Dusk was settling on the camps. Toothpick was restless. Moses carried the little cyberspear to the southwest corner of their camp and climbed the long rock pile.
“My butt is near.”
“The one you left with—Moon?” said Moses excitedly. “Is he alive? Where—?” He glanced over the rambling camp of buckeyes to the south. For three miles the ground was packed with busy troops and their families. Shelters were up. Small cooking fires smoked. Babies cried.
“There he is,” said Toothpick, flexing his surface membrane and steering his point toward the hunched old man and the long-snouted, three-legged dog in the distance.
Moses shouted and waved.
Old Moon didn’t say much. He was glad to see them, of course, but he wasn’t much for words.
“Here’s your butt,” he said, handing Toothpick the ten-centimeter section of tubing from his thicker, base end.
Toothpick accepted it—locking it on with a click.
“Old man with dog—welcome. How is your wound?”
Old Moon scratched the puckered scar in the left upper quadrant of his abdomen. “It tells me when it’s going to rain. Otherwise it is fine. Drained a helluva long time though. Must have gotten my colon and my lungs because I was spitting up feces for about three months.”
Toothpick consulted his scanty anatomy charts.
“Unlikely,” said the cyber. “Colon, yes—lungs no. But the coliform organisms from the bowel could have spread to your pleural space giving your sputum a purulent-fecal odor.”
Old Moon lifted his left shoulder, demonstrating how much mobility was left.
“Still as good a man as I ever was,” he growled. His golden teeth glinted in the sunset. His frame carried a bit more meat—he had been eating well. Dan looked well enough too. With the left leg ending at the tarsus, his trunk and right leg had added muscle for the three-legged gait.
“I just came from Hip’s camp. Talked with Tinker and his mate. Their big problem seems to be food,” said Moon.
“Same here.”
“But you’ve cracked a couple of shaft caps. You’ve got troops and mecks…”
“The Big ES has cut off supplies to these cities. Their own citizens starve,” explained Moses.
“Let’s attack the Big ES.”
Moses recoiled at old man Moon’s suggestion.
“You don’t mean invade the hive?”
“Yes, dammit! Invade the hive. Take troops into the spirals and tubeways—rout out those little white grubs who have taken away our planet—rout them out and barbecue ’em,” said the old man with gusto.
Young, sensitive Moses winced at the harsh words.
“But the Hip doesn’t want to make war. His reason for being here is tied to his religion—planetary conjunctions, and all that.”
“The Hip!” sneered old Moon. “He may be the Hip to you, but he’s just the Ass at Tabulum to me. Anyone who would take advantage of a poor, simple people with tricks of magic and start a religion so he doesn’t have to get out and scratch for his own calories—he’s just an ass.”
Moses soothed—“Now, now. Looking after thousands of hungry people is no easy task. I know. I’ve got a lot of hungry followers myself. And right now we all could use a little food.”
Moon cursed, “Hell, there is always plenty of food around. Lend me a squad of bowmen and I’ll get you all you can eat.”
“But I told you—there is no food in these shaft cities. The Nebishes themselves are starving.”
Old Moon smiled the same wicked smile Moses had seen in the cave after his Climb.
“Of course it won’t be properly aged.”
Moses felt a little limp. Well, if matters had come to that—he would still try to survive. He waved at the bowmen resting against Tiller’s chassis. The sun had set. Only a pale blue glow marked the western horizon.
“Men,” he said. “Old Moon and his dog Dan are going to take you on a little hunting expedition—for Nebishes.” They nodded. Night or day, it made little difference in the hive.
Moon walked to the head of the squad. “We’ll be bringing the meat back, so pick the young healthy-looking ones,” he said callously.
One of the bowmen—young, with a few whiskers and a granular white scar on his scalp where some skin tumor had been erased at Dundas—spoke hesitantly.
“Meat, sir? We’ll be eating—them?”
“Look, sonny, you don’t have to come,” said Moon. “But I’d like to remind you that those protein bars you’ve been eating on the trek were from the patient in the next coffin who didn’t make it. Ever since you’ve awoke you’ve been a cannibal. Everyone on this fool planet is. There’s no other meat.”
The piebald youngster took a half a protein bar out of his pocket and looked questioningly at Moses. Moses nodded sadly.
“Just processed a little—but still human protein.”
The squad marched off behind Dan and Moon.
Hip checked his beads and charts by the firelight. Then he carried his crystal ball up onto the tallest rock he could find between the armies. Bright stars winked out of a coal-black sky. The lunar disc had not yet risen. Hip began his chants and prayers. They spread through both camps. Soon ten square miles reverberated with praise to Olga.
Ball pulsed brightly—reds, blues and then a glaring white light. The armies quieted down—awe-struck. Hip studied the heavens expectantly. The aurora fluttered on without a change. Stars blinked silently. Several stars did not blink—Moses was sure these were the so-called wandering stars—planets. The silence dragged out. In the east the lunar disc attracted their attention for a while. Then Ball darkened. Hip mumbled that the signs were not quite right—tomorrow night he’d try again.
Disappointment spread through the camps. Tinker led a band of blademen into the dark perimeter. They took a Tiller through the circle of foam and raided distant gardens. A token raid, it brought back only scant calories—unnoticed by the hungry masses—but it did show that such a raid was possible. At dawn they were still in the foam when the Huntercraft approached—about twenty of them—gleaming bright hulls at one-thousand-feet elevation. Hatches opened and a shower of arrows rained on Tiller. They dismounted and walked in under the massive chassis.
“Shields up,” shouted Moses as the squadron passed over, raining arrows. Most of the shafts plunked into the ground. The only injuries were minor. Gravity simply was not an effective accelerator for the light arrows.
The squadron attempted a turn. Two craft collided in the air and crashed in a canal. The others scattered.
“Not too bright,” commented Hugh. He stood while a platoon of buckeyes pulled the craft from the waters. The Nebish crews were quickly and mercifully dispatched. One craft looked serviceable to Tinker.
“They must have been on manual—shooting from the craft isn’t allowed when meck brains are flying. You’re right—not too bright. It takes training to fly one of these,” said Tinker.
Dust covers were up all morning while Tinker moved parts from one machine to the other. He put it on manual and removed the antenna.
“Good craft—look at that optic acuity. We might learn a lot if we take her up and reconnoiter. Send a runner to Moses and see if he and Toothpick want to survey the battlefield from a mile up.”
Tinker went back to work. The power cell from the inoperative craft was charged in a garage and spliced into the conductive web of the operative ship. He lined up four bowmen and four blademen to come along. Moses arrived about noon.
Tinker handled the controls like a professional. His shakedown cruises for Hunter Control made him the best pilot in the area. The bipennis under his seat made him the best-armed. Moses hung onto his seat as they swept low over their troops. Buckeyes waved their shaggy heads from the hatches. This brought cheers from below.