At last they had real food again. Dane sat at
the table where a round of cold lathsmer breast was flanked by a
hash of native grains and berries and found it very good indeed
after days on one-quarter E-ration tube per meal. Outside, the
night closed in, and Tau kept close watch on the semiconscious
Cartl, who now and then muttered unintelligibly. There had been no
return of those who had gone to Vanatar’s, nor of the men who
had taken off after them. Nor any sound from the com they had left
turned on low, save the clatter that cut them off from help.
“How far are we from the LB?” Dane drank the last of
a heated brew and set down his mug to face Meshler squarely.
Twice the ranger had gone to the wall map and studied its lines,
ever running his finger along some as if to assure himself they
were recorded there. Now he approached the the table.
“Perhaps two hours’ flying time at normal
speed,” he answered. “But why? Your men won’t be
there. They were to be picked up soon after we left. And they would
take the box, too.”
“Would they?” questioned Tau. “What about the
detect report? I don’t think that would register if the box
had been taken all the way to the port. What do you have in
mind?” he asked of Dane.
“If we had the box and brought it south, I wonder—could it
draw the monsters away?” He was fishing, grasping for any
hope, no matter how small.
Tau was shaking his head. “Not when we don’t know
enough about its action. Dane, get me some more of that
drink!”
Cartl was moving in the thick wrappings of covers the medic kept
piled about him, striving to rid himself of their weight. Dane went to the steaming pot, poured out what was
left—half a mug of the aromatic stuff—and brought it to
the medic.
“Take it easy now.” Tau spoke Basic and supported
the settler with an arm about his shoulder. He set the cup to
Cartl’s mouth, and the other drank off its contents thirstily.
Then with Tau’s help he sat up, pushing aside the covers. He
was no longer shaking, and there was intelligence and purpose back
in his dark face.
“How long was I out?” was his demand.
“About three hours,” Tau answered. “You must
have been in the last stages of this bout.”
“Angria—the children—the rest of
them?”
He must have read the answer on Tau’s face. His hand went
to the back-belted knife. “Then—” But he did not
finish that foreboding.
“Listen.” Dane moved around in front of him. He did
not know what Cartl pushed by fear for his family might do, but he
felt that it was now or not at all that he must discover whether
the settler had the experience to tackle the com problem.
“The com’s still jammed. But there is a way we might
just get a message through and ask for help.”
Cartl frowned. He did not look at Dane at all. Instead, he had
drawn the honor knife and was running the blade lightly across the
ball of his thumb, as if testing its keenness.
“The com’s jammed,” he repeated absently.
Then he turned to Meshler. “You came in a flitter. Let me
take that—I’m free of the shakes now.”
“For how long?” Tau’s demand was so emphatic
that it caught Cartl’s attention, and he did look to the
medic. “You are over this bout, yes. But cold will bring on
another. And if you start and then black out, what good will that
do you or anyone else? Listen to Thorson here. You may not have
heard of what he has to say, but we know that it worked before in a
similar situation. You are a com-tech by training, so this should
be a way to help your people.”
“What is it then?” Now Cartl did give his attention
to Dane, but there was an impatience about him, as if he expected
to hear nothing of use and resented the trouble of giving
judgment.
“I’m no com-tech, and I don’t know your
technical terms—but this is what a Free Trader did when his
ship was jammed by a jack after his cargo.” And he gave the story stripped
to bare details.
The knife, which had been moving back and forth in Cartl’s
fingers when Dane had started, was still.
“Counter-interference in pulse pattern,” the settler
said. “And what kind of code?”
“Nothing elaborate. Just identification and a call for
help.”
Cartl returned the honor knife to its sheath. “Yes. And if
Kaysee did not get through—” He rose, swaying for a
moment but avoiding the hand Tau advanced to steady him. Then he
went to the com.
A touch on the switch brought the crackle up to louder waves of
sound. Cartl listened intently. His lips moved. He might have been
counting.
Then he pulled out a seat and half fell into it, still with that
intent, listening look. He reached under the table on which part of
the equipment was based and brought out a box of tools. Unscrewing
a panel, he switched off the receiver and then went to work,
slowly, almost fumblingly at first, and then with more speed and
surety. At last he leaned back, his hands resting on the edge of
the table, his shoulders drooping a little, as if his labor had
exhausted what small strength he had regained.
“That’s it. But will it work?” He seemed to be
asking that of himself, not of the three behind him.
The brach had been stretched out before the fire, basking in the
heat. But now he sat up on his haunches, his forepaws folded over
his belly. His head was not turned toward the men in the corner,
but there was about the alien an aura of listening that caught
Dane’s attention, and he watched the brach rather than Cartl,
who had set two wires delicately together and was now tapping in a
broken rhythm.
Dane crossed to sit on the cot Cartl had lately left.
“What is it?” He had picked up his thermo jacket and
spoke into the hood mike.
“There is coming,” replied the brach.
“Of that which we must fear?” Dane asked
quickly.
“There is fear—but it lies with those who come. And
there is hurt also—”
“How near?”
The brach’s head swung slowly back and forth, as if his
long nose was pointer for a detect.
“Coming fast, but not yet here.” That seemed
evasive. “There is fear, much, much fear. And all have
it.”
Dane arose and spoke to the others. “The brach says some
are coming. He says they are hurt and afraid.”
In spite of that loud mixture of sound from the com, Cartl must
have heard. He swung around to face Dane.
“When?”
“The brach says they are coming fast.”
Cartl was already on his feet. He did not reach for the shaggy
coat he had worn cloakwise earlier, but he did pause to snatch up
his weapon. And Meshler was at the door before him, blaster in
hand.
They ran for the gate of the fort, Cartl in the lead. The others
caught up with him only after he had leaped to a ledge along one of
the gate side buildings from which they could see the outer world.
The moon was bright, and under it the snow gave back sparks of
glitter.
Now they could hear it. There was no wind high enough to hide
the steady beat of a flitter engine. Cartl gave a cry of relief and
leaned out to hit a button, so that lights flared on, marking a
landing space. Meshler half raised an arm as if to turn them off
but did not.
There were no running lights on the flier. It came in dark and
somehow ominous under the moon. When it set down, they saw that it
was larger than the one they had stolen from the basin camp, almost
double the size of the one carried by the Queen.
Round-bellied, it was obviously intended to carry cargo, but now
both cabin and cargo hatches sprang open, and a group of figures
spilled out so hurriedly onto the field that several stumbled and
fell, others stooping to pull them up again, as if those inside
were prisoners seeking freedom. Leaving the doors hanging open
behind them, they made for the gate. One of the monsters might have
been pounding at their heels.
Women—three, four, five, six—children to such a
number that they must have been packed shoulder to shoulder inside.
And behind them men, two with bandages, helping a third between
them who made a stumbling, futile effort to walk.
Cartl threw open
the gate and sprang to seize one of the women, one who had two
children, one clinging to each hand. As he held her tight, the
others crowded around them, crying out in some planet dialect the Terrans could not
understand.
But Tau pushed past the women and reached the wounded, with
Meshler and Dane only a step or two behind. With their aid he got
the three back to the room they had just left.
It was sometime later they heard the full story. These were the
women of Cartl’s holding and with them three of
Vanatar’s group, plus the children of both. The wounded
consisted of two of Cartl’s men and one, who was the worst
mauled, of Vanatar’s.
They had had little warning. As Cartl had earlier believed, they
had been spread out through the fields overseeing clearing robos,
the women setting up fires to heat drinks and tending pots of food.
Without warning then the nightmare had come. Their accounts of what
they had seen and fled from were so varied that Dane deduced the
larger part of the attacking force had been made up of more than
one type of monster, all of them so alien to what the settlers knew
that that very alienness added to the fright and horror.
Some of the work force had rallied quickly enough to trigger the
robos in the fields to cover their retreat, and the settlers had
broken into several groups. The ones reaching Cartl’s had
luckily been close enough to the flitter park to fight their way
there. But even then, they were not to escape easily, for the
monsters were only the first wave of that hideous army. Behind were
men, and they had used blasters, though from several accounts,
mainly one from the men, the strangers had been both driving on the
monsters and defending themselves from them.
A flitter had come to hover over the vehicle park, and a line of
monsters had trailed along behind it, almost as if led on a leash.
There had been a fight, two of them. And two parked flitters had
been smashed past getting into the air, so the settlers’
first plan for evacuating this party to Cartl’s and then
reaching one of the other isolated groups had failed.
“Got them then—” one of the men wearing a
bandage down his left arm, strapped to his body, said.
“Vanatar had a burner mounted on a crawler and was going to
use it on thick brush. Yashty and I reached that. Got that sky-scum
in the center. Then Cartl’s ship came in so we could take
off with the women. I wasn’t much use with the arm, and Yashty
got a knock on the head, but together we could make one pilot.
Asmual had taken a nasty one and was laid out proper. So Thanmore
said for us to get out while the air was still clear. They would
hold the park with Cartl’s men and maybe get that crawler with
the burner started so it could make it to the upside. We could
still hear them going at that, so we knew some of our people
reached it. But even if they hold out a while, they can’t do
it forever. They have the robos for their main defense and a small
burner, but not much else.”
“How many of you reached
there?” the ranger wanted to know.
The man shook his head. “No telling. We were the largest
group, most all women and children. I saw three—three at
least get it from those devil things. And two were burned down at
the yard before we wiped out that air scum.”
“This upside—” Meshler interrupted.
“Where is it in relation to the park?”
For a moment the man shut his eyes, as if trying to mentally
picture the refuge site. Then he answered, “South a field and
then east. It’s a big outcrop of rough rock. Vanatar thought
it could be made into an extra-secure roost, and he ordered us not
to blast it out. It’s the best defense they could find
there.”
“No flitter landing near it?”
The man shook his head. “Only in open ground, and there
you’d have to fight off those things. If they haven’t
overrun the rocks—”
“Could your men get out if a flitter went on hover and we
used air rescue belts?” persisted the ranger.
“I
don’t know.”
The technique the ranger suggested was a tricky one. Dane had
seen it done at training stations, but the Queen’s
men had never had to put it into practice. And did the settlers
have the proper tackle?
His question was put into words by the other more lightly
wounded man.
“You have a rescue flitter here? You’d need the
belts and shock lines. And you’ll have to hover low.
They’re using blasters, and if you got down to the right
level, one sweep would cut a belt rope.”
“We can set the hover on low.” Meshler sounded
confident, but Dane thought this the wildest suggestion yet. He
looked about the room. Tau was busy with the badly wounded man. His
place would certainly be here. The three who had come in with the
refugee flitter were in no state to go back, and Cartl might have a
relapse if he made such an effort at present, which meant that the
rescue mission would fall on two of them, Meshler and himself.
The ranger did not ask for volunteers. He put them all, save
Tau, to work, improvising the equipment needed. They had finally a
bulky belt, plus a double-woven steelion rope and a pulley hoist,
which occupied so much of the interior of the flitter that Dane
could not see how they could take off more than two, or at the most
three, of the refugees at a time. In addition, they had to use the
slower flying cargo flitter in order to rig such an installation at
all. And even Cartl warned them that any overload of weight on
hover might break that down.
But at dawn they took off, Meshler again as pilot, Dane and the
brach, who at the last minute added himself to their company,
housed in the stripped rear beside the hoist.
“This is bad.” Dane tried to urge the alien to stay
behind. “We go into much danger.”
“Go with you, come with you, always, with you go our own
place,” the brach stated firmly, as if in Dane alone he had
any hope of returning to his mate and family. And knowing how the
alien’s talents had helped them in the past, Dane could not
have him put out bodily.
With the directions of the refugees for a guide, Meshler pushed
the flitter at the top speed that the lumbering craft could
maintain. Behind them the people of Cartl’s holding were
preparing for a state of siege, while Cartl himself had gone back
to the com, though he seemed to have little faith in the experiment
he tried.
There was no storm, but the day was gray, and the sun was a very
pallid spot of light, well veiled by clouds. Save for their two
blasters, they carried no arms. And Dane tried not to imagine what
would happen if the enemy had captured one of the burners and
turned it aloft to singe out any attempt at rescue.
When they came in over the fields where Vanatar and his people
had been clearing, the ragged scars of the interrupted work were
beacon enough. The tangle of the flitter the refugees had brought down lay in a burned-out mess, eclipsing in
part two crawlers it had crashed upon.
From that wreckage a lance of blaster fire shot at their own
craft. Friend believing them enemy, or enemy trying to blast any
rescue attempt? At any rate, that spear of light had come from a
hand weapon, lacking power to reach them, though were they to
descend, it might make a direct hit—
Meshler brought the
flitter around, away from the park. The machine, never meant for
fast or limited space maneuvering, needed all his attention at the
controls. But it was the brach who gave them their lead.
“Much fear—pain—that way—” He
pointed with his nose. Dane interpreted, and Meshler headed in the
new direction.
They caught sight of the rocks. They looked from
above almost as if they were some artificial erection rather than
natural outcropping, though they stood in no pattern, only raised a
mass of erosion-pitted stone skyward.
Meshler guided the flitter in closer. Halfway across the roughly
cleared field was an overturned crawler. From it pointed the ugly
snout of a burner, and where that lay against the soil, there was a
long streak of black and smoking soil ribboning from it. Apparently
the machine had been overturned with the burner going at full
blast, and that had remained on to sear and roast the ground until
its heating unit was exhausted.
But it had taken toll before it had been defeated. There were
three half-burned carcasses on its back trail, and all of them
suggested that in life they had been monstrous. More nightmare
things, however, were left to prowl around the rocks, though they
did not essay to attack, mainly because scuttling back around the
rocky outcrop were three robo clearers, their long, jointed arms
with scraper and slasher attachments at ready, threshing the air in
a whirl of threat.
Two more robos had suffered. One whipped around
in a dizzy circle, two smashed arms trailing behind it, bumping on
the ground, half the control box that served it for a head melted
away. The other did not move. Apparently its progress circuits had
been shorted in some manner, but it whipped and banged the ground
in a frenzy.
That these, too, had left their dead was plain from corpses cut
and slashed, four of them. But the robos were good only as long as
their charges lasted. Even as the flitter went into hover over the stones, two of those keeping sentry go were
slowing, and one came to a complete stop, its armored arms raised
high, remaining frozen so.
Meshler was fighting the controls of the flitter. As Cartl had
warned, the awkward cargo carrier did not have the maneuverability
of the craft he was more used to, and he was finding it hard to
judge just the right height. Those below must have recognized the
craft, for they waved wildly from behind the shadow of stones.
Dane kicked open the hatch and made ready to swing out the belt,
but the contrary flitter was bucking, refusing to settle into a
steady hover, so that the equipment swung back and forth. Whether
the hoist would work, Dane dared not guess. They could only
try.
He watched the belt flop loosely down, keeping the rope from
tangling. That it had reached its goal he knew when the rope jerked
its signal. Now—
He spoke to the brach. “Watch, see if all goes well. I
must work this—”
The alien trotted to the hatch and thrust his head out, bracing
his feet against one side for hold against the swing of the
craft.
“They put fast a man—he has hurts—”
Sending up wounded first. Dane wished they had had the
forethought to bring up at least one able-bodied helper on the
first try. If the belt did not hold—
He started the hoist, fastened
to the motor Cartl and one of the refugees had bolted in hurriedly.
The rope went taut, and there was a groan from the motor as the
strain began. It took the weight very slowly, too slowly—yet
there was nothing he could do except squat here and watch it, make
sure that the motor kept on working and the rope fed back
evenly
The wait seemed endless, and then the brach reported. “One
is here—he cannot aid himself.”
“Come here.” Dane made a swift decision.
“Watch—if this rope loosens, call!”
He scrambled past the brach, who obediently came to the hoist.
The belt spun just below the hatch, the man in it limp and still,
having been trussed inside the lift by a patchwork of tatters
knotted together. With infinite care Dane got him in, bathed in
sweat that was not induced by heat when he laid him on the floor. He tried to take care in loosening
those fastenings. Then once more he kicked out the belt and let it
fall on the line.
There was no time to examine the first arrival. Meshler did not
even look around, his concentration on the controls was such that
now he seemed a part of the craft he fought to master.
Once more that jerk on the line, the arrival of another injured
man, but this time conscious, able to help himself.
As Dane uncoiled the lashing that held him in the belt, he said,
“How many more of you?”
“Ten,” the settler replied.
Ten! They could not pack that many in here, not with the hoist
taking up so much room. It would mean two trips—and did they
have time for that? He threw out the belt again, asked the settler
to watch the hoist, and then edged up to Meshler.
“There are twelve. We can’t take them
all.”
Meshler did not turn from the controls as he answered,
“We’re on borrowed time. We may not be able to make a
second trip.”
That was obvious. But it was also plain that they could not hope
to overload the flitter and get away. So far all they had seen of
the enemy were the patrolling monsters outside the robo ring and
that one blaster shot from the vehicle park. But that did not mean
there had been any retreat.
Suddenly the flitter gave a lurch, just as if they had been
jerked ahead on an invisible line. Their hover had been broken.
They were moving from the rocks.
“Control beam!” the ranger cried. “It’s
weak, but with this craft I can’t break it.”
Control beam! They were being reeled in again, just as they had
been in the other flitter. Another crash?
“What the—” He heard the second wounded man in
the back cry out, “We’re going past the
rocks!”
Dane got back to the hatch. Below them dangled the belt. They
were already past the rocks, and it was a mercy no one had been in
it.
“Look!”
He saw the belt settle as the beam brought them lower and
suddenly hook over the up-thrust arm of a robo that had run down.
To be so forceably anchored in an instant was the final mishap. In spite of Meshler’s skill, the
nose of the flitter went sharply up, and they headed tailward to
the earth.
At last they had real food again. Dane sat at
the table where a round of cold lathsmer breast was flanked by a
hash of native grains and berries and found it very good indeed
after days on one-quarter E-ration tube per meal. Outside, the
night closed in, and Tau kept close watch on the semiconscious
Cartl, who now and then muttered unintelligibly. There had been no
return of those who had gone to Vanatar’s, nor of the men who
had taken off after them. Nor any sound from the com they had left
turned on low, save the clatter that cut them off from help.
“How far are we from the LB?” Dane drank the last of
a heated brew and set down his mug to face Meshler squarely.
Twice the ranger had gone to the wall map and studied its lines,
ever running his finger along some as if to assure himself they
were recorded there. Now he approached the the table.
“Perhaps two hours’ flying time at normal
speed,” he answered. “But why? Your men won’t be
there. They were to be picked up soon after we left. And they would
take the box, too.”
“Would they?” questioned Tau. “What about the
detect report? I don’t think that would register if the box
had been taken all the way to the port. What do you have in
mind?” he asked of Dane.
“If we had the box and brought it south, I wonder—could it
draw the monsters away?” He was fishing, grasping for any
hope, no matter how small.
Tau was shaking his head. “Not when we don’t know
enough about its action. Dane, get me some more of that
drink!”
Cartl was moving in the thick wrappings of covers the medic kept
piled about him, striving to rid himself of their weight. Dane went to the steaming pot, poured out what was
left—half a mug of the aromatic stuff—and brought it to
the medic.
“Take it easy now.” Tau spoke Basic and supported
the settler with an arm about his shoulder. He set the cup to
Cartl’s mouth, and the other drank off its contents thirstily.
Then with Tau’s help he sat up, pushing aside the covers. He
was no longer shaking, and there was intelligence and purpose back
in his dark face.
“How long was I out?” was his demand.
“About three hours,” Tau answered. “You must
have been in the last stages of this bout.”
“Angria—the children—the rest of
them?”
He must have read the answer on Tau’s face. His hand went
to the back-belted knife. “Then—” But he did not
finish that foreboding.
“Listen.” Dane moved around in front of him. He did
not know what Cartl pushed by fear for his family might do, but he
felt that it was now or not at all that he must discover whether
the settler had the experience to tackle the com problem.
“The com’s still jammed. But there is a way we might
just get a message through and ask for help.”
Cartl frowned. He did not look at Dane at all. Instead, he had
drawn the honor knife and was running the blade lightly across the
ball of his thumb, as if testing its keenness.
“The com’s jammed,” he repeated absently.
Then he turned to Meshler. “You came in a flitter. Let me
take that—I’m free of the shakes now.”
“For how long?” Tau’s demand was so emphatic
that it caught Cartl’s attention, and he did look to the
medic. “You are over this bout, yes. But cold will bring on
another. And if you start and then black out, what good will that
do you or anyone else? Listen to Thorson here. You may not have
heard of what he has to say, but we know that it worked before in a
similar situation. You are a com-tech by training, so this should
be a way to help your people.”
“What is it then?” Now Cartl did give his attention
to Dane, but there was an impatience about him, as if he expected
to hear nothing of use and resented the trouble of giving
judgment.
“I’m no com-tech, and I don’t know your
technical terms—but this is what a Free Trader did when his
ship was jammed by a jack after his cargo.” And he gave the story stripped
to bare details.
The knife, which had been moving back and forth in Cartl’s
fingers when Dane had started, was still.
“Counter-interference in pulse pattern,” the settler
said. “And what kind of code?”
“Nothing elaborate. Just identification and a call for
help.”
Cartl returned the honor knife to its sheath. “Yes. And if
Kaysee did not get through—” He rose, swaying for a
moment but avoiding the hand Tau advanced to steady him. Then he
went to the com.
A touch on the switch brought the crackle up to louder waves of
sound. Cartl listened intently. His lips moved. He might have been
counting.
Then he pulled out a seat and half fell into it, still with that
intent, listening look. He reached under the table on which part of
the equipment was based and brought out a box of tools. Unscrewing
a panel, he switched off the receiver and then went to work,
slowly, almost fumblingly at first, and then with more speed and
surety. At last he leaned back, his hands resting on the edge of
the table, his shoulders drooping a little, as if his labor had
exhausted what small strength he had regained.
“That’s it. But will it work?” He seemed to be
asking that of himself, not of the three behind him.
The brach had been stretched out before the fire, basking in the
heat. But now he sat up on his haunches, his forepaws folded over
his belly. His head was not turned toward the men in the corner,
but there was about the alien an aura of listening that caught
Dane’s attention, and he watched the brach rather than Cartl,
who had set two wires delicately together and was now tapping in a
broken rhythm.
Dane crossed to sit on the cot Cartl had lately left.
“What is it?” He had picked up his thermo jacket and
spoke into the hood mike.
“There is coming,” replied the brach.
“Of that which we must fear?” Dane asked
quickly.
“There is fear—but it lies with those who come. And
there is hurt also—”
“How near?”
The brach’s head swung slowly back and forth, as if his
long nose was pointer for a detect.
“Coming fast, but not yet here.” That seemed
evasive. “There is fear, much, much fear. And all have
it.”
Dane arose and spoke to the others. “The brach says some
are coming. He says they are hurt and afraid.”
In spite of that loud mixture of sound from the com, Cartl must
have heard. He swung around to face Dane.
“When?”
“The brach says they are coming fast.”
Cartl was already on his feet. He did not reach for the shaggy
coat he had worn cloakwise earlier, but he did pause to snatch up
his weapon. And Meshler was at the door before him, blaster in
hand.
They ran for the gate of the fort, Cartl in the lead. The others
caught up with him only after he had leaped to a ledge along one of
the gate side buildings from which they could see the outer world.
The moon was bright, and under it the snow gave back sparks of
glitter.
Now they could hear it. There was no wind high enough to hide
the steady beat of a flitter engine. Cartl gave a cry of relief and
leaned out to hit a button, so that lights flared on, marking a
landing space. Meshler half raised an arm as if to turn them off
but did not.
There were no running lights on the flier. It came in dark and
somehow ominous under the moon. When it set down, they saw that it
was larger than the one they had stolen from the basin camp, almost
double the size of the one carried by the Queen.
Round-bellied, it was obviously intended to carry cargo, but now
both cabin and cargo hatches sprang open, and a group of figures
spilled out so hurriedly onto the field that several stumbled and
fell, others stooping to pull them up again, as if those inside
were prisoners seeking freedom. Leaving the doors hanging open
behind them, they made for the gate. One of the monsters might have
been pounding at their heels.
Women—three, four, five, six—children to such a
number that they must have been packed shoulder to shoulder inside.
And behind them men, two with bandages, helping a third between
them who made a stumbling, futile effort to walk.
Cartl threw open
the gate and sprang to seize one of the women, one who had two
children, one clinging to each hand. As he held her tight, the
others crowded around them, crying out in some planet dialect the Terrans could not
understand.
But Tau pushed past the women and reached the wounded, with
Meshler and Dane only a step or two behind. With their aid he got
the three back to the room they had just left.
It was sometime later they heard the full story. These were the
women of Cartl’s holding and with them three of
Vanatar’s group, plus the children of both. The wounded
consisted of two of Cartl’s men and one, who was the worst
mauled, of Vanatar’s.
They had had little warning. As Cartl had earlier believed, they
had been spread out through the fields overseeing clearing robos,
the women setting up fires to heat drinks and tending pots of food.
Without warning then the nightmare had come. Their accounts of what
they had seen and fled from were so varied that Dane deduced the
larger part of the attacking force had been made up of more than
one type of monster, all of them so alien to what the settlers knew
that that very alienness added to the fright and horror.
Some of the work force had rallied quickly enough to trigger the
robos in the fields to cover their retreat, and the settlers had
broken into several groups. The ones reaching Cartl’s had
luckily been close enough to the flitter park to fight their way
there. But even then, they were not to escape easily, for the
monsters were only the first wave of that hideous army. Behind were
men, and they had used blasters, though from several accounts,
mainly one from the men, the strangers had been both driving on the
monsters and defending themselves from them.
A flitter had come to hover over the vehicle park, and a line of
monsters had trailed along behind it, almost as if led on a leash.
There had been a fight, two of them. And two parked flitters had
been smashed past getting into the air, so the settlers’
first plan for evacuating this party to Cartl’s and then
reaching one of the other isolated groups had failed.
“Got them then—” one of the men wearing a
bandage down his left arm, strapped to his body, said.
“Vanatar had a burner mounted on a crawler and was going to
use it on thick brush. Yashty and I reached that. Got that sky-scum
in the center. Then Cartl’s ship came in so we could take
off with the women. I wasn’t much use with the arm, and Yashty
got a knock on the head, but together we could make one pilot.
Asmual had taken a nasty one and was laid out proper. So Thanmore
said for us to get out while the air was still clear. They would
hold the park with Cartl’s men and maybe get that crawler with
the burner started so it could make it to the upside. We could
still hear them going at that, so we knew some of our people
reached it. But even if they hold out a while, they can’t do
it forever. They have the robos for their main defense and a small
burner, but not much else.”
“How many of you reached
there?” the ranger wanted to know.
The man shook his head. “No telling. We were the largest
group, most all women and children. I saw three—three at
least get it from those devil things. And two were burned down at
the yard before we wiped out that air scum.”
“This upside—” Meshler interrupted.
“Where is it in relation to the park?”
For a moment the man shut his eyes, as if trying to mentally
picture the refuge site. Then he answered, “South a field and
then east. It’s a big outcrop of rough rock. Vanatar thought
it could be made into an extra-secure roost, and he ordered us not
to blast it out. It’s the best defense they could find
there.”
“No flitter landing near it?”
The man shook his head. “Only in open ground, and there
you’d have to fight off those things. If they haven’t
overrun the rocks—”
“Could your men get out if a flitter went on hover and we
used air rescue belts?” persisted the ranger.
“I
don’t know.”
The technique the ranger suggested was a tricky one. Dane had
seen it done at training stations, but the Queen’s
men had never had to put it into practice. And did the settlers
have the proper tackle?
His question was put into words by the other more lightly
wounded man.
“You have a rescue flitter here? You’d need the
belts and shock lines. And you’ll have to hover low.
They’re using blasters, and if you got down to the right
level, one sweep would cut a belt rope.”
“We can set the hover on low.” Meshler sounded
confident, but Dane thought this the wildest suggestion yet. He
looked about the room. Tau was busy with the badly wounded man. His
place would certainly be here. The three who had come in with the
refugee flitter were in no state to go back, and Cartl might have a
relapse if he made such an effort at present, which meant that the
rescue mission would fall on two of them, Meshler and himself.
The ranger did not ask for volunteers. He put them all, save
Tau, to work, improvising the equipment needed. They had finally a
bulky belt, plus a double-woven steelion rope and a pulley hoist,
which occupied so much of the interior of the flitter that Dane
could not see how they could take off more than two, or at the most
three, of the refugees at a time. In addition, they had to use the
slower flying cargo flitter in order to rig such an installation at
all. And even Cartl warned them that any overload of weight on
hover might break that down.
But at dawn they took off, Meshler again as pilot, Dane and the
brach, who at the last minute added himself to their company,
housed in the stripped rear beside the hoist.
“This is bad.” Dane tried to urge the alien to stay
behind. “We go into much danger.”
“Go with you, come with you, always, with you go our own
place,” the brach stated firmly, as if in Dane alone he had
any hope of returning to his mate and family. And knowing how the
alien’s talents had helped them in the past, Dane could not
have him put out bodily.
With the directions of the refugees for a guide, Meshler pushed
the flitter at the top speed that the lumbering craft could
maintain. Behind them the people of Cartl’s holding were
preparing for a state of siege, while Cartl himself had gone back
to the com, though he seemed to have little faith in the experiment
he tried.
There was no storm, but the day was gray, and the sun was a very
pallid spot of light, well veiled by clouds. Save for their two
blasters, they carried no arms. And Dane tried not to imagine what
would happen if the enemy had captured one of the burners and
turned it aloft to singe out any attempt at rescue.
When they came in over the fields where Vanatar and his people
had been clearing, the ragged scars of the interrupted work were
beacon enough. The tangle of the flitter the refugees had brought down lay in a burned-out mess, eclipsing in
part two crawlers it had crashed upon.
From that wreckage a lance of blaster fire shot at their own
craft. Friend believing them enemy, or enemy trying to blast any
rescue attempt? At any rate, that spear of light had come from a
hand weapon, lacking power to reach them, though were they to
descend, it might make a direct hit—
Meshler brought the
flitter around, away from the park. The machine, never meant for
fast or limited space maneuvering, needed all his attention at the
controls. But it was the brach who gave them their lead.
“Much fear—pain—that way—” He
pointed with his nose. Dane interpreted, and Meshler headed in the
new direction.
They caught sight of the rocks. They looked from
above almost as if they were some artificial erection rather than
natural outcropping, though they stood in no pattern, only raised a
mass of erosion-pitted stone skyward.
Meshler guided the flitter in closer. Halfway across the roughly
cleared field was an overturned crawler. From it pointed the ugly
snout of a burner, and where that lay against the soil, there was a
long streak of black and smoking soil ribboning from it. Apparently
the machine had been overturned with the burner going at full
blast, and that had remained on to sear and roast the ground until
its heating unit was exhausted.
But it had taken toll before it had been defeated. There were
three half-burned carcasses on its back trail, and all of them
suggested that in life they had been monstrous. More nightmare
things, however, were left to prowl around the rocks, though they
did not essay to attack, mainly because scuttling back around the
rocky outcrop were three robo clearers, their long, jointed arms
with scraper and slasher attachments at ready, threshing the air in
a whirl of threat.
Two more robos had suffered. One whipped around
in a dizzy circle, two smashed arms trailing behind it, bumping on
the ground, half the control box that served it for a head melted
away. The other did not move. Apparently its progress circuits had
been shorted in some manner, but it whipped and banged the ground
in a frenzy.
That these, too, had left their dead was plain from corpses cut
and slashed, four of them. But the robos were good only as long as
their charges lasted. Even as the flitter went into hover over the stones, two of those keeping sentry go were
slowing, and one came to a complete stop, its armored arms raised
high, remaining frozen so.
Meshler was fighting the controls of the flitter. As Cartl had
warned, the awkward cargo carrier did not have the maneuverability
of the craft he was more used to, and he was finding it hard to
judge just the right height. Those below must have recognized the
craft, for they waved wildly from behind the shadow of stones.
Dane kicked open the hatch and made ready to swing out the belt,
but the contrary flitter was bucking, refusing to settle into a
steady hover, so that the equipment swung back and forth. Whether
the hoist would work, Dane dared not guess. They could only
try.
He watched the belt flop loosely down, keeping the rope from
tangling. That it had reached its goal he knew when the rope jerked
its signal. Now—
He spoke to the brach. “Watch, see if all goes well. I
must work this—”
The alien trotted to the hatch and thrust his head out, bracing
his feet against one side for hold against the swing of the
craft.
“They put fast a man—he has hurts—”
Sending up wounded first. Dane wished they had had the
forethought to bring up at least one able-bodied helper on the
first try. If the belt did not hold—
He started the hoist, fastened
to the motor Cartl and one of the refugees had bolted in hurriedly.
The rope went taut, and there was a groan from the motor as the
strain began. It took the weight very slowly, too slowly—yet
there was nothing he could do except squat here and watch it, make
sure that the motor kept on working and the rope fed back
evenly
The wait seemed endless, and then the brach reported. “One
is here—he cannot aid himself.”
“Come here.” Dane made a swift decision.
“Watch—if this rope loosens, call!”
He scrambled past the brach, who obediently came to the hoist.
The belt spun just below the hatch, the man in it limp and still,
having been trussed inside the lift by a patchwork of tatters
knotted together. With infinite care Dane got him in, bathed in
sweat that was not induced by heat when he laid him on the floor. He tried to take care in loosening
those fastenings. Then once more he kicked out the belt and let it
fall on the line.
There was no time to examine the first arrival. Meshler did not
even look around, his concentration on the controls was such that
now he seemed a part of the craft he fought to master.
Once more that jerk on the line, the arrival of another injured
man, but this time conscious, able to help himself.
As Dane uncoiled the lashing that held him in the belt, he said,
“How many more of you?”
“Ten,” the settler replied.
Ten! They could not pack that many in here, not with the hoist
taking up so much room. It would mean two trips—and did they
have time for that? He threw out the belt again, asked the settler
to watch the hoist, and then edged up to Meshler.
“There are twelve. We can’t take them
all.”
Meshler did not turn from the controls as he answered,
“We’re on borrowed time. We may not be able to make a
second trip.”
That was obvious. But it was also plain that they could not hope
to overload the flitter and get away. So far all they had seen of
the enemy were the patrolling monsters outside the robo ring and
that one blaster shot from the vehicle park. But that did not mean
there had been any retreat.
Suddenly the flitter gave a lurch, just as if they had been
jerked ahead on an invisible line. Their hover had been broken.
They were moving from the rocks.
“Control beam!” the ranger cried. “It’s
weak, but with this craft I can’t break it.”
Control beam! They were being reeled in again, just as they had
been in the other flitter. Another crash?
“What the—” He heard the second wounded man in
the back cry out, “We’re going past the
rocks!”
Dane got back to the hatch. Below them dangled the belt. They
were already past the rocks, and it was a mercy no one had been in
it.
“Look!”
He saw the belt settle as the beam brought them lower and
suddenly hook over the up-thrust arm of a robo that had run down.
To be so forceably anchored in an instant was the final mishap. In spite of Meshler’s skill, the
nose of the flitter went sharply up, and they headed tailward to
the earth.