So he had finally slumped down on the cold plates in the forward end of the ship and in apathy decided to last it out. In a day or two or three this thing would land. There was nothing in it to cushion anyone from the rough landings these made, but Zzt imagined he would survive it.
Just sit and wait. That was all he could do.
Damn Terl! Damn Nup! Damn the company!
And all on half-pay and no bonuses.
Chapter 5
Jonnie was searching for the drone. Every viewscreen was flashing.
Down below the cold Arctic spread out, visible in the screens, invisible to direct sight. He remembered it from his last trip across it. A forbidding array. Once down in it you were dead: if not from direct cold on an ice flow, then from immersion in those waters.
As nearly as he could judge, the gas drone was somewhere ahead only a few minutes now. Shortly he should have it on his screen.
He was a little bit disturbed about the girls and Thor. He had not seen them on his screens as he went by. Of course he was by then very high. The spot of light he saw might be their fire, but it also might be the planes still burning. He had wasted too much time already and help was on the way to them. He remembered their numb faces when they realized he was leaving them there. But they must be all right. Probably they were at the Academy or the compound by now. Maybe the parson had been driving very fast. A mine ground car could do over sixty on rough terrain.
He hoped the other planes had reached the minesites and done their jobs. There was still five hours of radio silence yet to go. He wished he could open up on this radio and yell to them, “Hey, anybody that's done in his minesite, get up here to such and such coordinates and help blast this confounded drone.” But he didn't dare. It might cost some of them their lives by alerting their targets. They all had extra fuel and then some. They all had spare ammunition. But if any had had to delay or were waiting for an optimal moment to pounce on a minesite and he opened up, it could throw their lives away. He wasn't about to kill any Scots to save his own hide. When radio silence opened and Robert didn't hear from him, Robert would converge them to handle the drone. Late, maybe, but a second chance. He hoped it wouldn't come to that for their friends in Scotland would be endangered.
Maybe he was searching for something that was wave cancelled. That escort ship was his hope. Maybe it had peeled off or gone somewhere else. It's blip should be visible!
Ah, now. What was that tiny spark of green on the viewscreen? Another iceberg? No, the height telltale read four thousand two hundred twenty-three feet. Speed? Speed?
Three hundred two miles per hour! He had the escort on the screen. His gloved hands danced on the console. He braked down from hypersonic, dropping abruptly to five thousand feet in a descent as fast as a firing rocket. He cushioned at the bottom, feeling a trifle squashed for a moment. Easy, take it easy. Size up this escort.
He got it bright and clear in infrared. There was the drone beside it. One thing at a time. This escort was first target.
What was that plane? He had never seen anything like it before. Lowslung, flat, minimum skids...it looked like it was mainly armor!
Suddenly he realized that his guns might not even dent it. He had seen a tank bazooka flash against its side without affecting it in the least. He had a sinking feeling. Not only was the drone renowned as impregnable, but here was an escort ship that-
His mind raced with possibilities. Robert the Fox sometimes said, “When you only have two inches of claymore use ten feet of guile.” What did that escort know about him?
He reached for the local command radio switch. The range was only about twenty miles.
A torrent of angry Psychlo words hit him: “It’s about time somebody showed up! I should have been relieved of this job hours ago! What kept you?” Angry. Very angry!
Jonnie opened his transmit switch. He lowered the pitch of his voice as much as possible. “How are things?”
“The drone's all right and why shouldn't it be? I’ve been escorting it, haven't I? You certainly run a messed-up planet here! It's not like this on Psychlo! I should hope not! You're late! What's your name?”
Jonnie hastily dredged up a name that was common to twenty percent of the Psychlos. "Snit. Could I ask who I’m talking to?”
"Nup, Executive Administrator Nup! Use 'Your Executiveship' when you address me! Crap planet.”
“Did you arrive recently, Your Executiveship?” asked Jonnie.
“Just today, Snit. And how am I greeted? With a crummy Bolbod attack anyone could handle! Wait,” suspiciously, “you have a very strange accent. Like...like...yes, like a Chinko instruction disc! That's what it is. You're not a Bolbod, are you?” The click of firing buttons pulled off safety to standby.
“I was born here,” said Jonnie truthfully.
A sharp nasty laugh. “Oh, a colonial!”
Silence for a moment. “Were you briefed on this mission?”
“A little bit, Your Executiveship. But orders have been changed. That's what I was sent to tell you.”
“You're not relieving me?” Very hostile.
“The destination has been changed!” said Jonnie. “There's radio silence. They had to send me with the word.”
“Radio silence?”
“Planetary wide, Your Executiveship."
“Ah, then it is a Bolbod attack! They operate everything on radio! I knew it.”
"I’m afraid so, Your Executiveship.”
“Well, if you're not going to relieve me, what am I expected to do? I am almost out of fuel! Where's the nearest minesite!" Jonnie thought very fast.
“Your Executiveship, the orders were that if you were almost out of fuel-' Good lord, where could he send him? That Mark 32 was the only thing that one could home in on in a search! "-l was to tell you to land with magnetic grapnels on top of the drone...right at the front end.”
“What?” incredulous.
“Then drop off when we come close to the next minesite. You've got a map there?”
“No. I haven't got a map. You run things very badly on this planet. Not like Psychlo. It should be reported.”
“There's an attack on.” “Nothing can dent this plane. It 's a ground strafer. I don't know why it's being sent on escort.”
“How much fuel do you have, Your Executiveship?"
A pause. Then, “Crap! It 's only ten minutes' worth! You almost killed me with your lateness.”
“Well, just land on the extreme front end of the drone-'
“Why the front end? I should land in the middle. If I land on the front end it
will unbalance the weight distribution of the drone.”
“It’s the way it's loaded this trip. They omitted part of the load in the front. They said specifically the front end.”
“This is a pretty heavy plane!”
“Not for the drone. You better get moving, Your Executiveship. That water is cold down there. Ice, too! And you'll need fuel to off-load. It 's only a few hours to the next minesite."
Jonnie watched his screens. He couldn't see the plane in direct sight. With a bit of anxiety, he opened up the view to include the monstrous drone.
He felt faint with relief when the Mark 32 dove ahead, sat down on the top-front section of the drone, and put on its magnetic grips. They held!
The heat indicator of the viewscreen showed the Mark 32 had shut off its motors.
Jonnie watched. He expected the drone to nose down, possibly to crash. It did sag. Then its engines started to compensate and it rolled gently, thundering along, still going on its lethal way. Nup had landed off-center, inducing a continuous roll, right to left, left to right. It would roll to the right, and the balance motors would compensate and bring it back too far to the left and then overcompensate in the other direction. Only about ten degrees each way. But this did not at all change the steadfast course the drone was following. A very slow roll. Was it also crabbing slightly?