He got into the plane and rummaged about. He found a bag of explosives and emptied it. He had six limpet mines, a long coil of blasting cord, some boxes of blasting caps. He looked for time fuses. None. He looked at the limpet mines. No time fuses, only contact buttons that would explode them when heavily jarred. No electrical cord.
It was an awful effort to think, to concentrate on just one thing. What could he do with this mess? Straight contact! Suicide stuff!
He found his own belt pouch. Some flints, pieces of glass . . . ah, a roll of long buckskin thongs. At least he could get the nuts off.
Encouraged, he somehow got down to the inspection plate again. He did a binding wind for the first turn and then wound the thong around and around the nut. He tied a hand loop onto the remaining end. He braced himself and gave a heavy yank. The nut spun off, leaped up, and vanished into the dark hold.
Even though the yank had almost torn his head apart, he repeated the action with the other three nuts. Gone!
He struggled to lift the heavy plate. He had intended to just lay it aside but it slipped from his gloved fingers and fell into the darkness of the drone’s belly. Let it go!
Now he was staring into the black interior of the housing. There were some small electrical sparks arcing in there. He knew very well you were not supposed to get into a motor when it was running. And certainly not put a hand to one. It was said it gave a paw a funny feeling like it wasn’t there, and then was, and then wasn’t there. One could lose a paw, Ker had said.
He painfully lifted himself to the ship again and found a spare torch and went back and shone the light inside the housing.
There were all the thousands of coordinate points jutting out from the inside skin. They were smoothly arcing as they translated progressive space. It wasn’t electricity really; it was energy driven up to the arc point, and then these arc points did a conversion to space coordinates in terms of pure space. The electricity just kept little motors running behind the points. This thing must have thousands of submotors behind those points. And they could be damaged. It wasn’t armored in there.
The light shining into it looked funny. It was appearing and disappearing in a flutter. Well, a blast could wreck those translation motors and the points. Flicker or no flicker. A small submotor was a small submotor, and a blast would disable them. The space converter wouldn’t convert anymore, and this thing would simply go unpowered and crash. He didn’t think the balance motors could support the mammoth drone by themselves. Yes, it would crash.
He drew back. Leaning forward was bringing on the blackness again. He mustn’t pass out anymore. That was final. He mustn’t pass out anymore.
In the plane he gritted his teeth and stayed conscious. He had to work out a rig. Nothing but contact firing devices. What could he use to detonate them?
The plane’s guns!
He would rig it so he would fire the guns and blow the plane backward out the door.
An inspection of the battle plane gun panel revealed no damage. The console was not damaged. He looked at the housings of the plane’s main and balance motors. Was that a scrap of wire on the floor? But when he leaned forward to see closer he started to black out again and stood up.
Time! He had better work fast. He might even be too late now and crash this thing in the hills with the gas blowing all over.
This nausea was just hunger, that was all. He picked up some dried venison and lifted his mask. But chewing on it was an effort. It made him feel worse.
What was he doing? He must concentrate! Not just his mind but even his actions were wandering.
He got a spare safety wire and started to tie the mines together in a long string. They had magnetic grips to hold them to hulls. He had asked for them, thinking he could drop them in a circle on top of the drone and blow an entry hole in. Useless for that, but he would put them to work now.
A garland. Chrissie, when she was a little girl, used to make flower garlands and put them on his pony’s neck. She . . . he was wandering again. He gritted his teeth and kept at his job.
The manual had said, “Do not pack mines with contact fuses in such a way that the fuses can be subjected to closure by the weight of another mine. . . .”
A vision of the Psychlo belt buckle, as he had seen it many times on Terl, rose before him. The clouds of gas in the sky. How he had hated it!
A garland . . .
He had the mines strung. He then took a long length of blast cord and wove it through the holes in the limpet bases that let the mines cling to metal. He hoped they didn’t cling.
Yards and yards of blast cord, looped past the contact of each mine and up parallel with the safety wire. It was all so heavy. So very heavy. He was starting to black out again.
He caught himself. He managed to get the long end of the safety cord through an upper I-beam support. Using its friction as a brake, he got the mines suspended over the inspection hole and lowered them carefully down into the housing. Down they went, deeper and deeper. Good thing this drone wasn’t rolling or the mines would snap over to cling magnetically to the inside skin of the housing. Careful, careful, lower and lower.
There was a sudden jerk. The bottom mine had hit the bottom of the housing interior. Good.
No, not so good. Had the drone motor changed pitch? Or was that just part of the murky sea of semidelusion in which he was so slowly moving? Were the mines altering the space contour of the interior and affecting the motor drive? He didn’t know. But there was no time. He tied the safety line fast to a beam.
The loose long end of the blast cord he threw up over the upper structural bars. Ow, but that hurt his head! Was it in front of the plane’s guns? Near enough.
He got the blasting caps. Percussion it said on the box in Psychlo.
He started to fasten a single cap on the blast cord directly ahead of his guns. Then with a burst of finality, he tied the whole box to it.
He checked, thinking with difficulty. When he fired the guns it would set off the caps. These would fire the blast cord and that would fire the mines. He realized then it would have been smarter to have sealed it with the housing cover. He looked down into the depths. He turned a torch down there. Was it possible to recover the inspection plate cover and its nuts?
But he forgot about that. His light was playing straight on the full intake cap.
There were two caps. No, five tubes! Into these he knew would be stuffed hundreds of fuel cartridges, dropped in one after the other. A drone like this required an enormous number of cartridges. It must!
Waves of nausea and blackness were hitting him. He mustn’t tip his head over and look down. That was the secret.
He wondered whether those big fuel tube covers would move. They were usually just screwed on.
With difficulty he got down to them. With both hands he gave one a twist. It spun easily.
Within a minute he had five fuel tubes open, the covers clanging down into the dark belly. For a while it wouldn’t affect the drone, but if a blast fed into those open tubes—oh, my!
He checked everything again.
The drone soared out. But not for long, he told himself grimly.
6
Not until then had Jonnie thought about what was going to happen to himself. He had a feeling that it didn’t really matter. He knew his head was staved in. He had lost an awful lot of blood. But he ought to make a gesture, some rudimentary effort, just to say he had. Say to whom? He was out of radio contact. The drone was wave-neutralized to any screen. There was not the slightest chance of the drone being seen visually in this storm. Down under him would be sea or an even less friendly mountainside if the blast disabled his plane. Battle planes were pretty well armored, but firing his own guns in an enclosed space, plus the mines, plus the fuel of the drone, was going to make a pretty big bang.
His jet backpacks were gone. He rummaged about in the back of the plane. Must remember not to lean forward. That’s what blacked him out. A brief moment of hope. A life raft. He
pulled it out. The automatic inflation cartridges were long since duds. It had a little manual pump. He started to pump it up. Orange colored. Some tinsel on it. Then he realized he was being stupid. If he inflated it he couldn’t get it back in the plane. He knew the plane would sink. He wouldn’t be able to get it out. The wind was tugging at the half-inflated raft. A wave of blackness came over him and the door draft casually flicked it out of his hands. It went away into the storm. Gone. It had all been a waste of time.
He got into the plane. He had some blankets. He had been hurt in the earlier crash; the map case had not been enough. So he padded his knees and the windscreen with blankets.
He realized he had not checked for loose objects. They were deadly. He took the blankets away and looked in the rear of the plane behind him. Littered! A backward jolt of the plane would have made them into projectiles.
Wearily he got out and began to chuck things out through the door. Clip after clip of assault rifle ammunition. A shovel, whatever that was doing here. A sample pick. Odds and ends. He snugged down the cable ladder and ore net equipment of the plane. He put the food bag and his own pouch under the seat.
More nauseated than ever, he got back in the seat and restored the blanket cushions. He wrapped the oversized security belts around him twice and up so they would keep his head from snapping forward.
All set.
He reached out for the gun controls and put them on “Full Barrage,” “Flame,” and “Ready.” They were aimed at that box of blasting caps.
Was the drone tilting or was he just dizzy? He couldn’t tell with his dazed senses. He looked at the climb indicator of the plane. Yes! The drone was tilting, the door behind him lower now. Something had upset the coordinates. The magnetic fields of the limpet mines? But whatever it was trying correct, it was pointing its door down!
That meant if he shot backward and fired he would be shooting himself toward the sea or the mountains.
He better not delay.
He kicked off the magnetic grips. The plane started to slide backward to the door.
Hastily he hit his starter buttons. The plane was sliding backward faster.
He slammed his fist into the gun-firing button.
The battle plane fired full blast.
But the result was far more than just gun recoil.
Before his eyes the whole interior of the drone flashed a violent orange and green.
The battle plane was catapulted backward into space like a projectile!
The shock of sudden motion almost tore his head apart.
He could still see, still register. The drone looked like an old rocket missile must have looked. It was soaring upward as though the door was the jet!
Jonnie’s hands fumbled over the battle plane console.
He punched in coordinates to arrest his backward descent.
With a jolt the plane slowed its rocketing, downward plunge.
But something else was happening. There was no response from the right balance motor.
In a slow roll, the plane began to rotate in the sky. The roll became faster.
The left balance motor could not hold it by itself.
Jonnie frantically battered the console keys.
The plane was now cartwheeling through the storm!
7
Badly shaken and feeling very ill, Jonnie tried to control the plane. There was a thin spot in the storm.
It was extremely hard to think. If he shut off the left balance motor, maybe the stricken ship would stop rolling. He managed it. Then he realized the guns must still be firing. He got a wad of blanket out of his vision and reached up to push the firing button off. And as he did he saw it.
The drone!
Almost straight at him, it was tumbling out of the sky. Spent flames were licking out of the doorway and a vast plume of smoke was trailing behind it.
It was going to hit him if he didn’t move.
His hands hit the console. He felt the plane move.
The drone went by so close the plane tumbled again in the air rush.
Abruptly, a geyser of water smashed upward into the storm, a column two hundred feet high.
The battle plane spun about under the new impact.
Water? Water!
Jonnie felt a surge of relief. They were not yet over Scotland, still over the sea.
Water! He would hit it. He knew that pressure outside the doors would keep him from opening them. This battle plane would never float.
He brought a fist down on the window openers, both of them.
He looked at the console. What could he press to arrest his own descent?
The battle plane crashed into the sea.
The jolt threw him back into unconsciousness. But in a moment a wave of the coldest water he had ever felt rushed in on him, revived him. Bitterly cold water, colder than ice to the touch. And it was hitting him in a roaring torrent from both sides.
He fought with the huge, ten-pound Psychlo belt release. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He unwound the belt from himself.
The water was getting darker. The battle plane must be sinking very rapidly. Or he was passing out once more?
The incoming rush eased. At least the plane was no longer spinning, he thought vacantly.
A sudden surge of energy. He got to his knees on the seat and thrust a floating blanket out of his way. The futility of it struck him. There was nobody to save him. He couldn’t live in water this cold.
More by reflex than by intention he went out the window and began to rise to the surface. His air mask tanks were lifting him. Water was getting in the air mask, washing dried blood off the inside glass. The sea became lighter and lighter green.
Then a spatter of rain hit his head. Rain! It was welcome.
The sea about him, as he floated face-up, was a panorama of tossing, overwhelming waves, pockmarked with the rain. A wild scene.
The cold was getting to the very center of his being.
He knew he was going into a delusion again. As the waves covered and uncovered his ears he thought he heard a voice. They said dying men often heard angel voices calling them. He knew he was very close to death.
More delusion. Hopeful thinking giving rise to false sights. It was what he would have dearly loved to see, not what was. But the water-blurred vision stayed there.
Something hit him in the face mask. A line?
He became more alert. It looked like Dunneldeen on a cable ladder not four feet away! A Dunneldeen who was being submerged and uncovered by the waves.
Jonnie felt his arms being guided into safety line loops. Tension was being taken up on the line. His ears came free of the water and he could hear. It was Dunneldeen, a Dunneldeen who was smiling even though he was being doused repeatedly as the waves rolled past the cable ladder.
“Come on now, laddie,” Dunneldeen said. “Just hold on and they’ll pull you up to the plane. ’Tis a wee bit cold for a swim.”
Part 15
1
Fleeting impressions, half-seen through a wall composed of darkness and pain. Dim consciousness of being in a ship and landing. Of someone spooning broth at him. Of being carried in a stretcher with rain on the blankets. Of a stone-walled room. Of different faces. Of whispered conversations. Of another stretcher. Of another plane. And a pain in his arm. He sank back into darkness. He thought he was in the drone again. He opened his eyes. He saw Dunneldeen’s face. He must still be in the sea. But no, he was not cold, he was warm.
“He’s coming around,” said someone softly. “We’ll be able to operate soon.”
He opened his eyes and saw boots and kilts. A lot of boots and kilts standing beside what he was lying on.
A plane’s motors? He was in a plane.
He turned his head a little and it hurt. But there was Dunneldeen’s face.
Jonnie saw that he was on a sort of table. He was in a plane, a passenger plane. There was a tall gray man in a white coat on his left side. There were a lot of older Scots on
his right side. Four young Scots were sitting on a bench. There was another table with some shiny things on it beyond the doctor.
Dunneldeen was sitting beside him, and there was a tube and a sort of pump connecting Dunneldeen’s arm with his own.
“What’s this?” whispered Jonnie, indicating the tube or trying to.
“Blood transfusion,” said Dunneldeen. He felt he should be very careful about what he said. He was smiling but he was worried and felt very bad. Keep a bright face on it. “Laddie, you are singularly fortunate. You are getting the royal blood of the Stewarts, no less, which puts you into direct line, after me, of course, to the throne of Scotland.”
The doctor was signaling Dunneldeen to take it easy. They all knew that Jonnie might die, that there wasn’t a thirty percent chance of his recovery, not with those two severe skull fractures and other injuries, as well as shock. His respiration was too shallow. In the underground hospital where they had operated for centuries, in a land where skull injuries were common, the doctor had seen too many die in less injured condition than this one. He was looking down at the big, handsome lad with something like pity.
“This is Dr. MacKendrick,” said Dunneldeen to Jonnie. “He’ll handle you all right. You always overdo things, Jonnie. Most would be content with one skull fracture. But not you, laddie, you’ve got two!” Dunneldeen smiled. “You’ll be right as rain in no time.” He wished he could believe it; Jonnie’s face bore the gray of death.
“Maybe I should have waited for you in the drone if you were so close,” whispered Jonnie.
The older Scots let out an incredulous gasp. Chief of Clanfearghus stepped forward. “Naw, naw, MacTyler. The foul thing crashed just a mile north of Cape Wrath! ’Twas almost upon us!”
“How did you find me?” whispered Jonnie.
“Laddie,” said Dunneldeen, “when you light a beacon fire to gather the clans, you don’t do it halfway! The drone went up to ten thousand feet like a flaming rocket and like to have lit the whole of Scotland. That’s how we spotted you.”
The chief of the Argylls grumbled, “That wasn’t what your companion told us, Dunneldeen. They said your what-you-call-it detected a small object in the water and then got a look on a plane and then saw the fire.”