The shuttle’s lock swung suddenly open and the ladder with its oddly shaped rungs and stubby handrail came telescoping down. A billow of smoke from the fires behind Number Two rolled past the enemy ship and when it cleared there were two Bugs on the ladder. A few seconds later there were four, all descending as quickly as was possible for that particular life-form to move. Excitement as well as heat made Warren’s mouth go dry.
They intended to make a fast rescue. That much was plain from the speed of their descent and the fact that the cargo lock remained sealed—they weren’t going to break out one of their ground vehicles. And the normal crew of the shuttle was five. Counting the one they must have left on radio watch there were five beings in the rescue party, which was a further indication that they suspected nothing or they would not have taken so many at one time. But the four Bugs moving away from the base of the landing ladder were armed—they might not be suspicious but at the same time neither were they stupid. In addition they carried metal-cutting equipment and packs which probably contained medication of some kind, all hung from the lightweight type of suit which gave the maximum amount of physical mobility with, as was usual with such suits, the minimum of physical protection. All at once Warren felt sorry for them.
From the Bug point of view this was simply an errand of mercy, but one which required a considerable amount of intestinal fortitude to carry out. To eyes accustomed to much higher light intensities the Escape site must appear a very spooky place. Even though the sun shone through an obscuring cloud of smoke, the light was not good. All around them the ground smoldered, rendering objects and distances uncertain in what must appear to be a hot and foggy twilight, and when a large cloud of smoke drifted past their visibility would drop to a few yards. People who would subject themselves to such conditions, even for a few minutes, possessed qualities which Warren could admire. It was a pity that these admirable qualities would serve only to get their possessors killed a few minutes from now.
Warren signaled again and the technician gave the hull a single, solid blow which made the interior of the dummy ring like a discordant gong. In the distance there was a crash of falling trees and the soft crackling of fires, both too far away to seriously frighten the Bugs. Behind Warren the smoke aimed at screening the site from the guardship’s telescopes, which at that time were thirty-two degrees above the horizon with a thickening atmospheric haze to penetrate in addition to the smoke pall, was rising like a thick, blue fog. At the same time the men at Number Two were busily making smoke which rolled slowly towards the shuttle, billowing upwards as it came to drift past the control-room ports high in the ship’s nose. At ground level this smoke appeared to be clotted here and there, but even to Warren’s more sensitive human vision the wavering, indistinct shadows did not at all resemble a slow-walking file of men.
One to get ready … he thought.
As a species the Bugs were six-limbed and insectlike, but lacking in the protective carapace of exoskeleton developed by the many Earth insects—they were the type of bug which squished rather than cracked when it was walked on. Their bodies seemed altogether too soft and heavy for their four walking legs, mainly because of the high liquid content of their systems and the fact that the movement of each vital organ or muscle was reflected as a constant twitching and bubbling of their semi-transparent tegument. But they were in no sense physical weaklings. Their two manipulators which projected forwards from each side of the head section, which in turn was connected to the main body by a short and ridiculously thin neck, were both sensitive and immensely strong. The manipulators, mouth and general sensory equipment housed in the head section had the hairy, frondlike appearance of something which might have grown under the sea. Not all of these physical details were visible as the four Bugs rounded the farmhouse, but because they were wearing the equivalent of the tight-fitting service battledress there was very little hidden.
Two to get set…
The second gonglike note made them hesitate, as did the realistic collapse of one wall of the farmhouse with the accompanying dense smoke. But they came on, their bodies wobbling like water-filled balloons in their haste, their head sections swaying heavily from side to side. Behind the dummy the smoke was rising so high and becoming so thick that the whole Escape site was darkened. The Bugs were now hidden from sight of the shuttle by the ruined farmhouse. They came to a halt before the dummy’s airlock, and one of them suddenly began to move away again, obviously intending to have a look at the other side of the mock-up. Warren made frantic chopping motions with his hand.
… And three to GO!
The reverberations of the final signal and the subsidence of more wreckage from the farmhouse both served to keep Warren from hearing the twang of cross-bows from the farmhouse, from points all around the site and from positions further along the interior of the dummy. It seemed suddenly as if the four Bugs had grown bristles—thick and very short bristles, because the bolts had penetrated deeply. They rolled over soggily and lay still, leaking the yellow stuff they used for blood and which turned black within a few seconds of being exposed to the oxygen-laden air.
Warren swung away from the periscope and hurried carefully toward the airlock, thinking that if the four Bugs had made any noise as they died, which was very unlikely, the one left aboard the shuttle might put it down to a cry of surprise at the sudden cave-in of wreckage, some of which might have fallen too close for comfort.
The Bug in the ship could not suspect anything yet, but it would require only a few minutes of not being able to raise its friends on their suit radios for it to become very anxious indeed. What happened after that depended on how well the Bug could see, how easily it became confused and, most important of all, how any fine and admirable qualities it possessed.
The dummy’s airlock dropped open and Warren went through it, running.
Chapter 19
Because the dummy was supposed to be lying on its side the lock’s outer seal formed a short, steep ramp to the ground. Warren stumbled going down and the sweat of fear was mixed briefly with the super-heated perspiration already bathing him as he thought of the possible effects of a fall on the too-brittle seals of his helmet and air-hose. But he recovered balance and ran carefully into the smoky sunshine of the site, rounding the farmhouse on the side opposite that used by the Bug rescue party and heading for the tall shadow in the smoke which was the shuttle. He was not running much risk of being seen because the Bug on watch, if it could see anything at all in the smoke, would be watching the place where its friends had last gone from sight.
Most of the assault force was already in position, packed tightly into the small circle around the ship’s stern which was hidden from the control-room by the bulge of the hull. A few feet above their heads the flaring mouth of the main venture, still glowing red, was a stark reminder of their fate should the Bug upstairs decide suddenly to take off. There were two figures already on the ladder, climbing rapidly and silently on padded boots—Kelso and Sloan were not wasting any time. Two other men, the pilots, were starting up the ladder as Warren reached it. He joined them, having to pull rank on the other commandos waiting to ascend by tapping a few helmets firmly and indicating the number painted on his shield. He mounted silently, although not as quickly as Kelso and Sloan, so that the only noise from the ladder was the regular tap, thump, tap-tap made by the Committeeman beating on one of the handrails with padded sticks.