Charles Carr, page 16
“I am not responsible for Neumann.”
“In that case you won’t be disturbed to hear that his peculiar gift can no longer be used. It is not in his power to do us any further harm.”
“You have murdered him!” Sanger shouted.
“Not at all. Not murdered, but doped him. He is drugged, and he will stay drugged until the salamanders are no longer a danger.”
“When I announce this,” said Sanger furiously, “you will feel the anger of the people.”
“You’re very welcome to announce it, Sanger. But surely you’ve noticed a change in public opinion of late. The majority will be grateful for the precaution that’s been taken. But don’t let me deter you, if you think it’s your duty.”
Sanger glared at Lyon and turned to go.
“One moment, please,” Lyon said. “I promised to give you information. Now I will tell you something of our plans. Look there.”
He had gone to the window.
“Your army?” asked Sanger, choking over the phrase.
Harper’s men were out there, busy with some vehicles, upon which they were mounting new attachments with long nozzles. It was the first time that Taylor had seen this equipment. In the grey light he could not make out the full details of it, but it looked heavy.
“No,” said Lyon. “See there, in the sky.”
Looking over his shoulder, Taylor saw that he was pointing up at a small, ghostly crescent.
It was the nearest of the three satellites of Bel.
Sanger named it. “Kolos,” he said uneasily. “What of it?”
“The plan,” said Lyon, “is to use it in the campaign against the salamanders. It circles the hot side, so it can be used for observation, and perhaps even more actively than that. We must look well ahead; the scheme will take time, but I thought it would interest you.”
Sanger made no effort to disguise his feelings now. For a few moments he was too disconcerted and angry to speak.
“Your spies!” he cried, turning from the window. “So they told you that -“
“It’s a mistake, Sanger, to think that one has a monopoly of spies. Yes, I know your plan.
You and you followers were to have occupied Kolos, turned it into a great spaceship, and left the rest of mankind to be consumed by the salamanders here.”
“I always said we should leave Bel,” Sanger said hoarsely. “I made no secret of that.”
“No. Only the means to be used. It was a grandiose scheme, Sanger. I don’t know whether it would have succeeded. But you made the mistake of not lodging a claim to Kolos. Now I have forestalled you.”
Sanger stood there, struggling for self-control. Finally he was able to speak with dignity.
“There is no more to be said.”
“I think not,” Lyon replied. He stood squarely against the window and watched Sanger go with his follower. But when he was alone with Taylor he gave an involuntary sigh of relief.
“His claws are drawn,” said Lyon. “He’s powerless now, and he knows it.”
Taylor asked. “How did you find out, sir?”
“I owe it all to Manzoni; but it was better that Sanger shouldn’t know that, so I claimed the credit. And so, at last, we’re ready for action, Taylor. No more political cares!”
He was preparing to leave in his turn.
“You’d better take a spell off duty now, while you have the chance,” he told Taylor. “We’ll be moving forward soon.”
“All of us, sir?”
“Yes, every man.”
Taylor was keen for action. His only doubt, on his way to see Nesina, was how he should break the news to her that he would be leaving. Fortunately he found her in a more carefree mood than ever before.
“They aren’t watching me any more,” she said joyously. “I’m sure of it. Is that your doing?”
“It’s Lyon’s,” he told her, deciding that it was better not to mention Manzoni.
“But you asked him? You did that for me?”
“I’d do anything for you,” he said.
“Can you have the law altered?”
“It might be altered - in time.”
“Oh, I knew that was an impossibility. I was only teasing. You looked so solemn. But the law doesn’t scare me any more.”
“You’re defying it? that’s brave of you.”
“But don’t you see,” she said, “it doesn’t need much courage now? I can feel a change - can’t you? People here are thinking more as you think. They are questioning the dogmas. And I’m glad. I feel more free than I ever felt in my life before. That is what you have done for me. See how much I owe to you!”
“Then I’m glad, Nesina. And now I must -“
“You must kiss me and go?”
“You guessed it?”
“Of course. Always you must go to this war of yours. That is your need.”
“My duty,” he said self-consciously.
“And my need is that you must come back. Until the war is over, and you come back and do not go any more. You have taught me happiness. You have taught me to laugh.”
“Now,” he said, “you must teach me. I think I was forgetting.”
“But you must come back,” she said again.
How many women, he thought, had said that to departing fighters! But she sounded confident, and her confidence warmed and steadied him, then and later.
29
The ground that Lyon had chosen with such care was desolate in the extreme. The soil was poor on the edge of the temperate belt, and a few kilometres away was complete desert. A straggling line of weedy fern-trees and a low ridge running roughly parallel to it were the only landmarks. A detachment of Harper’s small vehicles, flown there in the big transport ‘planes, was in position behind the trees, and another just below the crest of the ridge. These two detachments formed the sides of Lyon’s trap.
The bait in the trap, was an oxygen station about two kilometres farther back. Its high white walls showed clearly, for they reflected the brighter horizon of the hot side. Overhead the sky was grey, and the horizon behind the station was dark and scattered with stars.
Lyon had other forces under his command. There were light armed ‘planes on the landing-ground in rear of the station; and all the heavy tracked vehicles that could be assembled were travelling from Una and would soon arrive. When the trap had closed on the nearest salamanders, the heavy vehicles were to continue the operation.
Lyon’s command post was at the rear end of the ridge. From there he had a good view over the ground, and could control his subordinate commanders by radio.
“There’s a detector broken, away on Harper’s left,” Lyon told Taylor. “Take a replacement for it.”
No movement had yet been reported on their front, and Taylor went unescorted, driving himself in one of the small vehicles. As he descended the side of the ridge his view was restricted, but he kept his direction and had no difficulty in finding Harper, who showed him where the detector was needed.
For his return journey Taylor swung straight across to the extreme end of the ridge, and then drove back along the slope, checking the positions of the vehicles as he did so. A few men were on duty with the detectors and radio sets but most of the crews were free to relax. Among the resting men Pratt’s red head stood out. Taylor stopped his vehicle and hoisted himself through the narrow opening of the cabin.
For the first time he noticed that there were blades of grass struggling for life on that unfertile surface. At some time an attempt must have been made to bind the loose soil by sowing seed there. The experiment had not succeeded, and had been abandoned, but the vestiges of the plants were still perceptible.
They were visible more clearly to anyone stretched at full length on the ground, as Pratt now was. He nibbled a stalk of grass as he held forth to his companions.
“Lovely stuff,” he said. “I wish they’d grow more of it ‘ere. Remember ‘ow it used ter look, back there on Earf, in the spring?”
“Ah!” sighed one of the listeners.
“In the parks,” said Pratt, “an’ up on ‘Ampstead ‘Eaf. Lovely it was, up there. ‘Course it used ter get bashed abart a bit, of a Bank ‘Oliday. Why, I remember one time -“
He saw Taylor standing there, and jumped up to report to him with his usual cheerfulness.
Taylor, continuing on his way back to the command post, was thinking of the green fields of Earth, and of the seed, carried on the long voyage of a spaceship. Where the fields had been, he supposed, there must now be an expanse of slag. And the travelled seed had been planted to take precarious root from which sickly blades grew only to die.
He looked round, and the whole dreary scene repelled him. The brooding greyness of it filled him with foreboding. Lyon’s plan had earlier seemed splendidly simple. But was victory to be won as easily as all that?
The period of waiting had ended even before he reached the command post. Messages were coming in showing the reactions of all detectors. The radio operators were busy, and other men were marking on the large chart the points where movement was reported.
Taylor saw at once that these points formed a line that overlapped the edges of the chart.
Something was wrong. At first he thought dully that they should have a larger chart. Then, suddenly, his wits cleared. The width of the chart represented three kilometres. That should have been ample; half a kilometre should have covered the salamanders’ front. Hitherto they had always moved in tight formations.
Even then he hoped that the markers had mistaken the scale. The thing couldn’t be true!
But it was. They were fastening new sheets to the sides of the chart. And Lyon, who had been watching their work, turned away so abruptly that he almost collided with Taylor.
“Ten times the strength they’ve ever used before,” said Lyon. “If it hadn’t been for Kraft’s detectors we’d have been the trapped instead of the trappers.” He spoke rapidly but clearly.
Taylor, looking towards the bright horizon, saw the shimmer of approaching heat-devils.
They were going to overlap Lyon’s narrow front. The two detachments would be surrounded -
stifled.
But Lyon was already at the microphone, giving the orders that might just avert defeat.
Harper’s crews were in their vehicles now, and moving. They began to race outwards from their previous positions, extending to three - four - five kilometres. It was the only possible move, but the extension was fantastic for a force of such small numbers.
Lyon was calling. “Taylor,” he said, “I can’t see Manzoni yet, but he’s coming up on that bearing. I’ll speak to him, but I don’t want any mistake about this. You’re to meet him and lead him round our right flank and then along the salamanders’ line. We can’t hold them long. Take a man with you - What’s that?”
It was the red glow of a fireball rising from far across the plain. The ground that had lately been so dead was now a battlefield. Harper’s men with their tubes and blast-guns were coming into action, fighting against desperate odds all along the front. That was the last glimpse that Taylor had as he slammed the heavy door of his cabin and drove at full speed to the rear. He felt a quick spasm of shame; this was like being a deserter, fleeing from the field. Then he remembered his orders and concentrated on carrying them out.
Manzoni, he knew, had expected to be held for some time in reserve with the heavy vehicles that he commanded. But by now he would have received Lyon’s message, telling him of the improvised change from ambush to defence. And Manzoni was a quick thinker.
Taylor had covered four kilometres in as many minutes. Still he could see nothing of the reserve column. He checked the bearing. It was correct. Another kilometre and still there was no sign. He wondered whether to turn right or left. Then his gunner, perched higher than Taylor in the cabin, and using another observation panel, shouted something.
A moment later the head of Manzoni’s column was in sight. Taylor wheeled through half a complete turn till he was leading the long file of vehicles. He shouted to his gunner, “Are they following?”
“Yes, sir.”
Taylor drove back towards the ridge. As he neared it he saw that Harper had been driven back till his general line was not far in front of where the command post had been. Of Lyon and his staff there was now no sign. They must have joined in the fight, but Taylor could not identify their vehicles. He had the impression that many of Harper’s vehicles were now motionless, burnt out. Then he had to decide what course to steer.
He was near the end of his strength; the cabin was stifling hot; sweat was streaming down his face; and he was deafened by the roar of his overdriven engine and clattering tracks. But he thought he saw the flank that he was looking for, and he swept round it.
Now he was in advance of the foremost vehicle of Harper’s line. He had not yet seen a salamander, but there could be no doubt about the heat-devils; there seemed to be hundreds of them. He had brought Manzoni’s column to the right point. Now he was free to take part in the action.
He saw, or thought he saw, a salamander; and the gunner had used the long blast-tube once without effect, when a bright flash lit up the whole battlefield and a thunderous explosion made the ground shake.
“Got the fireballs,” the gunner shouted down. “It was one of our ‘planes. I.saw it.”
A heat-devil loomed up in front, with a gap of unheated air between it and the ground.
Taylor tried to alter his course. For a moment he hoped the thing would pass overhead. But as the heat seemed to strike down at him from above, his vehicle swung violently to the left. A track had broken. The other track revolved wildly, digging deeply into the ground. He reacted swiftly,by switching off the engine, but the vehicle was now tilted at a dangerous angle.
And a salamander was gliding towards him. The gunner struggled to depress the blast-gun, but he could not bring it to bear.
One of Manzoni’s vehicles roared towards the salamander. Taylor remembered that the heavier vehicles had all been fitted with the bulky equipment needed for Loddon’s new weapon, the projector. He looked, powerless himself, to see it used.
A jet shot out from a long, thin nozzle, and the stream of liquid gas played over the salamander, striking it motionless. For a moment the haze that enveloped the thing cleared. A cindery skeleton jerked convulsively. Then it was gone, frozen to nothingness.
The gunner yelled again, and began to scramble down from his place. Probably his movement disturbed the balance of the tilted vehicle. Taylor felt it turning over. Heavy instruments, torn from their seatings, were falling around him. Instinctively his arms went up to protect his head. The sound of Manzoni’s column, roaring past him to the attack, was loud in his ears as he dived into black unconsciousness.
30
He swung out of the dark into a light that hurt his eyes. Someone exclaimed. Then the bright lamp was switched off, leaving only a softly shaded one glowing beside the couch on which he lay. He was in a small hospital ward, and Nesina was there beside him.
“I came back,” he muttered.
She answered quite gaily, “Yes, you came back, as I said you would. Back from the war.”
Remembrance of the battle came crowding back to him. He struggled to sit up, and discovered that his head was bandaged.
“I must get back,” he said.
“There’s no need. The war is won.”
“Lyon - he’ll need me, out there.”
“He can do without you. Your skull was cracked. And Lyon is back here in Una.”
“I must see him,” he said obstinately.
“You shall, only you must lie still. The nurse has gone to call his office. He said he was to be told as soon as you were fit to speak. He’s coming to see you.”
“Ah,” he sighed with relief.
“Now tell me how you really feel,” she said.
They spoke quietly until Lyon came into the ward. Taylor looked anxiously at his chief, and Lyon looked back reassuringly at him as he sat down beside the couch.
“He wanted to get back into the battle,” Nesina said.
“How much have you told him?” Lyon asked her.
“I left it all to you.”
Lyon leaned towards Taylor. “You’ll want to know what happened. You’ve been out -
unconscious - for less than a hundred hours. That’s not long -“
“It was far too long for me,” Nesina interposed.
“But a great deal has happened. We broke up the fireballs -“
“I knew that,” Taylor said. “It was nearly the last thing I remember seeing.”
‘We broke up the heat-devils too. Loddon’s projector made short work of them. Then the salamanders gave way and retreated, and we were in the position we’d planned originally. We chased the salamanders back into their own territory. Loddon’s projectors were splendid, and Kraft’s detector helped. But it was Manzoni’s triumph. He located another army of salamanders: he found they had buildings or fortifications of sorts. He scattered that army too.
And still he went on, hunting them down. The heat was unendurable at last, and he had to turn back. But we know the salamanders won’t attack again, so long as we give them no chance to recover.”
“Then it’s all over?” Taylor asked.
“That phase is over, at least. The problem now is simple. We have to exterminate them.
It’ll be a long job, and we need better insulation for ‘planes and vehicles. But that’s being taken care of.”
