He went clear to the back end of the drone, quite a walk in itself. He looked at the strange honeycomb. It was bottle racks for additional load. He crawled in the entry port. Maybe some cables or something overlooked would be in there. He could barely get through the port and wondered how a
Psychlo could, until he realized it was just for canister loading of the racks. Clumsy. Just racks. Bad design. The ports were toward the center and it was only blank bulkhead on either side. Nothing else here.
He went back toward the forward end. He stopped just beyond the ship. He thought very hard. He could see nothing that could be pulled apart, nothing that could be blasted apart. He could even blow up his ship in here and nothing would happen.
No controls. The drone was not made to be flown but just set and launched. Not even the remote Terl had shown him would do anything now.
Rolling like a huge ungainly drunk, the thing continued on its way with death in its jaws, insensate, invulnerable.
He wasn't seeing so well again. Blood had started flowing when he crawled into the hole back there and he'd knocked his mask. He lifted his hands to the mask, turning sideways to lessen the blast from the door. He was reaching for the edge of his jacket to wipe it off.
With the impact of a bullet the mask was hit!
It flew from his hand.
Something had almost broken his left thumb.
There was motion about thirty feet away.
Mountain training and a hunter's life had left nothing wanting in Jonnie's reactions.
The action of dropping to one knee, drawing, and firing the blast gun did not take more than a third of a second.
He fired at the mass that had begun to come at him. The shots drove it back with sheer force.
Again and again he fired.
The thing, whatever it was, moved back into the cover of the rib frames near the preset.
There was something or someone in here with him. He had walked right past it twice when he went to the preset box.
Chapter 9
Jonnie protested a little at not heeding his instincts earlier. He had felt some presence. That was the worst part of wearing air masks. It denied one's sense of smell. And he could smell it now. Despite the cold air and the rust motes Jonnie could smell a Psychlo.
He rose cautiously, holding the gun, and backed toward his plane to get a bit more distant. A Psychlo was pretty strong stuff not only to smell but to deal with in any wrestling match. He recalled having to wait for Thor before he could approach within arm's length of Terl. Psychlos could crush one with ease. Which Psychlo was this? Did he know him?
Zzt, pressed up against the skin, was trying to keep from vomiting with contempt and disgust. Only what it would do to his breathe-mask prevented him.
It wasn't the blast gun shots. Yes, those that hit had bruised him and thrown him back, and a few feet closer they might have disabled him.
It was his own reaction to change. Here he had been in abject funk and all the while it was only the animal. Terl's animal!
A surge of hatred and fury followed his nausea. He almost emerged from the recess and plowed straight in. But a blast gun stung. And the dumb twit didn't even have it on penetration, only on blast. Typical.
That this animal had subjected him to such terror he could not forgive. Why, he had nearly killed it once on the tractor with a remote. He really should have killed it. He should have taken a blast rifle out that day. Who would have noticed in all that fire?
Nothing but the animal! A puny, soft, undersized, slug-white, stupid animal had scared him like that! He quivered with rage. His nausea faded.
Desire for information overrode his kill lust at this moment. Maybe this was some new plot of Terl’s. Damn
Terl!
Zzt got himself under control enough to speak. “Did Terl send you?”
Jonnie tried to place the voice. Hard to do the way they talked through a face mask. The masks had sound amplification patches on their sides but voices got muffled, low as they were. He could ask; Psychlos were very arrogant.
“Who are you?” said Jonnie.
“You went through all that at the tractor and you don't even remember who I am! Stupid dimwit. Answer me!
Did Terl send you?”
Zzt! The times Terl had muttered and rumbled on about Zzt! Jonnie had his own score to settle with him.
He couldn't resist it. “I came to bust up the machinery,” said Jonnie.
Another Psychlo might have laughed. Not Zzt. “That goes without doubt, animal! Answer me or I’ll-'
“You'll what?” said Jonnie. “Step out and get killed? This blaster is set on penetration now.” Jonnie was slowly pacing backward to the battle plane. He edged around it. He got up on its step and opened the door and got out the assault rifle with radiation bullets. He cocked it and, when he had it ready to fire, put the blast gun back in his belt and began to walk up the corridor again.
Zzt had gone silent.
Jonnie tried to step sideways far enough to angle a shot into a recess as soon as Zzt spoke again. Then he paused. Zzt was the master mechanic of the compound, the transport chief in fact. He would know far more about this drone than anyone else.
"How'd you get yourself trapped aboard here?” said Jonnie.
"Terl!" It was practically a scream. “The ," and there followed a string of Psychlo profanity that went on for minutes.
Jonnie waited it out. When it finally subsided into mere rumblings, Jonnie said, “So you want to get off. Just tell me how to land this and you can get off.”
There followed a new string of Psychlo obscenities, so violent that Jonnie began to be convinced. Finally, “There isn't any way to change it or land it-”
A pause, almost hopefully then, “Did Terl give you the keys to the preset?”
“No. Can't it be blasted open?”
Apathy. “No.”
“Can't you tear out the cables?”
“That would just crash this thing, and you can't do that either. They're armored with molecular lamination metal. He didn't give you the keys.” It was a groan. Then savage: “You dimwit! Why didn't you get the keys from him before you came out here?”
“He was a bit tied up,” said Jonnie. Then, “You better tell me what do so I just don't stop its motors.”
“There aren't any nots either,” said Zzt. He was feeling sick again from the rolling of the drone.
Jonnie pulled far over to the side. He was wondering whether he could send some ricochets from the frame into the recess. He couldn't get over far enough. The frames were pointed-edged for strength and the edges angled out.
So Zzt was no help. Jonnie backed away toward the plane. He was going back for the copilot air mask. The Arctic chill was freezing his face. He glanced at the remains of the one knocked out of his hand. His thumb still ached.
Zzt had thrown a wrench. It was still imbedded in the side of the mask. If that had hit him in the head-
A wrench? Wait. What could one do with a wrench?
Jonnie picked up the wrench. Typically Psychlo, it was heavy as lead. It could open up to take a twelve-inch-diameter nut, a small nut in Psychlo machinery. Quite a weapon.
The second he started to straighten up from retrieving the wrench, Zzt tried to charge.
The gun was off target. Jonnie squeezed the trigger and shots flamed up the passageway. Zzt dove back. He wasn't hit or he would have gone into a pale green explosion from radiation bullets.
Jonnie eased back to the plane and got the other air mask, checked its valves, and put it on. It worked okay.
Zzt was scrambling around on the floor, trying to find his mirror. It had become wedged in a loose plate. A loose plate?
Zzt used the mirror to check where the animal was. Then he got to work with his talons and a small metal ruler he always carried to pry up the fifty-pound plate. It was hard going, but what a projectile it would make!