“What are the visitors doing?”
“I don’t know, Sir Robert. The snow clouds have closed in again. I see a pilot communicator. I will ask. I will be right back.”
There was a long pause. Then the tiny, shrill little voice, “Sir? The pilot communicator says they have moved in orbit and are somewhere above us. They have this place being looked at. But our battle planes are standing by. Dunneldeen is up there. He wants to know how we are. How is Lord Jonnie?”
Sir Robert felt the shaking limbs of the body resting against him. But he knew morale was a factor up there in the sky. He could not tell them he thought Jonnie was dying. But Jonnie was still alive. “Tell them they should not worry just now.”
The child was gone for a bit.
Then the tiny whispering voice, “The pilot communicator passed it on.”
“What are they doing here to get us out?” demanded Sir Robert. What hell it was sitting here in the dark waiting. Jonnie’s breathing was too rapid, too rapid by far!
“It’s very bad out here, Sir Robert. Very bad. If you hear crackling, it’s the power lines. They are all shorted out and burning on the ground, throwing sparks.”
“Are there any casualties in the raiding party?”
“Oh, we don’t know that, Sir Robert. The rescue team is using blade scrapers to uncover the coffins. I’m standing beside a hole where the platform used to be. It’s smoking. Is it hot in there?”
Sir Robert had not noticed. Then he realized that the dome was warm to the touch. He said so.
“I’m told to tell you not to release the annealing lever on the dome skids. It is a wonder that they held. So don’t release the lever. They will move the whole metal platform.”
Somebody else was coming through on the channel. “Dwight? Can you hear us? Dwight!”
The tiny voice of the child said, “They found his coffin under the ravine bank just now. The bank caved in on it. They have found a forklift in the garage that operates and they are lifting the coffin. They are opening the lid. Dwight looks stunned but he is sitting up.”
“They should be working on this dome!” raged Sir Robert.
“Oh, there’s a whole other team working on it, honored sir. They are bringing a small crane out of the lower levels of the compound now. I see a man throwing clamps on the big crane. It is on its side and they have to lift it upright.”
Sir Robert was getting an idea of what it was like out there.
“We were down in the sixteenth level,” said the tiny voice. “The concussion was bad. It grabbed air out of the place but nothing was heard.”
“Well, what was it? What happened?” demanded Sir Robert.
“We don’t know, honored sir.”
“They had some nuclear weapons on standby. Did they explode?”
There was a pause. The child had gone off somewhere. He came back. “No, sir. Thor says they are intact and he is awfully relieved. They didn’t explode.”
“Then what was it?”
“I am so very sorry, sir. None of us knows. Oh, here comes a blade scraper to loosen your platform so it can be lifted. The first one they had broke down after they got the fire out of it. I am told you must be patient, sir. We are doing all we can.” Then, “They’ve got three more coffins out now.” A pause. Then sorrow. “The one they call Andrew is dead.”
The platform gave a jolt as a blade scraper seemed to pry under it. Sir Robert could hear a motor roar.
There was a shout of alarm and then a crash.
Then the piping little voice, “One of the poles fell in the crater. No one was hurt. Here comes your flatbed truck, sir.”
“Flatbed!” barked Sir Robert. “It’s supposed to be a plane! We’re supposed to airlift out of here!”
There was a pause. The Buddhist communicator had gone off somewhere. He came back, “They have found a river to the south. It is the Purgatoire. The pilots told us.”
Sir Robert felt Jonnie’s pulse. Racing!
“I don’t understand!” cried Sir Robert. “Time is everything here! I need serum! Can’t we lift this dome and push some serum in here?”
“I am sorry, Sir Robert. The Purgatoire is one hundred twenty miles south of here. It’s on an ancient man-highway.” He rushed on so Sir Robert wouldn’t interrupt. “They have mine pumps out. All our equipment and planes are contaminated. They have to be hosed down to get rid of radiation. When that’s done they can open the dome.”
Sir Robert clenched his fists. One hundred twenty miles! How long would that take?
The child must have been reading his thoughts. “I’m told they will drive very fast; they can on the ancient highway. Thor himself will drive your flatbed. They know how important it is. Your flatbed will be the first to leave. They have your crane standing up now.”
There was another chunk from the blade scraper. Something under the platform seemed to tear loose.
“They have found fifteen coffins now,” said the child. “The Scots in them were all alive except one. The coffin was blown into the air and smashed his skull. The lead on the outside of the coffins is all melted. The tops, I mean. They’re hot to the touch and it’s hard to handle them.”
There was a groan and a squeak as the crane hook on top of the dome tightened. They were being very careful from the sound of it not to drop the lower platform off.
The annealing skids held. Sir Robert felt them swinging in the air. Then a thump as they hit the top of the flatbed body. They picked it up again to let it drop down more squarely.
The child must still be standing on the platform overhanging. The tiny voice calmly came through. “I can see better from here. It’s not snowing. Way out on the plain over there I see some bodies. Must be the Brigante tribe. And I can see more coffins.” He yelled to someone and must be pointing. “The whole top of the old compound had blown off. It’s wide open to the winds.”
Sir Robert was feeling Jonnie’s pulse. Was it weaker?
“Thor is turning over to someone. He is climbing in your truck now. He says he’s a good driver, don’t worry. He will go as fast as he can. Excuse me but I am supposed to get in the cab and tie a seat belt.”
The flatbed started up with a roar. It jolted and banged over the uneven terrain. Sir Robert steadied Jonnie’s head. Was he still breathing?
They hit the ancient man-highway. The engine revved into a high-pitched scream.
Sir Robert remembered Jonnie had had a watch. He tried to find its illumination button. The numbers were rolling.
They were driving so fast Sir Robert could hear the wind roaring outside the dome.
Time, time, time! Fifty minutes. Fifty-two minutes. Fifty-nine minutes!
The flatbed abruptly slowed. It jolted down some rough ground. It halted with a surge. It dropped to the earth.
The small piping voice again: “We are at the riverbank. There is plenty of water. They are rigging a mine pipe. I must get away from the dome while it is washed down. I have to get washed down myself and so do the others. Then they will test with breathe-gas.”
Water was suddenly pounding against the dome. It roared and reverberated inside. The sound went all around. And then the water went all over the flatbed, apparently.
There was silence then. Then the piping voice. “Sir Robert? The truck with the small crane has arrived and has been washed down. So have I. Can you find the release lever in there? The one outside is bent.”
Sir Robert had already located and indeed had been on the verge of pulling it an hour ago. He yanked it open. There was a roar and a clank as a crane was moved closer and connected. The dome lifted!
Murky daylight hit his eyes. Jonnie was lying there. Was he breathing?
The owner of the small voice was standing there, dripping water, visor and air mask off. He was about thirteen. “My name is Quong. Thank you for being so patient with me, Sir Robert. I was as worried as you.”
Dr. Allen jumped up on the flatbed. He had a syringe in his hand and was grabbing Jonnie’s arm. A w
oman nurse took over. She was holding Jonnie’s head.
Sir Robert stood up unsteadily. He was drenched with sweat and the wind was cold.
He looked to the north.
The sky was glowing there.
“What’s that?” he demanded.
Thor was there. Another member of the rescue team. More trucks were arriving further downstream.
Thor said, “That’s Denver.”
Sir Robert stared. They had just come from hell.
Part 25
1
For the first time in what had been a dreary, wearisome year, the small gray man was intense and interested. Hope, to which he had become a stranger, struggled to rise in his breast. Faint still, but it was there.
He had no real interest in the overpowering flash they had seen and almost did not bother to watch the roiling, filthy mass of violent cloud which rose above the earth.
It was that momentary trace on his screen. A teleportation firing! A trace he had never hoped to see again.
His immediate reaction was to see whether any of these military minds in the ships around had seen the flickering trace. He listened anxiously to their chatter.
“It was obviously a nuclear explosion,” said the Bolbod. That settled it for him. He thrust his pugnacious face forward from his collar until it was almost visible as though daring somebody to dispute him.
The Tolnep half-captain made an immediate proposal to go down there and “really wipe the place out!”
The Hawvin speculated that the situation might be political and sought to pull the small gray man into it. But the small gray man was noncommittal: he was waiting to see what the others knew.
It was the Hockner super-lieutenant who summed it up. He put his monocle to his eye and sniffed at them. “You fellows are missing the point, rather!” he said. “Earlier intelligence told of a night-raiding party vanishing in the area. Quite obviously, what we have just seen is the culmination of a political surface war. And I rather say that the government has now changed hands. As we know, the political scene was unstable: a priesthood earlier took over the planet, those yellow fellows in the robes. But they lost out, perhaps, and were driven back to that temple in their Southern Hemisphere.
“Some military group,” he continued, “has now obliterated the former capital of the planet with nuclear weapons. With two separate revolts in just the last few months, the political climate is highly unstable and the time is ripe for a concerted attack by us.”
“Yes!” rumbled the Bolbod. “We should go right down and smear them!”
The Jambitchow commander laughed lightly. “I am afraid you will have to count me out, gentle sirs. For the moment at least. Have you looked over there at that shoulder on the mountain peak—the one just to the west of the capital?”
There was silence and then some startled gasps.
Fifteen assorted battle planes and marine-attack carriers were just now rising into view.
“It was an ambush!” said the half-captain.
“Bah,” said the Bolbod. “Their firepower does not compare to even one of our major vessels!”
“They could be quite nasty,” said the Jambitchow in his lilting voice.
There was a lull. Abruptly a face filled the viewer of the small gray man. It was Roof Arsebogger of the Midnight Fang calling from the Tolnep Terrify-class, battle-plane-launching capital ship Capture.
“Your Excellency,” drooled the reporter, “could we take advantage of this lull to get your personal reactions to this general situation?”
The small gray man was always calm, never emotional. All he said, and in a quiet voice, was, “Get out of my viewscreen.”
“Oh, yes sir, Your Excellency. Indeed, sir, Your Excellency. At once, sir!” The diseased face vanished.
The small gray man made a grimace of distaste and then went back to considering the rest of them. Sooner or later they would come to some conclusion and take some concerted action. So far none had mentioned the teleportation trace. None of them was coming to any logical conclusion. Was each one privately hungering for prize money and keeping the rest in the dark? He would listen. It was always safe to listen.
The combined force had come alive and was changing position in orbit so as to maintain its location above this area. Flashes of engine exhausts were apparent in the sky around and a mutter of internal ship commands trickled through the channels. They were readying themselves.
It was the Hawvin who finally expressed something that must have been on all their minds—the rewards. “I have just worked out that they might be the one and don’t know! There is a report here of a big Psychlo walking around a firing platform down there earlier this day.”
“Well, if it was a Psychlo, don’t you think he would have known?” said the Jambitchow commander.
This brought the Hockner super-lieutenant into it. “If the silly fool didn’t know, he still might have been the one.”
“But if he had been the one,” said the Hawvin, “he would know. And he didn’t know, so this isn’t the one.”
The quarter-admiral chipped in, tapping a tooth thoughtfully. “As the possibility now exists that they are the one”—other faces looked at him on their viewscreens, unable to figure out how he had gotten to this conclusion—“why then I see no reason to hold off further from simply raiding the place and gutting it and then clearing out.
“But on the other hand,” continued the quarter-admiral in a brilliant spurt of logic, “if they are the one, then they constitute an extreme danger to us and should be raided. Either way, we simply raid it, divide up the loot, and clear out.”
“And the reward money?” said the Jambitchow.
“Why,” said the quarter-admiral, “we can best find out about that with an extensive interrogation of the resulting prisoners. As commander in chief of this combined force—”
There were instant protests. They agreed that in any event they should attack, gut the place, and clear out. But they didn’t agree that the quarter-admiral was their commander in chief!
This produced a very sour effect on Quarter-Admiral Snowleter. Roof Arsebogger being aboard, he wanted to get the best possible image. This disagreement didn’t fit with it and it made him quite cross.
The ensuing wrangling took considerable time and the small gray man returned to studying the scene below.
He had spotted a small convoy racing south. It was in two sections. The first, smaller section was streaking down what must have been an ancient highway. The second was larger and driving nearly as fast. At first it might appear that the second was chasing the first. But now they had come together without a fight on the banks of a river. They must all be the same group.
The stream was in spring flood, and shortly after the arrival of the first section, water pumps were placed and huge sprays of water were visible. They were spraying down their vehicles and themselves.
The action was not known to the small gray man so he consulted some reference books. Radiation! The way to get rid of contamination was copious use of water. The particles could be washed down and away due to their weight. Then that had been a nuclear blast. The Psychlos down through the ages had remorselessly suppressed anyone seeking to use such weapons. It was a nearly forgotten chapter of ancient warfare.
The small gray man had his communication officer tune in his viewscreens better. There was haze and overcast down there, a little difficult to see through. The city to the north had begun to burn quite fiercely, a glow under the clouds of spiring smoke. The wind was from the south and even though this left the river area where the trucks had arrived clearer, there was a lot of interference. Ah, it was that shorting power line to the old minesite. It made the viewscreen jump and distort.
It took some time for the group at the river to sort itself out. What were they? Refugees? The remains of an attack force?
And then he saw it: under that dome they had raised with a crane, a teleportation console.
He began to piece this situation
together. He did not know why or how, but that fight and explosion had to do with teleportation.
One or another of these commanders in the ships about him would invite his advice. He would answer noncommittally. For once he would not be helpful at all. He hoped and prayed that they would not see that console down there.
The group apparently had some wounded and were caring for them and their attention for quite a span was not on security. The console was sitting there, plain as day.
Finally six marine-attack battle planes flew in and landed. There was heavy air cover over this group, quite in addition to the landed planes.
The small gray man kept his eye on that console. They finally shrouded it and moved it into one of the marine-attack planes.
The Hockner super-lieutenant suddenly said, “Wasn’t that a transshipment console they transferred from truck to plane? I’m playing back my screens.”
The small gray man sagged. He had not wanted them to see that. He had hoped they wouldn’t recognize one if they did see it.
Vain hope. “It is!” said the Hockner.
It took them quite a while to load down there. Some of the marine-attack planes were quite empty; two were very fully loaded. The small gray man looked up capacities. Yes, two marine-attack planes could handle that entire party.
The commanders were now chattering at a great rate. Some had seen pictures of such consoles. There was a rising tide of excitement, a rising vision of sharing in two hundred million credits of reward money.
Then the group down there abandoned the flatbeds and pumps and a crane and what might be a couple of coffins. Six marine-attack planes took off.
And then they did a very puzzling and confusing thing. Instead of assuming an orderly formation, they began to crisscross each other’s bows and circle and dart. It was quite impossible even on a screen playback to tell which marine-attack carrier was which!
Four of them landed again. Which four? Which were the loaded ones?
The commanders really chattered over this. They were playing back screens, looking for identifying marks. Not possible in this static.