Val took his personal guard back to the Huntercraft camp. The three hundred miles from Cybercenter were covered in less than two hours by tubeway. Tracks of the buckeyes remained—blood stains and weapons. Sweepers and repair crews were busy.
Fat Walter waved him into their group.
Val practically beamed as he reported the smashing of the buckeye strike force.
“You should have seen their faces—struggling in the whirlpool,” he laughed.
Walter was serious.
“I’ve done some calculating,” mumbled Walter. “The wizard from Mount Tabulum may have been right after all. Look at these diagrams.”
He projected the solar system on the screen. The sun was in the center. The signs of the zodiac around the circumference.
“Geocentrically both Venus and Mercury are in Gemini. But they are on the same side of the sun as we are—so,” and he pointed to the diagram, “heliocentrically they are in Sagittarius.”
Val scowled. “You’re just a frustrated Follower of Olga—trying to see her hand in everything.”
“But the beads—” protested Walter.
Val sighed and studied the beads again.
“OK’ challenged Val. “So you managed to get Mercury and Venus into Sagittarius; but the beads show four planets—Jupiter—and?”
“Earth.”
“Earth?” exploded Val. “We aren’t in any sign!”
“Heliocentrically we are—we are part of a four-planet conjunction.”
“But who can stand on the sun to see it?”
“Olga,” said Walter.
Val threw up his hands.
“I won’t be going over the buckeye camp tomorrow. I can’t attack a Follower of Olga—even a five-toed one,” asserted fat Walter.
Val sat down weakly.
“That’s fine with me, old man. I was going to suggest just that very thing. We’ll be going in on foot after the preliminary attacks. It might be dangerous for a man in your condition.”
“You seem pretty confident,” said Walter—suspicious.
Val smiled wickedly.
“I’ve cleared it with the CO. We are going to tightbeam self-destruct orders to the buckeyes’ Agromecks, and put up energy fields on the shaft caps. That should isolate them outside and panic them. We have over three thousand Huntercraft massed now. Thousands of bowmen will move into the shaft caps behind the fields. It will be like shooting on our own target range.”
Fat Walter tuned in on an audio pickup of the buckeye camp. They were singing their praise of Olga. Walter moved his lips—adding his prayers for their safety.
Hugh carried the recharged power cell from the garage and plugged it back into the damaged Huntercraft. Lights came on.
“That makes five craft that should fly tomorrow,” he said.
Moses sat in one of the cabs checking out the instruments. Toothpick sat in a third trying to reprogram a damaged flight-stabilizer circuit.
Forges blazed up. Work crews dug shelters in the loose soil. Throughout the night the horizon was rimmed by the dancing lights of Huntercraft—waiting till dawn to attack.
Hip walked up. He had spent only a few minutes examining the sky that night, depressed by his failure—Ball’s failure—to save his people the night before. He carried a spear discarded by one of the wounded… the first weapon his hands had known. He was a little eager to use it.
“There is still a chance,” he said. “We’ll lose some men. But at least we can fight Outside without being drugged. We might even pick up a few more Huntercraft. Our Agromecks give us cover and mobility—”
As if his words were a cue, one of the nearby Huntercraft screamed a countdown and exploded.
“Tightbeam—self-destruct signal,” shouted Toothpick. “Stand clear of the Agromecks—they’re all going to go.”
Less than an hour later the perimeter was marked by smoking hulks and craters. A few buckeyes had been too close. Moses backed his stunned people toward a shaft cap.
“Put bowmen up behind those grills,” he shouted.
The predawn darkness added to the confusion. Comrades were separated. Units broke up. Acrid smoke blinded. The explosions and fires added to the army’s hunger and despair. Bellies had been empty too long—the fatty human flesh from the shaft cities did little more than contract gallbladders.
“Bowmen—to the grills,” repeated Moses.
Sparks threw the first bowmen back from the garage doors. The smell of ozone warned them. Moses heard the ominous buzz of a force field leaking energy into the atmosphere.
“Field’s on,” warned Toothpick. “The Big ES has isolated us Outside.”
The other shaft caps began to spark and buzz. Moses watched helplessly as his army crumbled into aimless flight. Random shrieks and moans told of the weak being crushed by the strong.
From the darkness a loud familiar voice shouted confidence.
“Rally to me. Rally to me,” shouted Hip.
A clot of followers formed up behind him and chanted. The clot grew. A widening belt of calm appeared in the turbulent sea of struggling bodies.
Moon picked up Dan to avoid the crush of the crowd.
Toothpick glowed soothingly.
“That’s a lot better than the disorder we had a minute ago,” admitted crusty old Moon.
The wind carried back words of a song out of antiquity. If the sunrise could be delayed long enough for them to get reorganized and armed again—
A peculiar glow appeared in the southeast—a pulsing blue dome rose above the horizon. The dome changed from light blue-white to a darker purple. A white halo formed over the glow.
“What is it?”
Hip answered—“A sign. Olga has sent us a sign. Lay down your arms. We are saved.”
Toothpick wasn’t so optimistic. “The strike force has failed. That was Ball popping his Q-bottle.”
Old Moon stumbled on the clutter of blades and shafts.
“If we could only get these guys to pick up their arms.”
Moses studied the glow on the horizon—a tremor vibrated the ground underfoot.
“What is that white halo?”
“Ionized Nebish,” said Toothpick. “It must have popped under a shaft city.”
The ground shifted again—harder. The glowing flash dome grew larger, lifting the halo higher.
“Better cover your faces,” warned Toothpick.
8
Tektite Shower
Walter sat in the cabin watching a transmission of sunrise from the east coast. A melon-sized sun showed the cherrystone shadow of Mercury in transit.
“Want to see something pretty—piped in from the sea coast?”
“In a minute,” called Val from the darkness under the craft. He polished contacts and plugged in the web. As he worked the lighting changed.
“Is the sun coming up already?”
Walter didn’t answer. The bluish glow in the southeast transfixed him.
“Hard thunder. Hard thunder,” warned their craft as it slammed its hatches.
The viewscreen rippled as the sonic boom echoed down on them. Val opened his mouth to ask something when it hit—bouncing him around in a bath of pebbles. Ears rang. Loud silence. He could hear nothing else. Val tried to crawl out from under the craft. Another boom hit. The craft vibrated along the ground, coming to rest on his ankle. The bluish glow grew until it did resemble a sunrise. Then it faded. Night fell again—a predawn night. Val screamed in the silence of deafness. He lay pinned beneath the craft, spitting grit. Shock waves passed under him again and again. He freed his ankle and crawled out. A meteor trail lit the black sky. It impacted in the buckeye camp.
Val covered his face against the bright glare of the meteor impact. The sky was full of bright tracks now. Muffled explosions from more impacts told him he could hear again. He pounded on the craft door. No answer. He pulled it open. The craft’s muscle was gone from the hinge. It was dark in the cabin—dash indicators were off. Walter sat wide-eyed facing the viewport. Yellow and orange lights from the meteor shower played across his blank face.