Five nights before, not seeing the fire, they had sent a scout.
There had been a row with the council and the others when they found he was determined to slip down there himself. They had literally barred the door on him. Robert the Fox had become cross with him and shouted into his ears that Chiefs didn't scout. They might raid, but never scout. It was too dangerous for him; he was not expendable. He had argued and found the rest of the council taking Robert's side. And when other Scots heard the raised voices they came and stood around the council– as they had a right to do, they said– and added their arguments against his taking senseless risks with his person.
It had been quite a row. And they were right.
They had sent, as a compromise, young Fearghus. He went off like a shadow through the cold moonlight and they waited out the hours.
Somehow young Fearghus got home. He was badly wounded. The flesh of his shoulder was seared like beef. He had gotten almost to the small plateau in front of the cage. The moon had set by then. There was no fire in the cage. But there was something new at the compound-sentries! The area was patrolled by one armed Psychlo near the cages and one or more guards walking the perimeter of the compound.
The guard at the cage had fired at a shadow. Fearghus had gotten away only by howling like a wolf in pain, for the sentry supposed he had shot a wolf, common enough on the plains.
Fearghus was in the makeshift hospital now, shoulder packed in bear grease and herbs. He would get well, clucked over by one of the old women. He was triumphant rather than cowed, for he had proven the majority opinion right.
The other Scots, singly and in groups, informed MacTyler that the point was proven beyond any doubt. A Chief must not go on scout; raid yes, scout no.
The parson had consoled Jonnie. In Jonnie's quarters when they were alone, the parson had patiently explained. “It isn't that they feel you can't do it, nor even actually that maybe they themselves couldn't go on if something happened to you. It 's just that they're fond of you, laddie. It 's you who gave us the hope.”
Lying in the tall grass using binoculars built for an alien face, Jonnie did not feel much hope.
Here they were, a tiny group of a vanishing race, on a planet itself small and out of the way, confronting the most powerful and advanced beings in the universes. From galaxy to galaxy, system to system, world to world, the Psychlos were supreme. They had smashed every sentient race that had ever sought to oppose them, and even those that had tried to cooperate. With advanced technology and a pitiless temperament, the Psychlos had never been successfully opposed in all the rapacious eons of their existence.
Jonnie thought of the trench, of the sixty-seven cadets with pathetically inadequate weapons trying to stop a Psychlo tank and dying for it, taking with them the last hope of the human race.
No, not the last hope, thought Jonnie. A thousand or more years later, here were the Scots and himself. But what a forlorn hope. One casual sortie from that compound with one old Psychlo ground tank and the hope would be ended. Yes, Jonnie and the Scots could probably attack that compound. They could probably wipe out several minesites and even end this present operation. But the Psychlo company would sweep in and extort a revenge that would end it all forever.
Yes, he had a potential weapon. But not only did he have no uranium; he didn't even have a detector. He had nothing at all to tell him where to look or even whether something was uranium. He and the Scots had a very forlorn hope indeed.
He put the binoculars on maximum magnification. One last sweep on that sleeping compound way over there. Nightlights, green pinpoints under the domes. But no yellow-orange fire.
He was about to give it up for the night when his sweeping glasses picked up the fuel dump. There were piled the cartridges that powered the machines. A bit distant, safely away in case of a blowup, was the explosives magazine– plenty of explosives for mining, but even blowing the whole thing up would not really jar the compound. And there were the battle planes, twenty of them lined up on a ready line. Across the transshipment area from the battle planes and distant from all the rest, but closer to the cage area, was the breathe-gas dump. The company didn't care how much breathe-gas it stockpiled; in huge drums and small mask bottles, there must be enough breathe-gas there to last the mining operation fifty years. It was piled higgledy-piggledy. It was never checked out-machine operators simply picked up canisters for their canopies and masks. There was too much of it to require conservation.
The glasses swept on. Jonnie was looking for sentries now. He found one of them. The Psychlo was waddling lazily through the dark between the breathe-gas dump and the transshipment platform. Yes, there was another one: up on the plateau near the cage.
Suddenly Jonnie swept the glasses back to the breathe-gas dump. Aside from a half-dozen trodden paths the place was surrounded by tall weeds and grass, and the undergrowth and ground cover stretched out to the horizon.
He brought the glasses back to the breathe-gas dump.
Suddenly, with a surge of hope, he knew he had his uranium detector.
Breathe-gas!
A small bottle of it would let out through its regulator the minute quantities required for masks.
If one let a little breathe-gas escape in the vicinity of radiation, it would make a small explosion.
A Geiger counter reacted when the radiation activated gas in a tube, or so the old books told him. Well, breathe-gas didn't just react: it exploded violently.
Dangerous sort of instrument perhaps. But with care it just might work.
Jonnie snaked back off the knoll.
Twenty minutes later, at the base, he was saying to the counciclass="underline" “A Chief mustn't go on a scout. Right?”
“Aye,” they all agreed, glad he had gotten the point at last.
“But he can go on a raid,” said Jonnie. They became stiffly alert.
“I may have solved the uranium detector problem,” said Jonnie. “Tomorrow night, we are going on a raid!”
Chapter 4
Jonnie crept toward the plateau near the cage. The moon had set; the night was dark. The sounds of distant wolves mingled with the moan of the icy wind. He heard above it the click of equipment as the sentry moved.
Things had definitely not gone well tonight. The first plan had been aborted, making for last-minute changes. All afternoon a mixed herd of buffalo and wild cattle had been ideally located on the plain.
It was said that when a winter was going to be a very bad one, buffalo drifted down from the vastnesses of the north. Or perhaps it was a sort of migration to the south that would happen anyway. The wolves, long and gray, a different kind of wolf, came with them.
The wolves were still out there but the buffalo and cattle were not. The plan had been to stampede the mixed herd across the compound and create a diversion. It happened now and then and would not be suspicious. But just as the raid was about to be launched, the herd had taken it into their heads to trot eastward and were now too far away to be of any use. It was a bad omen. It meant hastily changed plans and a raid with no diversion. Dangerous.
Twenty Scots were scattered out there on the plain, among them Dunneldeen. They were caped and hooded– as was Jonnie-with the heat-deflecting fabric used in drilling. A mixture of powdered grass and glue made from hoofs had been painted over the costume: with this, infrared would read them like part of the surrounding grass; even visually they could be mistaken for the general terrain.
The Scots were under specific orders to converge upon the breathe-gas dump, separately pick up cases of small pressure cylinders, and get back to the base.