Down at the end of the room where there were some spare desks, Glencannon was hunched over a pile of pictures. Jonnie glanced at them. They seemed to be viewscreen runoffs of an air battle. The one he had when the Swiss was killed? Glencannon had another stack, apparently just taken. They were of the huge monster overhead.
Glencannon seemed very agitated, his hands shaking. He had not really recovered from that courier run, seemingly, for Stormalong didn't have him flying. He didn't answer when Jonnie spoke to him.
The operations board was not good, but Jonnie did not have anything to contribute. It was simply a slugfest. He wondered how long places not protected with atmosphere armor cable could hold out. Edinburgh was particularly vulnerable. A worry about Chrissie passed through his mind. He hoped she was safe in a bunker under Castle Rock. Sir Robert answered his question. Yes, they were all in bunkers up there. It was mainly antiaircraft that was protecting the place. Dunneldeen was taking care of strafing planes that tried to come in. The antiaircraft was taking care of bombs.
Jonnie thought he had better look at this antiaircraft they had here. He had never seen the Psychlo guns in action. Not up close.
He went out. Chief Chong-won had vanished, attending to other duties. Chinese families with their children and an occasional dog were sitting about, mostly in and near rifle pits. They looked a bit worn, a bit worried. Some of the children were crying. But the parents smiled broadly, and got up and bowed as Jonnie passed. It made him hope their confidence was not misplaced.
The exit from the bowl was a curving underground passage under the cable so it wouldn't have to be turned off each time anyone went in or out. The curves were to prevent bomb flash and fragments from getting in.
He went to the first antiaircraft gun emplacement. The gun was shielded. The two gunners were in Russian bulletproof battle dress. A Scot officer saw him and got out of a pit.
“We don't have enough of these,” said the Scot, pointing at the gun. “We can't cover the lake. It 's all we can do to cover this bowl.”
Jonnie went over to the gun. It had computer sights that zeroed in on anything moving. What one had to do was hit a trigger and the gun calculated the speed and direction of a moving object, sent a blast concussion into its path, then found the next moving object and hit that.
He looked up. An enemy plane at about two hundred thousand feet was barely discernible. Jonnie knew the range of this gun was short of that by about fifty thousand feet. So did the enemy apparently.
That plane was dropping bombs.
The gun bucked five times rapidly. Five bombs exploded in midair, direct hits by the gun. The explosions up there came back down to them.
“The ones you feel land,” said the Scot officer, “go into the lake. They're beyond our sector. And of course the ones that fall way out in the woods. We don't bother with those.”
Jonnie looked toward the woods. Seven or eight miles away there was quite a fire going. No, three separate fires. Every animal within fifty miles must have left the country. The African buffalo the Sherpas had was probably killed by bombs earlier. Well, the woods wouldn't burn very long. It was pretty wet just now.
He looked back at the gun. What havoc one of these things would have made with their attack on the minesites over a year ago if the attack had not been a total surprise. And if security chiefs like Terl had not let the company defenses go neglected.
Another bomb hit on a hill about ten miles away, and even from here one could see the geyser of smoke and trees. That battleship up there was dropping pretty heavy bombs. If one hit this cone, he didn't know whether the atmosphere screen would repel it.
He was walking back to the entrance when he saw Glencannon come out. He was buttoning up a heavy flying suit. He didn't have a communicator or copilot with him. He was walking toward a plane that was surrounded by sandbags. Jonnie thought he must have special orders and did not stop him.
Glencannon got into the plane, a heavily armored Mark 32 that had been converted to high-altitude flying.
Just as Jonnie started down into the passage, Stormalong came racing out of it.
"Glencannon!" shouted Stormalong. But the pilot had taken off.
Chapter 4
For days Glencannon had brooded over this. His sleep was tortured with nightmares.
In his mind he could still hear the voice of his Swiss friend, “Go on! Go on! I will shoot them down! Keep going!” And then his scream when he was hit just before he ejected. And back of Glencannon's eyes he could still see the viewscreen of his friend's body being shot to pieces in the air.
He had his own playbacks of the war vessel that had launched those planes. And he had the shots taken of this monster overhead.
It was the Terrify-class battle-plane-launching capital ship Capture. There could be no doubt about it. That was the vessel that had butchered his friend.
He felt he should have gone back, regardless of any orders. The two of them could have finished the Tolnep attack plane, he was certain. But instead he had followed orders.
He had suppressed the urge to go up and destroy that ship, and he felt that if he did not go ahead and do it now his whole life would be a nightmare.
He heard Stormalong's voice in clear
Psychlo on the local command channeclass="underline" "Glencannon! You must come back! I order you to land!” Glencannon clicked the channel off.
This was Stormalong's own Mark 32 he was flying. It had been in “emergency reserve.” It was rebuilt for high altitudes, the doors and ports sealed tight. It had huge firepower and even side bombs that could destroy half a city. It was armored to take a ferocious beating. And while its guns may or may not be able to penetrate the skin of a capital ship, there were other ways.
They could not follow him from the ground. All other Mark 32s were at Lake Victoria and here they were only using interceptors. No, they could not follow him. Not to the heights he was going.
He vaulted skyward higher and higher. He adjusted his air mask so it was snug: he was going to go out of the atmosphere.
The Capture was swinging in a slow and ponderous ellipse, three hundred fifty miles above Kariba. It was fifty miles above the termination of the Earth's atmosphere. It was operating on reaction engines and was no longer simply sailing in orbit.
Planes would leave it, streak downward to targets, and then return to be rearmed. One spotted him and dove. Almost with contempt, Glencannon centered him in his sights and pressed his fire button. The Mark 32 bucked in recoil.
The Tolnep burst into fire and plummeted earthward like a comet.
It alerted the Capture to his presence, and as he neared it the gun ports winked and long laces of flame streaked the sky about him. One splashed on the side of the Mark 32. It made the flight deck hot.
Glencannon danced back out of range. He saw the steering ports of the ship jet fire and anticipated its course.
Twenty-five miles in front of it he began to tap his console to hold his position. It was just out of the Tolnep's range.
He adjusted his viewscreens and began to watch.
The stars were glaring bright in the blackness above him but he had no eye for them. The Earth spread out its curves below him but he saw them not.
His whole, concentrated, obsessed attention was on the Capture, studying it.
The ship resumed operation after a bit, believing his mission must be surveillance, not attack. The arrogance of such a ship was plain. It did not believe it could be hurt. It was once more launching and taking aboard planes.