They climbed slowly and heavily into the wind off the sea, and only when they made slow, banking turns towards the beach to take advantage of the thermals rising from the hot sand was it possible to see that the gliders carried passengers as well as pilots and that both were armed with crossbows.
The aircraft continued to gain height slowly and steadily while the ground forces deployed three-deep into a crescent formation, with the battering rams placed front and center, before advancing on the med station and watching patients.
The captain’s voice returned, giving orders rather than a commentary.
“Dodds,” it said briskly, “shoot a couple of flares inland and drag them along the perimeter. The vegetation has dried out since last time so be careful not to start a major fire, just give me a line of burning bushes and smoke. There’s no sign of an attack developing from that quarter but I want to put them off the idea in case they burn themselves.”
“Sir,” said Haslam, “shall I whip up another sandstorm on the beach?”
“Negative,” it replied, “there’s no point in wasting the power. Last time we didn’t want them to hit the meteorite shield, but they found out about it when they were shooting at Murchison and Prilicla. But have your tractors ready just in case. Dr. Prilicla.”
“Yes, friend Fletcher,” he said.
“There is no risk to your patients out there,” it went on, “because there is no way that the spiders can get through our shield, but I don’t know what they might do to themselves while they’re trying. It could be visually unpleasant, so I advise moving them indoors before…”
The captain’s next few words were drowned by a wail of protest and accompanying emotional radiation.
“Thank you for the suggestion, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla, “but I am receiving strong vocal and emotional objections from my patients and staff, all of whom would prefer to see the action at first hand.”
“Bloodthirsty savages,” said the captain dryly, “and I’m not talking about the spiders.”
There were twelve ships drawn up along the beach, each one carrying two gliders and a crew complement of anything up to two hundred. The bright yellow sand in front of the station was disappearing under the brownish-green bodies of overtwo thousand advancing spiders and, if it hadn’t been for the knowledge that the meteorite shield made them invulnerable, it would have been a terrifying sight as the spiders halted about fifty meters from the shield and readied their crossbows. Apart from the faint whisper of glider slipstreams as they circled and climbed above the station, there was utter silence. Plainly, all the necessary orders had already been given and they were awaiting only the signal to attack.
“This is stupid,” said Murchison from her position among the medical team grouped around and below him. “They aren’t going to get anywhere with this attack so why don’t they just forget it and go home? After all, we haven’t hurt them in anyway and we’re trying hard not to, but if this foolishness goes on, someone is sure to come to grief.”
“We have hurt them, friend Murchison,” said Prilicla, “but not physically or in any other way we can understand at present. Maybe we are horrible creatures from the sky, the forerunners of more to come, who are invading their land. That is reason enough, but I have the feeling there is another one. A large number of their people are close enough to give me an emotional reading. For some reason they feel hatred, revulsion, and loathing for us. The feeling is intense and it is shared by all of them.”
“I can’t believe that, sir,” Murchison protested. “When I was taken onto that ship there was physical contact with the spider captain who treated me well, considering the situation. It showed intelligence and intense curiosity. Maybe it was a scientist of some kind with its feelings under strict control. I don’t have an empathic faculty like yours, but if it had been feeling hatred and revulsion as well as curiosity I’m sure I would have felt it. My feeling now is that since my escape, we may have done something to make them really hate us.”
Before he could reply, Naydrad curved its body into a flat L so that its narrow head was pointing vertically upwards and said, “Even at the beginning of a battle their pilots like to show off. Look at that.”
At an altitude of about three hundred meters the gliders that had been climbing singly or in small, random groups above the full width of the beach had come together into a wide, circular formation. For a few moments they circled nose-to-tail like the star performers in an aerial display, then they banked inwards in unison, tightening the circle until they were directly above the med-station buildings and the watchers. The captain’s voice returned.
“Nice coordination,” it said approvingly, “but I don’t think they’re showing off. The pilots and passengers are unlimbering their crossbows with the idea, I’d say, of shooting straight down at you. They probably figure that the bolts will have more penetration with the gravity assist of a three-hundred-meter fall. It’s a sensible idea but, not knowing how our shield works, completely wrong. Now what the hell are they doing?”
One of the gliders had rolled into a near-vertical bank, tightening its circle and descending, sideslipping off height as it came. It was followed quickly by another three and then suddenly all of the aircraft were spiralling down towards them.
“Oh, no!” said the captain, answering its own question. “Because their crossbow bolts were stopped at ground level, they think the shield is a wall surrounding us instead of a protective hemisphere. They’re going to crash into an invisible wall at full… Haslam, Dodds, deploy your tractors, wide focus and low power in pressor node. Try not to wreck their gliders, just fend them off before they hit it.”
“Sir,” Haslam protested, “I need a few seconds to focus on every target…”
“And there are too many targets,” Dodds joined in.
“Do what you can—” the captain had time to say before the first glider crashed into the curving invisible surface of the shield.
It looked as if the aircraft had broken up and collapsed into a loose ball of wreckage in midair without any apparent cause. Both occupants were entangled in the structure as it tumbled along the frictionless surface of the shield towards the ground. The second pilot, guessing that some strange weapon was being used against them, banked sharply in an attempt to climb up and away. But one wing struck the shield, crumpled, and its main spar penetrated the fuselage. The aircraft spun heavily into the frictionless surface and the passenger was thrown free before its pilot and the crippled glider began to slip groundwards at an accelerating rate.
“Haslam, Dodds, grab them,” said the captain sharply. “Ease them down gently. Right, Doctor?”
“You’re reading our minds, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla; then, “Friend Naydrad, instruct. ”
The fall of the first glider was checked about five meters from the ground and eased down so gently that it barely disturbed the sand, but the second one was caught two meters up so that its speed and impact were only slightly diminished.
“… Instruct the robots to return all patients to recovery at once,” Prilicla went on. For a moment he stared at the semicircle of waiting spiders that had begun to edge closer while he tried to maintain stable hovering flight in spite of the almost physical
impact of their emotional hostility. He made a quick, mental calculation and spoke.
“Friend Fletcher,” he said, “will you please increase the…”
“The diameter of the meteorite shield by, I would estimate, ten metres,” the captain broke in. “Am I still reading your mind, Doctor?”
“You are, friend Fletcher,” he replied, looking up.