He handed Brown Limper the thoroughly wrapped ultimate bomb. It weighed about eighty pounds, and as Brown Limper took it, he almost dropped it. Terl, in some apprehension, caught it before it could fall. Terl managed a smile as he restored it to Brown Limper.
"It"s a nice gift," said Terl. "Open it when I"m gone and you"ll find the answer to your most golden dreams. Something to remember me by." No danger in giving it to them: it would take them an hour to get the wrapper off. Then one lift of the lid and bang-no planet!
Terl patted Brown Limper on the head. He glanced at his watch. Still plenty of time. He walked over toward the platform. Captunk Arf Moiphy called his men to attention. Terl marched on by.
With a bold and martial step, Terl walked to the console.
He reached down and closed the bus bar on the atmosphere armor cable. Snow flew up all along its length. Good!
He was now safe! A solid wall enclosed the console and platform and beyond that a solid wall of armed bodies.
He glanced at his watch. He had plenty of time. He walked over to the baggage and kicked his own kit into the pile. The Brigantes had brought quite a mound of air bottles for themselves.
General Snith, militarily dressed in a buffalo coat, his "diamond" in his cap, his crossbelts jammed with poisoned arrows, gave him a chest-pound salute. But he asked, "You gonna change de money fer tsure?" He pointed to a huge mound of money, Brown Limper notes.
"Absolutely," Terl rea.s.sured him. "Credits go where credit is due! Besides, you have me hostage, don"t you?"
Snith was rea.s.sured.
And speaking of hostages, Terl leaned over the long bundle and opened the top of it. Black, glaring eyes pierced him. He beckoned to the Brigante so a.s.signed and the man pushed an air mask on the face and shoved the bottle onto the chest. He buckled the bottle on. He had almost gotten bit!
Terl looked at his watch. The time was coming up. He walked over to the console.
He moved the toggle switch in the upper left-hand corner to the up position. He threw on the activating bus bar. The console"s top b.u.t.tons glowed.
Terl sat there counting down the seconds. Then he punched in the long-since-memorized coordinates. He checked his watch for the exact instant. He punched the firing b.u.t.ton.
He reached down and activated the ten-minute time bomb.
The wires began to build up a hum.
Out of the tail of his eye he saw a man rise up beyond the Brown Limper car. Somebody jumping up. Somebody in a radiation suit. Terl looked hard and suddenly realized it looked like and must be the animal.
Ha! Brown Limper had gotten his Tyler after all.
Terl walked over to the center of the platform.
The hum was building up. What joy to think of being safe on Psychlo in just under three minutes!
Chapter 2.
Brown Limper Staffor had seethed when Terl discovered the submachine gun. But the sight of the barrel being bent almost double had caused him to hold his peace. This huge monster was strong.
So he stood there and accepted the gift. Actually it must be gold, it was so heavy. He had no qualms about accepting gold even if it looked like a bribe. He had earned it. But his mind was only slightly on all that. He was still looking avidly for Tyler.
But he decided he would wait until Terl was safely at that console.
He saw Captunk Arf Moiphy salute. Saw the Brigantes draw up and begin to take poisoned arrows from the crossbelts. Saw the performance on the platform. Terl had somebody else there in the bundle. Tyler? No, it couldn"t be Tyler or Terl would have called out. Maybe it was Tyler. Maybe Terl was double-crossing him! No, it couldn"t be Tyler. Who was it? But yes, it might be Tyler. They put an air mask on whoever it was. They meant to take somebody to Psychlo!
No, it couldn"t be Tyler.
But maybe it was.
When the snow had jumped up from the ground, Brown Limper had been slightly startled. But nothing had happened except that Terl went over to that bundle.
Ah, finally Terl was going back to the console. Brown Limper had been told the wires would begin to hum.
He would wait for that.
It was hard to see in this snow. The white glare of it and the swirls in the wind gusts kept blanking out things. But he could listen.
He thought he heard the hum start. He couldn"t be sure. The wind was making sounds and that Brigante mob was yelling goodbyes to General Snith. Brown Limper thought he had better wait until Terl walked back to the platform center before he moved.
In the back of the car was another submachine gun. Brown Limper had thought of everything.
The moment Terl reached the middle of the platform, Brown Limper would dive into the back of the car, get the Thompson submachine gun, load it, and race to that platform edge and spray the whole place. It must be Tyler in that bundle!
Brown Limper stood there, holding the "gift," waiting for Terl to walk away from the console. The yells of the Brigante tribe and the whir of the wind made it impossible to tell whether the hum had started. He would have to be sure.
He had better wait for the last moment. Then Terl couldn"t rush off the platform to stop him.
He didn"t hear the thud of running feet behind him.
Suddenly two hands reached out and grabbed at the "gift!" A radiation-masked face and an air mask under the radiation mask.
Then he saw the blonde beard through all that leaded gla.s.s.
Tyler was right on top of him!
"Run!" yelled the face.
The hands whipped the "gift" away from Brown Limper.
"Run for your life!" came from the half-hidden face.
Then the man turned and, carrying the package, sprinted toward the hangar side of the compound. The figure was growing thinner in the snow, hard to see.
"Shoot him!" screamed Brown Limper to Lars.
He whirled. Lars was running away! He was already a hundred feet away and half-hidden in snow flurries. He was running as hard as he could toward Denver.
But then something registered with Brown Limper. That voice! He knew Tyler"s voice. Even through masks and shields he did not think it was Tyler"s voice. It had sounded Swedish.
But Tyler must be around. Around someplace.
Brown Limper tore his way to the door of the car to get the other gun. The door on that side was locked.
With the whimper of despair, Brown Limper raced around the car. He had to get to that other gun.
And even as he went, above the snow, above the yells, he heard Tyler"s voice from the platform.
Unmistakable! He must hurry.
Chapter 3.
Dwight rose cautiously just behind the lip of the ravine. He was dressed in a radiation camouflage suit with an air mask behind its lead gla.s.s faceplate.
As Terl first entered the platform area, Dwight held the mine radio close to his shield gla.s.s and said, "First alert!"
Dwight had been chosen as officer of the outside raiders because he could be depended upon to follow orders exactly, without deviation, and as one of the lode mine crew chiefs, he could handle men.
They had lain since shortly after midnight in the lead coffins buried at s.p.a.ced intervals around the platform"s perimeter.
The coffins had been positioned long since by Ker and cadets in the night while they laid the armor cable. They had been covered with dirt and now were also covered by a layer of snow.
It had been no trick to slip in last night. The Brigante guards, drunk on drugged whiskey as they had been every night for two months, had detected nothing.
Dwight had a streak of superst.i.tion. It all had gone almost too smoothly. Jonnie was inside that atmosphere cable area, buried in a coffin just at the edge of the firing platform. Fire from outside would not hit him: they had tested that. But the thought of Jonnie in there, alone with those savage beasts, made Dwight numb. He had tried to get Jonnie to let somebody else do it but Jonnie had said no, he would not put a man to that risk: somebody had to be in there to shut off the armor cable, use a remote control to complete the action of the crane, and lower an armored dome down over the console to protect it. The crane could not get the dome cover through the atmosphere armor unless it was shut off. Something about a switch position that had to be determined at the firing, a switch that might automatically shift once the humming stopped. And somebody had to cut the cables away from the console. Dwight had wanted to send three men in-Jonnie had said that many wouldn"t fit in the dome with the console.
Terl had now walked to the console. Dwight said, "Second alert!" into the mine radio. The third would come when Terl pushed the firing b.u.t.ton. Action would be called when he was at the platform center and the wires had begun to hum.
Dwight and his team had only one and a half minutes to do their entire job. They had drilled and drilled in Africa. But one never knew.
The snow flurries made the visibility sporadic. But he could see what he had to see. My G.o.d, that was an awful lot of Brigantes! They were a solid line all around the perimeter of the platform, backs right up against the atmosphere ionization cable. They looked lumpy in buffalo coats. They were protecting their bow strings but their crossbelts bristled with poisoned arrows.
Dr. Allen had briefed them on those arrows. The poison was slow but deadly. It caused the nervous system to speed up faster and faster until it killed. He had developed an antidotal serum for it. He had given them all a small shot of it, but he said any wound would need speedy treatment all the same. They each carried a small ampule of the serum. Dwight hoped it worked.
Then he saw that there would be seven Brigantes on the platform. Was that the one they called General Snith? And a squad? They had not counted on that. What a fool Snith must be to permit himself to be fired to Psychlo. But Jonnie! He wouldn"t have added that into the plans. Was it too late for Dwight to do something? His orders were very positive. To do nothing but his job.
They had somebody else on the platform, bound. Who was that? My G.o.d, Jonnie"s plan wouldn"t work! He would be in there all but defenseless! Dwight gritted his teeth. His orders were to do his job only. He would. But he had a feeling of despair for Jonnie.
The Brigante tribe was noisy and cheering over there by the morgue. They were no problem. Dwight turned his attention back to Terl. The Psychlo pushed the firing b.u.t.ton.
"Third alert!" said Dwight into the mine radio.
The weapons they would use would not interrupt the firing. They had tested them. They also had nuclear weapons in case Psychlos came in on the platform afterward from Psychlo.
Terl walked over to the center of the platform. He halted. The humming had begun, heard above the shouting and wind. Dwight heard Jonnie"s voice in that enclosure. That was not on schedule.
Dwight would do his job.
"Action!" barked Dwight into the mine radio.
Thirty Scots threw off their coffin lids. Twenty-five hit their igniters. One made ready to rush for the crane. Four were up to form a reserve.
Flash! In a ragged outer ring, pointing in at the ma.s.sed Brigantes, twenty-five Russian flame throwers spewed out their deadly orange spray.
Like twenty-five hoses the roaring inferno slashed into the Brigantes. "For Allison!" came a Scot battle cry.
"For Bittie!" "Scotland forever!"
Dwight hit the b.u.t.ton of a planted loudspeaker. It was a recording of charging, trumpeting elephants, the sound that would bring terror to the Brigantes.
The mercenaries surged forward, trying to get their bows into action. Scything flame shriveled the bowstrings. The Brigantes were drawing bayonets to charge.
The tribe by the morgue screamed, adding to the din. They turned and ran with all their might out into the plain, trampling one another as they sought to get away.
A Scot had a flame out. A group of Brigantes were charging him with bayonets.
"Cover Andrew!" barked Dwight.
The Scots on either side of the dead flame thrower widened their arcs. Andrew had a claymore out. He cut down the Brigante officer and then he himself went down.
Two of the reserves hacked their way into the mess with lochaber axes and slaughtered the Brigantes stabbing at Andrew.
Dwight glanced at his watch. Fifty-eight seconds to go.
Flame throwers were sending boiling flame into Brigantes. Their buffalo coats and monkey-skin suits were b.a.l.l.s of fire. Another attempted charge by them.
Dwight tried to see through the flame and snow. The crane. It should be moving now!
Yes, the operator had gotten to it. One of the reserves was protecting him with a flame thrower.
They had buried the dome cover for the console in the ground with the cable already attached. It was evidently frozen in. It was made of the armor from a discarded tank. The bottom of it was equipped with plane skids which would anneal to the metal on which the console sat and seal it.
Dwight could see the top of the crane dipping. The operator was rocking it to break the dome loose from the ground.
There it came.
It rose with a rush. It swung. The operator steadied it.
Brigantes were rushing the crane. The Scot there blasted at them with a roaring flame thrower.