Those some distance below it were diving away frantically to keep from being caught by the falling wreck. Most would make it, but the air space was so crowded that some could not get past their more fortunate fellows. The former disappeared into the flames and went on down with the vessel, though they may have been ashes before the fire-ravaged skeleton landed crosswise on a branch.
The vegetation growing on the branch burned fiercely. But The Tree itself, though its surface could be damaged by fire, would not burn.
Ulysses reassembled the fleet and put it into a formation that took it down toward the big hole just above a branch. The Dhulhulikh were in disorder, swirling around like gnats over a corpse. They did not seem to be so numerous now. They could have lost a fourth of their strength. That still left about forty-eight hundred, an appalling number against which to pit eight dirigibles.
Again, the ship came over the Dhulhulikh just above their flying range. They shot, not arrows, bombs or rockets, but clouds of smoke which enveloped the winged men. The ships threw a few more bombs from the stern hatches, hoping that the explosions in the midst of the blinding smoke would panic the Dhulhulikh.
The dirigibles turned again and came in lower, again laying down a thick level of smoke. The men in the cockpits on top and the domes on the side reported that a large number of bat-men had flown in out of the smoke and rammed against the ship. A few had struck so hard they had gone through the skin, but these were knocked unconscious or crippled, and the crew seized them, cut their throats, and threw them out through the hatches.
When the ships had left the second and lowest level behind them, they turned again. This time four stayed on the same level to lay another cloud, but the flagship and three others went down under the slowly drifting cloud. The sun was finally setting; in sixty seconds it would be below the horizon.
TheBlue Spirit plunged into an immense alley of trunks and branches about a thousand feet below the city and several miles south of it. It was so dark there that Ulysses had to turn on the searchlights of the ships. He did not think that the bat-men would see them until too late because they were occupied with the smoke clouds and the other ships. What with the night and the smoke, they would be blind. A few might glimpse the lights, but by the time they realised what they were, they would be too late to take action — he hoped.
He stood behind the helmsman and peered into the white tunnel created by the searchlights. On both sides and above and below were the thousand-feet-wide branches and the mile-wide trunks. The dirigible bored on ahead without the constant rise and fall it had when in motion in air containing areas of different temperatures. It was headed for a vertical shaft, one free of any extension of The Tree. It was so broad that the dirigible could manoeuvre in any direction toward its goal, the cavernous entrance just above the branch.
As the ship tilted upward and the branches that had been above fell to both sides, the lights illuminated a swarm of winged people flying into the hole. They seemed to be mostly females and children who had fled when the rockets burst in the holes. Or they could be those who lived in the vine complexes but had decided that it was too dangerous to stay there tonight. Under the cover of darkness, they were going into the hole and thence into the chambers in the trunk and the various branches.
As the lights struck them, some winged on into the hole but the majority wheeled away and into the night.
Ulysses paid no attention to them, though he had ordered that the guncrews and the archers keep a strict watch for warriors with bombs. His attention was concentrated on getting the dirigible to manoeuvre delicately and directly to a position just before the hole above the branch.
This was a daring move, or, perhaps, as some of the Neshgai had said, "stupid and suicidal."
Slowly, theBlue Spirit eased forward. And then, while the nose was still approaching the trunk just above the hole, a rocket streaked from the station on the nose. Its sharp plastic cone-nose drove into the trunk, and then the line attached to it stretched as the dirigible began to back away. Other rockets were fired from bottom hatches, and the lines attached to them were drawn tight. Ulysses had tested the ropes several times under conditions simulated to resemble these, but he still was not sure that the ropes would hold.
Grappling hooks were thrown down and snagged in the wrinkles and the convolutions of the grey bark. Lines were let down, and men and the felines slid down the lines and secured their ends with sharp wooden stakes driven into the bark.
More men and a number of Neshgai followed these down the lines. The loss of their weight caused the ship to rise and put an additional strain on the ropes. But they held. And then the crew had set up winches staked to the bark and were drawing the dirigible down.
Ulysses stepped out of the gondola onto the bark. The others crowded out after him.
At the same time, the men still inside the ship released the hawks. Some flew upward into the smoke, which was thinning out. Though they could not see too well now, they could smell out the enemy they had been trained to attack with claw and beak. Others flew into the hole, evidently having sniffed out the winged people there.
The three dirigibles had gone on by. They would loose their hawks in a minute and then they would anchor on branches nearby. Their task was more difficult than that, of theBlue Spirit personnel. They would have to climb down the trunk and under the branch to enter the holes there. This would take time and leave them exposed to attack while they were clinging to the side of the trunk. But Ulysses was counting on the darkness, the hawks and the other dirigibles to keep the winged warriors still in the air busy. Moreover, the four ships would be ejecting another smoke cloud.
The entrance was empty except for a few bodies of females and children.
Ulysses put on his wood-and-leather helmet, in the front of which was a light. It did not furnish much illumination, because its biological battery was weak, but it was better than nothing. Moreover, the combined light of the crew would furnish adequate visibility.
Ulysses placed himself at the head of the column, but Graushpaz touched him on the shoulder. He turned, and the Neshgai said, "I demand my right to redeem myself."
Having expected this, and secretly glad, Ulysses stepped aside. Graushpaz then spoke to the twenty Neshgai officers. It was a short and simple speech.
"I have disgraced myself and so cast disgrace upon you, my fellow officers and my subordinates. You know that. Yet you are not required to redeem yourselves. No one will reproach you if you do not follow me into the nest of the Dhulhulikh. It is likely that we will all die, since we are in the van and will be fighting in narrow caves which the bat-people know well. But the people of our race will hear of what we do today. And Nesh will know of it, and if we acquit ourselves as we should, we shall find homes after death on his tusks."
The officers trumpeted and then arranged themselves behind Graushpaz. They held spears, clubs and stone axes and wore stone knives in their belts. On the left arm of each was a wood-and-leather shield thick enough to withstand any battering from the weapons of the tiny Dhulhulikh.
"Stand back a minute," Ulysses said. "We'll send in a dozen rockets. Then you can go in."
The humans came up then, and the tubemen knelt while their comrades touched off the fuses of the rockets. These sped with a spurt of flame and whoosh of smoke into the great hole. Some must have curved off turning walls, because their explosions were muffled. Ulysses hoped that they caught Dhulhulikh hiding in ambush around the corners. Judging from some of the screams, they had.