Wilforce thought a moment. “Major, take several three-dimensional photos of the damage to your ship and send them along, too.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is there anything else that seems important to you?”
“No, sir. Nothing I can think of.”
“All right. Have your communications officer signal us every hour, and get in touch with us right away if anything further happens.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wilforce broke the connection. Shortly afterward, the first reports and photos of the colonies came in on the trifac.
Wilforce first located some maps in the growing pile sent in by Larssen’s staff. The maps showed the colonies on a gently rolling, heavily forested plain. They were located in a circle several hundred miles across, with Larssen’s rest camp in a cleared rectangle near the center.
Looking over plans and photographs, Wilforce saw that the individual settlements were large clearings near lakes or streams with L-shaped rows of cabins along the south and west edges of the clearings. But these rows of cabins were laid out differently from those Wilforce had seen on other heavily-forested planets. Instead of being simply straight rows of cabins, each cabin was turned roughly thirty degrees from a line due south or west. From above, each row of cabins suggested a row of dominoes lined up end-to-end, separated to leave spaces between them, then each pivoted thirty degrees about its center.
Wilforce puzzled over this till an explanation dawned on him. In a straight row of cabins, gunfire from one cabin couldn’t reach the space close to the front or rear walls of adjoining cabins. By turning each cabin, its front and rear walls could be protected by neighboring cabins.
The next thought to occur to Wilforce was, “What enemy?”
Methodically, he worked his way through reams of information on the planet, and wound up some time later with a faint pain between the eyes, and a summary of all the data that seemed to count:
“Bemus III is an Earth-type planet, with ideal gravity and atmosphere, a reasonably pleasant climate, and a somewhat longer than standard year. It has few mineral resources, but rich soil and abundant forests. There are no plants or animals harmful to man. The largest life form is a placid, herbivorous, mammoth-like creature called a ‘cropper’ which is protected by Planet Certification because it is nearly extinct. The other herbivores are small. The largest carnivore is a shy nocturnal creature little larger than a rabbit. Man has no enemies on Bemus III.”
With this fresh in his mind, Wilforce reached for photographs and diagrams of Larssen’s rest camp. A glance showed him that the camp was made up mostly of tents and prefabricated one-story barracks put up and taken down as needed. Then Wilforce looked at the only permanent buildings in the camp—the communications center.
Built in a tight hollow square, from the middle of which rose a covered tower mounting a machine gun and a big searchlight, the communications center was surrounded by a stockade of upright logs, sharpened on the ends. A barrier of packed earth filled the space between this stockade and an outer log wall that looked from above like a four-pointed star. Emplaced within the barbed-wire-strung arms of this star were heavy machine guns and multiple rocket launchers. Outside was a broad deep ditch ringed with more barbed wire.
Wilforce looked at this a moment, then glanced back to the reports that described Bemus III as a peaceful harmless planet. He carefully checked to see if by any chance he was reading data on two different planets with similar names. When he was satisfied that this wasn’t the trouble, he glanced with a deepening scowl at the pile of recent photos sent in by the destroyer.
These photos showed solidly-built cabins knocked askew, doors smashed in, guns still at windows and loopholes, axes and unsheathed knives strewn on the floors. At the communications center, the massive logs at one part of the outer wall were snapped back like toothpicks. The earth behind was pulled down as if by a giant hand, with a machine gun lying in the dirt at the bottom. Two of the communications buildings were knocked apart. The tower had long splintered scratches, several braces torn loose, and its roof ripped open.
Wilforce looked at one photo after another, then at the views of the destroyer with its side flattened in the aft section and slightly dished-in forward.
Frowning, he had several photos of the rest camp and the ship enlarged.
The ship appeared to have been hit by a solidly-built cylindrical object about its own size, and nearly parallel to it at the time of collision. The enlarged photos of the ruined colonies showed deep parallel scratches in cabin walls, big paw marks in the dirt outside, and in one place behind a low swell of the earth, the outline of an enormous body with fan-shaped marks in the earth behind it. This suggested to Wilforce a huge cat crouched in wait and thrashing its tail.
Scowling, Wilforce put down the photos, and went out to make a quick check of the condition and equipment of the troops being sent to Bemus III. He found that the equipment had been brought almost back to normal. But the combat group was depleted in both men and officers, and somehow looked none too good to him. Finding nothing specific that was wrong, he attributed it all to the recent ordeal on Inferno, wished the men luck, and went back to the problem of Bemus III.
Five days later, the one significant change in the situation was that the reloading of Wilforce’s ships was complete. His main fleet now blasted off for Bemus III. En route, Wilforce wrestled with the conflicting data, but it still proved impossible to fit it into any sensible pattern.
The trip to Bemus III was expected to take about sixteen days. Before they had been gone one full day, the destroyer on the planet stopped transmitting reports, and could no longer be reached.
When the fleet was still better than five days out from the planet, the commander of the fast task force sent ahead of the fleet reported back to Wilforce by communicator.
“Sir,” said the officer, frowning, “we’ve just completed our first sweep through Bemus System. If there’s anything out of the ordinary here, we haven’t seen it. The one thing I don’t like is this big belt of asteroids between the third and fourth planets.”
Wilforce nodded. An asteroid belt could confuse the detectors and incidentally conceal whole squadrons of hostile ships. Wilforce said, “When do you intend to land the Pioneers?”
“In about four hours, sir. They’re coming through right now. We expect to keep the troops close by, but offplanet unless the Pioneers run into trouble.”
“Good,” said Wilforce. “Have the Pioneers report to me as soon as they find out what happened to that destroyer.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wilforce spread out several big charts of Bemus System. Later that day, he was rechecking his plans for approaching it, when Rybalko came over, his face pale.
“Sir, the Pioneers have found the destroyer and boarded it. We have them on the screen.”
Wilforce put down the chart and went over to the screen, where a man wearing the customary fringed leather shirt of the Pioneers knelt beside a long low shape covered with a rough gray blanket. As Wilforce came over, the Pioneer pulled back the blanket.
Underneath, stretched full length on the metal deck, lay a bare human skeleton.
Wilforce drew his breath in slowly. He noted the thin steel chain that looped loosely around the vertebrae of the neck to hold the dull metal tags. He saw, flat on the floor nearby, a shiny cleaver, the plastic inserts in its handle missing.
The Pioneer glanced at Wilforce. Wilforce nodded, and the Pioneer pulled the blanket back over the skeleton. He said, “We’ve found eight more of these in just one section of the ship. That’s all we’ve found of them. Outside, there’s only tracks. Mr. Pick said he wants to have a better idea what happened before he gets in touch with you. But he’ll call you in three hours at the latest. Is that all right?”
Wilforce thought a moment. Pick was head of the Pioneers attached to Wilforce’s command, and he generally worked best when given plenty of freedom. Wilforce said, “Does Pick need reinforcements?”
“Not right now. He doesn’t want them.”
“All right.”
The screen blanked, and Wilforce glanced at Rybalko. “After we break out of subspace, I want one squadron located to smash anything that raises its nose in the densest part of that asteroid belt. I also want selected sections of the belt saturated with reconnaissance torpedoes. You might have the data run through the computer now, and we can see what the best pattern seems to be.”
Rybalko said, “Yes, sir. Sir, did you notice that cleaver?”
“I noticed the handle. But we won’t really know much till we talk to Pick.”