The Nuclear Fortress, page 14
Chirini-Uk had already opened the external leaden hatch and cleared the passage. Who could have expected him to be so quick? Byuros-Ut did not lag behind the “blue blood” and dived after him. The aero-rescue system did not lie that “the capsule is on solid ground. Inflatable rubber dingy is not required”. It was quiet around them, and the ground was flat – bushes, small trees: a couple of them were broken or splintered by the cabin. The hell was inside the rescue capsule.
Byuros-Ut fell on the ground out of the hatch: it was a little bit more than one meter to it. Then he crawled about ten meters on all fours – the deadly automatic count followed him even here. The third pilot Lyutfan-Be quickly got out of the hatch. He stood on his legs and nearly rushed away when he was stopped by a cry from inside. On the whole the cries and groans from inside the cabin were not heard well outside for some reason: there was something closing the passage. That was the navigator pushing navigator-bomb-aimer Tasha-Ki wounded in the belly in front of him.
“Thirty seconds till self-liquidation,” the dynamics announced somewhere. The navigator-bomb-aimer definitely understood nothing of what was going on. Pain doubled him over and made him twist, so he did not care how many second were left till the “operation of final imposing of secrecy”. Because he was so twisted his colleague navigator, who was pushing his body, could not make him go though the narrow lock of the leaden shell. Because of that he was calling for help. At the moment there were the head and shoulders of the wounded man protruding from the hatch. Actually there was just a little bit to do. There were two forces fighting in Lyutfan-Be rooted to the spot half-way. One of them was atavistic and ordered him “to run and save himself”, the other was “to do his duty to his comrade and the Bomb-Carrier Air Force as a whole”. As a matter of fact, those forces were also fighting strongly inside Byuros-Ut who was somewhat farther of, however, he expected unconsciously that the required help will be provided by the third pilot – he was closer.
“Twenty seconds till...” the indefatigable automate informed, and Lyutfan-Be made up his mind. He turned back, grabbed the wounded man who was breathing heavily by his shoulders and pulled to himself. Something got struck somewhere. Aha! The poor man planted his knees in the wrong way.
“Pull him!” Banjolu-Su shouted hoarsely from inside the capsule.
The third pilot pulled to body to himself again. The wounded man's arms, torso and finally his legs appeared in the opening.
“Ten seconds till...” the dynamics said when the navigator's white face appeared by the legs of the wounded man, it was so white as if Banjolu-Su was wounded himself.
“...self-liquidation,” the automaton finished the sentence and shut up at once. Something was wrong. It seemed everyone felt that.
Byuros-Ut was still standing on all fours, in more than ten meters from the scene of action, so he was just a spectator. He saw well how the third pilot left the wounded man where he was and turned round to run. He saw the navigator also rushing forward, stepping on the legs of the navigator-bomb-aimer, whose torso was hanging from the hatch. He stretched his arms forward, put them on the hatch coating and even drew in some air before he...
The automatic “final imposing of secrecy” deceived them, stealing the whole ten seconds.
Unexpected glow blinded Byuros and the sound which followed immediately deafened him. But he was far and to the side, and because of that he stayed a spectator of what happened – no more.
Everything – both those alive and dead — evaporated or was flattened by the explosion, or they were burned through, or all that happened at once and simultaneously. It seems that the objects which were inanimate originally disappeared as well. Each one in its own way. Those which could burn – plastic and foam rubber – burnt at once. Those which could only melt – melted, lost their shape, flowed and spread. However, all that took place inside and could not be seen.
Here the opened hatch operated like a giant blow-lamp. The horrible spurt of fire, at least one thousand degrees hot, came from the inside. Neither the body of the unlucky navigator, nor the legs of the navigator-bomb-aimer could stop it. They were not only turned into ash, but thrown by the explosion out – and carried away with the wind. The poor third pilot found himself on the way of the spurt. His head, arm and the upper part of his torso turned to the capsule caught fire at once, and his body was thrown for about ten meters away.
The spurt of the fire became weaker, it was as if choked. It seemed that the air coming from the opposite direction was sucked in. Burning inside the cabin required some oxygen feed from the outside. The flame was rushing out of the opening for some time more. Then it stopped abruptly and unexpectedly. However, some smoke was still coming out.
It seemed to Byuros that the rescue capsule changed its shape a little. And why not? The main component of the aircraft cabin was lead and its melting temperature is much less than the cataclysm which took place inside. Heat was coming from the capsule. There was a human body without legs lying below the blackened hatch. It seemed that heat was coming from it as well. And there was most likely the smell of the roasted human meat coming from it as well. Or was it still suppressed by the smell of the burnt spacesuit? Byuros had no wish to get confirmation of either. However, it was easily done. He did not even require to come nearer to the dangerously heated cabin of the Princess Cardo. Another, strangely twisted body with not all the parts present was lying nearby. It seemed to Byuros that it groaned. His hair stood on end, or it was the wind being in a hurry to make the capsule colder that disheveled his hair a little. Could it be that the air left in the lungs of the dead man suddenly came out? Not through his mouth — his head was either fully burnt, or torn away and thrown far in the bushes – but through the throat, baked by the fire. Could it be? OK, that's the coroners' business; but there was not a single one present here. Suddenly Byuros-Ut shuddered and nearly cried out. He was covered with sweat at once.
Massaraksh! That was just engineer Chirini-Uk. The expert in turning warheads into the firing position. He just touched his shoulder. Byuros absolutely forgot that he was not the only one to be rescued. Let the World Light never go dark! There are only two of them alive from the whole crew. All the rest are surely dead, there are no doubts about that.
Two men alive, and on the hostile, enemy territory. And they have absolutely nothing with them. No guns – to fire at people, no evil four-barrel Batyr – to fight off someone wilder. No food, no water, no pills for water cleaning. Neither radio, no flare lights, nor even matches. They do not even have any convenient clothes and shoes suitable for something except sitting in a fighting aircraft chair. How many kilometers can one walk in a high pressure spacesuit?
The expert in weapons which they did not have any more definitely tried to say something. Oh, Byuros who was closer to the explosion was just deafened a little.
“We have to go, radioman!” he understood finally, either lip reading, or really hearing the sounds.
It seems that the nuclear bomb master called him “radioman” because he absolutely did not remember his name. That was understandable. Why should such a big bird remember the name of some extra crew member in some low position, which is not very much required for real business? However, they were in equal position now. Byuros does not have his radio now either, which he could use to put his dots and dashes on air, he does not have his heavy machine-gun either, defending the rear hemisphere, with the help of which he can do “ta-ta-ta” to any enemy. Chirini-Uk was absolutely right. They had to go and as quickly as possible. The capsule's beautiful landing must have been watched by the whole province. The parachutes appearing before the landing were watched only by those who watched them from the distance of about ten kilometers. The explosion was probably heard in the area of at least several kilometers as well.
Byuros looked up in the sky. How strange! High-speed fighter aircrafts are not circling above them yet. They have to use the moment – and leave. However, there was some thing to do beforehand.
“We have...” Byuros cleared his throat: it was absolutely dry for some reason. “We have to get rid of our clothes.”
“There is no time, machine-gunner! No time!” the nuclear engineer explained convincingly. It seemed that “machine-gunner” was a lower “rank” than “radioman”, and Byuros-Ut was called in such a way because he understands nothing of what is taking place. However, that was the matter to argue about.
“Our clothes are too bright,” Byuros explained. “We can be seen from a big distance. Several kilometers. Besides, we won't be able to walk in these shoes for long.”
“And what about barefoot? And what if they have radiation here?” Chirini-Uk was not speaking ironically. But the parts of his brain responsible for his profession were definitely dominating over the other parts.
“Our cabin is the most radioactive thing in the vicinity,” Byuros said the absolutely not verified fact, and without loosing any more time, he started unfastening his shoes and opening his spacesuit. “Maybe our pursuers will decide that everyone died in the explosion. We have to hide our clothes somewhere.” He looked the surroundings over. “We'll put them in the cabin.”
“We should not come up to it – it's radioactive,” the physicist-nuclear engineer shook his head.
“Take everything off quickly, Mr. Engineer!” Byuros-Ut hissed at him. “What's your rank? I'll throw the clothes inside. Don't worry.”
“Shall we go naked?” it seemed that the engineer was outraged that the command was very smartly taken from him. He was thinking that he was the superior here. However, he was already doing unfastening and unzipping.
“We'll leave our underwear on,” Byuros-Ut nodded as if to himself. “And we have to get out of here, quick.”
There was nothing else to argue about. And the moment was wrong. They lost their comrades a minute ago, and they lost their smart nuclear bomb-carrier just ten minutes ago.
*
17.
The Medusa ’zero-one’ has been circling the waters for a week already. It would have been better for them to hang in one place and not make any noise by their propellers. However, there was so much iron stuffed in the “mobile missile launching silo” that its floating abilities balance somewhere in the vicinity of zero. If the Medusa stops, it will go directly to the bottom at once. Here, in the vicinity of the continent, the bottom is not too far below, but the problem as to how to rise from there stays. However, it is not enough that the ‘zero-one’ gives itself away by its propellers, the craft is patrolling just a little below the surface: it will be fairly possible to see it from an anti-submarine bomb-carrier reconnaissance plane. Everything is done for its antenna to be protruding above the surface constantly. This is the astral umbilical cord connecting not only the underwater kingdom with the world of air and the World Light but also a thread connecting the Medusa with the far-off staff headquarters of the Navy. An order can be sent to the submarine at any moment, at daytime or at night, it does not matter. Because of that the submarine is waiting.
However, now everything has become even more strained. In essence, the order has already come. It is only the zero hour that is not clear. Everyone in the command section is waiting for the final “Attack!” said by the Admiralty. The officers around Binj are trying to behave as if nothing out of the ordinary is taking place. They are not very good at it. There is only the Tsunami-Commander who is calm like a heavy tank which occupied a convenient position to fire at some small village of equatorial natives. Only he knows that the order from the superior staff headquarters will not come. To be more exact, it will come not from there. Many years ago, when Binj was still living on land, Storm-Admiral Tazzar said something as if it was a slip of the tongue. Surely, he did it intentionally.
“Listen to me, Binj. It turns out that the Kingdom of Noyui... Have you heard about it?.. That's it! Our diplomats did not pay it too much attention. It was nothing to think about, just an ordinary member of the Temporary Defense Union. It turns out that they were wrong. This Kingdom is more dangerous than it seems. So, Binj, those quiet continental bastards invented something great. Because of the secrecy I do not know the details. Though it seems that our foreign residents of the “island gendarmerie” did not manage to dig out anything worthwhile either. But something very interesting was definitely found nevertheless. One of their new thing has a global effect on...”
Tsunami-Commander Binj has no time to see the old film in his head to the end. THIS is happening now. The radioman by the giant, puffing because of the heated valves cases of the long-distance radio cries without an order. All the rest shudder involuntarily: his cry is not one of the pleasant ones. However, the radioman did not fall asleep in his place and did not wake up because of some nightmare. He goes on shouting. He is shouting and holding his ears: he tore his earphones away and they are thrown down. The vacuum pentodes, tetrodes and triodes with anodes inside the cases are puffing somewhat suspiciously. The nostrils of the men in the submarine, who are used to bad smells, catch some new dangerous smell: the insulation is burning. As a matter of fact, the thing Admiral Tazzar hinted at many years ago does not have to affect people: the radioman is just an anomalous error in the theory. He is a litmus paper telling the news. Everything is clear. The valves and coils which blasted in apparatus cases are the signal. It did not come from the Admiralty of the Archipelago of the Island Empire, but it is the horn blown.
“Everyone is to get ready for the hull's overturn!” Tsunami-Commander Binj orders loudly in the speaking tube. So loudly that his voice is louder that the bustle surrounding him when men are fighting the small fire and giving first aid to the radioman. Blood is pouring out of his ears in fairly big streams. He is a victim of the MM – Magnet Massaraksh.
*
18.
“I think that they won't hang me,” Chirini-Uk says unexpectedly and with conviction but with no reason to say it.
It seems that this idea is the product of continuous thinking during the last hour or the hour and a half. Byuros-Ut only looks at his comrade out of the corner of his eye and does nothing else. Who knows what thought can come to one's head after everything which happened to them? However, the engineer suddenly understands that his companion was all that time busy with the trifles in his own brain and because of that he is unable to jump immediately and from the first attempt up to the heights of his logical levels. Because of that he starts explaining, presenting the original data.
“You know, I am an expert in the mass destruction weapons,” he says nodding to himself. “There are one or two experts like me in the Empire. Because of that...”
Byuros-Ut is listening to him without interrupting. To be more exact he has to listen as there are no birds singing for some reason in this forest, which is either artificial or natural, it is not clear. And there is nothing else to muffle or silence the physicist's lecture about his greatness. However, he has to silence his learned comrade: he is agitating himself more and more and because of that he is presenting his arguments louder and louder.
“And are you planning to tell the enemy all the secrets of our Motherland, Mr. Engineer?” Byuros asks, interrupting the lecturer in the middle of one phrase. Actually they are not using “Mr” any more for some time already, however “Mr” suits this case better.
Chirini-Uk stops with such an expression as if some big splinter got stuck in his bare foot again.
“What do you mean?” he asks evidently just to say something.
“Exactly what I am asking,” Byuros winks.
As a matter of fact he should not explain it in more details. If he says now that in this case he will have to kill this nuclear engineer ahead of time, before Chirini tells all the military secrets of the Kingdom; and that in future after serving his time in the prisoners-of-war camp he will probably be awarded the Order of the World Light, 3d Degree, for that feat or something like it, then it cannot be ruled out he will have to turn back every second. What if Mr. Nuclear Practical Worker suddenly decides to attack him preventively?
“Let's be silent for some time, Chirini,” he says trying to keep peace. “One cannot rule out that we are already followed. And we are disputing here. Experienced trackers will feel us in several kilometers.”
After that they walk slowly and in silence. Neither of them understands where they are going. The original direction was chosen at random – just to get as far as possible from the radioactive capsule. Byuros-Ut does not want to believe but supposes uneasily that they have lost their way and left the direct path long ago. It may be better from the point of view of hiding their tracks. And on the contrary it may be much worse. They surely haven't gone too far, there are no people seen around yet: it is some strange place devoid of people in the center of the Empire. It is unclear why the hell the Northerners are grabbing and grabbing new colonies if they have such a big uninhabited area here?
The radioman and the nuclear engineer are walking slowly because they are practically barefoot. One cannot really think of thick woolen socks as footwear. Besides, it seems that Byuros has torn his own through already and small holes appeared in them long ago. It was not possible for them to stay without holes as the soil in this forest is from time to time covered with pine needles like a carpet.
“If I get home, I'll have to tell my Uncle to offer the commanding officers a new kind of exercises for the crews – barefoot walking for ten or twenty kilometers,” he says suddenly aloud, unexpectedly for himself. “In order for the skin to become coarse, right?”
