"Yep, two of 'em. But I saw them load my bag. It's in the middle of the car, on the bottom of the pile."
"Then perhaps you can get mine out." He spoke in Sungao to Choku. "Know you where my bag is in the pile?"
"Mean you the big blue one with the yellow tag?"
"Aye."
"Then methinks I do: on the right side as you face forward, against the covering."
Tchitchagov said: "Thank the gods for these eidetic memories! Kirk, you will have to get my gun out of the bag and use it. Can you assemble a K-94?"
"I think so; mine works much the same way. Come, Choku."
At the end of the car Salazar looked cautiously out.
The firing seemed to have come from a ridge to the left of the train. The crest of that ridge was about two hundred meters away. Up ahead, all the Rooks on the flatcar had leapt off and crouched in the dirt on the descending slope to the right, where cars and embankment offered cover. From the ridge the guns still banged. Bullets cracked overhead, thudded into woodwork, or ricocheted, screeching off metal.
"Show me where Tchitchagov's gun is," said Salazar.
Choku led him half the length of the baggage car. "About here, sir."
Salazar fumbled with the lashing of the tarpaulin, then drew a knife and sawed through a couple of ropes. Choku pushed and pulled the bags and suitcases until he said:
"Methinks this be it."
Salazar winced as a bullet struck nearby. He slashed open the canvas bag and hauled out a massive leather case. This proved to be locked. Remembering the strength of Kooks, he said:
"Can you pry this open, Choku?"
The Kook sank his claws into the leather and heaved. The case came apart with a rending sound. With qualms, Salazar beheld the parts of a K-94 rifle; but he set to work, attached the stock, and screwed in and locked the barrel.
The firing died down. "Make haste, honorable boss," said Choku. "The attackers advance upon us."
"I'm working as fast as I can," snapped Salazar, fumbling with a thirty-round magazine. He finally got it inserted, worked the bolt once to arm the weapon, and ran crouching to the aft end of the baggage car. There, he thought, he would get a better view of the attackers, between the piled baggage and the crimson soft-class car.
Meaning to fix his gaze afar on the ridge, shooting from which had ceased, Salazar was taken by surprise when he found another Terran between the cars. The man was on the farther side, whence the attack was coming, in rough work clothes with his visage hidden by a bandanna. He was straining at the handle on the side of the car, whereby the pin could be withdrawn from the coupling, allowing the paired couplings to part when the locomotive started forward.
For silent seconds wherein the only sound in Salazar's ears was the pant of the idling locomotive, Salazar and the man stared at each other. The man let go of the locking-pin handle and reached for a rifle, which he had leaned against the step of the passenger car on his side. As the stranger straightened up with the gun, Salazar, holding the butt of Tchitchagov's rifle beneath his arm, fired a burst of three rounds from a distance of two meters.
The man pitched over backward to sprawl supine on the ballast. After another second's hesitation, Salazar remembered his original intent and bent his regard to the ridge.
Several human figures were coming down the hillside, bounding down the slope in long leaps. As they neared, Salazar saw that they, too, were armed and masked.
Salazar aimed at the nearest bounding figure. Although the man was in the plainest of plain sight, as soon as one tried to draw a bead on him, he shrank to a fly-speck.
"It were well for you to shoot, honorable employer," said Choku.
"What think you I am doing?" snarled Salazar. He made an extra effort to line up the nearest attacker in his sights and squeezed off another burst.
The man disappeared from Salazar's view until the biologist lowered the rifle and saw the body rolling dolllike down the slope. Then it stopped and lay sprawled. Salazar traversed the field with his eyes until he picked up another bounding assailant. Another burst felled that one, too.
"The others flee," said Choku's emotionless voice. Salazar chose one of the half dozen fleeing men and sent a burst after him. As far as he could see, he missed.
Before he could find another target, the attackers were all out of sight. Shooting from the ridge began again, but more deliberately.
Their leader, Salazar thought, must be telling them to slow down before they shot away all their ammunition. To Choku he said: "Could you go forward and see what is being done to clear the track?"
Choku ran off crouching. Soon he came back, neck spines twitching mirthfully. "Zuiha was lying in the dirt with the others. I bade him organize a party to clear the track whilst you furnish covering fire. If he did not, when the story came out, his chances of promotion were nil. He unhappily agreed to try."
"Good!" said Salazar. "Can you go back to our car to borrow a pair of binoculars? Mine are packed, but many Patelians keep theirs with them."
Presently Choku returned with the glasses. "Chief Tchitchagov's."
Keeping covered, Salazar scanned the ridge. When he looked at the place where his third victim had fallen, there was no sign of the man. Salazar located him crawling up the slopes on hands and knees. The biologist aimed but hesitated; shooting a wounded man somehow did not seem right. By the time he had overcome this qualm, the man had reached the top of the ridge and disappeared.
He resumed his search and soon thought he had picked out movement to the left of a scrubby olive-green tree. Putting away the glasses, he aimed for the spot and fired a burst. When he applied the binoculars again, he could not see movement there. He continued to scan, pausing to wipe his watering eyes, until he found another spot that might be a man's distant head. A burst caused the spot to disappear.
Several shots struck the cars near Salazar. He moved to the other end of the baggage car and resumed searching and firing. When his magazine gave out, he got another out of Tchitchagov's eviscerated case and inserted it. After the first three attackers whom he had felled, he never could tell whether any of his shots had hit home.
Choku approached. "Conductor Zuiha led a group to the rock pile and rolled the rocks away. Soon he will start the train."
"How many were hit up forward?"
"None, sir. All shots seem to have been aimed at these last cars."
The whistle shrieked. Salazar fired a final burst and scrambled up the steps into the soft-fare car. The train resumed its way with jerks and clanks.
Salazar handed the binoculars to Tchitchagov, who sat glumly with his bandaged arm in an improvised sling. "Thanks, Igor. I guess people can get up now. Oh, oh! Look what's coming!"
As the train gathered speed, several Terrans on jutens came out on the right-of-way behind it. The juten riders overhauled the train and started to ride past it on either side, firing pistols. Salazar aimed over the sill of the car side and gave the nearest one a burst. The juten pitched forward, throwing its rider in a heap ahead of it. The other riders halted, clustering around the fallen one. A curve soon hid them from sight.
When the passengers retook their seats, Salazar turned to Tchitchagov. Blood had begun to soak through the bandage on his arm. "Are you all right, Igor?"
"As well as could be expected," growled the director. "You can thank Metasu the attackers were amateurs at this sort of thing, or we should all be dead."
"What should they have done?"
"The first was to mine the track. If they did not have explosives, they could have pried up a rail. These rails are light compared to those I saw on Terra as a boy.