“Why the center?” I asked.
“It is much more damaged.”
If this were authentic, it was crucially important. But I was suspicious. If Master Peter had been detected, it was a trap. And I didn’t see how he, in his position, had been able to set up a sensitive circuit in the midst of battle.
“Give me the word,” I said.
“Nay, you give me.”
“Nay, I will not.”
“I will spell it, or halve it.”
“Spell it, then.”
We did so. I was satisfied. “Cancel last signal. Heavy cruisers assault center bastion, left wing to left flank, right wing to right flank. Odd numbered auxiliaries make diversion assaults on right and left bastions. Even numbers remain with transports. Acknowledge.”
Ninteen seconds later I gave the command to execute, then we were off. It was like riding a rocket plane with a dirty, overheated firing chamber. We crashed through walls of masonry, lurched sickeningly on turns, almost overturned when we crashed into the basement of some large demolished building and lumbered out again. It was out of my hands now, up to each skipper.
As we slewed into firing position, I saw the psychoperator peeling back the boy’s eyelids. “I’m afraid he’s gone,” he said tonelessly. “I had to overload him too much on that last hookup.” Two more of the women had collapsed.
Our big gun cut loose for the final salvo; we waited for an interminable period-all of ten seconds. Then we were moving, gathering speed as we rolled. The Benison hit the Palace wall with a blow that I thought would wreck her, but she did not mount. But the pilot had his forward hydraulic jacks down as soon as we hit; her bow reared slowly up. We reached an angle so steep that it seemed she must turn turtle, then the treads took hold, we ground forward and slid through the breach in the wall.
Our gun spoke again, at point-blank range, right into the inner Palace. A thought flashed through my head-this was the exact spot where I had first laid eyes on Judith. I had come full circle.
The Benison was rampaging around, destroying by her very weight. I waited until the last cruiser had had time to enter, then gave the order, “Transports, assault.” That done, I called Penoyer, informed him that Huxley was wounded and that he was now in command.
I was all through. I did not even have a job, a battle station. The battle surged around me, but I was not part of it—I, who two minutes ago had been in usurped full command.
I stopped to light a cigarette and wondered what to do with myself. I put it out after one soul-satisfying drag and scrambled up into the fire control tower of the turret and peered out the after slits. A breeze had come up and the smoke was clearing; the transport Jacob’s Ladder I could see just pulling out of the breach. Her sides fell away and ranks of infantry sprang out, blasters ready. A sporadic fire met them; some fell but most returned the fire and charged the inner Palace. The Jacob’s Ladder cleared the breach and the Ark took her place.
The troops commander in the Ark had orders to take the Prophet alive. I hurried down ladders from the turret, ran down the passageway between the engine rooms, and located the escape hatch in the floor plates, clear at the stern of the Benison. Somehow I got it unclamped, swung up the hatch cover, and stuck my head down. I could see men running, out beyond the treads. I drew my blaster, dropped to the ground, and tried to catch up with them, running out the stern between the big treads.
They were men from the Ark, right enough. I attached myself to a platoon and trotted along with them. We swarmed into the inner Palace.
But the battle was over; we encountered no organized resistance. We went on down and down and down and found the Prophet’s bombproof. The door was open and he was there.
But we did not arrest him. The Virgins had gotten to him first; he no longer looked imperious. They had left him barely something to identify at an inquest.