The five Hockners, alert now but seeing no one yet, crouched, guns ready. Then they sprinted forward.
A hammering burst of blast guns flared just behind the telescope.
One Hockner, near the edge, was. .h.i.t, thrown out into s.p.a.ce, and went spinning down through the clouds.
The Hockner sled, struck by a burst, slithered backward, teetered, and dropped into empty s.p.a.ce.
The four remaining Hockners charged through the snow and wind, guns going.
The relentless pounding of blast rifles racketed up the infrabeam. The whole area under the telescope seemed to be erupting continuous, green gouts of thundering energy.
One Hockner down. Two down. Three down! The fourth almost reached the telescope and then thudded into the snow.
The only sound now was the whistle of wind around the peak.
Several terrestrials sprang into view from beyond the radio telescope. They rushed forward, their red and white high-alt.i.tude suits looking like splashes of blood against the snow. They turned over the Hockners, took their weapons. One terrestrial looked over the edge where the fifth Hockner and the probecraft had fallen but the only cushion down there was the tops of the clouds far below.
The Hockners were picked up and lugged off by the terrestrials. Using safety lines and slipping and sliding down the glacier, they loaded the Hockners into the marine attack plane which was now more visible.
One terrestrial came back and checked over the radio telescope and then he went sliding down the glacier, grabbed the door of the plane, and swung aboard.
The plane took off and went down through the clouds. The infrabeam shifted to penetrate the overcast and followed it back to the minesite.
"That proves it," said the Tolnep half-captain. "It was just as I thought all along."
He ignored the comments to the effect that he had favored the probes.
"It was a lure," he continued. "It is quite obvious that at the dam yesterday they went down and made a harmless eruption of trees to intrigue us. Then they lay in wait and succeeded in capturing two Bolbod crewmen.
"The radio telescope," he went on, "is just a dummy as I suspected. They have not been used for centuries. Everyone uses infrabeams to pick up faint signals and broadcasts. So they put it there in an elaborate charade to attract down a probe. None of the Hockner crew besides the one so clumsy as to fall off the cliff were killed. The guns were all on "stun." Thus they succeeded in luring four Hockners."
"Should you be talking so plainly?" said the Jamb.i.t.c.how commander, stroking his polished scales. "They may have us on monitor."
"Nonsense," said the Tolnep. "Our detectors show no infrabeams and we are just on local. I tell you no one has used radio telescopes since...since...the Hambon Sun War! They have far too much clutter; they are too bulky. That"s just a dummy down there. And did you notice the cute way that officer came back and "adjusted" it. They"re just hoping we"ll try again."
"I shouldn"t think they need to," said the Hawvin. "They now have two Bolbod crew and four Hockners to interrogate at leisure. Knowing Psychlo methods of interrogation, I shouldn"t care to be those crewmen!"
"They"re not Psychlos!" said the Hockner super-lieutenant, covering up the fact that he was aghast at the fate of his crewmen.
"Yes, they are," said the Bolbod. "You saw that Psychlo with the terrestrials the other day down by the lake. The Psychlos are using aliens as a subject race. They"ve done it before. I vote we go down in an actual ma.s.s attack and pound out any installation they have, now! Before they are further prepared."
But at that moment they were startled when a hazy image appeared on all their screens. It was a gray black-haired and bearded human visage. The eyes were blue. The being seemed to be wearing an old cloak.
"If you will turn up your transmission to planetary strength," this newcomer said in Psychlo, "I would like to discuss returning your members to you. The two Bolbods are shaken up but not hurt. The four Hockners are just stunned, though one has a broken arm."
They turned up to planetary strength, but their response was an emphatic uniform no!
The Tolnep half-captain managed to get his voice above the uproar. "So you can capture the rescue party? Emphatically, no!"
"We can put them all out on a slope-over by that black volcanic cone. All in the open and no ships of ours in the air." The terrestrial was persuasive. "Call it a truce. Your pickup ship will not be fired upon or molested."
"You haven"t interrogated them that fast," said the Jamb.i.t.c.how, "so they must be dead!"
"They are quite all right," said the terrestrial. "Are you sure you won"t pick them up?"
Emphatically, no!
"Very well," said the terrestrial with a shrug of his shoulders. "At least tell us what they eat."
The Tolnep gave a signal on his screen to the others. Let him speak. "Why, of course," he said smoothly, smiling.
"We will make up a food package and send it down."
They went off planetary. "I told you," said the Tolnep, "that those incidents were a lure. Now two of you have bungled, so let me handle this."
Presently a rocket-borne package went out of an airlock of the Tolnep ship. It was very well aimed and its parachute burst open below the overcast. It went drifting down and landed just short of the lake sh.o.r.e.
Presently a vehicle went speeding away from the compound toward it. The faces on the viewscreens smiled. If those were Psychlos down there, or whoever they were, they were in for a surprise!
Then suddenly the Hockner super-lieutenant, who had been leafing hurriedly through a recognition book, said, "Oh, I say! That"s a Basher "Bash Our Way to Glory" tank! Totally armored!"
The tank went down near the package, lowered a turret gun, and fired a mild stun shot into it. The package, being a bomb of course, exploded in a geyser of flame. The tank fired a second shot at the remains. Then somebody got out of it and collected the hot fragments.
"We even gave them bomb fragments for a.n.a.lysis!" shouted the Hawvin.
They held a hasty conference. The small gray man listened to them. Military minds, he thought to himself, could be quite remarkable at times. They decided that anything those terrestrials did was just a lure; that the strategy of those people was to take the invader to bits piecemeal and then pulverize him; that they should now wait for the courier the small gray man said was coming sometime, the one that might tell them if the one had been found; meanwhile only the safest type of probes should be attempted in areas obviously not guarded or covered. Then the moment they knew, one way or the other, whether this was the one, they would plunge in with a ma.s.s war-vessel attack and defeat and gut the place.
All the commanders agreed except the Tolnep. He was still in a rage about his bomb failing.
"I should go down there right now," hissed the Tolnep, "and bite the lot of them to death!"
"We think that"s an excellent idea," drawled the Hockner, adjusting his monocle.
"Yes, why don"t you do that!" the rest agreed. And, "We"re sure you should."
The Tolnep realized they would only be too happy to get rid of him. He subsided for now. Later would be another matter.
Chapter 2.
Jonnie had gone on his trip to look at bases but he found himself looking at people.
The flight had been pleasant enough. A new pilot had thought he would be flying Jonnie, but the very idea of having to be flown about amused him: he didn"t have a broken arm! But an escort of three Mark 32 battle planes, long-range ones that also were designed to carry a squad of Psychlo marines or employees, got into the air behind him when he took off and stayed right with him. He had flown northeast over Africa, the Red Sea, and the Middle East and into Russia, making good time two hundred thousand feet up and looking for a pattern of lakes and rivers Colonel Ivan had showed him with a finger in sand. He had expected to find snow, but although it was late autumn, the only snow was on towering peaks below and to the east. He found his landmarks, found his preplanned landing s.p.a.ce, and found himself in the middle of a sea of surging people! Colonel Ivan was holding them back with a dozen mounted lancers so that he had a place to land. There must be five hundred people in that throng.
He opened the door and was blasted with sound. They were cheering themselves hoa.r.s.e! He couldn"t even understand what they were saying, such were the rolling waves of sound. He couldn"t really distinguish individual faces among so many.
Colonel Ivan dismounted as Jonnie got down from the plane. The Colonel was a little stiff and too formal, thinking possibly Jonnie blamed him because of Bittie-the Colonel was wearing a black band around his sleeve. But Jonnie threw an arm around his shoulders and it was abruptly all right.
They had brought him a horse, a golden-colored stallion with a sheepskin saddle, and he swung up. The crowd cheered. He only knew one word of Russian and that was "zdrastvuitye," which meant "How do you do, h.e.l.lo." So he called it loudly and the crowd cheered.
Jonnie looked around. They were close to, in fact right up against the mountains, fairly high mountains...fourteen thousand feet?
They had snow on them. The ancient Russian base must be nearby. He had thought they would go right to it and he could get his observation and estimation done right away. But no, everybody seemed to have other ideas. There were some skin and felt tents, and fires put their smoke in the air, and suddenly Jonnie realized this crowd was in their best clothes. This was a holiday! And the way they pressed in upon him, he certainly was the reason. He wondered fleetingly whether Thor had been up here, for if he had then a lot of these people would think he knew them. Well, his one word of Russian would have to get him by.
The Colonel"s hors.e.m.e.n were opening the way. Every time Jonnie raised his hand and nodded there was a new ear-bashing burst of cheering. Colors, faces! He knew the sound of Russian well enough to know it was Russian, but he was also hearing scattered words like "Bravo!" and "Bueno!" and "Viva!" Sounded like the Llaneros. Yes! There was a flat-crowned, black-leather hat. Several of them. And some huge straw hats.
The smell of roasting meat and the tang of dung fires was in the air. A band made up of balalaikas and Spanish guitars and Andean flutes and Mongol drums was splitting the air.
The colonel got him to a skin tent that had been set up for him and with a final wave of the hand and his one word of Russian- now no longer adequate- he got inside.
A Coordinator had also come in and through him Jonnie wanted to know, couldn"t they go to the base now?
The colonel was aghast. Nyet, nyet, there was time for all that. One had to think of the people! Many of them, in fact most of them, had never met Jonnie before, had never even seen him.
Jonnie said he was thinking of the people! To get them safe from possible harm.
Well, harm was always around, according to the colonel, but not every day was an opportunity to meet Jonnie. Vyehrnah? (Right?) At that, Jonnie was glad to get out of his heavy flight suit for it was much less cold here than he had thought. The colonel had brought his kit in but he ignored it. He had a near-white buckskin suit he had had made- not quite like the one on the credit bank note- those loops there on each side of the breast were cartridge loops-but the village girls had done very well. Those moccasins should fit, but here were some military boots and red baggy pants if he preferred. This gold helmet? Well, it wasn"t really gold. It was a lightweight Russian helmet, armor-proof aluminum no less, and somebody flying through here had taken it down to the old minesite at Grozny and plated it with beryllium. See? It didn"t have any star or ornament on it, but this chin strap with the heavy ear pads, and the colored beads all over it, had been done by one of the Siberian tribes, and wasn"t it nice? And besides Dr. MacKendrick had told Jonnie to be careful of his head after the fractures. So wear it! Jonnie said he couldn"t hear with it buckled. Wear it!
Jonnie washed his face and got dressed and told the colonel he was a bully and the colonel confessed he was far worse than that.
It was this way: his original plan to have Americans man this base had been pa.s.sed by the old Council-before it went funny. They"d recruited some South Americans and sent them over. But there was a tribe up in the Arctic descended from political prisoners in Siberia and they spent most of their time starving to death, so they had come down en ma.s.se, dogs and all, and they were here- the Siberians were the ones out there in white bearskins. And then there was a little tribe they"d found in the Caucasus that had survived and they were here. So it really was getting pretty manned up with Russians. But they had an American here. Yes! You want to see? He"s right outside.
The American was ushered in and he was pulling a young girl behind him. He stood there grinning. It was a boy from Jonnie"s own village! Tom Smiley Townsen. They were very glad to see each other. Tom Smiley was a big lad, almost as big as Jonnie and a year younger. He said he had graduated from machine school and heard they didn"t have enough operators over here for this job and had caught a ride, and he"d been working here for over a month running mine sweepers and teaching others and fixing things that broke down.
This was his girl, Margarita. "Margarita, permite me presentarte al Gran Senior Jonnie Senior Jonnie. "
The girl was very pretty, very shy, and overawed. Jonnie bowed. He had seen Sir Robert do that. And she bowed.
Tom Smiley said they were going to get married in a few weeks. And Jonnie said he hoped they had lots of children. And Margarita blushed when Tom Smiley translated it but nodded her head with enthusiasm.
For the first time, Jonnie learned the village had moved. Tom Smiley had been trained so he could keep the pa.s.ses open in winter using a blade sc.r.a.per, and they wouldn"t have the usual winter starvation, but now that they were moved, there was less snow. It was to the town Jonnie had recommended, but Brown Limper had sent troops to force them to go to it. They had even had to leave their belongings behind, but he thought by now the other boys- two more were machine operators now and two were pilots- would have collected those up for them.
The colonel pushed them out and gave Jonnie a sip of the "finest vodka ever brewed," and it almost took the top off Jonnie"s head. What a cure for flight fatigue! Must have been out of bears" teeth!
The colonel said that was absolutely correct, how did he guess the formula, and took him outside again.
Most of the people were going about their business getting ready for a big party and dance but they smiled and smiled as they pa.s.sed Jonnie.
Two German pilots from the African base were sitting in front of a fire drinking something. The third pilot was upstairs flying patrol, the rumble of the motors faint due to his extreme alt.i.tude. Jonnie told them in Psychlo they should relax and enjoy themselves, and they just looked at him respectfully. Jonnie knew they had completely different orders: two on alert for scramble, sleeping in their planes with the radio on, one ship always in the air. Jonnie realized all this good cheer and festivity in the air was dulling his awareness of the facts of today- they were at war with powerful forces.
The colonel led him to a small knoll and with an expansive hand showed him how great this country was. There was wild cotton, enough to clothe thousands, there was wild wheat and wild oats and herds of sheep and cattle enough to feed hundreds of thousands. Those ruins way over there had been a city full of factories, and although the machines didn"t work with existing motors, Tom Smiley thought he could get some looms running- which made Jonnie wonder whether they didn"t have another Angus on their hands in Tom Smiley.
Did Jonnie know there was a tomb over to the southeast, way over, where the emperor of the world was buried? A Mongol named Timur I Leng. Nearly two thousand years ago he had ruled the whole world. It was a fact. He would have to take Jonnie over there and show him the tomb. It said so right on it.
Jonnie had heard quite enough about Hitlers and Napoleons and such. He had often wondered whether- if such vermin had not been so intent on personally ruling the world- man might have had the cultural advancement to repel the Psychlo invasion. He had heard some theory that it required war to invent technology and he thought that must be a Psychlo maxim. But he didn"t tell Colonel Ivan that. He admired the truly beautiful view.
The base? The colonel responded to Jonnie"s question. It was up there, not very far away from here. He"d give him a whole tour tomorrow.
As they started down, a big, jolly-looking Scot and two aides met them. It was Sir Andrew MacNulty, the head of the federation and Chief of all the Coordinators. He had gotten the word Jonnie was here and had just flown in. He had a pleasing manner and cheery laugh, very admired by his extensive and busy corps of Coordinators. Jonnie was very glad to see him for the business he was here for involved the movement of tribes. He complimented Sir Andrew of the magnificent work the Coordinators were doing and Sir Andrew thanked him for saving the lives of that pair in Africa. Jonnie knew he could get along with this man. Good.
About sunset the party was ready, and the big square box constellation in the sky was well down before it finished. Dances and music and more dances. Spanish dances. The Dance of the Bear Hunt from Siberia. Wild leaping dances from the Caucasus.
Fire-light and laughter. Good food and drink. Since it seemed everyone had to clink a cup with Jonnie and since he had never done much drinking, he had quite a head the next morning when the colonel, all bustling efficiency, broke him out.
After a bit of breakfast they trooped off in a mob to see the ancient defense base. The colonel said that they had all worked on it and they were all going along to make sure he liked it and to straighten anything up he didn"t like. They were no longer in their party clothes. They were here now to go back to work as needed.
The ancient base was entered through a tunnel that was masked by overhangs. Built to resist nuclear bombing and to serve as a command post, it was deep. Due to occasional earthquakes in this area, it had been built very strong. It lacked the polish and finish of the American base but it was even bigger.
They had lighted it with Psychlo mine lamps. They had buried the vast numbers of dead with honors. They had swept everything up with Psychlo mine sweepers flown in from Grozny. Tom Smiley had gotten the water lines working. The colonel said he really hadn"t intended for him and his men to help so much for this should be an American base but they had the experience and so they had pitched in.
The amounts of stores were vast. Uniforms were not as well packaged and sealed as the American ones had been but much of the stores were useful. Possibly the quality was even better. Look at these portable "flame throwers." They still worked!
A hundred thousand a.s.sault rifles called AK 47 had been found totally preserved and they had retailored the ammunition with and without radiation. They presented Jonnie with one that they had chrome-molecular-plated down at Grozny and five thousand rounds of guaranteed no-misfire ammunition in clips.
The Russian premier had apparently never gotten here but his command post had been ready. Jonnie thought that must be a picture of him, that big one on the wall, but he was told no, that was a picture of a former tsar named Lenin. Possibly in the time of Timur I Leng, they were not sure, but it was evidently a very respected picture so they had left it.
Level after level, pa.s.sage after pa.s.sage, they trooped through the vast base, stopping now and then to show Jonnie things, smiling at his praise, very happy that he was pleased with it.
But the main thing Jonnie was happy with was the underground hangars. Here was room for thousands of planes. The very thing. Storage. Exactly what he had hoped to find. They had used blade sc.r.a.pers to push out the crumbled ruins that they said were "migs" and other craft. Jonnie could not read the alphabet but many of them could, and they showed him some of the labels they had salvaged before pushing the mounds of warplanes out. "Migs" meant "airplane" in Russian, they said.
The hangars had their own ports and entrances. Just what Jonnie wanted!
They showed him the tactical nuclear and other nuclear manuals. They were all in Russian but one old fellow from the Hindu Kush a.s.sured Jonnie he could read them...
There was a lot of nuclear weapons storage to the north and they were not going near it until they got the manuals read. There were a lot of "silos" too that had powder rockets still in them but the powder was dangerous to handle. It had gone bad but little pieces blew up if you hit them hard with a hammer. Not very useful.
They also showed him a coal mine nearby where the black rocks burned. So heating and fuel were handy.
Now they were going to get a lot of these black rocks. They were going to harvest a lot of that wild wheat. They had plans. Jonnie said the plans were great and they had done so very well that they were great too. He was very, very pleased. He shook the hands of hundreds of people.
It was not until dawn the following day that he could leave for Tibet. What had been intended as a two-hour check of a base had developed into a two-day tour. He was amazed what people could do if you let them just get at it, without a lot of government restricting them.
He was wearing the new helmet when he left. The colonel saw to that. Buckled down too! The colonel didn"t care if he couldn"t hear. Motors were bad for the ears and at high alt.i.tudes his ears would get cold. Jonnie laughed at him but he wore it.
Chapter 3.