"Yes, but he"s all tied up at the moment."
There was a silence and then a short, barking laugh. Some of the tension had gone out of Glencannon"s voice when he spoke next: "What was he after up there?"
Long story. No time now. Just be calm. Jonnie said aloud, "The girls are safe. Thor is hurt but all right."
A sigh of relief at the other end.
"Can you still pilot a plane?" said Jonnie.
Pause. "My ribs are a bit caved in and I have a twisted ankle. That"s what"s taking so long getting back to the compound. But yes, MacTyler, of course I can still pilot a plane."
"Keep traveling toward the compound. Have a light ready to flash. I"ll send a mine car for you. They"ll need air cover."
"I have a light. I"m sorry about the air cover."
"It was my fault," said Jonnie. "Good luck."
Dancer alternately trotted and ran. Keep calm. Things were not hopeless. They had a fighting chance. There were bright spots. They had agreed not to blow up the whole compound. The historian wanted the library, Angus wanted the machine shops. They evidently hadn"t sent any radioactive bullets into the domes. Except for the drone and its escort they still apparently had air control.
At five and a half miles he began calling Robert the Fox at the compound, hoping somebody was monitoring the mine radio. The schoolmaster answered; Jonnie was surprised for there were several cla.s.sified as noncombatants: the parson, the old women, the historian, and the schoolmaster. Jonnie shortly heard a relieved Robert the Fox.
"The girls are safe," said Jonnie. There was a pause at the other end as Robert the Fox apparently pa.s.sed the word along. When the mike opened next from that end, Jonnie heard some cheering in the background. The news was evidently popular.
"We"re holding out here," said Robert the Fox. "I have to talk to you about something when you get here, but not on this open line."
Dancer skirted a clump of trees. It was getting pretty dark.
"Those apes can"t talk English," said Jonnie.
"No matter, still can"t talk about it. When will you be here?"
"About fifteen minutes," said Jonnie.
"Come in through the ravine to the north. There"s a lot of heavy return fire near the compound."
"Right," said Jonnie. "Are the planes okay?"
"We pulled them back to better cover in the ravine. We don"t have pilots."
"I know. Listen now. Have somebody put the following items in one plane: warm clothing, a robe, mittens for me; something to eat; some plain, nonradioactive limpet mines; an a.s.sault rifle; an air mask with plenty of air bottles- I"ll be flying at one hundred fifty thousand feet."
There was a silence at the other end and Jonnie prompted: "Got that?"
"Yes," said Robert the Fox. "It will be done." He certainly didn"t sound very eager.
"Send out a couple of mine cars," said Jonnie. He gave the locations. "Better send a man or two to help bring in Terl."
"Terl?" said Robert the Fox.
"It"s the naked truth," said Jonnie. "Get that plane ready. I"ll be taking off just as soon as I arrive."
A silence. Then, "Will do." He went off the air.
About five minutes later, a mine car pa.s.sed him going north in the twilight. It was the parson, one of the old women, and a Scot with his arm in a sling. The parson raised his hand in a benediction- no, it was a salute! They were off to get Thor and the girls and Terl. A great length of hoist chain was flying out behind the mine car. Jonnie glanced back. The old woman was carrying a blast rifle.
The sound of the fire exchange was getting loud. The spray of the fire system was shooting two hundred feet in the air. Under it winked the blue-green of blast rifles. The stuttering orange flashes of a.s.sault weapons were plainer in the floodlights that were on all over the compound.
Jonnie sped Dancer down into the opening of the ravine and pulled to a halt beside the two remaining planes. Streaks of blast rifle shots laced the sky above their heads. The horse was blowing heavily, covered with lather, but not foundered. One thing at a time, Jonnie told himself. You can catch the drone.
Chapter 2.
Robert the Fox had his old cape thrown over his antiradiation battle dress. His grizzled hair was singed on one side. His face was composed but there was a hint of concern. He grabbed Jonnie"s wrist and gave it a hearty shake of welcome.
Jonnie looked at the singed hair. "How are casualties?"
"Light," said Robert the Fox. "Surprisingly light. They don"t want to show themselves to us. It impeded their aim. And it"s like fighting in a rainstorm. Look, you"re not wearing antiradiation-"
"That water is washing radiation away as fast as you fire it in," said Jonnie. "I have something to do. There"s no breathe-gas in that drone. I don"t need radiation cover."
"Jonnie, can"t that drone wait until the minesites have been flattened? It will take the drone up to eighteen hours to get where it"s going overseas. We tracked it on the search equipment of this plane. Which is to say, we tracked the escort. The drone has wave cancellers."
Jonnie opened the plane door. It was all ready. There was bread and meat on the seat. An old woman popped up beside him and handed him a cup of steaming herb tea that smelled suspiciously of whiskey. When he looked at her, questioning her presence in this battle zone, she said, "They can"t eat bullets!" and laughed a cackling laugh.
Robert"s hand was detaining him. "We still have radio silence successfully in." They had agreed to give the remote minesite attack pilots twelve hours of radio silence to let them finish off the outlying areas with total surprise if possible. "That"s more than they need. We can shorten it and they can converge on that drone-"
"It"s headed for Scotland," said Jonnie.
"That"s its first stop."
"I know."
Jonnie finished off the hot drink and started to climb into the plane.
The detaining hand again. "There"s something I"ve got to tell you." When Jonnie had stopped to listen, he continued, "We may not have hit Psychlo."
"I know," said Jonnie.
"That means that we may need all the planes and equipment we can get here. They"re in hangars under us. We don"t have men enough to take the place by a.s.sault and we mustn"t destroy it."
"You can work this out with Glencannon. You"ll have a pilot in half an hour or so. You can bash it in from the air." He made to get into the plane and again Robert"s hand was on his sleeve.
"We had a funny thing happen, just before sunset," said Robert. "A tank surrendered!"
Jonnie stepped back onto the ground. He might as well spend this time getting into the warm clothing needed at high alt.i.tudes and he proceeded to do so. "Go on."
Robert took a deep breath, but before he went on a runner came up to tell him the historian had delivered a new load of ammunition from the Academy. Robert told him to see it was pa.s.sed out. The blast fire needles continued to lash overhead in the now quite dark night.
"The tank is a "Bash Our Way to Glory." It "s down there at the other end of the ravine. Oh, don"t be alarmed. It "s in our hands. It came out of the garage port and came right straight toward us. We hit it with bazookas and they didn"t even dent it. But it didn"t fire back. It went right straight down to the end of the ravine there and threw out an intercom through an atmosphere lock and said it wanted to talk to the "Hockner Leader." It wanted a guarantee of safety in return for cooperation."
Jonnie was getting into the warm boots. "Well, go on."
"It"s a kind of weird scene," continued Robert. "When they got a safety guarantee they came out of the tank. They said they were the Chamco brothers. We got interrogation going. They said they knew Terl had sold out. It seems there was a mine manager named Char, a friend of theirs, who turned up missing at the firing. Well, this Char told the Chamco brothers that there"d been a murder. That Terl had murdered the head of the planet so he could appoint a new Planet Head named Ker. And that Ker, this afternoon, had denied them ammunition for the tank. The Chamcos claim Terl and Ker have sold out to some race called the "Hockners of Duraleb" and even launched the drone to wipe out the other minesites."
"I suppose it"s mostly correct," said Jonnie. "Except the parts about the Hockners and the drone. The Psychlos have a lot of enemies, but according to their histories they defeated the Hockners a couple of hundred years ago. Listen, Sir Robert, in all due respect, I"ve got to be going!"
"There"s more," said Robert the Fox. "They haven"t got tank and plane fuel in there, and we"ve cut down four sorties of theirs to get to the fuel and ammunition dump way over there. But they have plenty of blast rifle ammunition. We don"t have men enough for an a.s.sault-"
"What else?" said Jonnie. "Sounds like good news, not bad."
"Well, it"s not all good news. It seems there"s sixteen levels of compound under us. Each level stretches for acres. Quarters, shops, garages, hangars, offices, workrooms, libraries, supply warehouses-"
"I didn"t know it was that much, but that"s not bad news either."
"Wait. If that thing were to be hit with radiation this whole a.s.sault force would be blown to bits. We"re fighting on a loaded bomb. We must save those planes and equipment if we have to defend Earth. And we need them for reconstruction if we really did blow up Psychlo."
"You"ll have air support shortly," said Jonnie. "You can withdraw-"
"Well, the Chamco brothers say they know what will happen in there. That we"ll flood the place with air! They said they know how "us Hockners" took the Duraleb system back. They say there aren"t enough breathe-gas masks and vials but the recirculating system has plenty. These Chamco brothers are design and maintenance engineers. They promised to help us if we paid them. They say the whole planet has been on half-pay and no bonuses. And they don"t want to be killed in an "air flood" as they called it."
Jonnie had on the warm clothing and was finishing a sandwich of oat bread and dried venison. "Sir Robert, as soon as you get air support you can plan something-"
"The Chamco brothers told us the breathe-gas recirculating system was exterior to the base and air-cooled, and they were tricked into admitting all one had to do was shoot up the intake pipes from the cooling system and the pumps would fill the whole compound with air."
"You got it all solved," said Jonnie.
"Yes, but we need the intakes shot up at long range from the air."
"That shouldn"t take long. As soon as Glencannon gets here-"
"Well, I think you ought to do it," said Robert. "It"s not very dangerous and if you fire from about a half-mile off-"
"I can do that as I take off."
"But you should come back down here to verify-"
Suddenly Jonnie knew what Robert was up to. Robert the Fox was going to wait until all planes could converge on that drone. And that was taking a chance. The planes to other minesites might be in trouble themselves. "Sir Robert, are you trying to keep me from making a single-handed attack on that drone?"
The veteran spread his hands. "Jonnie, laddie, you"ve done too much already to get yourself killed now!" His eyes were pleading.
Jonnie swung up into the plane.
"Then I"m coming with you!" said Robert the Fox.
"You"re going to stay right here and direct this a.s.sault!"
A mine car ricocheted into the end of the ravine and came to a halt. The driver grabbed an a.s.sault rifle and ran up to the lines to get back into the battle. Glencannon stepped down and limped over to them. "d.a.m.n!" said Robert the Fox.
"What"s the matter?" said Glencannon, a bit taken aback with the greeting. "I"m all right. If somebody will tape up my ribs and put something around this ankle, I can fly."
Robert the Fox put an arm around Glencannon"s shoulder. "It was something else," he said. "I"m glad you got back alive. We"ve got a job for you. A lot of them, in fact. The snipers on the old c.h.i.n.ko quarters-"
"Goodbye, Sir Robert," Jonnie said and closed the door.
"Good luck," said Robert sadly. He knew Jonnie would suicide-crash the drone if everything else failed. He didn"t expect to see him again. Then he turned and began to issue orders to two waiting runners. He had a little trouble seeing them.
Jonnie sent the plane soaring out of the ravine, too fast to be spotted and hit, and was on his way to attempt something the combined military powers of Earth had failed to do. And on his way to do it all alone.
Waiting until the drone was- what, five hours?- from Scotland was cutting it a bit close. If attacks on it did succeed they might blow gas canisters, and a freak wind could wipe out Scotland and Sweden as well. There was much to be said for attack in force. But even that guaranteed no success. And no one had ever tried a head-on smash at the drone with a Psychlo battle plane traveling at maximum with all guns blazing at the moment of collision. As a last resort, that would destroy almost anything. He hadn"t said anything about it to Sir Robert. Surely the old man hadn"t guessed it.
Chapter 3.
Dunneldeen was a very happy man. The Cornwall compound of the British Isles was dead ahead, lit up like the one-time cities must have been.
They had drawn straws for Cornwall. This was the minesite that sent out hunting parties and made it death for Scots to go south. The Psychlos at this place, over the centuries, had gunned down people beyond count just for sport on their days off. There was even a tale of a raiding party captured and tied to trees and shot tiny bit by tiny bit and man by man for eighteen agonizing days. And many tales like it.
He and his copilot Dwight had drawn the long straw to the envy of their fellow pilots. They had drilled the navigation. No Scot had ever gotten within a hundred miles of this minesite in over a thousand years and little was actually known of it, but they had absorbed what there was.
They had lain all night, quite relaxed, warmly dressed for stratosphere flying. They had heard the warning horns go for the final firing of the semiannual. They had piled into their seats, hands waiting at the consoles.
Wide-eyed and thrilled, they had watched Jonnie"s incredible sprint. Something had gone wrong as he reached the cage and that part wasn"t so good. No rescue. But Jonnie had piled down under the edge of the bluff, safe as a wee bairn in his truckle bed before the blast rifles went.
The recoil had been a bit disconcerting for it had slewed the plane out of position with concussion. But all was well. They had vaulted their plane into the sky on schedule. They had seen the planetwide radio towers collapse in a tangle of cables behind them, hit by both the concussion of recoil and bazooka fire. A twelve-hour radio silence had begun successfully. Ample time for the farthest minesite to be reached without any warning.
At two thousand miles an hour, one hundred thousand feet up, they had shifted the clock and come down to normal Psychlo approach levels to a nighttime minesite. There it was!
Scanners and viewscreens a light, they found no sign of hostile action, no guard planes in the air.
Lighted steam was coming out of some shafts in the hills that must be five miles deep. Smelter chimneys belched curling, green smoke. Warehouses stood in bold outline. And there were the glowing domes of the compound! Target one.
But Dunneldeen, being Dunneldeen, was quick to take advantage of sudden opportunities even when they were not quite specified in planning.
The silly apes down there lit up the whole landing area for him! It gleamed like a b.l.o.o.d.y stage. They thought he was simply some nonscheduled Psychlo flight. Bless radio silence.