“Yes!” rumbled the Bolbod. “We should go right down and smear them!”
The Jambitchow commander laughed lightly. “I am afraid you will have to count me out, gentle sirs. For the moment at least. Have you looked over there at that shoulder on the mountain peak– the one just to the west of the capital?”
There was silence and then some startled gasps.
Fifteen assorted battle planes and marine attack carriers were just now rising into view.
“It was an ambush!” said the half-captain.
“Bah,” said the Bolbod. “Their firepower does not compare to even one of our major vessels!”
“They could be quite nasty,” said the Jambitchow in his lilting voice.
There was a lull. Abruptly a face filled the viewer of the small gray man. It was Roof Arsebogger of the “Midnight Fang” calling from the Tolnep Terrify-class battle-plane-launching capital ship Capture.
“Your Excellency,” drooled the reporter, “could we take advantage of this lull to get your personal reactions to this general situation?”
The small gray man was always calm, never emotional. All he said, and in a quiet voice, was, “Get out of my viewscreen."
“Oh, yes sir, Your Excellency. Indeed, sir, Your Excellency. At once, sir!” The diseased face vanished.
The small gray man made a grimace of distaste and then went back to considering the rest of them. Sooner or later they would come to some conclusion and take some concerted action. So far none had mentioned the teleportation trace. None of them was coming to any logical conclusion. Was each one privately hungering for prize money and keeping the rest in the dark? He would listen. It was always safe to listen.
The combined force had come alive and was changing position in orbit so as to maintain its location above this area. Flashes of engine exhausts were apparent in the sky around and a mutter of internal ship commands trickled through the channels. They were readying themselves.
It was the Hawvin who finally expressed something that must have been on all their minds– the rewards. “I have just worked out that they might be the one and don't know! There is a report here of a big Psychlo walking around a firing platform down there earlier this day.”
“Well, if it was a Psychlo, don't you think he would have known?” said the Jambitchow commander.
This brought the Hockner super-lieutenant into it. "If the silly fool didn't know, he still might have been the one.”
“But if he had been the one,” said the Hawvin, “he would know. And he didn't know, so this isn't the one.”
The quarter-admiral chipped in, tapping a tooth thoughtfully. “As the possibility now exists that they are the one--" other faces looked at him on their viewscreens, unable to figure out how he had gotten to this conclusion “-why then I see no reason to hold off further from simply raiding the place and gutting it and then clearing out.
“But on the other hand,” continued the quarter-admiral in a brilliant spurt of logic, “if they are the one, then they constitute an extreme danger to us and should be raided. Either way, we simply raid it, divide up the loot, and clear out.”
“And the reward money?” said the Jambitchow.
“Why,” said the quarter-admiral, “we can best find out about that with an extensive interrogation of the resulting prisoners. As commander-in-chief of this combined force-'
There were instant protests. They agreed that in any event they should attack, gut the place, and clear out. But they didn't agree that the quarter-admiral was their commander-in-chief!
This produced a very sour effect on Quarter-Admiral Snowleter. Roof Arsebogger being aboard, he wanted to get the best possible image. This disagreement didn't fit with it and it made him quite cross.
The ensuing wrangling took considerable time and the small gray man returned to studying the scene below.
He had spotted a small convoy racing south. It was in two sections. The first, smaller section was streaking down what must have been an ancient highway. The second was larger and driving nearly as fast. At first it might appear that the second was chasing the first. But now they had come together without a fight on the banks of a river. They must all be the same group.
The stream was in spring flood, and shortly after the arrival of the first section, water pumps were placed and huge sprays of water were visible. They were spraying down their vehicles and themselves.
The action was not known to the small gray man so he consulted some reference books. Radiation! The way to get rid of contamination was copious use of water. The particles could be washed down and away due to their weight. Then that had been a nuclear blast. The Psychlos down through the ages had remorselessly suppressed anyone seeking to use such weapons. It was a nearly forgotten chapter of ancient warfare.
The small gray man had his communication officer tune in his viewscreens better. There was haze and overcast down there, a little difficult to see through. The city to the north had begun to burn quite fiercely, a glow under the clouds of spiring smoke. The wind was from the south and even though this left the river area where the trucks had arrived clearer, there was a lot of interference. Ah, it was that shorting power line to the old minesite. It made the viewscreen jump and distort.
It took some time for the group at the river to sort itself out. What were they? Refugees? The remains of an attack force?
And then he saw it: under that dome they had raised with a crane, a teleportation console.
He began to piece this situation together. He did not know why or how, but that fight and explosion had to do with teleportation.
One or another of these commanders in the ships about him would invite his advice. He would answer noncommittally. For once he would not be helpful at all. He hoped and prayed that they would not see that console down there.
The group apparently had some wounded and were caring for them and their attention for quite a span was not on security. The console was sitting there, plain as day.
Finally six marine attack battle planes flew in and landed. There was heavy air cover over this group quite in addition to the landed planes.
The small gray man kept his eye on that console. They finally shrouded it and moved it into one of the marine-attack planes.
The Hockner super-lieutenant suddenly said, “Wasn't that a transshipment console they transferred from truck to plane? I’m playing back my screens.”
The small gray man sagged. He had not wanted them to see that. He had hoped they wouldn't recognize one if they did see it.
Vain hope. “It is.” said the Hockner.
It took them quite a while to load down there. Some of the marine attack planes were quite empty; two were very fully loaded. The small gray man looked up capacities. Yes, two marine attack planes could handle that entire party.
The commanders were now chattering at a great rate. Some had seen pictures of such consoles. There was a rising tide of excitement, a rising vision of sharing in two hundred million credits of reward money.
Then the group down there abandoned the flatbeds and pumps and a crane and what might be a couple of coffins. Six marine attack planes took off.
And then they did a very puzzling and confusing thing. Instead of assuming an orderly formation, they began to crisscross each other's bows and circle and dart. It was quite impossible even on a screen playback to tell which marine attack carrier was which!
Four of them landed again. Which four? Which were the loaded ones?
The commanders really chattered over this. They were playing back screens, looking for identifying marks. Not possible in this static.
Abruptly the Hockner solved it. Two of the planes, with only a small part of the additional air cover, took off at a leisurely pace– only a thousand miles an hour– on a northeasterly course. The other four and the remaining but majority air cover planes stayed at the river.