“That’s all for now,” concluded the man at the desk, “watch for our next signal in fifteen minutes.”
“Good,” said Donal, and gestured to El Man to shut off the receiver, which the scarred Dorsai captain did. “How long until planetfall?”
“A couple of hours,” replied El Man. “We’re a bit ahead of schedule. That was the last phase shift. We’re on our way in on straight drive now. Do you have co-ordinates on our landing point?”
Donal nodded; and stood up.
“I’ll come up to control,” he said.
The process of bringing the N4J into the spot on the surface of Coby, corresponding to the co-ordinates indicated by Donal, was a time-consuming but simple procedure—only mildly complicated by Donal’s wish to make their visit undetected. Coby had nothing to defend in the sense a terraformed world might have; and they settled down without incident on its airless surface, directly over the freight lock to one of the subsurface transportation tunnels.
“All right,” said Donal, five minutes later, to the armed contingent of men assembled in the lounge. “This is an entirely volunteer mission, and I’ll give any of you one more chance to withdraw without prejudice if you want to.” He waited. Nobody stirred. “Understand,” said Donal, “I want nobody with me simply because he was shamed into volunteering, or because he didn’t want to hesitate when his shipmates volunteered.” Again he waited. There were no withdrawals. “Right, then. Here’s what we’ll be doing. You’ll follow me down that freight lock and into a receiving room with a door into a tunnel. However, we won’t be taking the door, but burning directly through one of the walls to the service section of an adjoining residence. You’ve all seen a drawing of our route. You’re to follow me, or whoever remains in command; and anyone who can’t keep up gets left behind. Everybody understand?” He looked around their faces.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
He led out down the passageway of the ship, out through their lock and down into the freight lock into the receiving room. This turned out to be a large, gloomy chamber with fused rock walls. Donal measured off a section of one wall and set his torchmen to work. Three minutes later they were in the service section of a Coby residence.
The area in which they found themselves was a network of small tunnels wide enough for only one man at a time, and interspersed with little niches and crannies holding technical devices necessary to the maintenance and appearance of the residence. The walls were coated with a permanent illuminating layer; and, in this cold white light, they filed along one of the tunnels and emerged into a garden.
The cycle of the residence’s system was apparently now set on night. Darkness held the garden and a fine imitation of the starry heavens glittered overhead. Ahead and to their right was the clump of main rooms, soft-lit with interior light.
“Two men to hold this exit,” whispered Donal, “The rest of you follow me.”
He led the way at a low crouching run through the garden and to the foot of some wide stairs. At their top, a solitary figure could be seen pacing back and forth on a terrace before an open wall.
“Captain—” said Donal. El Man slipped away into the bushes below the terrace. There was a little wait in the artificial night and then his dark shadow was seen to rise suddenly upon the terrace behind the pacing figure. They melted together, sagged, and only the shadow of El Man was left. He beckoned them up.
“Three men to hold this terrace,” whispered Donal, as they all came together at the head of the stairs. El Man told off the necessary number of the assault party; and they continued on into the lighted interior of the house.
For several rooms it seemed almost as if they would achieve then- objective without meeting anyone other than the man they had come to seek. Then, without anything in the way of warning at all, they were suddenly in the middle of a pitched battle.
As they emerged into the main hall, hand weapons opened up on them from three converging rooms at once. The shipmen, automatically responding to training, dropped to the floor, took cover and returned the fire. They were pinned down.
They were, but not the three Dorsai. Donal, lan, and El Man, reacting in that particular way that was a product of genes, reflexes and their own special training, and that made the Dorsai so particularly valuable as professional soldiers—these three had responded automatically and in unison a split-second before the fire opened up on them. It was almost as if some small element of precognition had entered the picture. At any rate, with a reaction too quick for thought, these three swung about and rushed one of the enemy doorways, reached it and closed with their opponents within before that opposition could bring their fire to bear. The three found themselves in a darkened room and fighting hand to hand.
Here again, the particular character of the Dorsai soldier paid off. There were eight men in ambush within this particular room and they were all veteran soldiers. But no two of them were a match at hand-to-hand fighting with any single Dorsai; and in addition the Dorsai had the advantage of being able, almost by instinct, to recognize each other in the dark and the melee, and to join forces for a sudden common effort without the need for discussion. The total effect of these advantages made it almost a case of three men who could see fighting eight who were blind.
In DonaTs case, he plunged into the dark room right on the heels of El Man and to El Man’s left, with lan right behind him. Their charge split the defenders within into two groups and also carried them farther back into obscurity—a movement which the Dorsai, by common silent consent, improved on for the purpose of further separating the enemy. Donal found himself pushing back four men. Abandoning three of these to lan behind him under the simple common-sense precept that you fight best when you fight only one man at a time, he dove in almost at the level of his opponent’s knees, tackled him, and they went down and rolled over together, Donal taking advantage of the opportunity to break the other soldier’s back in the process.
He continued his roll and came up, pivoting and instinctively side-stepping. A dark body flung past him—but that instinct spoken of before warned him that it was El Man, flinging himself clear across the room to aid the general confusion. Donal reversed his field and went back the way from which El Man had come. He came up against an opponent plunging forward with a knife held low, slipped the knife, chopped at the man’s neck with the calloused edge of his hand—but missed a clean killing stroke and only broke the man’s collar bone. Leaving that opponent however in the interests of keeping on the move, Donal spun off to the right, cornered another man against the wall and crushed this one’s windpipe with a stiff-fingered jab. Rebounding from the wall and spinning back into the center of the room, his ears told him that El Man was finishing off one opponent and lan was engaged with the remaining two. Going to help him, Donal caught one of fan’s men from be-hind and paralyzed him with a kidney punch. lan, surprisingly enough, was still engaged with the remaining enemy. Donal went forward and found out why. lan had caught himself another Dorsai.
Donal closed with both men and they went down in a two-on-one pin, the opponent in a stretcher mat held him helpless between Donal and his uncle.
“Shai Dorsai!” gasped Donal. “Surrender!”
“Who to?” grunted the other.
“Donal and lan Graeme,” said lan. “Foralie.”
“Honored,’* said die strange Dorsai. “Heard of you. Hord Vlaminck, Snelbrich Canton. All right then, let me up. My right arm’s broken, anyway.”
Donal and lan let go and assisted Vlaminck to his feet El Man had finished off what else remained, and now came up to them.
“Hord Vlaminck—Coruna El Man,” said Donal.
“Honored,” said El Man.
“Honor’s mine,” replied Vlaminck. “I’m your prisoner, gentlemen. Want my parole?”
“I’d appreciate it,” said Donal. “We’ve got work to do here yet. What kind of contract are you under?”
“Straight duty. No loyalty clause. Why?”
“Any reason why I can’t hire you on a prisoner’s basis?” asked Donal.
“Not from this job.” Vlaminck sounded disgusted. “I’ve been sold twice on the open market because of a typo in my last contract. Besides,” he added, “as I say, I’ve heard of you.”
“You’re hired, then. We’re looking for the man you’re guarding here. Can you tell us where we’ll findhimr
“Follow me,” said Vlaminck; and led the way back through the darkness; and opened a door. They stepped through into a short corridor that led them up a ramp and to another door.