“unless he bats somebody over the head with that scepter.”
"I’m sure Jonnie can duck that if it comes to a fight,” said Dr. Allen. “This Lord Schleim is a very dangerous creature.” He gestured toward the jar which held the sleeve. “Nurse, add that to our collection so we can develop some antivenin for it.”
Chapter 6
Colonel Ivan lay in the dark, a flame thrower resting on the sandbags piled before him. He was at the first turning of the underground passages that labyrinthed down into the base. At every turn behind him lay more sandbagged abutments, every one of them manned.
His beard was singed off. His hands were covered with blisters.
In front of him, fifty feet away, the main entrance door, steel armored, had begun to glow from the pounding it was taking. Hot blast shots were hitting the outside every few seconds.
He had pulled his planes back in– when was that– yesterday? They were out of fuel and ammunition and of no further use in the air. Pilots were scattered below, behind the abutments.
His radio antennae had gone out. Was that yesterday too? It seemed like half a year ago.
Every mine they had planted out front had now been exploded. A thousand mines? And although the terrain out front was carpeted with strange, dismembered corpses, it had not stopped the attack.
The door was growing hotter now, gone from red to blue in some spots.
How long would it last? How long could he stand the searing heat of it?
He wondered what Marshal Jonnie was doing.
Chief of Clanfearghus lay on his unwounded side, looking along the face of the rock. There was no retreat. The tunnels had caved in behind him.
They had the last antiaircraft gun that would fire. They were not using it to shoot upward now. They had it trained on the spot the enemy would most likely attack to breach the last barricade to the rock.
The firestorm that had been Edinburgh roared ceaselessly above the din of small arms fire.
How long could old buildings burn? They had thought they had the enemy halted until just now. A new ship was high, high up there. It had just arrived and it was now sending down plane after plane of troops.
There was only Dunneldeen flying now. There he came from the direction of Cornwall where he had gone to refuel.
Why hadn't they listened to MacTyler and crowded everyone into the old Cornwall minesite? Sentiment for Edinburgh. Well, what would Edinburgh be now but ashes?
A wave of enemy troops was gathering now, getting ready for an assault upon that other entrance. He hoped Dunneldeen would live through this. The Scots, if any were left, would need him. The Chief of Clanfearghus did not think that he himself would. Too much blood was coming from his side.
He wondered what MacTyler was doing now.
“Fire low into that first wave,” he told the gunner. “And keep firing as long as you have ammunition left. At least we can gae oot i' a blaze o' glory!”
At Singapore, the Scottish officer turned to the blaze-blackened communicator and lowered his infrabeam binoculars. “I don't understand it.”
Tolnep marines had been using artillery to pound a hole under the atmosphere armor cable to the north. It had cost them very dearly. They had lost twelve tanks trying to do just that. But a running group of them had rushed up to that distant cable before they could be stopped and had blown a hole wide open beneath it at a cost of five marines.
The Scottish officer had fully expected that with the next wave some of them would get to the powerhouse and turn all their power off and leave them defenseless.
But they had suddenly withdrawn.
For the past twenty minutes they had been picking up wounded and salvaging equipment and boarding launchcrafts, harassed continually by the terrestrial battle planes.
Now they were soaring up out of reach.
The Tolnep fleet was circling. Some minutes ago, the antiaircraft control men had reported all non-Tolnep ships up there had pulled out, one for Edinburgh, three more for Russia.
Now there were just Tolneps up there.
“They're leaving!” said the Scottish officer. Well, this point at the Singapore minesite had served as a diversion that pinned enemy forces down. And for quite a while with very light losses. The cost to the enemy had been great.
While he watched, the last of his own planes pulled back. None were equipped with door seals to let them fly out of the atmosphere.
His planes were landing now. The last one came in. When its motor went off, the silence after all the constant din almost hurt the ears. There was only the sizzle of armor cable.
Way to the south and east, black smoke still soared above the ancient ruins of Singapore.
“Those ships up there are heading west!” the antiaircraft control officer called across to him. “Slightly south of west.”
“Speed?” said the Scottish officer.
“They're still accelerating. Wait. I’m plotting this. On that course they are going to arrive at Kariba minesite. They must be low on solar charge because their speed is only about two miles a second. They would get to the Kariba site...in thirty-seven or thirty-eight minutes.”
The Scottish officer said to the communicator, “Warn Kariba ops they're about to have company.”
The smoking terrain all about them showed the hell that flotilla could raise. Without the armor cable the defenders here would have been dead ten times over.
A bird sang somewhere. Funny in these charred ruins.
The Scottish officer wondered what Jonnie was doing just now. Whatever it was, they had better get a move on at Kariba. God, he was tired. Those
Tolneps played rough games! If they had not pulled out so strangely, the whole force here at the Singapore minesite, armor power off, would have been slaughtered in another twenty minutes. Yes, they better look alive at Kariba.
Chapter 7
It had taken a little while to get the emissaries settled back down outside. Some had wanted to change their breathing cartridges, another one or two had wanted a bite of something. Others had just strolled around, looking over the inside of the bowl, curious but friendly enough. One of them had gone so far as to haggle with a Chinese among the village refugees over buying a dog. He had never seen a dog before and he thought it was cute, especially after it snapped at him. He couldn't understand that the Chinese, who spoke no Psychlo, refused. Five thousand credits was a lot of money to pass up. It would buy a house and farm on Splandorf, his home planet.
But they were all settled down now. Even Lord Schleim, who had done an awful lot of wandering about, chin parked most of the time on the rounded top of his scepter.
It was night. The platform was lighted with mine spots. The emissaries were seated on benches and in chairs which had been arranged in a half-circle just out of the danger range of the huge metal square. Some were still talking to one another but they were interested.
Jonnie was standing in the middle of the platform and for a bit they wondered whether he was going to send himself someplace or something like that. The spotlights flashed off his buttons and the creature on his helmet seemed to be alive. Interesting even to a bored lord.
“My lords,” said Jonnie, “may I ask further forgiveness for absorbing your valuable time. But to settle this thing with Schleim, I fear we have to have a demonstration. It is a demonstration of excessive appetite.
With your permission?”
All but the combatant lords and Schleim laughed. A demonstration of appetite. Some sort of eating contest? They'd seen those before. But yes, by all means go ahead.
Jonnie slapped the wand into his hand twice. Two mechanics came rushing out of the shadows with a very splendidly decorated mine cart.