"Rance, we've pinned your thumper."
There was the sound of engines in the background.
"Taking it out now."
The saucers halted in midair and started pouring fire directly at the ground. There was an explosion. The saucers peeled away.
"There you go, Rance. Don't say we never do anything for you ground monkeys."
"Many thanks."
The chibas withdrew as fast as they had come. It was as if a sudden loss-cutting decision had been made by the Yal generals. Some alien calculation of cost-effectiveness seemed to have indicated that the chibas would not be able to overrun the base and stay within some strange limit of acceptable losses. The engagement had simply been terminated. Looking at the piled heaps of dead chiba wreckage, though, it was hard to imagine what those limits could possibly be. There was an eerie unreality to the way the fighting abruptly stopped. It was intensified by the fact that the contact was broken off at the very moment that the sun first showed over the hills. As the light filtered into the valley, casting the first long shadows of dawn, the chibas fought a swift rearguard action and melted away into the jungle, leaving the fallen behind them. A terrible silence settled over the base as the firing stopped. Here and there a wounded man was screaming. The jungle animals appeared to sense that the fighting was over, and their dawn cries filled the thick, sluggish, smoke-filled air as if it were any normal day. The men on the ground stayed exactly where they were, expecting a trick. The gunsaucers silently pulled back and regrouped, hovering over the center of the base. A dyne took a pace forward and sprayed the jungle with a final sweep of fire, the dawn chorus faltered. The ports of a crawler clanged open, and its crew climbed wearily, down the cabin ladder. When they reached the ground, they simply dropped to the dirt and sat with their heads between their knees. The communicators were a level hum with just the faintest undertow of heavy breathing and muttered curses. One man straightened and clambered out of his foxhole. A second followed. A third took off his helmet. All over the base, men were standing up as the realization spread that the firefight was really over. There was little conversation. Men looked around at the whole picture, shaking their heads and grimly marveling that they had survived yet another one. They inspected the wreckage and the dead, and a few cautiously walked to the perimeter, toward the tangle of chibas^ 9 frames and the goop soaking into the scorched earth. Some even broke into their ration packs and started eating. All over there was the lethargy and depression that was left behind as the suits stopped their chemical massage.
The calm didn't last very long. The noncoms started yelling, pushing men into exhausted, round-shouldered ranks. They called the rolls and tallied the missing. The complaining had started. Bitching was the second stage of reaction.
"I gotta tell you all, I thought we were going to hear the fat lady singing back there."
"How the hell did they get so close to us without us knowing? That's what I want to know."
"We don't never get to know nothing, asswipe."
"I just want to sleep for a couple of days, that's all I want."
"Don't it bother you that the medians are screwing up?"
"Sure it bothers me, but what the hell do you want me to do about it?"
"The medians always screw up." "That's the whole story."
The earth shook slightly as all three dynes started to move forward. The conversation stopped dead. Crawler crews were reluctantly saddling up again. Sappers had begun to dismantle the temporary structures. Helot looked at Hark. His face was a mask of disbelief.
"We're going after them?"
"You got to be kidding."
The longtimers confronted Rance.
"Is that it? Are we going after them?"
The dynes had waded out into the river and were striding upstream. The gunsaucers were making a wide formation pass across the valley. The crawlers were pulling into line. Rance didn't have to nod.
"Those are the orders."
There was a storm of protest, but even the men doing the protesting knew that it was futile.
"At least you're among the lucky ones," Rance said. "You're all going to ride a crawler up the river."
Elmo's twenty was assigned to crawler 3-except that there was no sign of Elmo. They straggled toward the machine and swung themselves through the port, only to discover him waiting inside the passenger bay.
"What fucking hole were you hiding in?" Renchett snarled.
Elmo's face was as blank as his visor. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Renchett made a disgusted gesture. "Forget it. I ain't got the strength."
The amphibious crawlers slid down the bank and nosed into the water. The overhead compartment covers started to close. The last thing Hark saw before they closed completely was a dead, bloated lizard floating belly up in the shallows of the opposite bank. The covers sealed with a hiss. The lights came on. The compartment was pressurized. The troopers started taking off their helmets and masks. Rations and water were broken out, but a lot of the men just sat hunkered down, backs against the wall, too tired to eat.
Crawler 3 moved smoothly up the river. The majority of the troopers slept. It was an uneasy, uncomfortable sleep, cursed by dreams. Elmo just stared straight ahead in a semitrance, as if he didn't even have what it took to make nightmares anymore.
There was only one incident during the trip upriver. After seventy uneventful minutes, the craft lurched and there was a series of loud bangs. The troopers grabbed for their masks, helmets, and weapons. They had to be taking fire from the bank. A section of the hull was warm to the touch. The crawler's own guns opened up. Inside the passenger bay, the lights flickered. Everyone was crouching on the steel floor, ready for anything. There were two more series of shocks, and then the crawler heeled over in a sharp left-hand turn. Moments later, it did the same to the right. After it straightened out, the men braced for the next shock, but nothing happened. The crawler remained on an even keel, and the guns topped. Nothing else hit the craft, and the incident teemed to be over. Confirmation came from a voice in iheir helmets.
"Hope that didn't shake you up too much. We had a bit of nastiness from the bank, but we seem to have nailed it. We're proceeding on course."
Things had only just settled down when there was a new voice in their helmets.
"All ground troops will hear this."
"It's a forsaken officer."
"That's got to mean trouble."
"Our long-range scouts have discovered an enemy tunnel system that covers most of the upper parts of this valley and extends through the hills. This has to be the means by which they were able to mass so quickly last night before, attacking the task force. Accordingly, we have been given the responsibility of clearing and destroying these tunnels."
"What do you mean 'we,' asshole? You won't be in the goddamn tunnels."
"You will be issued with your individual orders as you disembark from the transport. It only remains for me to wish you luck with this mission."
The men were silent. What they had heard was close to a death warrant. The longtimers had encountered Yal tunnels before. T\mnel clearing always involved severe casualties.
"I hate tunnels.".
There was unashamed fear in the voice. It belonged to Tabor, who had been with the twenty for some forty days. Nobody seemed to have anything to add.
Something grated under the crawler's hull. It lurched as it reared up onto its treads and started to climb the riverbank. Finally it leveled off and stopped. The original voice was back in their helmets.