«The Seekers will learn nothing from me,» said Blade smoothly. It was a small concession to make, considering that the Seekers already knew practically everything about how the infantry had failed to make the Oltec vehicles run.
«Good. We'll go to the machine rooms tomorrow.»
Each of the «machine rooms» was twice the size of the Seekers' training room for the waldoes. All three were filled with exotic military vehicles of at least twenty different kinds. They were parked in long rows on either side of wide aisles, which gave access to ramps leading to the surface at either end of the complex.
It looked like the vehicle park of an armored division whose vehicles were designed by madmen and assembled by drunks. Even the types of vehicles Blade could recognize at all were parodies of their Home Dimension counterparts. With others he couldn't even be sure what they were, let alone how they moved or how to operate them. Had the Tower Builders kept an experimental station in Doimar? Or had the last commander of the garrison before the war simply been part pack rat?
Trying to show more confidence than he felt, Blade lectured Nungor on the vehicles he thought he recognized or at least understood. The first one looked like the hull and turret of a small tank, but mounted on twelve stumpy articulated legs instead of on tracks.
«-not much use out of this unless there is ammunition for its weapon,» he concluded. He couldn't tell what the weapon was, although it didn't look like a gun, a laser, or a grenade launcher. «Also, you would need two or three men to make this one work in battle.»
«You have said that the war machines of England use four or five men,» Nungor pointed out. «Could you not teach the men of Doimar to do the same?»
«I could, if you gave me the time,» said Blade. «I would have to teach each man his work, then teach each crew to work together. It might take as much as half a year. Do we have that much time?»
Nungor hesitated for a moment, clearly reluctant to reveal such a vital part of Doimar's war plans. Then he shook his head. «No. I would not even want to ask for it. Feragga would refuse it and not think well of either of us for asking.»
«I thought so,» said Blade. «Well, then we'll have to look at something else.»
They spent the rest of a long day looking at one «something else» after another. Some vehicles Blade rejected because he couldn't even guess what they were, although he tried to hide his ignorance. One machine looked like a ferris wheel mounted on a tracked carriage twenty feet long and ten feet wide. Blade somehow doubted that the Tower Builders' army held carnivals for its men.
Blade rejected other machines because they were obviously no more than junk. Still, others he rejected because they would be quite useless in Doimar's wars. A lot of engineering equipment fell into that category. Doimar's army wasn't going to build pontoon bridges, dig ditches, lay down fuel lines, or do many other engineering jobs a Home Dimension mechanized army faced in war.
Blade rejected some vehicles because he not only recognized them but knew they would be far too useful to Doimar and far too dangerous to Kaldak. There were a dozen or so tracked vehicles which could be nothing but armored personnel carriers. These could carry raiding parties of Doimari infantry deep into enemy territory. They could also carry the Seekers' radios, making the waldoes far more effective. Used either way they could mean disaster for Kaldak in the coming war.
Blade had to be particularly careful in explaining the uselessness of the more useful vehicles. Nungor was no fool. Catching Blade in even a small lie might make him so suspicious that Blade's position-and Kareena's-would become impossible.
Fortunately Nungor's dislike of the Seekers did much of Blade's work for him. Most of the time Blade had only to mention that a certain vehicle might be useful to the infantry «-but would be far more useful to the Seekers, I'm afraid.» Then Nungor would immediately start talking about ways of hiding this fact from the Seekers.
After a while he would always remember that this was hardly possible, as long as Feragga was sympathetic to the Seekers. Then he would finish with more or less the same words: «We'd better keep quiet about this one for a while.»
Nungor might not be willing to see Doimar defeated rather than let the Seekers get the credit for a victory. But he was certainly willing to risk many things to reduce the Seekers' share of glory, including the lives of his own men. Blade was perfectly happy to encourage this desire. It not only made his own job of sabotaging Doimar's war effort a great deal easier, it made it considerably safer as well. If the Seekers and the infantry ever got together and compared notes on what Blade was telling them, he'd be finished. Thanks to Nungor's stubborn prejudices, that meeting would probably never take place.
They were halfway through the last room when Blade's eyes widened. The next six vehicles were identical-light Hovercraft with a large shrouded propeller in the rear and a domed passenger compartment in front. They didn't look heavily armed, so they were probably scout vehicles of some sort, relying on speed rather than firepower.
Nungor had noticed Blade's expression. «Ah, you think these are worth studying? So do we. We have even made one of them live for a short time.» He pointed to the fourth Hovercraft.
«Why didn't you keep it alive?»
«We could make it rise and move. We could not make it move in one direction for long. It was like a wounded munfan running wild.»
Blade nodded. Hovercraft could move fast and cross any sort of surface, but they were hard to steer. In a crosswind it was almost impossible to keep them on a straight course, and even in a calm air they needed plenty of room to turn. Large Hovercraft like the ones used as ferries across the English Channel overcame the problem by sheer weight and power, but smaller machines simply needed careful handling.
Fortunately Blade was in a position to provide that careful handling. He'd learned to drive Hovercraft while taking his commando course with the Royal Marines. If the controls on the Tower Builders' machines were anything like those in Home Dimension… Blade hurried over to the fourth Hovercraft, scrambled up on the front, and peered in through the scratched and dusty windshield. A quick look was enough. He let out a shout of real pleasure, then dropped to the floor and hurried back to Nungor.
«Can you use this machine?» asked the War Captain.
Blade nodded. «We do not have such machines among the Oltec of England. But we did find books which spoke of them and how they were guided. I have read those books, and I think I can remember how to guide the machines. I will need a few days to practice, of course, and many large fire boxes to power the machines, but-«
«You can have anything you need, Blade, if-«Then he shook his head. «No. I must not promise too much. We shall have to get Ferraga's orders for what you need. She will insist that the Seekers learn of it, and then…» He sighed.
Blade grinned. «For once, this will make no difference. The Seekers will get no good from these machines, no matter how many we use.» Nungor's mouth fell open and Blade continued smoothly. «To begin with, it will need strong and swift men and women to guide these machines. That means men and women like the foot soldiers, not like the weak and sickly Seekers.» That did the Seekers an injustice, but it was what Nungor wanted to believe about them.
«Also, these machines cannot carry anything the Seekers need. They cannot carry the Fighting Machines or anything else heavy. They can easily carry foot soldiers or foot soldiers' weapons.» That might even be the truth. The Hovercraft had a rear deck obviously able to hold cargo, but they were certainly too small to lift a three-ton waldo. Blade was prepared to take his chances that they could not carry the radios.