“You were right about Dix—I’ll give you that. He was the one who chopped up the plane. I should have dumped him long ago.”
“Where is he now?”
“I told you—I dumped him.”
“Literally?”
“Yeah. Through one of the bomb holes. Poetic justice.”
Stirling opened his mouth, but closed it again without speaking. Johnny could not have made a better choice than Dix for his first venture into death-dealing. His action could even do him some good with Raddall, but Stirling hated to think of any man going out that way.
“What do you say, big brother?”
“What do you expect me to say?”
“Well, you’ve always had plenty to say in the past.”
“All right.” Stirling looked past Johnny and saw that some instinct was bringing the villagers out of their spider holes to watch the confrontation. “How many of those people down there know about your plan? And how many of the ones that do know are in agreement?”
Johnny shrugged./‘How many of the people down there want to eat pap all year round and live in caskets?”
“That’s different. Nobody’s gambling with their lives.”
“Nobody’s gambling for their lives, you mean. They haven’t a chance. But the way I have things worked …”
“Johnny!” Stirling felt that to wait any longer would be dangerous in some unspecified way. “Raddall is holding off his planes till noon; and before that, I’m going to walk out of here and take everybody with me who wants to go.”
“I can’t permit that. Theo and the others in the power house need another five or six days. So, nobody goes back.”
“I say different.” Stirling looked squarely into Johnny’s eyes. For a few seconds there was absolute silence; then he saw that Johnny was twisting his body slightly, so that the muzzle of the rad-rifle—which had been pointing obliquely past him—was moving in an almost imperceptible arc into line with Stirling’s stomach. He put his hand out with studied casualness and grasped the muzzle. Johnny smiled with one side of his mouth and began to apply pressure, using the full length of the weapon for leverage. In order to keep out of the line of fire, Stirling had to move sideways; and they began a slow, shuffling rotation. A ring of villagers had gathered to watch the deadly saraband take place on the high platform of the tank. As Stirling moved around under the relentless force of the rifle, he saw Johnny alternately outlined against a background of misty soil beds or the beaten pewter of the Atlantic visible over the eastern wall.
“Johnny,” Stirling said desperately. “What are we doing?”
“Anybody who isn’t for me is against me. Jaycee’ speaking again, Johnny?”
“I told you before—I don’t like that stuff.”
“But what can you do? You won’t burn me.” For an answer, Johnny squeezed the trigger, and a blinding amethyst torch searched past Stirling’s ribs. He let go of the stinging metal involuntarily, tried to grab it again, missed, and drove forward against Johnny’s chest. Johnny grunted with surprise as the impact carried him backwards. They staggered across the tank, on the point of overbalancing; then Johnny’s heels caught the upraised rim of the iris where the robots inserted their drinking tubes; the two men went down; and the rifle skidded away on the damp metal. As they scrambled to their feet, Stirling threw in his right and felt pain streak up his arm from a damaged fist. He had connected with the metal sphere of the bomb slung from Johnny’s neck. Johnny seized the advantage and closed in with a flurry of practiced, crushing blows. Stirling, who had never trained and who had always relied upon the sheer destructive power of the battering-ram that nature had given him for a right arm, fenced unsuccessfully with his left.
As he felt the solid, thudding blows rob him of the ability to move, he tried hitting back with his right, but the punches he landed harmed him more than Johnny. His hand seemed to be broken. He backed towards the fallen rifle and momentarily gave up any attempt to defend himself as he stooped to pick it up. Two crippling punches smacked into the small of his back, and he felt his knees begin to buckle. Johnny shouldered him contemptuously away from the rifle; and, as he toppled, Stirling clawed the air for support. His hands encountered the heavy sphere of the bomb, still in its pouch. He gripped the bomb hard, settled his heels against the metal underfoot, and swung Johnny away from the rifle. Johnny was lifted into the air before the strap of his pouch snapped. He came down on one foot right on the edge of the tank and skidded out into empty space.
Stirling set the bomb down and looked over the edge. Twenty feet below, Johnny was lying motionless in a patch of wiry grass, and his knees were drawn up to his chin like those of a small boy in an extravagant posture of sleep.
Cradling the rifle in his right arm, Stirling climbed down the feed pipes—noticing for the first time that pieces of plastic had been lashed to them to serve as a crude ladder. The villagers stood back silently as he ran around the braced legs of the tank to the spot where Johnny was lying. He turned him over gently. A huge bruise was domed across Johnny’s forehead, and a single trident of blood ran from his mouth across one cheek. “How is he?”
Stirling looked up and saw Melissa. “Hell live.”
“Oh!”
Stirling had no time to work out whether the monosyllable signified relief or disappointment. Some of the villagers who had gathered around were staring at him with a kind of grinning uneasiness; they were obviously teetering on the brink of taking up the battle where Johnny had been forced to leave off. He wondered if their hesitation sprang from the ambivalence which had always been present in their attitude to his brother, or if they were showing a normal respect for the rad-rifle.
“Let’s get one thing very clear,” Stirling said steadily. “I’ve been back down on the ground, and you haven’t. So, I know better than Jaycee or any of you what has been going on. And I can assure you the Administration is going to keep up the pressure till the He has been cleared. Anybody who wants to get out before the raids start again, should head for the southeast corner right now. The rest of you might as well jump through one of those bomb holes. It’ll be quicker that way.”
He finished speaking and stood staring into the encircling faces, none of which showed much sign of conviction. You haven’t the touch, Johnny had said, and Stirling was beginning to understand what he had meant.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” It was the husband of the woman he had met on the way into the village. “Are we going to stay here and get shot to pieces? Me and Joanna’s getting out while we got the chance.”
His yelping voice had a raw edge of fear which broke the mental stasis of the group. Some of them began to drift away to the south, while others scurried towards their huts and spider holes to collect still valued possessions. Once the movement had begun, it accelerated until the villagers were almost in a panic to get away.
“What are we going to do about the wounded?” Melissa had regained much of her usual composure, but her eyes were taut with fear and strangely reminiscent of his mother’s. He resisted an impulse to put an arm around her shoulders and tell her she would soon adjust to the Compression. There were lies, and there were lies—even for a young girl with an old woman’s eyes.
“Leave them till the medics get here,” he said. “We’ll get clear as soon as possible. Can you stay on your feet?”
“I guess so.”
“Then get somebody to call up two robots. That should be enough for the lot of us. How exactly do they do it, when there’s no crop to damage?”