“Let us try, too,” David urged, “with the really big computer back at base. Squirt your data to it, would you?”
“Certainly, David. However, the most immediate danger was far closer to home.”
“Oh?” David tensed. “What was it?”
“Subterranean disturbances. They are consistent with the signals produced by Xiala tunnel-mining, in their last commando raid.”
“They’ve landed commandos again?” David suddenly sounded very serious indeed.
“I have detected no signs of landing craft,” Miles admitted, “nor were any such signals picked up by the satellites. I cannot deduce how the commandos have been planted on Milagso, but all indications are that they are indeed here, and preparing for an attack.”
“We’ll check into it,” David said grimly, “and fast! Thanks, Miles. Thanks a lot!”
“You are welcome, David,” the huge machine said.
David strode back to the car. “Hop in!” He slammed the door, started up, and turned the hover car back toward headquarters.
“He’s paranoid!” Arlan couldn’t hold it in any longer. “He has really flipped out! He’s developed delusions of conspiracy!”
“Maybe,” David said, his words clipped out, “or maybe he’s right. Pick up the hand mike and call Dr. Roman, will you? And tell him everything you just heard.”
Arlan stared. “You’re taking him seriously?”
David gave a tight nod. “Very seriously, Arlan. Very seriously indeed.”
Serious indeed, but not soon enough. As they pulled in through the gate to headquarters, the soil exploded in the surrounding fields from a hundred tunnels, and the hammering and crackling of automatic weapons erupted.
“Down!” David yelled, and slumped below window level as he pulled the car off to the side of the road. Arlan slid down, too, but wrestled his laser rifle around to the ready. The car stopped, and he swung the door open, rolling out and swivelling about, prone, sighting along the barrel and trying to pick out a target.
It was easy. All the humans had hit the dirt, and moving dust-plumes marked the presence of Xiala. Arlan took aim at the base of one such plume, and was about to pull the trigger when a human rolled in between. He cursed and let up pressure on the trigger . . .
Then the man exploded.
Arlan lay stiff, staring in shock.
Then a serpentine body rose up above the body, a minor cannon with a huge clip clasped in the two slender arms that sprouted below the head. Its mouth opened, fangs springing down as it lunged toward a human fighter . . .
Arlan screamed and pulled the trigger.
The snake’s head exploded, and the whole length of its body whipped about, fountaining soil and tearing out plants.
Arlan couldn’t take the time to stare, or to feel sick. He swung his rifle about, seeking another target, while something inside him gibbered in terror and urged him to run for cover. It was the child who had grown up on romantic tales of war, aghast at the bloodshed and the hammering of the guns.
Behind and above him, David’s laser rifle crackled. Then, suddenly, he howled, and his gun went silent.
Arlan went cold inside, picking out a dust column and firing, then seeking another and firing, deliberately, unhurried. Part of him waited in iron resignation for the laser bolt that would burn through him, but part of him was determined to kill as many snakes as he could before it came. Traverse, fire, traverse, fire . . .
Cannon roared, and a Bolo loomed over the battle, its guns depressed, firing over the humans’ heads, enfilading the field. Surely it couldn’t be Miles. . . .
Suddenly, its huge cannon elevated, higher and higher, till it seemed the Bolo would throw itself over if it fired. Arlan glanced up, and saw a shimmering shape swelling out of the sky. . . .
Then he looked down, and saw fangs and red maw arrowing toward him, a huge-bore rifle-muzzle coming up to center on him. . . .
He shouted and pressed the trigger. A bolt of pure energy crashed into the gaping jaws. The snake screamed, thrashing, and its cannon bellowed again and again, firing widely in its death throes. Arlan slapped his rifle down and shoved his head flat against the dirt.
A roar filled his head. He dared a look—and saw only dust, where the Xiala had been. He glanced back over his shoulder, and saw the barrel of one of the Bolo’s port guns aimed in his direction. Even as he watched, though, he saw the gout of energy explode out of the main cannon’s muzzle, tearing into the sky, but he couldn’t hear the report, because the whole world was roaring.
The looming shimmering shape turned into flame at one edge. It spun about, and another bolt struck it from the opposite side of the field. It whirled around and slammed spinning into the dirt, sticking up at a crazy angle—a huge landing craft, its ports popping open, snakes pouring out regardless of their dead, slithering onto the ground . . .
The Bolo’s secondary guns roared, and the Xiala turned into a boiling cloud of dust, streaked crimson, with tails lashing out of it here and there. Again and again the Bolo fired, and the whole line of the ship turned into a dust storm. Runnels of blood watered the field.
Here and there, a human gun chattered—but rarely, very rarely, for there were very few Xiala escaping the wrecked ship, and the commandos were all dead.
“Of course, we don’t know for sure how many of them got away.” David sat with a steaming cup at his elbow, his arm in a sling and a bandage around his head. “We can only guess how many snakes were aboard each ship, and it’s hard counting dead bodies; you can’t be sure how many of them were completely blown apart. Some of the ships landed half-buried, and Xiala could have tunnelled out of the below-ground hatches.”
“So we may have more Xiala hiding out and busily making new little commandos?” Rita asked.
David nodded. “There may even be some of the current generation still alive to teach them the ropes.”
“It’s so hard to imagine!” Arlan shook his head. “Intelligent, thinking beings, spending their whole lives in exile, and dooming their offspring and their grandchildren to the same waste of their days—all so that their species can have some commandos to prepare the way for them, if they ever decide to try another invasion!”
“Unthinkable to us,” Michael agreed. “To a Xiala, it’s worth it.”
Arlan shuddered. “At least we know Miles hadn’t ~really gone paranoid.”
“No,” David said slowly. “He seemed to treat the whole problem as a chess game—but he’d had fifty years of fighting Xiala, to use as data for his deductions.”
“Anyway,” Arlan said, “I guess that’s why the Bolos thought they had to become tractors for a while.”
Michael looked up, surprized, and David said slowly, “Of course—now that you mention it. Camoflage.”
“Lulling the Xiala into a false sense of security,” ~Michael agreed. “Why should they be afraid of these huge war machines, if they’d been converted into farmers?”
“Does that mean you lose your tractors?” Arlan asked.
“They haven’t shown any sign of it,” David said. “Seem to be more than ready to get back to work, in fact.”
“And they haven’t deactivated themselves?”
“No, so they can’t be given new commanders,” ~Michael confirmed. “I guess their mission isn’t over, as far as they’re concerned.”
“Of course not—we don’t know when the snake-commandos may strike again,” Rita inferred.
“No,” David agreed. “But the next time Miles says they’re coming, I think I’ll take him at his word.”
Arlan shoved his chair back and levered himself up on his crutches.
“Going someplace?” Michael asked.
“To see Miles,” Arlan said. “I think I owe him an apology.”
His friends exchanged glances; then David pushed himself to his feet. “Wait up; I’ll give you a ride. I’ve got a few words to say to Miles, too.”
They came up to the huge Bolo. Its armor was blackened and dented in places, but otherwise it stood as serenely as ever—already back on station at the field it had been plowing.
“Hello, Miles,” Arlan said as he came up.
“Hello, Arlan,” the Bolo returned. “I am glad to see you have survived the battle. I trust your foot is not too badly injured?”
“This?” Arlan glanced down. “Nothing that won’t heal itself. How are you, Miles?”
“Nothing that cannot be mended,” the Bolo ~returned, “and not much of that. This generation of Xiala have weakened sorely; their great-grandsires did far more damage.”
“Let’s hear it for decadence,” David said fervently.
“Uh, Miles . . .” Arlan said. “I’m, uh, sorry I didn’t heed your warning right away. . . .”
David nodded emphatically. “Me, too. I should have just taken you at your word, and sent out the alarm. We should have known Resartus wouldn’t make a logical mistake.”