“I point it like this?”
“And keep it on him.” You have time, he told himself. Do a good job here.
“Why not kill him?” said Thor. “He leaks information,” said Jonnie.
Terl couldn't understand what they were saying but he got their drift.
Jonnie took out a knife and, keeping out of the line of possible fire, made Terl swivel around. He inserted the knife at Terl's collar and cut the cloth down the back. He went around front, watching Terl's eyes for a telltale clench signaling action and pulled the coat sleeves off. He ripped the cloth down the side of each of Terl's legs. He darted a shallow stab at Terl when he sought to spring. Terl subsided. Jonnie got Terl's boots and pants off. He took his watch. He took his cap. The only thing Terl had left was his breathe-mask and Jonnie even took the emergency vials off that. Terl glared.
There he sat, his fur matted with sweat, his claws twitching to rake Jonnie.
Jonnie took the belt and made Terl put his paws behind him and cinched the belt as tight as he could around the wrists. Then he took Old Pork's bridle and tied the wrists and belt and then passed the rope under the mask tube. He cinched it up. If Terl tried to wrestle his wrists loose he would choke himself. Do a good job, Jonnie told himself. Don't panic. In a battle plane you can catch the drone.
He had been working very fast. He now stepped away from Terl and quickly went through the clothes. Sure enough, Terl had two more weapons secreted. A knife and a second assassin gun.
Jonnie fired a round with the assassin gun. It was silent. The bush he aimed at began to burn. He gave the light gun to Pattie and took the belt gun back.
“Let me shoot him now,” said Pattie.
Thor said to Terl, in Psychlo, “The little girl over there is begging to shoot you.”
"I’ll be quiet here,” said Terl.
“Don't go near him. Light a fire from that wreck over here to the side, Chrissie, so that Thor stays warm and you can see this area.” He turned to Thor. “Who was with you?”
"Glencannon," said Thor. “He's over there in the hills somewhere. I think he tried to get closer to the base. I tried to reach him on this mine radio twice. He's got one but he doesn't answer. They've only a five-mile range.” He looked curious. “Where are you going?”
At that moment there was an explosion flash at the compound. A battle plane had come out of the hangar and apparently been hit with a bazooka. It soared in a flame ball and crashed at the sound of the bazooka and then the plane explosion reached them. A second battle plane came out and met the same fate.
“See?” said Jonnie. "I’ll send back a mine car for you.” Be calm. At two thousand miles an hour you can catch that drone.
The girls looked numbly at Jonnie.
But what could he do? He had meant to send them to the Academy base, but Thor was in no shape to travel at all. Why not kill Terl? No, that would solve nothing. Sound calm to these people. The speed of the drone was three hundred two miles an hour, he remembered from the messages he had taken from the hand of a president a thousand years dead. A battle plane could go hypersonic at two thousand miles an hour. Even if it were halfway to Scotland, he could catch it hours before it arrived.
He swung up on Dancer. The base was about twenty miles away. Make it in an hour or so of hard riding.
“We can still make a deal, animal,” said Terl. "If you sent uranium to Psychlo, you're really messed up. It 's been tried before. They have a force field around their receipt platform and if any uranium flashes on Psychlo, that force field triggers solid to enclose their whole platform. The flashback occurs at the sending point just like you saw today. Psychlo will be attacking this place, animal. You'll need me to mediate.”
Jonnie looked at him. He raised his hand in farewell to the girls and Thor and thumped a heel into Dancer, and she streaked off through the declining sunlight.
Ahead of him pulsed and flickered the battle at the compound. He had wasted time. He could not have done anything else. Be calm, he told himself. Don't panic. A battle plane could catch that drone.
As he raced across the plain, he put out of his mind a thought that kept crowding in. Not all the armed forces of the United States in its days of power had been able to do anything at all to that gas drone. Not with planes, missiles, atomic bombs, or even suicide crashes.
You have time. You can catch up with it. Don't panic.
Part XIII
Chapter 1
One thing at a time, Jonnie told himself. Do each thing properly. Each one as it comes up and each one in its turn. He had read that in a book from the man-library. He had been looking for cures for radiation and he found some. And he'd also found a book about how to handle confusion. It came from too many things at once. And that was certainly happening now! The drone, the possibility of a Psychlo counterattack, the outcome of the compound battle still in question. No reports yet of the attacks on other minesites. One could easily get confused, make a mistake, even panic. Stay calm. One thing at a time.
Dancer had been racing flat-out southward. That was not the right thing to do. He could founder her. He began to alternate a trot with a run. She was breathing better. The light was failing. Something as silly as a tripped horse could wreck everything. Trot, run, trot, run. Twenty miles. They would make it.
He had a mine radio in his pocket, small by Psychlo standards. At ten miles he began to call Glencannon, Thor's pilot. Jonnie spoke into the mike as he rode.
At about eleven miles, Glencannon's voice came back. “Is that you, MacTyler?" The voice sounded a bit weak.
“Can you see a running horse from where you are?” said Jonnie.
There was a long pause. Then, “Yes, you're about three miles northeast of me. You got Terl?"
“Yes, but he's all tied up at the moment.”
There was a silence and then a short, barking laugh. Some of the tension had gone out of Glencannon's voice when he spoke next: “What was he after up there?”
Long story. No time now. Just be calm. Jonnie said aloud, “The girls are safe. Thor is hurt but all right.”
A sigh of relief at the other end.
“Can you still pilot a plane?” said Jonnie.
Pause. “My ribs are a bit caved in and I have a twisted ankle. That's what's taking so long getting back to the compound. But yes, MacTyler, of course I can still pilot a plane.”
“Keep traveling toward the compound. Have a light ready to flash. I’ll send a mine car for you. They'll need air cover.”
“I have a light. I’m sorry about the air cover.”
“It was my fault,” said Jonnie. “Good luck.”
Dancer alternately trotted and ran. Keep calm. Things were not hopeless. They had a fighting chance. There were bright spots. They had agreed not to blow up the whole compound. The historian wanted the library, Angus wanted the machine shops. They evidently hadn't sent any radioactive bullets into the domes. Except for the drone and its escort they still apparently had air control.
At five and a half miles he began calling Robert the Fox at the compound, hoping somebody was monitoring the mine radio. The schoolmaster answered; Jonnie was surprised for there were several classified as noncombatants: the parson, the old women, the historian, and the schoolmaster. Jonnie shortly heard a relieved Robert the Fox.
“The girls are safe,” said Jonnie. There was a pause at the other end as Robert the Fox apparently passed the word along. When the mike opened next from that end, Jonnie heard some cheering in the background. The news was evidently popular.