“Something has to be done now. Why don’t I take a couple of Agromecks and blademen and attack their camp?” said Tinker.
“No good,” said Moses. “They’ll have nearly five hundred Huntercraft by tomorrow—maybe more. Five or ten Agromecks would get eaten alive. They’d be of more use on the perimeter.”
Hip held up Ball. “The reason I called this meeting was—my crystal ball has stopped glowing. All it says now is: ‘Take me to their leader.’ It doesn’t talk about Olga anymore.”
“Talk?” said Tinker.
“Well, I heard voices when I put my hands on it. Not with my ears—with my—head. I think,” said Hip.
Ball sat there, a dull opaque.
Tinker picked it up. A voice told him to go into the hive and find the leader of the Nebishes. He put down the sphere and the voices went away. Odd.
“It wants me to take it into the hive,” he said, smiling.
Moses picked it up, heard nothing, and passed it around the circle. It spoke only to Hip and Tinker. Hugh stood and addressed the group.
“If we stay and fight here, they’ll just wear us down. Outnumbering us the way they do—a million to one. But we have a good chance to knock out their nerve center. If it is located in any one of these shaft cities you can see how easy it should be. If Ball knows where to find their leader, Tinker and I could take a strike force and try to knock it out. Maybe even take it over. Tinker’s good with meck brains.”
“It’s a chance—a good one,” said Tinker.
Hip and Tinker moved through their camps quietly asking for volunteers. They turned down many buckeyes and most of the fugitives from Dundas. Only the best-armed and best-muscled would have a chance of surviving the foray.
The acromegalic held his stout spear in two hands—a quarterstaff for the shaft and a broad iron spearhead at one end. He volunteered.
Tinker shook his head.
“No, gentle giant—your weapon is no good for the close quarters we’ll be fighting in—and your joints will slow you down if we have to do any running.”
Mu Ren stood sadly by, clutching Junior—her belly bulging. She had pleaded with Tinker—trying to keep him near her and their son. But she saw the logic of trying to knock out the hive’s cybercenter. Hundreds of her friends had died in the day’s brief encounter with the hive forces—and each day they would face the same thing. A larger hive force attacking a weakening buckeye camp. Several family groups had tried to escape through the Agrifoam—only to be tracked by Huntercraft. She doubted if any got through—to return to the safety of mountain strongholds. No, she didn’t ask Tinker to call off his attack. She cried a little as he left.
Hip spoke to the assembled strike force—five squads, axe; five, short spear; and twenty, short sword—about two hundred men.
“Make this planet worthy of Olga’s return,” he said solemnly—handing Ball to Tinker. “Free us from the hive.”
“Free us,” chanted the gathered multitude. Tinker looked over the gaunt faces and bandaged ragged bodies. Few were unwounded. In a short time few would be alive, if his mission failed. He raised his bipennis.
“I have sharpened both blades of my axe. One is for the Nebishes who stand in my way—the other blade I am saving for the enslaving meck mind that runs the hive.”
Cheers.
A hundred spearchuckers ran eagerly into the shaft city to clear a path to the tubeways. The strike force could rest until it reached the heart of the hive.
Tinker stood with Ball under one arm, axe in the other, and watched his men file in—an elite unit. Marching out of step in the rear was an old man and a three-legged dog—Moon and Dan. Moon carried his stained blade, already well-worn by countless skirmishes. Tinker touched the old man’s sinewy arm.
“Sorry, Moon, you won’t be going. Only the fast, young—”
Moon snarled and pulled his arm away.
“Why you young pup! I’ve been carving up the Nebish since before you were born. Do you think I want to sit out here with the women and children while you’re in there where all the fighting is?”
Moses and Hugh approached truculent old Moon. Toothpick spoke up: “Stay with us on the surface, old man with dog. Tinker goes to fight microcircuits and soft-bellied technicians.”
“Yes,” said Hugh. “Tomorrow the armies of the hive will be on the surface. Fighting will be hand-to-hand. You and Dan will be needed here—not in the dark mushroom caves of the hive.”
Old Moon relaxed and took his fist out of Tinker’s face. Tapping him lightly on the shoulder with his knuckles, he fumbled for an appropriate curse—“Good luck, you dirty—” He searched for the right word. None came. “Kill a circuit for me,” he said finally.
Tinker trotted downspiral to the head of his unit.
“Let’s hurry. If we knock out the hive’s cybercenter before dawn, the battle here on the surface may go easier on our people.” Watcher circuits tracked the army’s progress through the tubes. Val and his personal hunter unit were tubed to intercept. They studied Tinker’s route. The buckeyes used regular passenger tubeways, carving up enough of the citizen crowd to gain standing room. Val checked the locations of his underground hunter units. He called for traffic control.
“Reroute hunter unit 32-5K into shaft base #47-B3 and tell them to nock arrows. I’ll pull manual stop from here,” shouted Val.
Ball eavesdropped. “Blades up. Eyes right,” said a voice in Tinker’s head. He issued the orders sharply. One minute later the right wall of the tubeway opened unexpectedly and a force of hunters—two hundred strong—pulled back their bowstrings. They were not prepared for the instant rush of blade-swinging buckeyes. Arrows wobbled and stuck in gristle over shoulder and skull. Twenty seconds later Tinker’s troops moved on.
Val cursed and pulled levers. He flooded several shafts and tubeways, but the buckeyes stayed dry.
“Damn! Can’t you give me better sequence charts than these?” he shouted at the meck console.
A traffic controller stood nervously behind Val.
“The charts are in order, sir,” explained the controller. “You just have to be familiar with the symbols and signs. That is a pretty specialized field.”
“Well, call someone in who can handle these controls. I want that band of killers stopped.”
The tubeway halted again. The buckeyes hacked their way forward through a crowd of complacent hive citizens. Some died before they were even touched. Others stood along the walls, unconcerned, and uninvolved—wrapped up in their private little dreams.
“God! What mindless bastards!” said Tinker, wiping his blade.
A giant sphincter door blocked the tube. Axes began to swing. The door was three feet thick.
“Go around,” said Ball through Tinker’s mouth. “Cut the right wall.”
The wall peeled away under the blades—exposing bundles of wires and pulsating conduits. Thick mats of dust caked their bare feet as they traversed the ’tween walls. Rats blinked out of the darkness. Fetid odors brought tears to their eyes. When they hacked back into the tubeway they faced a Security force of five hundred.
“Why, they’re just armed with quarterstaffs!” exclaimed the first buckeye through the gap. He swung his sword, making room for those who followed. Nets were thrown, fouling his blade. Hi Vol injectors quieted his struggles with Molecular Reward.
The Security guard at the far end of the tubeway section reported to Val over his communicator. Val’s face was more confident now that he had sphincter control.
“I think we can hold them here, sir. They are ’tween walls. When they try to cut their way back in here we can be ready for them.”
Tinker peered out of the moldy darkness.
“Can we go around this section?”
“Negative, sir,” said the scout. “The next sphincter is at a weight-bearing wall.”