This time Krannon almost smiled as he reached for the case. Destructive and death-dealing weapons are like candy to a Pyrran. While he looked at it, Jason made his offer.
“The case and bombs are yours if you move the date of your next delivery up to tomorrow-and let me go with you.”
“Be here at 0500,” Krannon said. “We leave early.”
15
The truck rumbled up to the perimeter gate and stopped. Krannon waved to the guards through the front window, then closed a metal shield over it. When the gates swung open the truck-really a giant armored tank-ground slowly forward. There was a second gate beyond the first, that did not open until the interior one was closed. Jason looked through the second driver’s periscope as the outer gate lifted. Automatic flamethrowers flared through the opening, cutting off only when the truck reached them. A scorched area ringed the gate; beyond that the jungle began. Unconsciously Jason shrank back in his seat.
All the plants and animals he had seen only specimens of, existed here in profusion. Thorn-ringed branches and vines laced themselves into a solid mat, through which the wildlife swarmed. A fury of sound hurled at them, thuds and scratchings rang on the armor. Krannon laughed and closed the switch that electrified the outer grid. The scratchings died away as the beasts completed the circuit to the grounded hull.
It was slow speed, low-gear work tearing through the jungle. Krannon had his face buried in the periscope mask and silently fought the controls. With each mile, the going seemed to get better, until he finally swung up the periscope and opened the window armor. The jungle was still thick and deadly, but nothing like the area immediately around the perimeter. It appeared as if most of the lethal powers of Pyrrus were concentrated in the single area around the settlement. Why? Jason asked himself. Why this intense and directed planetary hatred?
The motors died and Krannon stood up, stretching. “We’re here,” he said. “Let’s unload.”
There was bare rock around the truck, a rounded hillock that projected from the jungle, too smooth and steep for vegetation to get a hold. Krannon opened the cargo hatches and they pushed out the boxes and crates. When they fmished Jason slumped down, exhausted, onto the pile.
“Get back in, we’re leaving,” Kxannon said.
“You are, I’m staying right here.”
Krannon looked at him coldly. “Get in the truck or I’ll kill you. No one stays out here. For one thing you couldn’t live an hour alone. But worse than that the grubbers would get you. Kill you at once, of course, but that’s not important. But you have equipment that we can’t allow into their hands. You want to see a grubber with a gun?”
While the Pyrran talked, Jason’s thoughts had rushed ahead. He hoped that Krannon was as thick of head as he was fast of reflex.
Jason looked at the trees, let his gaze move up through the thick branches. Though Krannon was still talking, he was automatically aware of Jason’s attention. When Jason’s eyes widened and his gun jumped into his hand, Krannon’s own gun appeared and he turned in the same direction.
“There-in the top!” Jason shouted and fired into the tangle of branches. Krannon fired too. As soon as he did, Jason hurled himself backward, curled into a ball, roiling down the inclined rock. The shots had covered the sounds of his movements, and before Krannon could turn back the gravity had dragged him down the rock into the thick foliage. Crashing branches slapped at him, but slowed his fall. \Vhen he stopped moving, he was lost in the tangle. Krannon’s shots came too late to hit him.
Lying there, tired and bruised, Jason heard the Pyrran cursing him out. He stamped around on the rock, fired a few shots, but knew better than to enter the trees. Finally he gave up and went back to the truck. The motor gunned into life and the treads clanked and scraped down the rock and back into the jungle. There were muted rumblings and crashes that slowly died away.
Then Jason was alone.
Up until that instant he hadn’t realized quite how alone he would be. Surrounded by nothing but death, the truck already vanished from sight. 1-Je had to force down an overwhelming desire to run after it. What was done was done.