After that they will be considered as challengers to my rule and dealt with accordingly."
Meredith's throat felt very dry as he swallowed. He had no idea bow accurate the aliens' sensors actually were, but he doubted any of his troops could burrow underground deeply enough in twenty-seven hours to escape them. I should have started building defenses as soon as we realized the size of what we had here, he berated himself dully. But, damn it all, this trading association is supposed to be politically stable.
"Commander, I await your decision," the alien said.
"Yes. Uh … what guarantees do you offer for the safety of my people?"
The other began to speak … but Meredith never heard the answer. A short message from Major Banner appeared on his screen, grabbing his full attention: FORWARD SPOTTERS REPORT ALIEN LANDING CRAFT RESTING
ON METAL REPEAT METAL LANDING SKIDS.
Meredith stared at the screen, his mind racing. Barner's implied suggestion was obvious … but how did the major expect Meredith to put it into effect? No one knew how the thing had been triggered the first time, and there was certainly no time to experiment now. He would have to gamble, and hope Astra was on their side for once.
The alien stopped talking and Meredith licked his lips. "Very well," he said. "If you will lift your jamming, I'll broadcast instructions to as many of my people as I can."
"The jamming has ceased."
With fingers that trembled only slightly, Meredith keyed in all the broadcast channels available, not forgetting the phone systems. "This is Colonel Meredith," he announced. "To avoid unnecessary killing, I'm ordering all units to surrender to our unexpected guests. As a gesture of good faith, all fertilizer bags being used for shelter are to be immediately slit open and their contents dumped onto the ground.
Repeat, all fertilizer to be dumped onto the ground immediately."
"You did not give instructions for assembling in towns," the alien said as Meredith shut down the transmitters.
"That'll keep," the colonel told him. Surely they couldn't know too much about humans. "When we undertake an act of good faith, we are duty-bound to complete it before other activities may be started."
He waited tensely, but the alien remained silent. Nothing to do now but wait, he told himself, wiping ineffectually at the perspiration on his face. If it doesn't work we'll have to surrender. If it does … they'll probably start shooting.
"You heard the order, soldier," Major Banner said, nodding to the bewildered sergeant at his command-post barricade. "Start slicing. And be sure and spread the fertilizer evenly over the ground."
"Yes, sir." The man still didn't look happy, but the order he barked to his squad was forceful enough. Holstering their pistols, they produced trench knives and got to work on the thick plastic.
It took Carmen nearly a minute of straining before the intervening kilometers of air calmed enough for her to glimpse the underside of the distant landing craft; but once she had seen it she had no doubts left. "Landing skids," she told Al Nichols, who had moved up beside her. "No rubber wheels. Almost certainly bare steel or something equally vulnerable." Lowering the glasses, she offered them to him.
"So that's what the fertilizer business is all about." Nichols hung the binoculars around his neck. "Meredith thinks extra metal on the ground will trigger the leech effect. Should work."
"If metal concentration is what causes it to start up," Carmen reminded him. She glanced around the mountainside, eyes flicking over the expedition members huddling together as they gazed westward.
Hafner was missing.
She thought about it for a moment as she double-checked the group; but there really was only one place he could reasonably be. Leaving Nichols, she headed downslope toward their flyer.
Hafner was in the pilot's seat when she arrived, forehead furrowed with concentration as he studied the controls. "Going somewhere?" she asked, sitting down beside him.
He glanced up, then returned to his study. "Be a friend. Carmen, and show me how to start this thing up," he said. "Then get out of here."
For a moment she stared at his profile. Then, deliberately, she reached over and flipped the switch that transferred control to her half of the board. "Where are we going?" she asked, snapping her flying harness around her.
"You can't come," he growled, trying to reach past her to the switch. "I'm serious, Carmen; this is too risky. Give me back the controls and disappear."
"Tell me what you're planning first."
"Oh, for—" He ran his right hand through his hair. "Look, it's obvious what Colonel Meredith is trying, but I don't think the fertilizer alone will do the trick.
We've got to get more metal into the ground as fast as possible."
Her stomach knotted. "You're going to crash the flyer?"
"Are you crazy?" He was aghast. "I'm not that desperate. I'm going to try and get the aliens to crash one of theirs."
"Oh. Well, that's different. For that you'll need a decent pilot." Flipping the ignition, she fired the underside repulsers, their low roar not quite covering Hafner's yelp. "No argument!" she shouted as the flyer lifted. "Colonel Meredith can give me orders, Peter, but you can't. Besides, you know perfectly well I'm right. Now, where to?"
There was a short pause, but when he spoke the argument was gone from his voice. "North and maybe a little east. I want to draw one of those flyers the aliens unloaded and make him chase us."
Carmen nodded and cut in the main engines. Olympus dropped away behind them and she took a moment to check the radar screen. "You have some way in mind to keep them chasing and not shooting?"
"I hope so. But I'm not sure." He hesitated. "That's one reason I wanted to go alone."
Carmen nodded grimly, swallowing all the obvious comments. "Well, get your plan in gear … because here they come."
Hafner turned to look out his window. Carmen was on the wrong side to see, but the radar screen told her everything she needed to know. Two of the alien's four flyers were coming in fast, one at reasonably high altitude, the other almost skimming the ground. Turning back, Hafner slipped on his radio headset. "Is this thing on?" he asked.
She hit the right switch and one-handedly got her own headset on.
"—immediately," a flat translator voice greeted her. "Repeat: the unauthorized Ctencri flyer is to land immediately."
"If you have any interest in the cable we've discovered, you'd better not bother us," Hafner said, his voice betraying none of the uncertainties of a minute ago.
"We have in our possession delicate equipment vital to the operation of the machinery. So just pull back and let us go our way." Without waiting for a reply, he reached over and shut off the transmitter. "All right," he said to Carmen,
"double back and head southwest toward the spot where Flyer Two crashed."
"Mind letting me in on the secret?" she asked as she put the craft into a right turn.
"No secret, just a hunch. As you pointed out earlier we've flown over that area several times before … but Flyer Two was heading due south when it failed, and I'm pretty sure we've never passed by going anywhere near that direction."
Carmen thought it over for a long minute. It wasn't impossible, she realized; something like a long underground solenoid or antenna could conceivably provide that kind of directional dependence. But it could just have easily have been a oneshot event. "I hope you're right," she said aloud, wishing she'd known all this when there was still a chance of talking him out of it. "So what do you want me to do, run an S-curve over the region and assume our pursuers will follow a straight north-south path?"
"Exactly. I'm hoping they'll be smart enough to realize that if they just stay with us we'll eventually run out of fuel and have to land. That may keep their trigger fingers steady long enough—yipe!"