“Can you trust Ker?" demanded Sir Robert.
Jonnie didn't answer. He was satisfied Angus could be mistaken for the copilot if he darkened his beard, put on a bit of walnut stain, and changed clothes.
“Answer me! I canna think ye've got all yer wits!” Robert was so agitated he was pacing back and forth in the underground room Jonnie had been using. He was even lapsing into his colloquial Scot dialect.
“I must go. Now and fast,” Jonnie shot at them.
“No!” said Dunneldeen. “No!” said Robert the Fox.
There was a flurry of translations with his Coordinator and then Colonel Ivan shouted, "Nyet!"
Jonnie had Angus changing clothes with the copilot. “You don't have to go, Angus,” he said. “You said 'yes' too hastily.”
Angus said, "I’ll go. I’ll say my prayers and make my will but I’ll go with you, Jonnie.”
Stormalong was standing there and Jonnie pulled him over to a huge Psychlo mirror and stood beside him. Tropic sun had tanned Jonnie lately: their skin tone difference was not so great now. Stormalong's beard was a little darker: some walnut stain would fix that. There was the new facial scar, well healed now, that Jonnie had gotten: nothing could be done about that, and he hoped people would think Stormalong had had an accident; yes, wait, he could put a bandage on it. Ah, the square cut of the bottom of the beard: that was what was making the difference. He reached for the tool kit Angus always carried, got out some sharp wire snips, and began to make his beard exactly the same as Stormalong's. That done, he changed clothes with him. Now a little walnut stain in the beard...good. He looked at himself in the mirror. Ah, yes. The piece of bandage. He got that and put in on. Now? Good. He could pass for Stormalong. The huge, old– fashioned goggles, white scarf, and leather flying coat: yes, they did it. Unless he was looked at too closely or their slight difference in accent was heard....
He made Stormalong talk, then he talked. No Scot burr in Stormalong's accent. Scot university? A little soft in pronunciation? He tried it. Yes, he could also sound like Stormalong.
The others were very agitated. The big Russian was cracking the knuckles of his huge hands. Bittie MacLeod was peering into the room. He came forward, his eyes bright with pleading.
“No,” said Jonnie. Pride or no pride, this mission had death in it. “You cannot come with me!” Then he softened. “Take good care of Colonel Ivan."
Bittie swallowed and backed up.
Angus had finished and run out. The clang of cartridges being changed and the whir of a drill sounded from the hangar where they were readying the plane.
Jonnie beckoned to Colonel Ivan. He and his Coordinator came forward. “Get the American underground base closed, Colonel. Every door. So no one can enter but us. Close it so hard they'll never get into it. Do the same thing with the tactical and nuclear weapons area thirty miles to the north. Seal it. Secure every assault rifle not in use by Scots. Have you got it?”
The colonel had a group there now.
Yes, he got it.
Jonnie beckoned to Dunneldeen and Sir Robert and they kept pace with him as he went toward their commissary. Jonnie, in terse, brief statements, told them exactly what to do to carry on, if he were killed. They were very sober, worried for him. The hairbreadth daring of his plan left an awful lot of room for slip– ups. But they got it. They said they would carry on.
“And Dunneldeen," concluded Jonnie, “I want you over at the Academy in America in about twenty-four hours, coming in from Scotland to take over the pilot training duties of Stormalong who by then, with luck, will be on 'other assignment.'
For once Dunneldeen just nodded assent.
The old woman who had come down from the Mountains of the Moon tribe– with her whole family– to run their commissary must have heard rumors in the wind. She had a food package gathered up for two, some gourds full of sweet water, and a big sandwich of roasted African buffalo meat and millet bread, and she stood right there in front of Jonnie until he began eating it.
Sir Robert picked up the food package and Dunneldeen the gourds and they walked past the old Psychlo operations office. There was hammering and drill whirring still coming from the plane area, where Angus was making sure it was all operational. Jonnie picked up a few yards of radio printer paper and glanced at current traffic, looking for any unusual weather in the pilot cross talk.
Well, well! One...two...yes, two mentions of the craft that got as big as the sky. Stories similar to the one Stormalong had told him. The small gray man mentioned in both, India and South America.
“The small gray man gets around,” murmured Jonnie. Dunneldeen and Sir Robert craned around to the printout to see what he was talking about. “Stormalong will tell you,” said Jonnie. Earth certainly was of interest to some other civilization in space. But the small gray man didn't seem hostile. At least not yet. “Keep this or any other base you go to defended on a twenty-four-hour basis,” said Jonnie.
The whirring and hammering had stopped and they went to the plane. It was being dollied to just inside the open hangar door.
Stormalong was standing there with his copilot. “You stay here,” said Jonnie. “Both of you. You,” he jabbed a finger into Stormalong's chest, “be me. Go on that same route every day in my clothes and throw rocks. And you,” he pointed a finger at the copilot, a Scot they called Darf, “be Angus!”
"I’m na good at a' the things bonnie Angus kens!” wailed the copilot.
“You do them,” said Jonnie.
A Russian came running in from outside and told them it was all clear, no drones coming. Not on screens or eyeball. His new English had a colloquial Scotch accent.
Jonnie and Angus got in the plane; Sir Robert and Dunneldeen threw the food and water in. Then they both stood there looking up at Jonnie. They were trying to think of something to say but both of them were unable to talk.
Bittie stood back. He waved a timid hand.
Jonnie shut the plane door. Angus gave him a thumbs-up. Jonnie signaled the dolly crew to shove them out and pushed the heavy starter buttons with his fists. He looked back. The crews and people in the hangar door weren't waving. Jonnie's fingers shoved into the console buttons.
Stormalong watched breathlessly in the door. He had known Jonnie was a flier unequaled, but he had never seen a battle plane vault upward so fast and sharply and rush into hypersonic so quickly. The bottom of the broken sound barrier rocketed back at them as it echoed against the African peaks. Or was that the boom of the storm that engulfed the speeding ship?
A roll of thunder and a lightning flash.
The group in the hangar door still stood there, looking at the place where the ship had vanished into the cloud-boiling sky. Their Jonnie was on his way to America fast. They didn't like it. Not any part of it.
Chapter 6
It was dark when they landed at the old Academy. They had flown close to the North Pole, rolling back the sun and arriving before dawn.
There were few lights. No one had lighted the field for it was not the operational field of the area, and they had slipped in on instruments and viewscreens.
The cadet duty officer was sound asleep and they woke him to get themselves logged in: "Stormalong Stam Stavenger, pilot, and Darf McNulty, copilot, returning from Europe, student battle plane
862905679 18. No troubles, no comments.” The cadet duty officer wrote it down. He didn't bother to get them to sign it.