The uproar dwindled to a mewling in Imray’s speaker.
“You let us go down nice, Morgan,
vernt?”
Silence. Imray clapped his fist to his chest and his head slumped.
“Is too much, son,” he wheezed and retreated down the shaft.
“Counting to autopilot,” said Sylla. Quent coded feverishly as deceleration grabbed them. On the screens the arid, undistinguished planet whirled closer.
The autopilot took hold unceremoniously and spiraled them in, shaken but right side up. When the roil cleared they looked across a moonlit field to a cluster of sheds around the antennae rig. There were no lights.
“They’ve all sloped off, sir,” said Pomeroy. “Nothing we can do here till morning.”
“Mr. Pomeroy, you speak the native language,” said Quent. “I will meet you at the cargo lock. Have the sled ready.”
“But sir—”
“Mr. Svensk, am I correct that we need no special masks or suiting on this planet?”
Svensk gave a sighing exhalation.
“No need,” he croaked.
They followed Quent in silence while he broke out two field kits and two ballistic hand lasers. At the cargo lock he opened both ports and ordered Pomeroy into the sled.
“Lieutenant Sylla, you will take over the ship. One of you will be on the bridge at all times. If we’re not back by sunrise, make what investigation you can without endangering the ship. If you can’t help us without hazard to the ship, lift off at once and signal the facts to Farbase. Understood?”
Sylla’s eyes were popping.
“Understood, Acting Captain!” He sketched a salute.
Svensk watched in silence, his bony head folded to his shoulders in the gravity.
Quent launched the sled out into the moonlight. The country below was flat scrubland gashed by a few dark arroyos, now dry. The “city” was a huddle of hivelike buildings with a central plaza. Quent hovered by a torch-lit structure, a shrine. Nothing moved.
“No damage visible so far. We’ll go down and talk to the chief.”
“Be careful, sir,” Pomeroy warned uneasily.
In the plaza they pounded and shouted at the door of the largest hive-house. It was finally opened by a small squat Sopwithian entirely draped in a softly gleaming robe.
“Tell him we’re friends. Where’s the chief?”
The doorkeeper scuttled off on his knuckles, robes jingling. The inside of the adobe hive was a labyrinth of basket-work passages, every surface bossed with bits of metal and colored tassels. The native returned, beckoning, and they scrambled up a wicker corridor to a chamber where an even broader Sopwithian in a shinier robe sat impassive in a lanterned alcove. The ceiling was so low even Pomeroy had to squat.
He gurgled at the chief, who replied briefly, now and then flapping his long robed forelimbs with a sharp jangle. The raiders, Pomeroy reported, had burned several farms northeast of town and carried off the families. Herdsmen had spied them roasting and eating the captives beside their ship.
“All right,” said Quent. He ducked his head to the chief and they scrambled out to their sled.
He took off in a howling rush northeast. Beyond the town the pasture scrub stretched barren to a line of mesa, all brightly lit by the big moon. Here and there were small beehive farms set in irrigated gardens.
“Where are those burned farms?” Quent peered. “Where’s that ship?”
“Take care, sir,” Pomeroy pleaded. “Them Drakes’ll come on us like devils—”
Quent began to fly a low search pattern. As he circled a farm heads popped out.
“They’re scared to death, sir. Think we’re Drakes. Pitiful.”
“Frightened.” Quent frowned around the moonlit horizon. “Ah, what’s that?”
Pomeroy writhed nervously.
“That’s a burnt one, all right. No need to look farther.”
Quent circled the blackened shell. Suddenly he skidded the sled into the farmyard and jumped out, kicking ashes. In a moment he was back and flung the sled airborne. He seized the speaker.
“Quent to
Rosenkrantz.
I’ve found that ship.”
The speaker crackled. Quent fended off Pomeroy’s arm, deftly appropriating the little man’s laser.
“Do you read,
Rosenkrantz?”
“The ship is where, Acting Captain?” asked Sylla’s voice.
“About fifty kiloms northeast of field, in a canyon,” Quent told him. “There is also a raiding party in sight, headed this way. They are armed. They have sighted me. Now hear this: You will signal Farbase at once and prepare to lift ship. I’m going after these raiders. Repeat, signal Far-base and secure ship. I am now being fired on. Out.”
Knocking Pomeroy into the corner, Quent yanked out the speaker leads and slammed the sled at top speed back toward the field.
“Sir—Lieutenant Quent, sir, don’t—”
Quent ignored him. Presently he cut power and glided around the end of the field at bush level. They whispered out to the ship, dodged behind a landleg, and came upon Svensk and Sylla in the open port.
Quent vaulted out, weapon in hand.
“Have you signaled as ordered, Mr. Sylla?”
The lutroid shrugged.
“But what was one to report, Acting Captain?”
“Precisely,” snapped Quent and started for the bridge with both lasers in his belt. They followed.
Imray hulked in the command chair. He eyed Quent in silence, arms folded over his massive chest.
“Feeling better, sir?” Quent snarled. He wheeled and thrust his jaw into Sylla’s muzzle. “I’ll tell you why you failed to signal Farbase. And why you two were hanging out in the open lock when I ordered you to secure ship. Because you know damn well there are no raiders here.”
He had his back against the screens now and a laser drawn.
“No ship! No Drakes. It’s all one big farce and all of you are in it. You, you clown Pomeroy—you,
Captain
Imray! What are you trying to hide? Smuggling? Extortion? Or do I have to pound it out of you?”
He heard a rustle, saw Svensk’s hand at his vest controls.
“No, no, Svenka,” Imray growled. “Battles we don’t need.” He shook his head heavily. “We been
gesprüchtet.
I tell you boys, Drake business no good.”
“Agh, your Drakes, the whole thing stank from the start. Let me tell you something, gentlemen.” Quent shook the laser at Sylla, “You jeer about my training, but there’s a thing you don’t know about Academy life, my furry friend. In the years I’ve been a cadet I’ve been hazed and hoaxed and put on by experts. Experts!” His voice rose. “Caristo, what I’ve put up with. And you, gentlemen, are a clobbing bunch of amateurs. Tri-di gigs.”
He snorted, glaring contemptuously at them. No one spoke.
“You didn’t think I caught on when you handed me the ship? Cooking up some way to gash my record. Here in Sopwith—I was supposed to pass it up, wasn’t I? Oh, yes. And you—” He stabbed the laser at Pomeroy. “You were going to bugger the log so you could show I refused to aid aliens against Humans, right? Then bring charges? But why? I’ll be rotated out soon enough—why did you have to ruin me, too?” He scowled, “My father. Blackmail. You’ve got something going here. I’m going to take this ship apart, right here on the ground. It’s on record that you’re unfit for duty, Captain. You didn’t think of that when you got so clobbing elaborate!”
They gaped at him. Sylla’s pupils swelled, contracted.
“I tell you, smart boy,” Imray grunted. He scratched his chest. “Son, you mistake—”
A shrill mew from Engines split the air. Imray jerked around. He yanked at his webs.
“I got you, boy.”
“Hold it,” shouted Quent. “Don’t try—”
Sylla and Pomeroy dived for their consoles. Svensk was vanishing down the shaft.
“I said ‘hold it.’ ” Quent grabbed the override lever. “You’re staying right here.”
“Sit, son, sit,” Imray rumbled. “Is danger, I swear by the Path. If don’t go up, lose ship.”
“That’s straight, sir. We’ll be killed if you don’t let us up.”
Sylla was coding frantically, his crest fur ridged. The cargo lock changed.
“If this is another—” Quent rasped. He released the lever and began to web up one-handedly, laser ready.
Imray’s hand smacked down and several invisible mountains fell on them as the
Rosenkrantz
careened off-planet.
“Back side moon, Syll,” Imray wheezed.
“All right. What goes?”
“Drakes,” said Pomeroy.
“You trying to go
on
with this?”
Svensk was scrambling out of the shaft, headed for his console. He brushed against Quent’s laser. On the screens the moon was ballooning up. They rushed across the terminator into darkness.
“Drakes is real, son,” Imray told him. “Catch ship on dirt—we finish. Is maybe judgment on us. Boys, they smell us?”
“I rather think they may not.” Svensk’s clack seemed to have been replaced by a cultivated Gal Fed accent. “Morgan sensed them just below the horizon and our emissions should have decayed by the time they get around.”
Frowning, Quent watched Imray braking to stability over the dark craters of the moon whose lighted side had guided his ground search.
“They’re coming around,” said Pomeroy. “Listen.”
A confused cawing filled the bridge. Quent made out the word
kavrot
in coarse Galactic. A kavrot was a repulsive small flying reptile that infested dirty freighters.
“Talking about us,” Pomeroy grinned. His goatee no longer waggled. “Kavrots, that’s us. Doesn’t sound like they know we’re here, though.” He cut the voder.
“Braking emissions,” said Svensk. “It appears they’re going down.”
Quent pushed up and moved in behind the lizard, laser in hand. Svensk did not look up,
“If this is another gig—” He studied the displays. Nobody paid attention.
“Captain?”
Sylla’s fist was up.
Imray grunted and the
Rosenkrantz
began to glide silently on her docking impellors down toward the sunlit peaks at the moon’s eastern horizon. Sylla’s paw beckoned Imray left, pushed right, dipping, banking as the mountains rose around them. His fist chopped down, Imray cut the power and they floated under a peak outlined in crystal fires. They were just shielded from the field on the planet below.
“Last pass coming up,” said Svensk. “Splendid. They’ve blown up the field antennae. That eliminates our trace. Sitting down, now.”
“From which one deduces?” asked Sylla.
“From which one deduces that they either do not know we are here or do not care or have some other plan. Possibly a trap?”
“First one best,” said Imray.
“They’re going to send out a party.” Pomeroy patched in and they heard the harsh voices now augmented by clangings.
Quent stowed the lasers by his console. “Are they Human?”
Imray nodded gloomily. “Is a judgment, boys. They going to mess up.”
“Eating the natives?”
“Maybe better so,” Imray growled. “No—we don’t know exact what they do. They come here once only, burn two farms, go quick. Why they come back?”
“You will recall my hypothesis at the time,” said Svensk.
“Heheh!” Sylla made a frying sound.
“Yes. Crude but effective.” Svensk nodded. “The adobe shells should make excellent hearths and the heat developed would be adequate to refine out most of the metals.”
Pomeroy caught Quent’s look.
“You saw the metal in their houses? All woven in, even on their clothes. Every house is loaded, accumulation of centuries. Haven’t a cat’s use for it—purely religious. They pick it up on ritual collecting trips. Spicules, nuggets, it’s all scattered around in grains in alluvial rubble. You couldn’t mine it. Point is, there’s tantalite, osmiridium, maybe some palladium. Big price around here. When we found those farms burned, Svensk noticed they’d been at the ashes. Metal was gone. He figured they’d come back for more, burn the town out. And the damnfool Sops run
in
when they’re scared.” He grimaced, not comically.
“Why wouldn’t they make the natives bring it to them?”
“Never
get
it. Sops are difficult. Much simpler this way. Also hairier, Drake style.”
“If this is true, it’s our clear duty to stop it,” said Quent.
“A la
tri-di?” Sylla laughed shortly.
“Son,” said Imray, “Space Force is long way away. We here, only. What they got down there, Svenka?”
“Sector Ten was quite correct,” said Svensk. “Unmistakable. They have succeeded in repairing that A.E.V. The shield was on for a minute just now.”
Quent whistled.
“Do you mean they’ve got an Armed Escort Vessel? That shield will be a phased englobement—they can sense and fire right through it.”
“Drake damn good spacer,” Imray told him. “Always watch. We try sneak in, we get fireball in nose. We stuck, looks like.”
“]e me demande,
” said Sylla, “How do they propose to conflagrate the city?”
“A good point.” Svensk stretched. “The farms, of course, were fired with portable flamers. This seems a slow method. Possibly irksome as well. I fancy they may intend to use the ship as a mobile torch.”
“If they hover that low,” Quent said thoughtfully, “they could only use the top half of their shield. An A.E. shield forms in two hemispheres. Same for the sensor field, too. They can’t fully englobe much below a thousand meters.”
“Ahe!” exclaimed Sylla. “One could thus attack them under the belly,
non?
But—we cannot get our ship from here to there undetected. And the sled, it functions only in the air… If only we possessed a space-to-air attack pod!”
“You do,” said Quent.
They stared at him.
“The aft rocket turret. Look at your manual.”
“Manual,” said Imray blankly.
“In a few early peebees, the aft rocket cell is demountable and converts to a module capable of limited in-atmosphere function,” Quent recited. “The empennage is sealed flush to the hull. You unbolt a stabilizer fin and swivel it around for the delta. I checked it over—it’s there. Didn’t you ever notice the shielding and lock on that thing?”
“Fantastic,” said Svensk. “Now you mention—but how is it powered?”
“You couple on an emergency booster and impellor unit from the ship’s drive after the thing is set up and the pilot is inside. Preferably a spare, if you have one—you’ll recall that my inspections terminated at the engineroom bulkhead,” he said bitterly.