Bec thrust guns into the hands of Harmen and two Heshans we had trained to use repeaters. We nestled down behind the Jains, peering through the firing slits in their shields.
“Here they come!” yelled Bec. “Let ’em have it!”
The Meramite carrier platforms appeared at the other end of the wide street. We saw big grey figures, considerably bigger than the Rheattites, arrogantly directing their glowing lances this way and that, indulging in the arbitrary destruction we later came to expect of them.
We let them get well into the street before letting loose. They scarcely knew what had hit them. Deadly though their hot-lead poles were, they just weren’t in the same class as a pair of good Jains, the most effective, withering machine-guns ever designed. An almost solid sheet of lead ripped down the length of the street, the racket reverberating between the walls of the houses with a noise like ten thousand rivet-guns. We put in a mixture of explosive and spin-bullets, too. You can do a variety of such mixtures on a Jain gun, say one explosive, one spin to every ten straight. If a spin-bullet hits you it more or less turns you into a jelly.
Our blast lasted only seconds. We had to watch the ammo. But the Meramites were wiped out, their riding platforms leaning crazily.
“That’ll show them they’re up against something,” Bec grinned.
Three times they tried to send men down the street, with the same result. We were beginning to conclude that the Meramites weren’t too bright, or else weren’t very skilled in war. By now the village was blazing merrily. We could hear screams and the zip-zip of the hot-lead poles. I wondered if they treated every village this way or if it was only us they were after.
A few times they tried to infiltrate in from the sides but couldn’t get at us until our ammunition ran out, and we had enough to last for a while. However, this wasn’t quite as Bec had planned it, as far as I knew. We were bound to run out eventually.
I looked across at him. “Still planning on contact?”
“Sure.”
“Mind telling me how?”
Bec’s goggles scanned the street. “Leave it for a while. They’ll start thinking things out themselves pretty soon.”
This time he was right. There was another movement at the far end of the street. A tall, broad Meramite was waving a banner.
We held our fire as he strode nearer with an odd, jerky gait. He held the banner aloft on a tall pole. It depicted a man hanging upside down, suspended by his feet.
“It is a flag of truce,” one of the Heshans told us. “They want to talk.”
“Good,” said Bec. He climbed down from his Jain and relieved the Heshan of his repeater. “Get out there and tell him a representative of the Great Powers of Klittmann will speak to one of equal rank, if such an officer will present himself.”
“Hey, Bec,” I said, speaking Klittmann. “You know what they did to the last Heshans we sent out.”
“Sure, but it’s different now. Out you go, man.”
He gave the Heshan a hefty shove to help him on his way. The poor guy was so scared he was shaking, but he climbed out and bravely walked towards the Meramite with the banner.
The two of them looked strange together. Rheattites tended to be slightly taller than we are, but the invaders from the Moon were taller still. They averaged seven to eight foot. But they looked kind of lank and weak, thyroidal. They made me wonder how they managed to stand up. Later I found it wasn’t so easy for them.
Their skins were slate-grey and so were their uniforms. Their broad chests were crisscrossed with black straps that made them look sinister and powerful. The truce-maker didn’t kill our Heshan, as I had half-expected, but listened while the green-skinned man, staring up at him like a child, delivered our message. Nodding curtly, he turned and walked away.
Minutes later the banner-bearer returned with a companion who strode haughtily before him, walking unconcernedly over the bodies of his dead soldiers. Unlike the banner-bearer, he wore a helmet with designs on it. I couldn’t make out from this distance. Stopping some yards in front of our foremost Jain, he stood with legs astride, thumbs hooked in a waist-belt.
Meanwhile the Heshan had thankfully returned to the bunker. “Your turn now, Harmen,” Bec said, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Get out there and make yourself look like somebody big. Tell him we represent the powers of Klittmann, another world. Say we have no quarrel with the men of Merame and for that reason have not opposed their conquest of Rheatt. Say we expect the same respect from them. Then tell him that if he is merely a subordinate officer he must stay outside and talk to you, but if he is of exalted rank and a leader of his people he may come inside the bunker and speak to me. Make it clear that I won’t make agreements with an underling.”
The alchemist looked at him for long, brooding moments, his long hair hanging lankly down his shoulders. If nothing else, I thought, he would make a strong impression on the Meramites by his appearance alone.
But he had been brought a long way against his will. He had been involved in a lot of things he didn’t want to be involved in, and now Bec was making him carry out negotiations for him. He didn’t like it much.
“Am I your messenger boy?” he said. “Your mummer?”
“You’re not in a position to make choices,” Bec stated. “Get up there and do what I say.” He paused. “Maybe you are in a position to make choices, at that. See if you can make your own private deal with the Meramites. Maybe they’ll give you a big laboratory. But remember, Harmen: I’ve promised you a big laboratory, too. A real big one. You know what the game is, so serve my purpose.”
Bec said all this in a flat, disinterested tone. He was obviously referring to private conversations the two had held. Reluctantly the alk heaved himself up out of the bunker.
I watched him talking to the Meramite. The other was clearly taken aback by his appearance. The eye-shades probably convinced him that we were, indeed, something new and alien. Eventually Harmen pointed back to the bunker, addressing a question in a loud, gruff voice. The Meramite raised his voice, also, and a disdainful smile passed fleetingly across his lips. After a short altercation he followed Harmen towards the bunker.
Bec signalled me to stay up with the nearside Jain, which put me sitting up over his head from where he sat in a padded chair in the recesses of the bunker. The Meramite bent his head and almost doubled up to enter. I heard funny little chinking sounds as he came on by me, then I couldn’t see him any more. I continued to keep a look-out, listening to the conversation going on behind me.
The Meramite spoke Rheattic, but in a clipped, supercilious accent and in a voice that was incongruously high-pitched for someone of his size. All the Meramites, I found later, had that high-pitched, child’s voice.
“I am Commander of the Rheattic Border Expeditionary Force,” he said. “I am here to speak with your leader.”
There was a scraping noise as the Heshans drew up a bench for him to sit on. “My name is Becmath,” Bec drawled. “Sit down.”
The other did so. “You claim to represent a foreign power. Not on Earth?”
“No.”
“Or Merame?”
“No.”
“Mars, then? Venus? I have never heard of any journeying from those worlds.”
“We’re not from there either. We’re not from any world you can see in the sky. But enough of that. My quarrel with you is that you have destroyed this village, which I had taken for my own.”
“When your messenger first came to us,” the other replied, “we had taken his claim to be a lie, a desperate subterfuge, and so we meted out heavier punishment than we might otherwise have done. We have reasons not to make our destruction of the country too complete, but we must subjugate. Now that we have seen the effects of your weapons, however, as well as your un-Rheattic appearance…. It is very dark in here, yet you cover your eyes. Light hurts you, perhaps?”