There Will Be War Volume I, page 35
Jak and his boys were just sitting down to dinner when there was a light tap at the door. They looked at each other, then Jak shook his head silently at the four of them and rose to answer it.
Outside stood a broad-shouldered, short-necked man in adobe-colored clothing. On the front of his shirt, just below his full beard, gleamed the silver emblem of the Scouts. He undipped it without a word and held it out to Jak. Sealed in the reverse was a full color solidograph of the man and a medicode number.
Jak stared in wonder at the solido for several seconds before thinking to compare it with the face of the man who waited patiently on his doorstep. When he looked up, the Scout said, “My name is Bern Targil. I have four men with me and five mules.”
“Will you come in? I can go open the barn.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Boys,” said Jak to the looks of surmise around his table, “go ahead and eat. I’ll be back in a little while. The Scouts are here.”
“Dad? Can I go tell people? I can eat when you come back.”
They left, Bobby at a run, the two men more leisurely in another direction.
“I didn’t know how things stood,” Bern said as they walked towards the barn, “so my patrol is staying out of sight. Do the rats watch you?”
“We’ve never seen them.”
“Rats don’t hide well. We’ll keep our mules under cover unless you have a herd we could mix them in. But we must be free to move around. Where do we bunk?”
“My place. I’ll take care of your board while you’re here.”
“You still know where they’re holed up?”
“Apartment ruins a couple miles west. We take the food out there every week, and I’ve had a couple of kids watching from a distance until they take the food inside.”
“We’ll go into all this over dinner. I’ve got another Eagle and two Scouts along. And a Cub. They’ll hear everything anyway. Can you feed us tonight? We came over the pass north of Berdoo, and there isn’t much forage south of the mountains. Looked over Morovia, by the way. Talk about that over dinner, too.” He made a cooing, warbling sound deep in his throat, and silent shadows slipped from under the trees to follow them, leading the mules into the barn where they were unloaded and bedded down.
When Jak returned home with the five Scouts, he found his front room full of curious people. Everyone wanted to know what was going to be done and how soon. Jak told them nobody knew yet, and suggested a gathering in the big hall after dinner. First they wanted to be introduced to the Scouts.
Bern introduced himself as Senior Eagle, then each of his patrol. Lem Spaski was also of Eagle rank; Arne and Jon were still short of their qualifications. Chad, who looked about Bobby’s age, was a Cub. Lem displayed his personal weapons to the awestruck villagers before sending them home to dinner—each Scout carried a bowie and a hatchet, each bore a sturdy crossbow on his back and each carried a hand-blaster in a recharging holster slung at his side.
“Let us have dinner, folks,” Bern finally said. “We’ll see you again in an hour or so—we’ve got questions to ask you, too.”
For three days the Scouts did not leave the canyon, but performed regular workouts during the morning hours and spent afternoons inspecting and critiquing some important constructions, including the carefully maintained duct which ran down through the center of the village. Its steady flow sprang cool and clear from a pipe at the north end of the canyon.
Evenings they studied maps of the area and talked with people who knew the ruins at Citivist. George Mendez, Jak’s next-youngest son, was familiar with the tower to an extent that seemed almost a local byword. He sketched the basic plan of the structure, indicating its layout, orientation, and which stairs were still open since the quake four years ago. Each of the Scouts questioned him intently on the building and its surrounding terrain.
Later Bern and Jak smoked together on the flat roof of the house, and talked.
“Fine boys,” Bern said.
“Thanks. I raised them myself the last nine years. Their ma was killed in a mudslide the winter of ‘29. The year before the locusts came. They’re named after the Four Martyrs.”
“One of them might like to come back with us— we could arrange to give him a few preliminary tests before we leave. Have any of them shown an interest in our kind of work?”
“I keep them pretty busy here. They’ll be taking the sheep north to Wilson this fall. Five hundred head last year. That’s how we can afford to hire you—we sold a good wool harvest in Dago a few months ago.”
“If we can catch these rats underground, we may salvage enough undamaged gear to cover some of the expenses.”
“When are you going? The next delivery is in two days.”
“Tomorrow would be as good a day as any. We’re rested up and ready to go. Middle of the morning would be the time to catch them napping. You should understand, we may not make any attempt on their stronghold directly—you have no idea how it might be defended. But we will be prepared to carry through.”
The next morning Jak stood with them at the crest of the hill and pointed west along a rutted track. “The tower’s at the end of the ridge; good view of the plain. Nothing else near as big anywhere around. We leave the food outside the door on this side. We thought about putting poison in it, but if it didn’t get them all at once we could have trouble.”
Lem nodded. “Leave this sort of thing to professionals,” he said. “If we catch them all together, we should be able to clean them out neatly. Think we’ll be back for dinner, Bern?”
“Should be. We’ll see you then, Jak. You go home now, and don’t worry about us. You won’t have to bring a donation tomorrow.”
The patrol slipped silently among the tall grasses. Invisibly they divided to either side of the ridge, Lem and Arne to the north, fifty yards from Bern, followed by Jon and Chad along the south lip of the hill. They communicated now by short-range zister handys which drew only microscopic power for listening; the transmitter was keyed momentarily in coded patterns of clicks unless the situation warranted use of a sustained voice signal.
The Scouts advanced cautiously, examining grassy mounds where a rat might lurk, stepping lightly over an occasional gaping crack which opened into black depths, studying a stub of corroded metal which jutted from the dirt like a bare, fungus-crusted tree.
The sea-scented breeze passed among the grass less silently than they, moving with its easy ripples. The wide crest of the hill was ruggedly level fifty feet to either side of a rutted track which ran out to the tower at the southwesternmost end, and around it in a full loop. On the far side, there was just enough room for a wagon between the sheer gray wall with its gaping windows and the crumbling slope of a hill, falling a steep two hundred feet to a jagged mound which sloped away another three hundred feet to the rumpled floor. Beyond, the Ellay Plain ran ruggedly level to the misty line that was the sea; nearer, on a rise of ground four miles away, the white pillars and cyclopean walls of the Ruins were delicate miniatures.
The tower looked lifeless. Its wide entrance gaped like a cave half-drowned in the earth; twenty-five feet above the concrete wall was shattered and interior walls stuck up dark-gray against the cloudless sky. The five Scouts circled it soundlessly, coming together on the narrow ledge behind the building.
“Cellar,” said Lem.
“Ventilation,” said Bern.
“No watch,” Chad said. “Some place else?”
Bern shook his head. “Best place.” He looked into the dimness and sniffed and listened. With the faintest crunch he stepped down through a window, looked around and nodded, beckoning them to follow. There was the faint scent of recent or current human occupancy nearby; it seemed to be in the cool walls, or the inner darkness held it hidden.
Arne brought a flash out of his pack and pumped up a light. The floor was littered with dirt and cement dust; there were animal droppings along the wall; tatters of plastic were snagged or crumpled here and there. They found a stairwell with signs of use—the larger pieces of rubble had been kicked aside to leave a pathway. From below came the faint glow of artificial light and a warm draft carried the strong human smell up to them. Lem pointed up the stairs, and they filed silently towards the top.
Sunlight grew upon them as they neared the roofless upper floor, and shortly Bern and Lem looked cautiously over the edge of the stairwell at a maze of low walls and piled rubble which three hundred years had not weathered away. Nothing moved. Slowly, his crossbow cocked and quarreled, Bern stepped onto what had once been the floor of a hall. The others followed him.
A distant mockingbird shrieked at a crow; no other sound rippled the still air. The patrol spread out, a room or a corridor apart, remaining in sight of each other, except where pieces of wall still stood taller than a man. It was only a few minutes before Jon waved them together around him. There on the roof lay spread a hundred square feet of greenish black glassy metallic material, displayed to catch the maximum sunlight through most of the day. A black cable ran from one corner of the sheet down a narrow square airshaft and out of sight.
The Scouts followed Bern some distance away and then huddled for a whispered conference.
“Drawing air down that shaft and blowing it back up the stairs,” said Chad.
Lem nodded. “A few gas bombs will clean them right out.”
Faint voices from somewhere brought their heads around and froze them where they crouched. Someone was coming up the stairs from below, making no particular secret of the fact.
The Scouts moved silently around to gain clearer views of the stairhead from different angles. Footsteps crunched up the concrete steps, voices and laughter alternating, and seconds later a couple came squinting into the sunlight. Both were bare to the waist, clad only in loose comfortable shorts; both were dirty in a careless animal way. The girl’s hair was as short and tangled as the boy’s. They approached the ambush casually, unaware.
Two crossbows made a double thunk and the couple fell, arms and legs kicking briefly, their skulls shattered by the bolts.
Neither had been armed; there was nothing of value on either of them. They were not followed; whether they had come up to check on the solar cell, or on personal business, was problematical, as was the question of how soon their continued absence would arouse suspicion.
But action had been taken, and a fast efficient follow-through could bring success. A reconnaissance had become the battle and hesitation would gain nothing but total destruction.
Jon’s pack held five canisters of Paralane Delta, salvaged from a vast store in far-distant Utah: this deadly gas was colorless, odorless and quickly fatal to humans who had not flushed their lungs with an inhalant of PDNeg. The death Delta delivered was swift and symptomless, but the gas’ effect faded quickly after fifteen minutes while the Neg immunization lasted for two hours. As its protection waned, the faintest trace of Delta would cause a sharp headache. Five inhalers were taken from a box of twenty and used, then three fat gray cylinders were armed and dropped down the air-shaft along the heavy cable from the solar cell.
One minute after the gas was released, Arne disconnected the cable from the power sheet and the five Scouts, secrecy set aside, raced down the stairs to ground level and outside to ring the building. Chad covered the center of the long front; Bern watched the front and north edge from beyond the corner, overlapping Jon, who waited at the corner next to the cliff in the shadow of the tower. He faced Arne along the ledge, sharing guard of the rear. Jon, the sun at his back, watched the south side with Arne and the front to Chad’s left. Five crossbows waited cocked amid the grass on all sides while tense seconds passed.
Then a flurry of footsteps from within brought the hidden bows to focus on doors and windows. “Gas alarm,” Bern muttered under his breath. Clad and unclad figures appeared, running for air. Crossbows fired, cocked and fired again in the seconds while targets were presented, then perhaps a dozen survivors fell back to the cover of their walls. Eight bodies flopped in the dust.
Bern slung his bow and led the dash to the doorway. He paused there to throw another gas bomb ahead of him before charging down the slope of rubble into the smoky darkness. His hatchet flashed in his right hand, his bowie swung in his left. Bright daylight from distant windows made the shadows between them darker as the rats scattered away from the spouting bomb into the deeper shadows towards the center of the building.
The gas released below would be rising through the subterranean levels, sweeping painless death to any rats who tried to hide there, and even the upper floors would soon be filled with fading but still fatal gas. Two more rats lay on the dust-sprinkled slick metal floor to which rags of carpeting still clung in patches; the others ran stumbling farther towards the sun-shaded corner far across the vast pillar-studded open space. Hatchets spun through the air to outdistance the slow-spreading gas, and more rats fell.
Concerned now with saving their individual hides, the survivors fled into the angle where Jon stood, the bright windows at his back. His hatchet whirled over his head, his bowie stood from his fist as he charged into the rats. The first two who came within reach fell to his steel: the third swung a nyloid-clad arm to catch the descending knife and let the hatchet glance harmlessly from his helmet. Jon broke away as the streetsuited rat bore him to the floor, and rolled clear in the dust, springing to his feet and snatching his charged blaster from its holster.
The suit absorbed the bolt though its owner staggered back against a column. He snapped open a case at his belt before Jon could ready his bow, and a spring-loaded needler snapped. Jon’s hand clutched reflexively at the trigger for a second before he coughed weakly and crumpled.
The rat leaped forward to pick up the recharging blaster and fired into the darkness behind him. Chad gasped and fell aside as the half-powered bolt clipped a column beside him and droplets of molten metal splashed across his right arm, then Bern and Arne fired together. The corner of an empty lift bay exploded in stony fragments and white dust, but the rat was gone, and the others were gone with him.
Silence settled, echoing between the floor and ceiling, and the sound of footsteps, hurrying to Jon, whispered away towards the distant ring of windows. The recharging blasters made a faint rising whine. Chad came behind the others, lips clamped, his left hand fumbling in his aid kit for burnbalm. He was smearing it on, slumped against a pillar, as the others knelt by Jon’s body. Bern looked back.
“Chad—clean him, take the gear back to Sereno. Send a party to pick him up, bring five men after us. Can you still shoot?”
Chad nodded. “Left-handed. Balm’s working.”
Lem came back from the rear windows. “Six of them,” he said. “They’re heading onto the plain—either towards Griffith Hills or the Ruins.”
“Let’s go.”
They took off like sprinters for the window, hatchets and bowies resheathed. Away down the hill six figures hit the level ground and started across the scrub grass and sparse brush towards the southwest. In great sliding leaps the three Scouts came down the face of the hill after them.
Blaster bolts sizzled across the distance between them, but dissipated well short. The Scouts, reaching the foot of the long slope, concentrated on the sustained chase. Trained, conditioned, disciplined, they ran steadily over the hummocky ground towards the dusty trail down which the rats were already fleeing.
The grass was nearly waist-high, but thin and dry with snagging seedpods along its stalks; the few foxtails caught by the uniforms found no loose texture to hold and dropped almost at once. The road itself was no more than a faint double rut, cracked and bare with taller grass in the middle. It led nearly four miles southwest to the Ruins.
Heads up, running like machines, the Scouts chased the rats, narrowing their lead from two hundred yards to one hundred before they were halfway to the Ruins. Then a blaster bolt warmed their faces, and they slacked their pace to match their quarry. The rats wouldn’t care to make a stand out in the open—not at only two to one. But they couldn’t flee forever. They would want to hole up in the Ruins, and would probably make their last stand there.
Now, any Scout’s pause to fire would cost distance at the edge of his range, and any attempt to continue closing would result in more effective fire from their foes. Holed up, the rats could be encircled and wiped out by training and technology. Morovia would be avenged, Jon’s blaster recovered and his life paid for.
The road was hard and level, though moderately meandering, and the distant figures of the rats remained clear above the grass. Then the ragged group vanished briefly behind a tall corner of mottled stone and rusted steel where the road bent around a large shallow craterlike pit. When they reappeared, they ran more tightly bunched, but six sharp eyes saw at once there were now only five rats a-running. Lem split off to the right around the far side of the collapsed substructure, running silently and low among the grass and slipping from rock to rock as Bern and Arne continued up the road.
One rat was probably waiting behind to shoot them from cover—if so, he might well have Jon’s blaster. As they approached, they left the road and came close against the side of the monolith. At the corner they looked cautiously around.
Nothing in sight. Bern stepped out from cover and waited. Scout blasters had no sights, being aimed by instinctive coordination of hand and eye; without this training behind it, the weapon would be relatively inaccurate. A dazzling flare burst against the wall a foot to “his left and knocked him sprawling. Answering bolts of steel snapped from two crossbows at opposite ends of the new-scarred wall, and there were no more shots. The two Scouts hurried out to retrieve their quarrels and the blaster, and dragged the body of the rat out for the follow-up party from Sereno to find and clean of whatever he might have carried.
Bern picked himself up, wincing slightly at the deep ache in his left leg. It wasn’t broken, but the concussion had given him a deep bruise which would slow him down in a little while.
