Dr. Allen looked at the arm. In Psychlo, he said, “Not a scratch, but a good thing we put the leather lining in. That was a brave thing to do, Chong-won.”
The chief ignored his compliment. He threw down a thin knife and a small blast gun. “He had the knife in the back of his neck and the gun in his boot. I thought we might as well have them, too.”
“Are you sure he might not have had something else?” said Dr. Allen. “I don’t want to patch up any more holes in Jonnie than I have to.”
“Nothing else,” said Chong-won, “unless he bats somebody over the head with that scepter.”
“I’m sure Jonnie can duck that if it comes to a fight,” said Dr. Allen. “This Lord Schleim is a very dangerous creature.” He gestured toward the jar which held the sleeve. “Nurse, add that to our collection so we can develop some antivenin for it.”
6
Colonel Ivan lay in the dark, a flamethrower resting on the sandbags piled before him. He was at the first turning of the underground passages that labyrinthed down into the base. At every turn behind him lay more sandbagged abutments, every one of them manned.
His beard was singed off. His hands were covered with blisters.
In front of him, fifty feet away, the main entrance door, steel armored, had begun to glow from the pounding it was taking. Hot blast shots were hitting the outside every few seconds.
He had pulled his planes back in—when was that—yesterday? They were out of fuel and ammunition and of no further use in the air. Pilots were scattered below, behind the abutments.
His radio antennae had gone out. Was that yesterday too? It seemed like half a year ago.
Every mine they had planted out front had now been exploded. A thousand mines? And although the terrain out front was carpeted with strange, dismembered corpses, it had not stopped the attack.
The door was growing hotter now, gone from red to blue in some spots. How long would it last? How long could he stand the searing heat of it?
He wondered what Marshal Jonnie was doing.
Chief of Clanfearghus lay on his unwounded side, looking along the face of the rock. There was no retreat. The tunnels had caved in behind him.
They had the last antiaircraft gun that would fire. They were not using it to shoot upward now. They had it trained on the spot the enemy would most likely attack to breach the last barricade to the rock.
The firestorm that had been Edinburgh roared ceaselessly above the din of small arms fire. How long could old buildings burn?
They had thought they had the enemy halted until just now. A new ship was high, high up there. It had just arrived and it was now sending down plane after plane of troops.
There was only Dunneldeen flying now. There he came from the direction of Cornwall where he had gone to refuel.
Why hadn’t they listened to MacTyler and crowded everyone into the old Cornwall minesite? Sentiment for Edinburgh. Well, what would Edinburgh be now but ashes?
A wave of enemy troops was gathering now, getting ready for an assault upon that other entrance. He hoped Dunneldeen would live through this. The Scots, if any were left, would need him. The chief of Clanfearghus did not think that he himself would. Too much blood was coming from his side.
He wondered what MacTyler was doing now.
“Fire low into that first wave,” he told the gunner. “And keep firing as long as you have ammunition left. At least we can gae oot i’ a blaze o’ glory!”
At Singapore, the Scottish officer turned to the blaze-blackened communicator and lowered his infrabeam binoculars. “I don’t understand it.”
Tolnep marines had been using artillery to pound a hole under the atmosphere-armor cable to the north. It had cost them very dearly. They had lost twelve tanks trying to do just that. But a running group of them had rushed up to that distant cable before they could be stopped and had blown a hole wide open beneath it at a cost of five marines.
The Scottish officer had fully expected that with the next wave some of them would get to the powerhouse and turn all their power off and leave them defenseless.
But they had suddenly withdrawn.
For the past twenty minutes they had been picking up wounded and salvaging equipment and boarding launchcrafts, harassed continually by the terrestrial battle planes.
Now they were soaring up out of reach.
The Tolnep fleet was circling. Some minutes ago, the antiaircraft control men had reported all non-Tolnep ships up there had pulled out, one for Edinburgh, three more for Russia.
Now there were just Tolneps up there.
“They’re leaving!” said the Scottish officer. Well, this point at the Singapore minesite had served as a diversion that pinned enemy forces down. And for quite a while with very light losses. The cost to the enemy had been great.
While he watched, the last of his own planes pulled back. None were equipped with door seals to let them fly out of the atmosphere.
His planes were landing now. The last one came in. When its motor went off, the silence after all the constant din almost hurt the ears. There was only the sizzle of armor cable.
Way to the south and east, black smoke still soared above the ancient ruins of Singapore.
“Those ships up there are heading west!” the antiaircraft control officer called across to him. “Slightly south of west.”
“Speed?” said the Scottish officer.
“They’re still accelerating. Wait. I’m plotting this. On that course they are going to arrive at Kariba minesite. They must be low on solar charge because their speed is only about two miles a second. They would get to the Kariba site . . . in thirty-seven or thirty-eight minutes.”
The Scottish officer said to the communicator, “Warn Kariba ops they’re about to have company.”
The smoking terrain all about them showed the hell that flotilla could raise. Without the armor cable the defenders here would have been dead ten times over.
A bird sang somewhere. Funny in these charred ruins.
The Scottish officer wondered what Jonnie was doing just now. Whatever it was, they had better get a move on at Kariba. God, he was tired. Those Tolneps played rough games! If they had not pulled out so strangely, the whole force here at the Singapore minesite, armor power off, would have been slaughtered in another twenty minutes. Yes, they better look alive at Kariba.
7
It had taken a little while to get the emissaries settled back down outside. Some had wanted to change their breathing cartridges, another one or two had wanted a bite of something. Others had just strolled around, looking over the inside of the bowl, curious but friendly enough. One of them had gone so far as to haggle with a Chinese among the village refugees over buying a dog. He had never seen a dog before and he thought it was cute, especially after it snapped at him. He couldn’t understand that the Chinese, who spoke no Psychlo, refused. Five thousand credits was a lot of money to pass up. It would buy a house and farm on Splandorf, his home planet.
But they were all settled down now. Even Lord Schleim, who had done an awful lot of wandering about, chin parked most of the time on the rounded top of his scepter.
It was night. The platform was lighted with mine spots. The emissaries were seated on benches and in chairs which had been arranged in a half-circle just out of the danger range of the huge metal square. Some were still talking to one another, but they were interested.
Jonnie was standing in the middle of the platform and for a bit they wondered whether he was going to send himself someplace or something like that. The spotlights flashed off his buttons and the creature on his helmet seemed to be alive. Interesting even to a bored lord.
“My lords,” said Jonnie, “may I ask further forgiveness for absorbing your valuable time. But to settle this thing with Schleim, I fear we have to have a demonstration. It is a demonstration of excessive appetite. With your permission?”
All but the combatant lords and Schleim laughed. A demonstration of appetite. Some sort of eating contes
t? They’d seen those before. But yes, by all means go ahead.
Jonnie slapped the wand into his hand twice. Two mechanics came rushing out of the shadows with a very splendidly decorated mine cart.
And on the cart sat a dragon like the one on his helmet. It was about five feet long. It had wings. It had a neck. And it had a very ferocious head, a gaping fanged mouth, glaring red eyes and horns. And from head to tail it had spines jutting out all the way along. A gold-scaled, scarlet-mouthed dragon.
The mechanics made as if to lift the dragon down off the cart, but Jonnie warned them back as though the dragon might bite.
Schleim guffawed. Engrossed as he was in listening and knowing well it didn’t matter what the devil did, he still could not restrain himself. “That’s not a live beast!” he hectored. “That’s just a painted figure made of clay! There are more like it right over there!” And he pointed toward the unfinished works where they lay unmounted. “It’s just a hollow image!” Theatrics, good Lord; the poor fool thought he could take these lords in like they were children!
But the lords looked at him a bit reprovingly for interrupting, particularly the one behind him who leaned over and said, “Hush.” Schleim looked at him. He was a huge creature who must have had a genetic line back to trees. His skin was barklike and he had masses of leafy-looking “hair.” His arms were about a foot in diameter. Schleim decided he’d have to watch this one when he made his move. Not long now.
“Forgive Lord Schleim,” said Jonnie. “He has been under a strain and doesn’t see well.”
The lords guffawed now. “This beast on the cart,” continued Jonnie, “is called a ‘dragon.’ If you look, you will see his mother at the console over there.”
The lords looked at the bigger dragon that wrapped around the console. They laughed. His mother!
Sir Robert was standing in the door of the ops room. Behind him Stormalong, with reports in his hand, was arguing with him in a low voice. But Sir Robert was shaking his head. Finally Sir Robert said audibly, “Let the lad alone!” And Stormalong went back inside.
Lord Schleim had noticed it. Somebody had reported the flotilla somewhere? Maybe he’d have to act faster than he had planned. He cocked an ear at the sky. They would arrive and launch something into the atmosphere he could hear. That was his instruction.
“Now if you will notice,” said Jonnie, “the dragon on the cart is different from the dragon on my helmet.” He pointed to his forehead. “The tiny one has been fed.”
Yes, that one on his helmet did have a small round ball in its mouth. A small, round, white ball.
“And the one on the cart is hungry!” said Jonnie. “For your collection of data on the flora and fauna of various worlds, you should have these facts. This is an imperial dragon! It eats moons and planets!”
They thought it was a pretty good joke. Rulers were always eating up planets. Imperial diet! Get it? Good joke. The emissaries laughed. They understood it was an allegory they were watching. Clever.
Jonnie cautioned back the mechanics again, petted the clay dragon on the head soothingly. Then he suddenly put his arms under the neck and belly, the way you might catch a wild beast by surprise, and staggered back. That dragon was heavy!
The mechanics whisked away the decorated mine cart and vanished. Schleim carefully watched them as well as he could see into the shadows. Oh, they just went back and stood there watching. All right, no problem when the paralysis beam was turned on.
Jonnie had set the dragon down on the center of the platform. And now he did a most interesting thing. He leaned over the dragon’s head and he was talking into its ear.
“Very good,” said Jonnie. “I know you are hungry. SO GO EAT UP ASART!”
Out of their sight on the other side of the dragon, he reached in, heard a soft “now” from Angus at the console, and ratcheted down the time fuse lever of the ultimate bomb, lying in the dragon’s hollow belly, to five minutes. With the thumbnail of his other hand he pierced the cap of a smoke bomb used in mines to trace currents of air in shafts.
White smoke began to pour from the dragon’s mouth in jets. Ferocious!
Jonnie skipped back off the platform. Angus hit the firing button.
Jonnie’s wand pointed at the dragon. “Go! And don’t come back until you have devoured Asart! Go!”
Wires hummed.
The dragon, smoke and all, shimmered and was gone.
There was a very small recoil.
Jonnie looked at his watch. Three and a half minutes to go.
He walked back across the platform. There was a cold, cold hangover on it where it had doubled with the icy space of Asart.
“Now do any of you lords have a picto-recorder you can trust?” said Jonnie. “I do not want to use our own since you might not trust it. I want to borrow a picto-recorder, one that you can seal, that can’t be tampered with.”
The lord from Fowljopan, an empire of seven hundred worlds, said he’d oblige. He went to his apartment and got it out of his hamper. He came back and checked the loading. Jonnie made him wrap a metal seal around it and clench it and make sure it couldn’t be tampered with.
The two mechanics now rushed to the platform and laid down a gyrocage from a drone. Jonnie asked the lord from Fowljopan to lay the recorder in the gyroslots. The lord glanced at the console to make sure it wasn’t being operated, glanced up at the poles to be sure they weren’t humming, and walked to the center of the platform and put his picto-recorder inside the cage, and, as Jonnie requested, locked it down. He left the platform.
Jonnie glanced at his watch. Seven minutes had gone by. That dragon had been laid exactly on the surface of Asart. The bomb should have gone off two minutes ago. This next shot would put the picto-recorder well up from that moon and to the side.
“Now!” said Angus.
The wires hummed.
The picto-recorder and cage shimmered and vanished.
There was no recoil.
Numbers on Jonnie’s watch whirred. Thirty-nine seconds.
There was a change in the humming. There was a shimmer on the platform.
The picto-recorder and cage reappeared.
The humming went off.
There was a slight recoil.
Two mechanics rolled up the dolly the projector sat on so that it was among the emissaries.
“Now if you please, my lord,” said Jonnie to the Fowljopan, “would you please retrieve your recorder and take it to the projector and unseal it. And please be certain that it is your disk by putting a few words on the end of it. Then make sure there is no other disk or trace in the machine and put your disk in. If you please.”
Lord of Fowljopan did exactly as requested. “The recorder is ice cold!” was all he said.
Jonnie held his breath. He had a pretty good idea of what the bomb did. But he was not sure. This was the touch-and-go moment!
He hit the remote. Off went the spotlights. On went the recorder picture.
There in the dark before them was Asart, three-dimensional. There were the five ellipses which identified it.
Used to bombs and explosions, they had indifferently expected to see some high tower of dust or smoke. Actually, they had not thought, most of them, that much would happen. Jonnie had been so calm, so polite, certainly not a mood in which one engaged in war.
They didn’t see anything strange for a moment. And then as the picture rolled off the disk, they saw a hole. A hole occurring in the upper right surface of Asart. Just a hole. No, there was a bit of black around the edge of it.
Schleim, ear cocked at the sky, felt a jar of alarm. What in the name of fifty devils was going on here? But he relaxed. Bombs went boom. There were no bombs that made just a hole. The picture went off and Fowljopan’s “My voice here” came on.
“Theatrics!” laughed Schleim. “You’re engaging in nonsense!”
“My lords,” said Jonnie. “Does another one of you have a picto-recorder I can borrow?”
Yes, my Lord Dom had o
ne. He went and got it and they went through the same procedure as before.
Angus updated the time, cast the recorder to a new angle, and got it back.
Lord Dom, a little bit frightened at the implications of this to the twelve hundred worlds of his republic, had a quaver in his voice when he put it on the disk.
Jonnie hit the switches.
Asart gleamed in the dark before them.
About a hundredth of the moon had become a hole edged in curling black clouds. And just before the view went off, down in the lower left, it looked like a door had opened in the crust, not part of the growing hole.
A breath of terror trembled through the gathering. But Jonnie was not going to let it become a riot.
“You see, my lords, the dragon was hungry.” He laughed lightly. “He is also a very obedient dragon. Told to eat the moon, he is eating Asart! A very controllable dragon after all.”
Had he hit them with ice water he could not have produced a more chilling effect. Their eyes focused on him in growing horror.
Schleim broke the spell. It had occurred to him that he had a new way to guarantee success. He had a spare gun in his hamper as well as a recorder. He had just felt in his boot and discovered the weapon gone. Damn that valet! Hawvin slaves were never any good.
“All you are doing,” said Schleim, “is casting that recorder out somewhere to a model you’ve made in the hills. And you have people regulating a model for it to photograph! You’re a fraud!” And Schleim really believed it. But he had to make sure before he went off the edge. “There’s a recorder in my hamper.”
“Go get it,” said Jonnie.
Schleim rushed to his apartment. He scrambled through the hamper. Ah! Not just a spare gun but also a spare scepter hidden in the bottom, a spare with another paralysis beam in its heel. He could leave one on in a chair while he carried the other one out to turn the power cable off. Ha, ha! Three blast grenades! After he turned the beam on, he’d pitch one into the ops room and use the other two to silence anyone rushing out of another door. Perfect! He wouldn’t torture the Hawvin slave after all. Good fellow!