Tinker shouted. “Get some spearchuckers up here. On the double. When that door opens again, I want it blocked open with something. Those rocks. We’re going to clean out those hunters.”
The row of spearchuckers carried tough hide shields. They stood four deep with spears ready. Garage’s optics above the door picked up their sullen visages and muscular arms. Door remained closed.
Hip came over to assist with the healing by calling down cures from the heavens. Tinker labored long hours removing arrow heads. Most injuries in adults were minor—a rib, sternum or any other bone usually stopped the arrow. Belly wounds were bad. So were the deep wounds of shoulders or hips if the major vessels or nerve trunks were injured. For children it was different. The shaft could pass clean through the little trunks, anyplace. Tinker worked angrily—picturing his own children in his mind as possible victims.
When another shaft cap a mile away popped its door and sent a shower of arrows into the resting buckeyes, Tinker’s curses could be heard all over the camp.
“Let’s break into one of those shaft cities and clean them out!” he shouted.
A group of angry spearchuckers soon formed up behind him. Hip stopped them with a raised hand.
“Olga is Love,” he sang.”
“Love—love,” chanted his followers.
He took Tinker aside and spoke to him with a hand on his shoulder.
“These are trying times, but I did not gather my people to wage war. We are Followers of Olga—people of peace.”
“But your people are getting punched full of holes. Look at all those arrows.”
Hip stood majestically among his ragged followers, unmindful of the bleeding wounds.
“Olga will protect us. That’s all we need to know.”
Tinker shook his head and returned to Mu Ren and Junior.
“I can’t get through to him that we’ve got to strike back. The Big ES is going to keep picking on us until we hurt it.”
She hugged him lightly.
“In a way, I agree with you. But Hip has a point. If you invade the hive I may never see you again.”
Tinker sat dumbly for a few minutes, then with a serious set to his brow, he unfolded his tool kit. Rocks were shaped into a charcoal forge. He searched the harvested gardens until he found what he was looking for—an air vent. The louvers proved to be quite malleable.
Two puberty-minus-four children worked the cetacean-hide bellows while Tinker fashioned the metal. The coals pulsed and glowed a pleasant orange. His stone hammer and anvil clicked and clacked. Sparks flew. All through the night he worked. More louvers were brought to him by the eager spearchuckers. They crowded around, marveling, as he quenched, reheated and pounded.
Hip looked out over the plains to the north. What he saw unnerved him a little. An Agromeck approached carrying a number of ragged bowmen. Two columns of armed men filed along behind. Farther back, to the right and left, were four more Agromecks with similar troop arrangements.
“Seer?” asked a husky spearchucker. “Who approaches?”
“We shall see,” said Hip confidently. “We are a peaceful people. Perhaps they will talk.” He waved a small band of his followers to lay down their weapons and approach the first Agromeck. Hip himself climbed up onto a high rock to give courage to his men—and to let the approaching strangers know that they were dealing with a powerful wizard who did not fear them.
Moses stiffened when he saw the disorganized band tumble down from the rocks and scamper towards him. He relaxed when he realized that they had left their weapons behind.
“It is Hip from Mount Tabulum,” said Toothpick finally. “Ball is here too.”
Moses had heard of Hip and the villagers from old man Moon.
“Buckeyes—organized into an army like ours?” said Hugh. “I find that hard to believe, after what you told me about them.”
“So do I,” said Moses, shaking his head slowly. “I’ll be very interested in finding out what brought them together.”
Moses faced the Hip over a campfire in the neutral zone between the armies.
“What brought you here?”
“Olga,” said Hip. “There is to be a great coming together. Olga will see that we have food. She will protect us from hunters.”
“Food brought us,” explained Moses. “If your Olga is going to supply you with food, she brought you to the wrong place. Fifty-oh-oh has been harvested to the north. How are the crops to the south?”
“Harvested too. The hive has been harassing us with starvation and foam.”
“Harvested below 50:00?” asked Moses surprised. Old Hip nodded. Toothpick squeaked.
Both Moses and Hip glanced around at the circle of anxious faces—their followers were hungry. They had reached The River. Where was the bounty?
“When will Olga provide?” began Moses.
“The prophesy will be fulfilled when the signs are right,” said the old wizard firmly.
“When will we know?”
“I will consult my crystal tonite—under the stars.”
At the end of their meeting, Moses stood up to take the meager words of encouragement back to his restless troops.
“By the way,” said Hip in parting. “Keep an eye on those shaft caps in your area. Bowmen have been appearing in the garage doors. They take a lot of casualties among our people whenever they attack. Tinker has been doing something about them on our side.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Three swarthy buckeyes leaned against the shaft cap admiring Tinker’s blades—gleaming short swords—wrinkled but sharp. Around them the camp slept—little family units bundled up for the night. Stars winked overhead.
Abruptly the wall opened up behind them. Two fell in. One stood open-mouthed and took a fusilade of arrows in the chest. Behind him wounded buckeyes screamed and shouted. He couldn’t breathe. Looking down at the cluster of feathered shafts in his chest, he knew he was dead. A warrior doesn’t just die, he takes his enemy with him! He strode stiffly into the garage as Door closed. His right arm and shoulder had a life of their own for three and a half minutes. Tinker’s new blade sang against the ribs and skulls of Nebishes. Rose-water blood flowed thin and watery across the garage floor. More arrows flew into his trunk—lung and belly shots. None penetrated his thick skull. Cerebral anoxia finally toppled him.
Tinker arrived on the scene with six more blademen. He paused to cut the arrow head from a shaft so an old coweye could pull it out and bandage her leg. A tiny jungle bunny twitched out its life pinned to its cooling mother’s breast.
“Arrows. Damn! Where were the three men I left guarding this door?”
“Inside,” moaned one of the wounded.
“Bring up something to break down this door,” shouted Tinker. He pressed his ear against it. Nothing. Too thick. “Hurry up.” He pounded with the hilt of his sword.
Four burly buckeyes approached the door with heavy stones. Unexpectedly the door opened. Everyone hit the dirt. No arrows. Inside, the garage looked like a slaughter house. Two buckeyes lay pin-cushioned by over a dozen arrows. Around each lay over thirty hunters in various stages of dismemberment. A third buckeye leaned on Door’s manual controls. He had taken five arrows himself. Smiling at the sight of his people, he slumped to the floor.
Tinker rushed to him.
“Check the spiral,” he shouted to the blademen.
The two pin-cushioned buckeyes were gone. The third smiled through his blood-loss anemia. His pulse was fast and thready. The arrows were all stuck in the gristle and muscle of his shoulders, neck and face. Tinker worked fast, digging out the arrows while the adrenal surge protected him from pain.
The Security guard stood with his back to the crawlway while the hunters filed out of the tubeway and double-timed it upspiral. A Nebish on the crawlway watched the hunters pass.