Authors: Hubbard,L. Ron
Jonnie lay behind a tree trunk, saturated with rain, perspiring from the heat, looking at the compound through infrared glasses that did not do much good.
For three soaking wet days they had been following a power line, the only sign of civilization. They had landed at the power dam well enough. It was automatic and self-maintaining, and
Psychlo machinery had been superimposed upon the ancient man-works. They had no actual clue as to the position of the minesite beyond its existence, but Jonnie knew this power line, huge cables on metal pylons- themselves ancient- would take them to it eventually. And “eventually” seemed to be the right word.
Usually power lines had trees and brush cleared out, but not this one.
There for countless years, the power line provided no more open sky than any other part of this vast forest.
The old man-maps said this had been a country called “Haut-Zaire” and that this portion of the extinct nation was the “Ituri Forest.”
Here the equatorial sun never reached the ground. It was umbrellaed first by cloud cover and then by the crowns of mighty trees that locked together in a canopy a hundred feet above the ground. Great vines a foot or more in diameter wrapped like gorged serpents around the trunks. Underfoot the thick humus squished at every step.
And the rain came down! It dripped, it rivuleted down the trunks and vines, it poured through slight openings until one felt he was trying to progress through a constant warm waterfall of varying thickness.
It was all twilight.
The game blended in deceptively with the gloom, a dangerous fact. They had seen elephants and forest buffalo and gorillas. A giraffe-like animal, an antelope, and two kinds of cat were routinely started up by them. The snarl of leopards, the roar of crocodiles, the chatter of monkeys and the screech of peacocks- sounds muted by the rain- made Jonnie feel the area was hostile and densely
inhabited.
The old man-maps said there were around twenty thousand square miles of this forest, and that even at the height of man-civilization it had never been completely explored. No wonder a minesite could go overlooked here!
The Ituri Forest was no place for buckskin and moccasins and a limp.
Trying to progress through it was made difficult by the uselessness of trying to overfly it and the need for some secrecy. They dared not use radios. Dropped lines from planes could foul power cables if they reached them at all. Streams infested with crocodiles made the crossings dangerous.
Well, a small party of them were here. Only twenty of their force, scattered out among the trees and ready to call in reserves or the planes if needed.
The compound looked deserted, but then Psychlos never wandered around in the open. It had been built so long ago that it too was overshadowed by the streaming canopy of trees. What had an employee had to do to be assigned to this dismal, gloomy, saturated outpost, Jonnie wondered.
He was looking to the left of the compound for signs of truck passageways. There would be no road of tires, but ore truck floating drives would have crushed and killed vegetation. Yes, there was a road over there, headed east through the gloom. Ah, yes, more lights beyond an opening through the trees for the landing of freighters. Did the road go to that? No. Another road. One exit road through the forest and the other to the field.
“Never was there a more unplanned raid,” Robert the Fox was muttering. But a well-planned raid took intelligence scouting first. He never could have imagined any terrain like this existed on the planet!
Now, Jonnie was thinking, what did they really want here? Not dead Psychlos, really. He wanted live Psychlos. That the Psychlos would fight he had no doubt, and that some would be killed was almost certain, but he was far more interested in live ones than in dead ones.
He was reaching to his belt to unfasten the miniature mine radio-to be used first in the hope that they had one on in that compound- when his infrareds strayed over to the right of the compound. There was a defined path and at its end what appeared to be the wreck of a flatbed truck, ages old and mostly overgrown. Hard to see in this twilight at noonday. The rain made it so hard to pick out details even with infrared.
Jonnie gave the glasses to Robert the Fox. “What do you see on that old truck bed?”
Robert the Fox squirmed over into a new position, his cloak as wet as a soaking sock. “Something under a tarpaulin. A new tarpaulin…a barrel? Two barrels?…a package?”
Suddenly Jonnie remembered the rambling story of David Fawkes. The Coordinator was back of them, hunkered down, dripping. Jonnie crawled back a short distance. “What was that about putting things on a log for barter with the Psychlos?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. They put people there for the Psychlos to see and then withdrew, and the Psychlos would come out and leave some trinkets. You mean the Brigantes, don’t you?”
“I think I’m looking at an incomplete trade,” said Jonnie. He hissed to a
Scot, “Pass the word for Colonel Ivan!”
Ivan’s English was improving remarkably fast under the interested tutelage of Bittie MacLeod, who “thought it a shame for the grand man not to be able to talk a human language.” This was giving Colonel Ivan a thick accent but nevertheless he needed the Russian language Coordinator less and less. Jonnie found they had brought that Coordinator, too, leading Sir Robert to wonder whether they might not find an old woman or a couple of Psychlos on the plane as well.
“Scout way over to the right,” whispered Jonnie, amplifying it with a descriptive circle of his left hand. “Watch it.”
“What’s this new maneuver on this unplanned raid?” said the very wet Robert the Fox.
“I don’t like losing men,” said Jonnie. “As the English say, ‘It’s bad form.’ Precaution is all.”
“Are we going to just charge that place?” asked Robert the Fox. “You can’t get plane cover through these trees. I think I see an air-cooled housing for a breathe-gas circulator over there. I could hit it from here, I think.”
“Well, have we got any plain bullets?” said Jonnie.
“Aye, but it surely is a no-plan operation!”
They waited in the dismal drip and cascade of the rain. Somewhere off to the left a leopard snarled and it set off a wave of bird sounds and monkey chitters.
There was an abrupt thud about twenty feet behind them. They snaked back. Ivan was standing back of a tree. On the ground at his feet lay a strange human. He was out cold.
He might have been any nationality, or any color for that matter. He was dressed in monkey skins cut in such a way that they looked oddly like a uniform. A strapped bag had fallen open under him and a clay-pot grenade had rolled out.
Ivan was pointing to an arrow in his canteen. He pulled it out and gave it to Jonnie. Over Jonnie’s shoulder the Coordinator whispered, “Poisoned arrow. See where the glob was on its tip.”
Jonnie took off Ivan’s canteen and threw it away, making signs it was not to be drunk now.
Ivan detached the man’s bow from his belt and offered it. But Jonnie was kneeling beside the man and picking up the grenade. It had a fuse sticking out of it. He knew the type of fuse. Psychlo!
As soon as he had Jonnie’s attention again, Ivan handed him a Psychlo mine radio and pointed at the man.
“He watch us,” said Ivan. “He talk.” He pointed at the radio.
Abruptly alert, Jonnie saw that they might have an enemy in front of them and another one in the forest behind them!
He passed orders swiftly through Robert the Fox, who whipped off to get their small force faced both ways.
Brigantes! The man at his feet had wide, hide crossbelts and spare arrows were arranged, points into flaps along the leather. He had an odd pair of crudely made, strapped boots reminding Jonnie of the remains of “paratrooper” boots he had seen in base storerooms. The man’s hair was cut short and stood up. The face was scarred and brutal.
The fellow was stirring, recovering from the unexpected clout of a rifle butt. Colonel Ivan promptly put a foot on his neck to prevent his rising.
Robert the Fox was back with a nod that dispositions had been made. “They may have been scouting us for days. That’s a Psychlo radio!”
“Yes, and bomb fuse. I think there’s more here-’
A bomb exploded in an orange blast about fifty feet away.
An assault rifle hammered out.
There followed a period marked only by the startled rush of birds and monkeys through the drip of rain.
Jonnie got back to the log. Nothing was happening in the compound. Robert put two riflemen in position to cover it. “We’re boxed,” he said. “Nicely planned raid.”
“Take the rear first,” said Jonnie. “Clean them out back there!”
“Charge!” bawled Colonel Ivan. Then something in Russian.
There was an instant hammering of assault rifles.
Bursting grenades racketed and smoke poured through the rain.
Running feet of men covering each other as they went forward in alternate waves.
Screams!
Russian and Scot battle cries!
Then a lull. Then another furious hammer of assault rifles.
Another lull.
A voice, hoarse, rising way above the birds and rain, “We surrender!” English? Not French? The Coordinator looked confused.
Some distant running feet as Robert the Fox threw some of his men back of the voice to prevent a trap.
Jonnie grabbed a blast rifle from a Scot and threw himself down. “Pinpoint.” “No Flame.” He cut loose with a savage burst at the breathe-gas cooler housing. The ancient outside metal peeled away under the repeating impacts like hide.
There was a clank and a hiss over there. Jonnie gave it another burst.
They waited. No Psychlos came rushing out. The place must be flooded with air over there. But there was no reaction.
The rain came down and the birds and monkeys quieted. Drifting smoke, black powder smoke from the grenades, was harsh to the nose.
Jonnie looked toward the ore plane landing field beyond the short road. Deserted.
The Scot carrying radio equipment answered his beckoning. The covering scrap of a tarpaulin was cascading rain. Jonnie checked the set. Working. He flipped to planetary pilot band and picked up the mike.
“Flight to Nairobi, standing by,” said Jonnie. It would sound like routine pilot traffic but a code had been prearranged with the two ships they had left near the power plant. “Nairobi” meant “Fly in to our beacon” and “Standing by” meant “Don’t come in shooting, but be alert.”
Dunneldeen’s voice crackled back, “All passengers aboard.” They were on their way.
Jonnie took the mine radio off his belt and turned it to “Constant Bleep,” which was used by miners when trapped or caught in a cave-in. It would act as a radio beacon for the planes. He stabbed a finger at three of his force. As the men passed, he handed one of them the mine radio to put in a tree at the field.
Assault rifles held low, running wide of the compound, pausing to give one another cover, they raced toward the landing field. Shortly, one of them, seen as a blur through the dull curtains of rain but brighter out there on the field edge, raised a hand in an “all clear.” They would give the planes landing cover as they came in.
Jonnie slung the blast rifle over his shoulder and hobbled across the compound perimeter, his cane not sinking so deep on this more traveled ground. He could hear pumps going further south. That would be where the mine workings were. He saw that a branch of the power cables they had used to trace this place turned off halfway up the road to the field. He followed it.
A squat hut made of stone sat there in the trees, festooned with insulators and surrounded by pipes. He recognized it as a fuel and ammunition manufacturing unit. Ha! They had one at this branch mine; probably to utilize all the excess power available from the hydroelectric plant.
The ground around it was roughed up with recent foot and flatbed traffic. The door was ajar. He gave it a push with his cane.
What a jumble! Fuel and ammunition canisters were usually stacked neatly on racks in these places. Side bins usually contained the various minerals used in concocting the contents of the canisters. A recent flurry of activity had left minerals spilled on the floor, and damaged unusable canisters underfoot. This place had been very busy very recently. He knew it took a bit of time to stir up and charge the brews that became fuel and ammunition and seal them into canisters. Had they worked here flat-out for days? A week?
He made his way over to the exit road that must go to the main minesite, using a short cut between the two roads. He looked at the brush on both sides of the exit road. Ordinarily his educated eye would have been able to track this easily, but the pouring rain made it more difficult.
He bent, examining some twigs broken from the underbrush that bordered the road. Some breaks, the ones that pointed toward the compound, must be several days old. Others, very fresh, still leaking sap, were broken in the direction of the main minesite up near a lake that old man-maps said had been called Lake Victoria.
A convoy had come in here many days- weeks?- ago and had gone out hours ago. A big convoy!
He glanced up the exit road, half-expecting to see trucks or tanks coming down it, back to the compound.
Their tactical situation was not ideal.
They had a small force of Brigantes holding out in the woods back of them. Somewhere, near or far, there must be the better part of a thousand Brigantes. And up this road- he looked at the traces of the ground drives-there were a very large number of Psychlo vehicles. Ore flatbeds? Tanks?
He heard their planes now. That sound wouldn’t matter after all the uproar of this recent skirmish. And any convoy on that road wouldn’t hear anything above their own motor drives. The vast canopy of treetops that made this place a twilight not only prevented anyone from looking down at the exit road and seeing anything on it, but also prevented anyone on it from seeing up.
A poor tactical situation. They could not fight a convoy, probably escorted with tanks, in this water-saturated, hemmed-in forest. Their planes were of no use to them.
He made his way over to the landing field. Sky! Not much sky but enough to get ore freighters up and down through. Leaking sky, but sky! He hadn’t seen any sky in three days.
The soldiers were in the trees, covering the field. The mine radio bleeper was set in a fifteen-inch diameter vine that coiled like a huge snake up a tall tree. Maybe this field had once been bigger, but the jungle and the trees had encroached deeply.
The big marine attack battle plane wound down from directly overhead, letting the smaller battle plane cover it from above as was proper. Then the plane mushroomed a puddle of field water into a geyser and came to a halt. It was Dunneldeen. He swung the door open and sat there grinning, glad to see Jonnie.
Robert the Fox came rushing up. The side door of the big plane swung open and the officer of the remaining part of their force looked questioningly. Robert waved to him to sit tight, no emergency, and got into the smaller battle plane with Jonnie and Dunneldeen.
Jonnie was rapidly filling Dunneldeen in on the events. “There’s a convoy on that road headed for the main minesite,” concluded Jonnie. “I think they came down here for fuel and ammunition and then went back.”
“Ah,” said Dunneldeen. “That explains it.”
Typical Dunneldeen, he had not been sitting quietly waiting for their call. He could get that, he said, back at the dam or way upstairs. So he’d left the big attack plane at the dam and on radio standby so they could recall him, and he’d been keeping the main minesite, up at what they used to call “Lake Albert,” under surveillance by going way up and following normal traffic routes. His instruments and viewscreens could penetrate rain and cloud- even though they couldn’t see a thing through the canopy of trees.
The main minesite, he recalled, had been knocked out on Day 92 by a pilot…MacArdle? Yes, MacArdle. And he’d had a bit of trouble. The Psychlos had attempted to loft two battle planes and MacArdle had nailed them right at the hangar launch door, blocking it. He’d blown their power lines to bits and knocked out huge breathe-gas and fuel and ammunition dumps. The Psychlos had gotten two batteries of antiaircraft into operation and he’d had to knock those out. This was the fight where the copilot had been wounded, if Jonnie and Sir Robert recalled. A very fighting minesite!
Anyway, Dunneldeen went on, on his overflights from one hundred thousand feet up during the last three
days he hadn’t found any current movement in the place but- he showed them the pictures he’d gotten from his screens- those apes had cleared away the hangar door- that’s it there- and look over here, see? Those shadows under the trees at the edge of their field…no, over there. Ten battle planes on standby!
“Nobody ever came back to mop up that minesite,” he concluded, “and those gorillas have been busy!”
Jonnie looked at the several pictures. One had been taken with a lower sun. He examined the profiles of the planes half-hidden under the trees. He looked at Dunneldeen.
“Yes,” said Dunneldeen. “Just like you described the one you put on the gas drone. Mark 32 low-flying ground strafers, heavy, heavily armored. Not much range but they can carry extra fuel cartridges.”
“Those Psychlos,” said Jonnie, “are not setting up to defend their minesite. They are probably desperate for breathe-gas. They had their fuel blown up…see the dolly tracks in the grass in front of those Mark 32s. They were dollied there, not flown there.” He pointed to the hut half-seen through the trees. “They’ve been over there for days manufacturing fuel and ammunition like mad. They used what fuel they could scrape up to get that convoy here; they grabbed all the breathe-gas, I’m sure. And they’re on their way back.”
“The only other big supply of breathe-gas,” said Robert the Fox, “is over at the central compound in America! That’s where they’re headed.”
“With those ten Mark 32s they could turn this whole war around the other way,” said Jonnie. He opened a map, water still dripping off him and onto it, and traced out the exit road. He found it left the forest, ran across a plain and into a long ravine that was open to the sky. The road went on toward Lake Albert but there was a flat place as it left the ravine. He looked at some pictures Dunneldeen had taken.
“We’ve got a battle coming up,” said Jonnie. He measured distances and turned to Sir Robert. “It will take them a day and a half to reach this spot; two days to the main compound since that road is awfully bad. Meanwhile we have to take care of the main force of Brigantes. Pack Colonel Ivan, four raiders, and a mortar into this place. Tell him he’s got to hold that pass until relieved. And you, Dunneldeen, stand by up there to make sure that convoy doesn’t get through. Remember, we’re only after live Psychlos.”
“We’re after stopping a counterattack on the Denver area,” said Sir Robert.
Thor had gone down to put in an appearance at the Mountains of the Moon as “Jonnie.” He was a fair rider and would put on a bit of a show for them and say hello. He was scheduled to visit another tribe south of there. He was a bit far for recall and it would mess up their plans to expose where Jonnie really was.
“I’m sorry you’ve only got one battle plane,” said Jonnie.
Dunneldeen smiled happily. “But there’s only one battle, Jonnie lad.”
Robert the Fox was rapping out orders, and very shortly Colonel Ivan and four soldiers struggled up through the rain carrying a bazooka and a blast mortar and other equipment. They’d forgotten about their Coordinator to translate for them and it was a very tight fit indeed to get all this into the battle plane.
Sir Robert briefed Colonel Ivan. He smiled cheerfully. Ambushes in passes of the Hindu Kush were much more complicated. Have no fear, Marshal Jonnie and War Chief Robert. That pass would be held. Live Psychlos? Well, not quite as satisfactory, but have no fear, the valiant-red-army would perform.
The battle plane soared up, seven men and one battle plane to stop a convoy of dozens of Psychlos and battle tanks. Dunneldeen waved down at them through the rain and was gone.