It was hard to keep an eye on the corridor from this position, and he alternated looks at the housing with looks at the corridor. Maybe he really ought to work out how to get rid of Zzt before he went on with this. He had to duck down to see the housing. But doing something with Zzt might put an end to himself and he reminded himself that too many lives—in fact the only human lives left—depended on him. Courage aside, he mustn’t risk his neck. Bear in a cave. He decided he could chance it and ducked down.
There it was!
A huge inspection plate.
Held down by four twelve-inch nuts.
But what an unhandy place. Handy maybe for a Psychlo mechanic to reach down with huge long arms. Not handy for him.
He banged off another shot up the passageway. He ducked down and adjusted the wrench. He gripped the first nut.
Yikes, it was tight. No one-hand job with this big wrench. Psychlos didn’t know their own strength when putting nuts on.
He inspected the corridor again. He had to lay down the assault rifle to do this. He made sure the place he put it braced it reasonably so it wouldn’t slide out the door. He still had his revolver in its holster.
He eased down and, with two hands on the wrench, legs braced, heaved on the nut.
It turned!
He had learned enough about mechanics not to just undo and take off one nut. He’d find the last one wedged tight. So loosen all four about half a turn each. . . .
He had number two loosened.
He was straining at number three.
“What are you doing?” roared Zzt.
Jonnie came up. Zzt was still in his recess up there.
“You dimwitted, stupid slug!” roared Zzt. “If you monkey with those motors this thing will just crash!”
Thank you, Zzt, said Jonnie to himself.
“If you leave it alone, this thing will just land by itself in two or three days!” howled Zzt.
Actually, Zzt was getting panicky. There was something very peculiar about those shots the animal kept sending up the passageway. Right now the exhale valve on his breathe-mask had sparked slightly. For some minutes he had been aware of little tiny sparks around him. He had thought they were dust motes at first and then thought something was wrong with his eyes, that he was seeing tiny molecular flashes in his head. But this last exhale had actually sparked. Was there radiation around here? Was that animal throwing uranium dust around? Wait, were those slugs or was that gun he used operated by radiation?
He had decided he better act, regardless of consequences. Yes, there was another tiny flash when the mask exhaled spent breathe-gas into the air!
“You’ve got a mask!” roared Zzt. “This kill-gas won’t blow back in the drone. Just wait until it lands!” The stupid, filthy animal. Damn Terl!
“How about other people down there?” said Jonnie.
That shut Zzt up for the moment. He could not work out how something happening to somebody else had any bearing on what one would do for himself.
“Leave those motors alone!” screamed Zzt.
The Psychlo was getting hysterical. Maybe he would charge. Jonnie waited, rifle in hand. No, Zzt was not going to charge. He better get back to work on these nuts. He laid down the assault rifle and ducked. He took a full turn on nut number one. He came up to be sure Zzt hadn’t moved.
The fifty-pound floor plate, sailing in a deadly spin, traveling with the speed of a cannonball, struck a skid strut, glanced, and smashed into the back of Jonnie’s head.
The assault rifle flew from his clutching hand and went out into the dark. Holding somehow onto consciousness he fumbled for the revolver. There was nothing but darkness in front of his eyes.
Part 14
1
They had the compound!
A final dive of Glencannon’s battered plane had blown the air-cooling through into the compound breathe-gas pumps, flooding all the underground areas with air.
Glencannon had landed the ship safely. A hidden gun battery had blown out his instrument panel and radio, but he had not been burned and his controls still worked and he got the ship back to the ravine.
Scots, howling with joy, had pulled him out and pounded him on the back until sternly reminded by the parson that the pilot had broken ribs.
A few more bursts of assault rifles had cleaned off some snipers.
The pipe major had cut loose with bagpipes. The other piper and the drummer had thrown aside their rifles and picked up their instruments, and the high-pitched wail and low drone of pipes skirled across the compound to the beat of the drum.
The last remaining Psychlos came stumbling out of the underground with their paws on high. Oddly enough, they soon proved to be top-flight graduates of the various company schools, and their female assistants. Breathe-masks had been in short supply, having been put on combat teams who were going out to fight. But as Robert the Fox noted, these top-drawer ones had had their own personal masks. There were about thirty of them left alive.
Hundreds of Psychlos had died in the firefights and hundreds more in the air flooding. By eventual count there had been 976 Psychlos in this compound.
Ker tried to get away by crawling through an exhaust vent and was captured alive.
They got the fire system water valves and shut them off. A team raced around checking for radiation with open breathe-gas vials and it was found that water had washed it down into underground drains. The area was relatively safe.
Chrissie had been spotted by the Scots, and the news earlier rumored to that effect was now confirmed as she went about helping the parson collect wounded Scots on a flatbed that had been gotten running. She was a trifle taken aback by the enthusiasm that greeted her. She was not used to being a celebrity. And she did not realize that she had given the Scots an element called for in their romances. Everywhere she went, Scots, no matter what they were doing, rushed over to her, stared at her with glad eyes, and then rushed back to the work of getting the place handled. There was still a war on, but they could cheer and their pipes could skirl. And they could delight in the successful rescue of a fair maiden. But Chrissie, even though busy and very tender with the wounded, felt a suppressed terror that she masked. Jonnie was not here and she somehow knew Jonnie was not all right.
Scots under the direction of Angus were trying to get the tumble and jumble of forklifts operating. The whole hangar door was blocked solid with wrecked planes and they could not move any planes out. They told a worried Robert the Fox it would be hours before they could get forklifts running and get to work on that pile.
Terl tried to manage a last ploy. He got to see Robert the Fox by saying he had something urgent. They brought Terl up with hoist chains wrapped around him and held in four different directions by four brawny Scots while two others held assault rifles on him.
He told Robert the Fox that he had keys to the drone presets and would exchange them for a promise of an early teleportation back to Psychlo.
Robert the Fox said yes, if Terl could produce the keys. Terl thereupon asked for his boots.
A female Psychlo who said her name was Chirk had been found in a breathe-mask under the bed in Terl’s old quarters. So Robert the Fox went to her where she was being held under the spotlights of an otherwise wrecked mine car and asked her whether she was Terl’s secretary, and she readily said yes, she was. So Robert said he had a message from Terl for her to get the preset keys of the drone.
Chirk had had lots of time to think since Zzt sailed off on the drone for reasons of his own, and she had finally remembered about the keys. She got very cross and sent back the message that Terl must think she was very inefficient: he knew very well that he had given her a set of keys and told her to drop them in the recycling trash bin, and that had been ages ago and the keys were long gone, and if Terl was trying to blacken her company record by saying she disobeyed orders, she could do a little blackening on her own. There was something about promising her a huge home on Psychlo. She was very cross.
So Rob
ert the Fox called for Terl’s boots and examined them and found a false sole. He removed from it a very thin small blast gun.
Right now, Terl was chained up with four separate chain strands in a well-lighted field with an assault rifle on him. He kept snarling something about females.
The compound was a litter-strewn bedlam of lights and noise. There were hundreds of Psychlo bodies lying around in everybody’s way. Everything was soaking wet.
The Chamco brothers had gladly contracted for C15,000 a year with a C500 bonus for each major job. They were a little apprehensive about a counterattack from Psychlo, but pay was pay. They were laboring with the team of Scots to get radios back into operation but it didn’t look like they would earn C500 right away. Water had saturated a lot of equipment and the transshipment area was a write-off. Nobody could get a plane out into the open where its radio could broadcast, and Glencannon’s ship radio was just fused metal.
Robert the Fox walked up and down, his old cape flowing. He answered where he had to and gave orders where needed. But his mind wasn’t on it.
The twelve-hour radio silence was up and he was out of communication on the planetary band. He could not order the ships that had attacked the remote minesites to go look for the drone. He had no ships to send.
He went over to where about twenty wounded Scots were laid out in a field, being handled by the parson and schoolmaster and four old women. And Chrissie.
His eyes and Chrissie’s eyes met.
Robert the Fox felt very bad.
Jonnie had been right. It would not have done to wait for minesite-bound ships to attack the drone. They had left long before it fired and they knew nothing of it. And he could not even tell them.
He had a feeling Jonnie was in trouble.
Robert the Fox gave his head a slight shake. Chrissie looked at him steadily for a moment, swallowed hard, and then went back to work.
2
Zzt felt triumphant.
The animal had been hurt and hurt badly. It could have been better. The roll of the drone had caused a slight miscalculation in the throw, and instead of totally severing the animal’s head as he intended, the plate had hit a strut of the plane skids and then had struck the animal.
But the results had been very satisfactory. There was red blood all over the floor plates under there.
The animal had fired a new small weapon up the corridor. But in the mirror Zzt could see that the animal was passing out, coming to for an instant, and passing out again. Zzt had waited. The animal would pass out long enough for Zzt to dart forward and finish it.
However, it didn’t quite come off as Zzt had planned. The animal had crawled backward toward the back end of the drone, halting and firing a shot, backward further, firing another shot.
It had crawled into a canister-loading hole in the rear cargo space. The hole it went through was almost too small for it. It disappeared.
Zzt waited a long time and nothing else happened. Finally he crept out of his recess and, ducking into other recesses and using his mirror, got all the way back to the rear cargo bulkheads.
He tried to look in with the mirror. It was too dark in there.
He shone a torch in there. Nothing. The animal must have crawled off to the side.
Zzt tied the torch to the mirror and looked to the right. He got one very short glimpse of the animal and then a bullet hit the torch and mirror and they went flying out of Zzt’s hand. Lucky he hadn’t tried to reach in there himself.
He listened all along the bulkhead. The roar of the drone was too great to hear any breathing.
For quite a while, he expected the animal to pop out and shoot. But nothing like that happened. He finally concluded that the animal had crawled in there and died. There sure was enough blood. Bled to death, probably. Zzt beamed happily.
Well, enough! Zzt decided he better get to work.
He opened the door of the battle plane and switched on the local command channel and tried to wake up Nup. The dimwit certainly must be up there. Maybe asleep. Zzt impatiently threw on all the radio channels. That would blast the nincompoop out of his wits. Planetary had a habit of knocking in earbones at just a few hundred feet.
“Nup, you crap brain! Wake up!”
Nup’s voice came back. “Who? Who’s this?”
“Look, Nup,” said Zzt with controlled patience, “I know you are short on sleep. I know they didn’t teach you the exact solution to all this in mine school. But, I feel that under the existing circumstances you might try to cooperate!”
“Is this Zzt?”
What a dimwit, what a flutter brain with its bearings burned out! “Of course it’s Zzt!”
“And you’re down in the drone? Ah, I thought you were. But didn’t Snit fly you out? If you were—”
“Shut up,” roared Zzt. “Here’s exactly what I want you to do. Take off and land that ship just above this door. Land it close to the edge above the door so it will break the wind.”
Nup wanted to know break the wind from what?
Zzt told him very unpleasantly. Nup, with ten minutes of fuel left, hastened to comply.
Zzt intended to rob this damaged battle plane of its cartridges of fuel. He had been appalled at the skill it would take to fly it out this door. Then he had a happy thought. Maybe it carried some spares.
He got up on the seat and started to rummage in the back compartment. A whole bag of cartridges! Dozens of them!
But he saw something else. His breathe-mask exhale ports flashed. This stuff had radioactive dust on it! Of course, this wasn’t surprising for packages that had been in a radiation-bullet battle, and it was not much, but it frightened Zzt. He flung the bag of cartridges out into the passageway and jumped out to stop them before they rolled into open spaces. Holding them at arm’s length he shook the bag. He breathed on it cautiously. No flash. Good.
He opened both doors of the battle plane. He wouldn’t go near the back compartment. He did everything now at arm’s length.
He played a torch on the housings of both main drive and balance motors. His practiced eye detected a hairline crack in the right balance motor. Maybe it would run, maybe not. The crash hadn’t helped. He reached underneath it and got a paw full of wires and tore them loose, scrambled them, and laid them back unconnected but out of view. One battle plane that wouldn’t fly straight! Good.
He got down under the plane and looked at the drone’s main drive. Ah, there was his wrench. And the animal hadn’t removed the plate. Good. He put the wrench back in his boot where it belonged.
The pitch and roll of the drone changed drastically now. Nup had moved. The pitch was gone but the roll was much worse. However, it all had its good points. The drone was now crabbing and protecting the door from the wind.
Gingerly reaching for the microphone, Zzt stood well away from the plane. “You in position?” he demanded.
“It took a couple of times but—”
“All right. Do you recognize a cable ladder?”
Nup tried to explain that as a mining executive and a fully qualified pilot, he of course could recognize—
“Fasten your end of the cable ladder to the cleats opposite the seat. Drop the weighted end of the ladder down here. Then lower an ore net on a line. And then a safety wire. All into this door. Got that?”
Nup said he certainly understood it, but was there ore in the drone? He didn’t quite understand—
“Fuel cartridges! I’m going to send you up fuel cartridges.”
“Oh, my. That’s a relief! Will they fit?”
Zzt didn’t bother to answer. Of course they fit! All plane fuel cartridges were interchangeable. It was tanks to planes that didn’t match. What a crud brain!
The ladder’s weighted end came whipping down. It fell on the wrong side of the tail that was jutting out of the door. The tail was wedged over.
Zzt, feeling quite brave, reached in, waited for a correct roll of the drone, released the magnetic brake, shifted the plane with a massive heave
only a Psychlo could manage, and reset the brake. Good, now he could get the cable ladder end where it belonged. He had clearance between it and the door edge. He lashed the lower end to a floor beam.
The lowering safety wire gave trouble, for it kept flying out into the windstream. Zzt radioed Nup to haul it back. Devil with it, he didn’t need it.
Zzt reached into the battle plane and pulled out a coil of safety wire from it. Then he couldn’t figure out how to use it. He tied it to the battle plane in its proper ring but he didn’t like the idea of being tied here. Suppose the plane moved or something. He left the safety wire on the floor plates. Devil with it.
“Ore basket!” he demanded of Nup.
It came down. It was heavy enough not to fly around in the three-hundred-mile-an-hour blast of cold air. As Zzt tied the cartridge bag into it he realized he hadn’t inspected it for fuel. It probably also had ammunition cartridges in it. Well, who knew, they might need both.
As soon as they flew off he was going to gun this interior, blow this battle plane to bits and just make sure. Damn animal. Damn Terl.
A new thought hit him. It was a long way down. He better grab the jet backpack. Very gingerly, he reached an arm into the compartment and got it. There were two there. He brought out both. He threw one over the side and put the other on. Left the animal with no out. But of course the animal was dead. And good riddance. Damn Terl!
“You all set?” he demanded on the radio.
Nup said he was, but where was the fuel?
Zzt let him pull up the fuel in the ore net.
“You got it?” demanded Zzt.
“Yes, I’m trying to check . . . just let me remove the spent empties and make sure the size—”
“Blast you for a dimwitted crud! Stand by to steady that ladder. I’m sick of being down here in this crap-infested, monkey-cursed drone! I’ll take care of the refuel when I get up there. Don’t put an ammunition cartridge into the fuel sleeves! I’m coming up and right now!”
But he didn’t come “right now.” He looked at the radio and then took his wrench out of his boot and slashed the radio to bits. Of course, he’d be shooting this thing to pieces in just minutes, but caution was always best.