One of the Mei-Li's guns began hammering heavy bolts at the Wyzhnyny, bolts crackling and thudding. Stoorvol realized he could be killed by his own people.
"Gunny," he said, "I'm on the ground now. Their attention is on you. I've killed two more of them, and I'll take out as many more as I can. We need to settle this now. Their command is likely to pour support forces in quickly. Over."
"Received. Received. This is Miller in charge. Gunny's out of touch; left the ship. Miller out."
Out of touch? "Got that. Stoorvol out." Gunny knows what he's doing, Stoorvol told himself, and this was no time for discussions. He found himself a new spot, a large tree with a broadly buttressed base. He wished he had a bag of grenades, instead of just the two on his harness. Taking one off, he charged it, then peered around a buttress and chose his next target-three Wyzhnyny thirty yards away, crouching together behind a fallen tree. He threw the grenade to land just behind the one in the middle, then ducked behind the buttress again, heard the explosion and peered out. All three seemed dead.
The firefight ahead of him went on as if he weren't there, so he darted forward in a low crouch to where his latest victims lay. There he raised up enough to peer over the log. Ahead as well as to the sides, he could see numerous Wyzhnyny kneeling behind trees and the occasional fallen trunk. And he could see casualties. The marines weren't laying down much fire now though, as if there weren't many of them left. The thought flashed: How many? Four? Five? But the Mei-Li's starboard gunner, in his armored bubble, was still pumping out the heavy stuff.
With bursts of rotten wood, bolts blew through the log within ten feet of Stoorvol. To his right, a Wyzhnyny he'd thought was dead, stood as if to flee, then stopped as if in freeze-frame, staring at the marine officer. Stoorvol shot him down, then turning, began to shoot at every Wyzhnyny he could see.
It seemed the final straw. All along the Wyzhnyny line, aliens rose to flee. Stoorvol crouched low again, and from his thigh pocket drew his stunner. To his left, a Wyzhnyny cleared the log in a bound, so easily and gracefully it startled the marine. As it landed, Stoorvol thumbed the trigger. The Wyzhnyny stumbled, pitched forward and lay still. Another followed, and it too fell.
The starboard gun hammered a dozen more trasher bolts after the fleeing Wyzhnyny before it stopped. Then, heart in his mouth, Stoorvol stood and jumped onto the log, waving both arms overhead. The Mei-Li's gangway slid open, its ramp extruding. Three marines rode out on an AG freight sled, followed closely by two crewmen riding another.
"Over here!" Stoorvol shouted, again as if he didn't have a radio. "I've got two prisoners stunned." The marines veered to the north as if they hadn't heard. It was the crewmen who responded to Stoorvol, quickly setting down where he indicated. He helped them load an unconscious Wyzhnyny on the sled. "Your gunner did good work with that heavy weapon," he said. "He broke them with it."
"Wasn't that," the older crewman grunted, lifting the second Wyzhnyny's hindquarters.
"What, then?" It seemed to Stoorvol the man was going to give him the credit, for taking them from behind.
"Wyzhnyny aircraft are on their way, sir. They'll be laying heavy fire in here." They finished getting the second Wyzhnyny aboard, and as if that was a signal, an alarm horn blared from the Mei-Li.
"Come aboard, Captain," said the older. "That's Mr. Menges' twenty-tick warning."
Menges? Where was Gabaldon? And the marines with the other sled? He realized then; it was casualties, not prisoners they were collecting. Instead of getting on the sled, Stoorvol started toward the marines, but the senior crewman drew his stunner and thumbed the trigger. Quickly the two crewmen dumped the inert marine officer onto the sled with the prisoners, then sped to the gangway and inside the Mei-Li.
The marines, on the other hand, hadn't even looked toward the ship when the gangway slid shut. The senior crewman activated the sled's restraint field, felt it snug around him. "Jesus, Buddha, and Rama!" said the younger. "What's the matter with those marines? They should've come!"
Another alarm clamored through the boat, warning of imminent takeoff.
"They wouldn't leave their buds behind," the elder said.
"They were probably all dead!"
"Apparently it doesn't make any difference to them."
They felt the Mei-Li lift, pull backward from the forest edge, then swing about. At once it took flight, for five seconds of acceleration before warpspace generated. After a long moment's stillness, the senior crewman released the restraint field. Two others appeared, and helped transfer the inert prisoners onto AG litters, to be taken to a holding cell.
When the two Wyzhnyny had been taken away, the younger crewman gestured toward the unconscious Stoorvol, still lying on the sled. "He was going to help them, wasn't he?"
"Yep. Who knows? Maybe those hyenas eat enemy casualties."
He said it absently. His mind was on the Mei-Li's last remaining scooter, with Gunnery Sergeant Gabaldon piloting. It had left shortly after the Mei-Li landed. The crewman had heard enough to know the strategy: the sergeant would drop into the depths of the gorge, speed north a couple of miles, then climb a couple, to watch for Wyzhnyny aerial reinforcements. Finally he'd seen some coming: gunboats and APCs. A lot of them.
Chapter 42
Moribund
"They are both moribund."
The Bering had left Tagus's moon less than two hours earlier, and Christiaan Weygand felt comfortable now about questioning the expedition's scientists working on the alien captives. The two Wyzhnyny lay strapped on examination tables, wires and tubes leading from them to a life support system and a bank of readouts. If everything above the withers had been covered, and you overlooked the feet, they might have passed for some Terran mammal in a large-animal clinic.
"What actually does `moribund' mean?" Weygand asked.
Dr. Maria Kalosgouros was a formidable, humorless woman, a vertebrate exobiologist of major professional status. "Captain Stoorvol's stunner had been set to render a two-hundred-fifty-pound human unconscious for a period of one to three hours," she answered wryly. "Unfortunately its effect on Wyzhnyny of similar mass is far more profound. They are dying, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I doubt their own physicians could, working with their own life support system."
Weygand regarded the two Wyzhnyny glumly. And we paid eighteen marines for them, good men. Valiant Not many, by the standards of war, but they'd been his, in a manner of speaking. "I presume you can still salvage information from them."
"Valuable information. Subcutaneous injection of minute quantities of African bee venom has resulted in encouraging tissue responses. But unfortunately their capillary circulation is virtually nil." She gestured at the bank of small monitor screens, where thin lines of colored light jittered microscopically, or sparsely, or flowed smooth as oil. Esoteric numbers showed occasional small changes. "I have injected the brain of one," she continued, "but that is not analogous to venom reaching the brain systemically. I could learn far more with studies on specimens functioning at something approaching normal.
"Still, we are learning far more than we knew before. And through Madchen," she added, referring to the Bering's savant, "I am sharing our results with Dr. Minda Shiue, at the University of Baguio."
Weygand had heard of Dr. Shiue. The Nobel Committee might meet in Buenos Aires now, instead of Oslo, but its awards continued to shine. "Just now," Kalosgouros went on, "she is at War House, to help interpet our results. I believe they are sufficient that the African Bee Project will be continued."
"Thank you, Dr. Kalosgouros," Weygand said, bowing slightly. We do what we can, he added silently, recalling the cost.