“Supposed to be poison.” He looked at it suspiciously, then smelled it. It smelled fine. He threw it away.
In the morning he was much hungrier. “Should I put the barrel of the gun in my mouth and blow my head off?” he asked himself, weighing the atomic pistol in his hand. “Plenty of time for that yet. Plenty of things can still happen.” Yet he didn’t really believe it when he heard voices coming through the jungle toward him, human voices. He settled behind the limb and aimed his gun in that direction.
The voices grew louder, then a clanking and rattling. An armed Venian scuttled under the tree, but Bill held his fire as other figures loomed out of the fog. It was a long file of human prisoners wearing the neck irons used to bring Bill and the others to the labor camp, all joined together by a long chain that connected the neck irons. Each of the men was carrying a large box on his head. Bill let them stumble by underneath and kept a careful count of the Venian guards. There were five in all with a sixth bringing up the rear, and when this one had passed underneath the tree Bill dropped straight down on him, braining him with his heavy boots. The Venian was armed with a Chinger-made copy of a standard atomic rifle, and Bill smiled wickedly as he hefted its familiar weight. After sticking the pistol into his waistband he crept after the column, rifle ready. He managed to kill the fifth guard by walking up behind him and catching him in the back of the neck with the rifle butt. The last two troopers in the file saw this but had enough brains to be quiet as he crept up on number four. Some stir among the prisoners or a chance sound warned this guard and he turned about, raising his rifle. There was no chance now to kill him silently, so Bill burned his head off and ran as fast as he could toward the head of the column. There was a shocked silence when the blast of the rifle echoed through the fog and Bill filled it with a shout.
“Hit the dirt-FAST!”
The soldiers dived into the mud and Bill held his atomic rifle at his waist as he ran, fanning it back and forth before him like a water hose and holding down the trigger on full automatic. A continuous blast of fire poured out a yard above the ground and he squirted it in an arc before him. There were shouts and screams in the fog, and then the charge in the rifle was exhausted. Bill threw it from him and drew the pistol. Two of the remaining guards were down, and the last one was wounded and got off a single badly aimed shot before Bill burned him too.
“Not bad,” he said, stopping and panting. “Six out of six.”
There were low moans coming from the line of prisoners, and Bill curled his lip in disgust at the three men who hadn’t dropped at his shouted command.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, stirring one with his foot, “never been in combat before?” But this one didn’t answer because he was charred dead.
“Never … ” the next one answered, gasping in pain. “Get the corpsman, I’m wounded, there’s one ahead in the line. Oh, oh, why did I ever leave the Chris Keeler! Medic …”
Bill frowned at the three gold balls of a fourth lieutenant on the man’s collar, then bent and scraped some mud from his face. “You! The laundry officer! ” he shouted in outraged anger, raising his gun to finish the job.
“Not I!” the lieutenant moaned, recognizing Bill at last.
“The laundry officer is gone, flushed down the drain! This is I, your friendly local pastor, bringing you the blessings of Ahura Mazdah, my son, and have you been reading the Avesta every day before going to sleep …”
“Bah!” Bill snarled. He couldn’t shoot him now, and he walked over to the third wounded man.
“Hello Bill … ” a weak voice said. “I guess the old reflexes are slowing down … I can’t blame you for shooting me, I should have hit the dirt like the others …”