A gillie wheeled the dolly in. They had stacked the material neatly on it.
“Don't try to fire those assassin pistols,” said Thor. "Ker put a plug in them so they'd shoot out of the back at the user. Ker said to tell you and that he'd fix them back.”
They handed Jonnie some of the booklets and papers that had been in the false backs and bottoms of the cabinets. Jonnie had a lot of it already. His eye was caught by a pamphlet: “Known Defenses of Hostile Races and Surveys of Their Homelands.” He thumbed through it. Lot of planets here. He looked under Tolnep:
This planet is a planet of a double-star system. (See coordinate chart for location.) The system itself has only three inhabited planets, the seventh, eight, and ninth. The Tolnep homeland is the ninth planet. It has five moons. Of these, only Asart is important. It is used as the launch of major war vessels. No Tolnep vessel can operate in atmosphere due to the great inefficiency of its star energy drives which, being essentially reaction engines, use up too much of their power in atmospheres. After construction, such vessels are based on the moon Asart and their crews and material are ferried to them from planet surface. Since plans have been proposed from time to time to occupy and mine the Tolnep planet, and since usual offensive tactics are thought to be adequate in the event of such a war, the moon Asart has not been assaulted up to the time of this writing.
Jonnie looked at the Psychlo date. It was only a couple of years old. The catalogue went on. Jonnie laid it down.
Another thud and ground shake.
Suddenly, Jonnie was aware of the underlying tension in all those who had come in. They were just trying to make him feel easy! Thor had received an urgent summons while he had been reading. And now a communicator rushed in with a sheaf of dispatches for Sir Robert and rushed out. Jonnie saw the frown flicker across Sir Robert's face as he read them.
“The situation is worse than you're letting on, isn't it?” said Jonnie.
"Naw, naw," said Sir Robert. "Dinna fret yersel', laddie,”
“What is the situation?” demanded Jonnie. Sir Robert never dropped into dialect unless agitated.
The grizzled old Scot sighed and recovered his university accent. “Well, if you must have it, we have lost the initiative. For whatever reason, the enemy has decided to attack in force.” He tapped the reports.
“Singapore is holding so far and right now has tied down about three-quarters of their forces. But they won't be tied down there forever. The Russian base is getting the attention of planes from a large war vessel. Edinburgh is getting hit. Neither of the last two places have any armor cable coverage. And up there,” he pointed, “is a huge monster of a battleship that has been sending planes and bombs down for several hours. It could also launch up to a thousand Tolnep marines and we aren't that well equipped to handle an assault force by land. So there you have it. It can only get worse, not better.”
“Call Dr. Allen," said Jonnie. "I’m getting up!”
Sir Robert tried to protest but he finally called the doctor in.
Dr. Allen did not like it. “You're full of a drug we found called 'sulfa' that will prevent infection and blood poisoning. You'll feel dizzy if you get up suddenly. I don't advise it.”
Nevertheless, Jonnie insisted. He knew they were doing all they could. But he wanted to look over the situation. He just couldn't sit still and be pounded to bits.
Jonnie couldn't see any clothes. A Coordinator showed up with an elderly, gray-headed Chinese man.
“This is Mr. Tsung," said the Coordinator. “He has been in charge of fixing up your room. He has been learning a little English so he can help you.”
Mr. Tsung bowed. He was obviously pleased to see Jonnie but the thudding bombs also held some of his attention. He had a bowl of soup for Jonnie to drink and his hands shook a bit as he held it out. Jonnie would have laid it down but Mr. Tsung shook his head.
“Drink! Drink!” said Mr. Tsung. "Mebbe so no chance eat later.”
Another communicator beckoned to Sir Robert from the door and the old Scot rushed out.
Mr. Tsung was getting his nervousness under control. The novelty of meeting Jonnie was wearing off, and now that he was doing something, the sporadic thuds of bombs seemed less. And then a conviction came to him that if anybody could do anything about this it would be Lord Jonnie. As he laid out weapons he began to smile with more confidence.
It was true what Dr. Allen said about being dizzy if he moved too suddenly, Jonnie discovered as he dressed. His arm was very sore and stiff. It was a bit hard to dress.
Mr. Tsung got him into the plain green uniform they all wore. He buckled the
Smith and Wesson with the left-hand holster and a blast pistol with a right-hand holster around Jonnie's waist. He rigged a black silk sling for his arm and then adjusted it so that Jonnie could get the arm out of it fast and draw the Smith and Wesson if he had to. He made Jonnie check it to make sure he could do that. Then he gave Jonnie the plain green helmet.
“Now you shoot them,” said Mr. Tsung. He made his hand into a pistol and fired it twice. “Bang! Bang!” He was very confident now, smiling. He tucked his hands in his sleeves and bowed.
If it were only that simple, Jonnie thought. But he bowed and thanked the little man. Good lord, he was dizzy. Made the room spin to lower his head.
An unusually large explosion shook the ground.
They were catching it.
Chapter 3
As Jonnie left his room, he saw that the underground passage also led past the hospital. Although his intention had been to go out to the cone where the platform was, concern about the wounded of the raiding party halted him by that door.
A clatter was coming from the place. The click of bolts being cocked and the slap of slings? Arms? He stepped inside the door. There were about thirty beds and over half of them were occupied. But two Chinese, whose armbands showed they were from the armory, had a dolly with assorted weaponry, and they were passing out blast rifles, AK 47s with thermit ammunition, and handguns to the wounded Scots.
A gray-haired Scot nurse came up to Jonnie. She obviously did not approve of this commotion in her ward. Then she recognized Jonnie and choked back whatever she was about to say, probably to tell him to get out.
Jonnie had been counting. “There's thirteen in here from the raiding party and two gunners. Are there any more?”
“The two lads with concussions are in surgery,” said the nurse. “Dr. MacKendrick says their operations went well and they'll be fine. Are you supposed to be up, MacTyler?"
By now one of the injured Scots had seen Jonnie at the door and barked his name. Jonnie had been about to go from bed to bed with apologies. It appeared there were seventeen casualties out of the raiding party of thirty-one. No, eighteen including himself. Heavy! These men were badly bruised; black eyes predominated. Several broken limbs. He felt that better planning could have averted this.
But the other Scots had seen him and they began to put up a yell. Sounded like “Scotland wei heigh!” They were sitting up and yelling. Nothing wrong with their morale!
Suddenly Jonnie realized that these lads had slaughtered the Brigantes and settled the blood feud of Scotland. They were victors. Their injuries were badges of honor. They would be heroes to the whole Scottish nation.
No apologies needed here. He tried to shout into the din and then simply saluted them and, with a smile and wave, withdrew.
He could hear loudspeakers outside playing solemn religious music to prevent infrabeam surveillance.