
"And start moving that mine-equipment up into the Company area. Someof it we can put into the air; the rest we can use to buildbarricades. None of it do we want the geeks getting hold of, and theequipment-park's outside our practical perimeter. I'll send people tohelp you move it."
"No need to do that, sir; I have about a hundred and fifty loyal NorthUllrans--foremen, technicians, overseers--who can handle it."
"All right. Use your own judgment. Put the stuff back of thenative-troops barracks, and between the power-plant and the Companyoffice-buildings, and anywhere else you can." The lieutenant nudgedhim and pushed a couple of buttons on the dashboard. "Here go theflares, now."
* * * * *
Immediately, a couple of airjeeps pounced in, to strafe the fleeingenemy. Somebody must have already been issuing orders on anotherwavelength; a number of Kragans, riding hipposaurs, were gallopinginto the light of the flares.
"Now, let's have a look at the native barracks and themaintenance-yards," he said. "And then, we'll make a circuit aroundthe Reservation, about two-three miles out. I'm not happy about whereFirkked's army is."
The driver looked at him. "I've been worrying about that, too, sir,"he said. "I can't understand why he hasn't jumped us, already. I knowit takes time to get one of these geek armies on the road, but...."
"He's hoping our native-troops and the mine laborers will be able towipe us out, themselves," von Schlichten said.
There was nothing going on in the area between the native barracksand the mountains except some sporadic firing as small patrols ofKragans clashed with clumps of fleeing mutineers. All the barracks,even those of the Rifles, were burning; the red-and-yellowdanger-lights around the power-plant and the water-works and theexplosives magazines were still on. Most of the floodlights were stillon, and there was still some fighting around the maintenance-yard. Itlooked as though the survivors of the Tenth N.U.N.I. were in a fewsmall pockets which were being squeezed out.
There was nothing at all going on north of the Reservation; thecountryside, by day a checkerboard of walled fields and smallvillages, was dark, except for a dim light, here and there, where theoccupants of some farmhouse had been awakened by the noise of battle.
Then, two miles east of the Reservation, he caught a new sound--theflowing, riverlike, murmur of something vast on the move.
"Hear that, lieutenant?" he asked. "Head for it, at about a thousandfeet. When we're directly above it, let go some flares."
"Yes, sir." The younger man had lowered his voice to a whisper.
"That's geeks; headed for the Reservation."
"Maybe Firkked's army," von Schlichten thought aloud. "Or maybe a citymob."
* * * * *
The noises were growing clearer, louder. He picked up the phone andpunched the wavelength of the military airport.
"Von Schlichten; my compliments to Colonel Jarman. Tell him there's ageek mob, or possibly Firkked's regulars, on the main highway fromSkilk, two miles east of the Reservation. Get some combatcontragravity over here, at once. We'll light them up for you. Andtell Colonel Jarman to start flying patrols up and down along theHoork River; this may not be the only gang that's coming out to seeus."
The sounds were directly below, now--the scuffing of horny-soled feeton the dirt road, the clink and rattle of slung weapons, the clickingand squeaking of Ullran voices.
The lieutenant said: "Here go the flares, sir."
Von Schlichten shut his eyes, then opened them slowly. The driver,upon releasing the flares, had nosed up, banked, turned, and wascoming in again, down the road toward the advancing column. VonSchlichten peered into his all-armament sight, his foot on themachine-gun pedal and his fingers on the rocket buttons. The highwaybelow was jammed with geeks, and they were all stopped dead andstaring upward, as though hypnotized by the lights. It was obviously amob. A second later, they had recovered and were shooting--not at theairjeep, but at the four globes of blazing magnesium. Then he had theclose-packed mass of non-humanity in his sights; he tramped the pedaland began punching buttons. He still had four rockets left by the timethe mob was behind him.
"All right, let's take another pass at them. Same direction."
The driver put the airjeep into a quick loop and came out of it infront of the mob, who now had their backs turned and were staring inthe direction in which they had last seen the vehicle. Again, vonSchl
ichten plowed them with rockets and harrowed them with his guns.Some of the Skilkans were trying to get over the high fences on eitherside of the road--really stockades of petrified tree-trunks. Otherswere firing, and this time they were shooting at the airjeep. It tookone hit from a heavy shellosaur-rifle, and immediately the driverbanked and turned away from the road, heading back.
"Dammit, why did you do that?" von Schlichten demanded, lifting hisfoot from the gun-pedal. "Are you afraid of the kind of popguns thosegeeks are using?"
"I am not afraid to risk my vehicle, or myself, sir," the lieutenantreplied, with the extreme formality of a very junior officer chewingout a very senior one. "I am, however, afraid to risk my passenger.Generals are not expendable, sir."
He was right, of course. Von Schlichten admitted it. "I'm too old toplay cowboy, like this," he said. "Back to the Reservation; telecaststation."
Looking back over his shoulder, he saw eight or ten more flaresalight, and the ground-flashes of exploding shells and rockets; theair above the road was sparkling with gun-flames. Jarman must have hadsome contragravity ready to be sent off on the instant.
* * * * *
While he had been out, somebody had gotten a TV-pickup mounted on acontragravity-lifter and run up to two thousand feet, on the end of asteel-tough tensilon mooring-line. The big circular screen was lit,showing the whole Company Reservation, with the surroundingcountryside foreshortened by perspective to the distant lights ofSkilk. The map had been taken up from the floor, and a bigterrain-board had been brought in from the Chief Engineer's office andset up in its place. In front of the screen, Paula Quinton, BarneyMordkovitz, Colonel Cheng-Li, and, conspicuously silent, JulesKeaveney, sat drinking coffee and munching sandwiches. Half a dozenTerrans, of both sexes, were working furiously to get the markerswhich replaced the pink and white pills placed on the board, and oneof Captain Inez Malavez' non-coms, with a headset, was getting combatreports directly from the switchboard. Everything was clicking likewell-oiled machinery.
On the TV-screen, the Residency area was ablaze with light, and sowere the ship-docks, the airport and spaceport, the shops, and themaintenance-yard. On the terrain-board, the latter was now marked ascompletely in Company hands. The ruins of the native-troops barrackswere still burning, and there was a twinkle of orange-red here andthere among the ruins of the labor-camp. Much of the equipment for thePolar mines had already been shifted into defensible ground. The restof the circle was dark, except for the distant lights of Skilk, wherethe nuclear power plant was apparently still functioning in nativehands.
Then, without warning, a spot of white light blazed into beingsouth-east of the Company area and south-west of Skilk, followed byanother and another. Instantly, von Schlichten glanced up at the rowof smaller screens, and on one of them saw the view as picked up by apatrolling airjeep.
The army of King Firkked of Skilk had finally put in its appearance,about three miles south of the Reservation. The Skilkan regulars hadbeen marching in formation, some on the road and some along parallellanes and paths. They had the look of trained and disciplined troops,but they had made the same mistake as the rabble that had been shot upon the north side of the Reservation. Unused to attack from the air,they had all halted in place and were gaping open-mouthed, their opalteeth gleaming in the white flare-light.
* * * * *
In the big screen, it could be seen that Colonel Jarman had thrownmost of his available contragravity at them, including the combat-carsthat had already started to form the second wave of the attack on themob to the north. Other flares bloomed in the darkness, and the fierytrails of rockets curved downward to end in yellow flashes on theground.
The airjeep with the pickup circled back; the troops on the road andin the adjoining fields had broken. The former were caught between thefences which made Ullran roads such deathtraps when under air-attack.The latter had dispersed, and were running away, individually and bysquads; at first, it looked like a panic, but he could see officerssignalling to the larger groups of fugitives to open out, apparentlydirecting the flight. By this time, there were ten or twelvecombat-cars and about twenty airjeeps at work. In the moving view fromthe pickup-jeep, he saw what looked like a 90-mm. rocket land in themiddle of a company that was still trying to defend itself withsmall-arms fire on the road, wiping out about half of them.
"The next time they're air-struck, they won't stay bunched,"Mordkovitz stated. "A lot of them didn't stay bunched this time, ifyou noticed. And they'll keep out from between the fences."
In the large screen, a quick succession of gun-flashes leaped up fromthe direction of the Hoork River; shells began bursting over the sceneof the attack. The screen tuned to the pickup on the airjeep wentdead; in the big screen, there was a twinkling of falling fire. Almostat once, thirty or forty rocket-trails converged on the gun-position,and, for a moment, explosions burned like a bonfire.
"They had a 75-mm. at the rear of the column," somebody called fromthe big switchboard. "Lieutenant Kalanang's jeep was hit; LieutenantVermaas is cutting in his pickup on the same wavelength."
* * * * *
The small screen lighted again. In the big screen, a cluster ofmagnesium-lights then appeared above where the Skilkan gun had been;in the small screen, there was a stubbled grain-field, pocked withcraters, and the bodies of fifteen or twenty natives, all rather badlymangled. An overturned and apparently destroyed 75-mm. gun lay on itsside.
"As far as we know, that was the only 75-mm. gun Firkked had," ColonelCheng-Li said. "He has at least six, possibly ten, 40-mm's. It's awonder we haven't seen anything of them."
"Well, there's no way of being sure," Jules Keaveney said, "but I havean idea they're all at or around the Palace. Firkked knows about howmuch contragravity we have. He's probably wondering why we aren'tbombing him, now."
"He doesn't know we've sold the Palace to King Jonkvank for an army,"von Schlichten said. "And that reminds me; how much contragravitycould Firkked scrape together, for an attack on us? I've beenexpecting a geek Luftwaffe over here, at any moment."
Colonel Cheng-Li studied the smoking tip of his cigarette for amoment. "Well, Firkked owns, personally, three ten-passenger aircars,a thing like a troop-carrier that he transports some of his courtiersaround in, four airjeeps armed with a pair of 15-mm. machine-gunsapiece, and two big lorries. There are possibly two hundred vehiclesof all types in Skilk and the country around, but some of them are inthe hands of natives friendly to us."
Von Schlichten nodded. "And there'll be oodles ofthermoconcentrate-fuel, and blasting explosives. Colonel Quinton,suppose you call Ed Wallingsby, the Chief Engineer, right away; havehim commissioned colonel. Tell him to get to work making this placesecure against air-attack, to consult with Colonel Jarman, and to getthose geeks Leavitt has penned in the repair-dock at the airport anduse them to dig slit-trenches and fill sandbags and so on. He can useKragan limited-duty wounded to guard them.... Mr. Keaveney, you'llbegin setting up something in the way of an ARP-organization. You'llhave to get along on what nobody else wants. You will also consultwith Colonel Jarman, and with Colonel Wallingsby. Better get startedon it now. Just think of everything around here that could go wrong incase of an air attack, and try to do something about it in advance."