He had decided he better act, regardless of consequences. Yes, there was another tiny flash when the mask exhaled spent breathe-gas into the air!
“You've got a mask!” roared Zzt. “This kill-gas won't blow back in the drone. Just wait until it lands!” The stupid, filthy animal. Damn Terl!
“How about other people down there?” said Jonnie.
That shut Zzt up for the moment. He could not work out how something happening to somebody else had any bearing on what one would do for himself.
“Leave those motors alone!” screamed Zzt.
The Psychlo was getting hysterical. Maybe he would charge. Jonnie waited, rifle in hand. No, Zzt was not going to charge. He better get back to work on these nuts. He laid down the assault rifle and ducked. He took a full turn on nut number one. He came up to be sure Zzt hadn't moved.
The fifty-pound floor plate, sailing in a deadly spin, traveling with the speed of a cannonball, struck a skid strut, glanced, and smashed into the back of Jonnie's head.
The assault rifle flew from his clutching hand and went out into the dark. Holding somehow on to consciousness he fumbled for the revolver. There was nothing but darkness in front of his eyes.
Part XIV
Chapter 1
They had the compound!
A final dive of Glencannon’s battered plane had blown the air-cooling through into the compound breathe-gas pumps, flooding all the underground areas with air.
Glencannon had landed the ship safely. A hidden gun battery had blown out his instrument panel and radio, but he had not been burned and his controls still worked and he got the ship back to the ravine.
Scots, howling with joy, had pulled him out and pounded him on the back until sternly reminded by the parson that the pilot had broken ribs.
A few more bursts of assault rifles had cleaned off some snipers.
The pipe major had cut loose with bagpipes. The other piper and the drummer had thrown aside their rifles and picked up their instruments, and the high-pitched wail and low drone of pipes skirled across the compound to the beat of the drum.
The last remaining Psychlos came stumbling out of the underground with their paws on high. Oddly enough, they soon proved to be top-flight graduates of the various company schools and their female assistants.
Breathe-masks had been in short supply, having been put on combat teams who were going out to fight. But as Robert the Fox noted, these top-drawer ones had had their own personal masks. There were about thirty of them left alive.
Hundreds of Psychlos had died in the fire fights and hundreds more in the air flooding. By eventual count there had been nine hundred seventy-six Psychlos in this compound.
Ker tried to get away by crawling through an exhaust vent and was captured alive.
They got the fire system water valves and shut them off. A team raced around checking for radiation with open breathe-gas vials and it was found that water had washed it down into underground drains. The area was relatively safe.
Chrissie had been spotted by the
Scots, and the news earlier rumored to that effect was now confirmed as she went about helping the parson collect wounded Scots on a flatbed that had been gotten running. She was a trifle taken aback by the enthusiasm that greeted her. She was not used to being a celebrity. And she did not realize that she had given the Scots an element called for in their romances. Everywhere she went, Scots, no matter what they were doing, rushed over to her, stared at her with glad eyes, and then rushed back to the work of getting the place handled. There was still a war on, but they could cheer and their pipes could skirl. And they could delight in the successful rescue of a fair maiden. But Chrissie, even though busy and very tender with the wounded, felt a suppressed terror that she masked. Jonnie was not here and she somehow knew Jonnie was not all right.
Scots under the direction of Angus were trying to get the tumble and jumble of forklifts operating. The whole hangar door was blocked solid with wrecked planes and they could not move any planes out. They told a worried Robert the Fox it would be hours before they could get forklifts running and get to work on that pile.
Terl tried to manage a last ploy. He got to see Robert the Fox by saying he had something urgent. They brought Terl up with hoist chains wrapped around him and held in four different directions by four brawny Scots while two others held assault rifles on him.
He told Robert the Fox that he had keys to the drone presets and would exchange them for a promise of an early teleportation back to Psychlo.
Robert the Fox said yes, if Terl could produce the keys. Terl thereupon asked for his boots.
A female Psychlo who said her name was Chirk had been found in a breathe-mask under the bed in Terl's old quarters. So Robert the Fox went to her where she was being held under the spotlights of an otherwise wrecked mine car and asked her whether she was Terl's secretary, and she readily said yes, she was. So Robert said he had a message from Terl for her to get the preset keys of the drone.
Chirk had had lots of time to think since Zzt sailed off on the drone for reasons of his own, and she had finally remembered about the keys. She got very cross and sent back the message that Terl must think she was very inefficient: he knew very well that he had given her a set of keys and told her to drop them in the recycling trash bin, and that had been ages ago and the keys were long gone, and if Terl was trying to blacken her company record by saying she disobeyed orders, she could do a little blackening on her own. There was something about promising her a huge home on Psychlo. She was very cross.
So Robert the Fox called for Terl's boots and examined them and found a false sole. He removed from it a very thin, small blast gun.
Right now, Terl was chained up with four separate chain strands in a well-lighted field with an assault rifle on him. He kept snarling something about females.
The compound was a litter-strewn bedlam of lights and noise. There were hundreds of Psychlo bodies lying around in everybody's way. Everything was soaking wet.
The Chamco brothers had gladly contracted for C 15,000 a year with a C500 bonus for each major job. They were a little apprehensive about a counterattack from Psychlo, but pay was pay. They were laboring with the team of Scots to get radios back into operation but it didn't look like they would earn C500 right away. Water had saturated a lot of equipment and the transshipment area was a write-off. Nobody could get a plane out into the open where its radio could broadcast, and Glencannon's ship radio was just fused metal.
Robert the Fox walked up and down, his old cape flowing. He answered where he had to and gave orders where needed. But his mind wasn't on it.
The twelve-hour radio silence was up and he was out of communication on the planetary band. He could not order the ships that had attacked the remote minesites to go look for the drone. He had no ships to send.
He went over to where about twenty wounded Scots were laid out in a field, being handled by the parson and schoolmaster and four old women. And Chrissie.
His eyes and Chrissie's eyes met. Robert the Fox felt very bad.
Jonnie had been right. It would not have done to wait for minesite-bound ships to attack the drone. They had left long before it fired and they knew nothing of it. And he could not even tell them.
He had a feeling Jonnie was in trouble.
Robert the Fox gave his head a slight shake. Chrissie looked at him steadily for a moment, swallowed hard, and then went back to work.
Chapter 2