“Could it be they are still pulling in men?” suggested Finnerstan.
“Pulling in men,” Dane thought, and yet just this flitter load proposed to go up against what might be a thoroughly warned, armed, and well-defended base. Yet, looking about him from face to face, he saw no concern. They might have been making a routine flight. Though he was no longer hungry, the pain in his head remained a steady throb, and he felt very tired. How long had it been since he had had normal sleep? He tried to recall events for the past days, days that now seemed to stretch to months. Jellico was not noted for taking reckless risks unless the situation was such he had no other choice. No Free Trader did and kept a ship for long. But apparently the captain was determined on this attack.
“Only one unit ahead now.” Finnerstan did not look up from the detect.
“Radar nil on anything airborne,” Jellico replied. “Mixed report from the ground, a lot of interference.”
Dane turned his head and tried to stretch to the point where he could look down from the cabin window. But it was physically impossible to see the ground from where he sat, even if it had been day instead of the dark of very early morning.
“No contact beam.” Jellico might be reporting to them or only thinking aloud.
“I’m getting something new—maybe your distort.” Finnerstan glanced back at Dane.
“All right, Thorson, what’s down there?” Jellico demanded, and Dane pulled his thoughts together. This was the time when he must justify his inclusion in his company.
“Spacer landing to the south.” He closed his eyes, picturing in his mind what he had seen during their quick sortie into the basin. “Then there are three bubble huts in a cluster about seven field lengths north— beyond those two long structures half buried in the earth, earth walls, turfed roofs—vehicle park by the bubbles. That’s it.” “They will be expecting their men back in a captured flitter perhaps,” Jellico said. “And that would come in without hesitation. So, we try to do it that way.”
And maybe meet blaster fire dead center if there was some recognition code, Dane knew. He wished vainly that he had some kind of protective shell into which he could withdraw during the next few minutes. But the Patrol officer made no objection to Jellico’s wild plan.
“Look there!” Finnerstan was against the cabin window on his side, staring down. But for the men behind him there was no chance to see what had caught his attention.
“Down.” Jellico’s hands were busy on the controls. “That must be the distort. Now, I’m going in on hover—”
Dane saw movement about him. The Patrolman by the exit hatch had his hands ready on the lock there.
And the flitter began its descent, straight down, using the slow speed of the hover.
There was an odd light outside the windows, light that brightened suddenly, as if it had been turned from low to high. Perhaps it had been the passing of a blanketing of diffuse lamps by the distort. But now they were apparently descending into a camp brightly aglow to aid activity.
“Now!” Finnerstan rather than the captain gave that order, only a second before the bump told them they touched earth.
The Patrolman wrenched open the hatch, made the practiced roll out and down, his neighbor following him in trained proficiency. The spaceport policeman and rangers followed with less agility.
Finnerstan himself had already disappeared through the front door. And now, before Rip and Dane pulled themselves out, the brachs flowed away with a speed surprising in their stocky bodies.
Rip jumped. Dane was the last to disembark, his reflexes slowed, but he held a stunner in one hand. Jellico had vanished and was probably on the other side of the flitter.
As his boots met the ground, the thump of contact transmitted to his aching head, Dane looked about. It was light, but by some lucky chance they had landed some distance from the scene of the activity. The spacer still stood, its nose pointed to the stars. Both its cargo hatches were wide open, and cranes were at work loading. There was a line of robo carriers speeding from the two earth-walled buildings, each bearing boxes and canisters, but their burdens were small. They were taking only lighter, easily stowed things,
Dane judged with the eye of one only too used to handling shipments. The rest they would probably destroy.
There was one crawler pulled up with two cages on board, covered. But that stood by, and no one was there. The ramp leading to the crew and passenger quarters was still on the ground and—
Dane was startled. That ramp was under guard. Two men in crew uniforms stood at its top, just within the open hatch. They were both armed with blasters, and they were looking steadily down the ramp. Now that he studied the scene, he could see in addition a similar guard on duty by the two cargo-hold openings, both eyeing the load the robos stacked to be taken on board.
So far no one on the field seemed to notice the landing of the flitter and the disembarking of her passengers, but there was a knot of men nearer to the ship. They just stood there, their hands hanging empty by their sides, staring at the guarded ramp and the cargo holds.
“No room.” Dane heard Finnerstan’s low-voiced comment. “The Veeps are planning to leave their underlings behind. I wonder if they will agree—”
“They’re disarmed, sir,” one of his men reported.
There was an addition to the clanking of the robo carriers, to the general hum of the loading. It did not come from the group of men bitterly watching the preparations for withdrawal but from a distance. Then two more crawlers plowed on into the bright light around the ship.
The first carried only three men, each with a pack or box he supported against his body, as if to shield it from the jerks and jostling caused by transportation across very rough terrain. The second had one large, shrouded box amidships.
As the crawlers passed the waiting men, there was a confused shouting, a slight surge forward as if they would have rushed those transports. Then a lance of blaster fire cut across the ground, laying down a smoking reminder to stay where they were. As they had moved forward, so now they stumbled back, away from that searing bar.
The crawlers did not halt, nor did their occupants so much as glance at the rejected. Instead, they moved steadily forward until they stopped by the ramp and the one cargo hatch. The lines of robos had come to a halt. Most of them were shut down and stood in a compact group, which grotesquely mimicked that of the frustrated men. Only two were still activated, and they went to work transferring the crate on the second carrier, working with exaggerated care that suggested their burden was of great importance. As they were making fast the lines for it to be lifted into the hold, the men on the other carrier started up the ramp, bearing their burdens with the same visible need for safety.
“About time for takeoff,” Jellico said. “We have to move now—”
But someone else had the same idea. While they had remained in the shadow of the flitter, watching the scene and trying to estimate their best chance, the brachs had sped into action. Now they saw the male rear on his hind quarters, holding a stunner in his forepaws. He was at the foot of the ramp, and his ray beamed up in a back and forth sweep intended to take out the two guards.
They must have been so intent on watching their human opponents that they did not sight the alien until too late. The last man carrying a package stumbled, fell back, sliding limply down the length of the ramp, so that the brach had to leap out of the way. While that victim had deflected some of the stunner, he had not taken all the ray. From suddenly deadened hands above fell one of the blasters. The other guard, momentarily startled, aimed not at the brach but at those he knew were enemies, the group to be left behind, his fire cutting into them so that those not directly crisped by its beam scattered, some screaming.