Flap, flap. Somebody must be in town and lonesome, now the fighting had started again. “I’m lonesome too,” she called. “Whoever you are, I love you.” Her voice sounded too loud in this unmoving warm air, above these oily waters and dead pavements, between those shadowy walls and beneath those terrible little stars.
“Vodan?” she called more softly. She remembered him best of the navy folk, almost as well as the first few who had used her, more years back than she cared to count. He’d been gentle and bothered about his lass at home, as if that dragglewing deserved him. But she was being silly, Quenna was. No doubt the stars had eaten Vodan.
She raised her crest. She had her deathpride. She would not be frightened in the midnight streets. Soon dawn would break and she could dare sleep.
The sun came very fast.
She had an instant when it filled the sky. Night caught her then, as her eyeballs melted. She did not know this, because her plumage was on fire. Her scream drowned out the following boom, when superfast molecules of air slipped by the negafields, and she did not notice how it ruptured eardrums and smashed capillaries. In her delirium of pain, there was nothing except the canal. She threw herself toward it, missed, and fell into a house which stood in one blaze. That made no difference, since the canal waters were boiling.
Apart from factors of morale and war potential, the strike at Centauri must commit a large amount of Avalonian resources to rescue and relief. It had been well timed. A mere three hours later, the slot which had been prepared in the defenses completed itself and the first wave of invasion passed through.
Rochefort was in the van. He and his hastily assembled crew had had small chance to practice, but they were capable men and the Meteor carried out her assignment with an élan wished he could feel. They ran interference for the lumbering gunships till these were below the dangerous altitude. En route, they stopped a pair of enemy missiles. Though no spacecraft was really good in atmosphere, a torpedo boat combined acceptable maneuverability, ample firepower, and more than ample wits aboard. Machines guided by simple robots were no match.
Having seen his charges close to ground, Rochefort took his vessel, as per assignment, against the source of the missiles. It lay beyond the mountains, in the intensely green gorge of a river. The Terran boats roared one after the next, launched beams and torpedoes against negafields and bunkers, stood on their tails and sprang to the stratosphere, swept about and returned for the second pass. No third was needed. A set of craters gaped between cuffs which sonic booms had brought down in rubble. Rochefort wished he could forget how fair that canyon had been.
Returning to Scorpeluna, he found the whole convoy landed. Marines and engineers were swarming from personnel transports, machines from the freighters. Overhead, patrol craft darkened heaven. They were a frantic few days that followed. Hysteria was never far below the skin of purposeful activity. Who knew for certain what the enemy had?
Nothing came. The screen generators were assembled and started. Defensive projectors and missiles were positioned. Sheds were put together for equipment, afterward for men. And no counterattack was made.
Airborne scouts and spaceborne instruments reported considerable enemy activity on the other continents and across the islands. Doubtless something was being readied. But it didn’t appear to pose any immediate threat.
The second slot opened. The second wave flowed down, entirely unopposed. Scorpeluna Base spread like an ink-blot.
His intention now being obvious, Cajal had various other orbital fortresses destroyed, in order that slots come more frequently. Thereafter he pulled his main fleet back a ways. From it he poured men and equipment groundward.
The last Avalonian ships edged nearer, fled from sorties, returned to slink about, wolves too starveling to be a menace. No serious effort was wasted on them. The essential was to exploit this tacit cease-fire while it lasted. On that account, the Imperials everywhere refrained from offensive action. They worked at digging in where they were and at building up their conquest until it could not merely defend itself, it could lift an irresistible fist above all Avalon.
Because he was known to have the favor of the grand admiral, Lieutenant Philippe Rochefort (newly senior grade) got his application for continued planetside duty approved. Since there was no further call for a space torpedo craft, he found himself flying aerial patrol in a two-man skimmer, a glorified gravsled.
His assigned partner was a marine corporal, Ahmed Nasution, nineteen standard years old, fresh off New Djawa and into the corps. “You, know, sir, everybody told me this planet was a delight,” he said, exaggerating his ruefulness to make sure his superior got the point. “Join the navy and see the universe, eh?”
“This area isn’t typical,” Rochefort answered shortly.
“What is,” he added, “on an entire world?”
The skimmer flew low above the Scorpelunan plateau. The canopy was shut against broiling air. A Hilsch tube arrangement and self-darkening vitryl did their inadequate best to combat that heat, brazen sky, bloated and glaring sun. The only noises were hum of engine, whirr of passage. Around the horizon stood mountain peaks, dim blue and unreal. Between reached emptiness. Bushes, the same low, reddish-leaved, medicinal-smelling species wherever you looked, grew widely apart on hard red earth. The land was not really flat. It raised itself in gnarly mesas and buttes, it opened in great dry gashes. At a distance could be seen a few six-legged beasts, grazing in the shade of their parasol membranes. Otherwise nothing stirred save heat shimmers and dust devils.
“Any idea when we’ll push out of here?” Nasution asked, reaching for a water bottle.
“When we’re ready,” Rochefort told him. “Easy on the drink. We’ve several hours to go, you and I.”
“Why doesn’t the enemy give in, sir? A bunch of us in my tent caught a ’cast of theirs — no orders not to, are there? — a ’cast in Anglic. I couldn’t understand it too well, their funny accent and, uh, phrases like ‘the Imperials have no more than a footgrip,’ you have to stop and figure them out and meanwhile the talking goes on. But Gehenna, sir, We don’t want to hurt them. Can’t they be reasonable and—”
“Sh!” Rochefort lifted an arm. His monitoring radio identified a call. He switched to that band.
“Help! O God, help! — Engineer Group Three… wild animals… estimate thirty-four kilometers north-northwest of camp — Help!”
Rochefort slewed the skimmer about.
He arrived in minutes. The detail, ten men in a ground-car, had been running geological survey to determine the feasibility of blasting and fuse-lining a large missile silo. They were armed, but had looked for no troubles except discomfort. The pack of dog-sized hexapodal lopers found them several hundred meters from their vehicle.
Two men were down and being devoured. Three had scattered in terror, seeking to reach the car, and been individually surrounded. Rochefort and Nasution saw one overwhelmed. The rest stood firm, back to back, and maintained steady fire, Yet those scaly-bristly shapes seemed almost impossible to kill. Mutilated, they dragged their jaws onward.
Rochefort yelled into his transmitter for assistance, swooped, and cut loose. Nasution wept but did good work at his gun. Nevertheless, two more humans were lost before the lycosauroids had been slain.
After that, every group leaving camp got an aerial escort, which slowed operations elsewhere.