‘QX. While we’re transferring, give me the dope.’
Luda did so. Darjeeb’s coup had been carefully planned and brilliantly executed. Drugged by one of her own staff, she had been taken without a struggle. She did not know how far-reaching the stroke had been, but she was pretty sure that most, if not all, of the Dhilian fortresses were now held by the enemy.
Nhal probably had the advantage in numbers and in fire-power then upon Lune—Darjeeb would not have made his bid unless he had found a way to violate the treaty of strict equality. Dhil was, however, much the nearer of the two worlds. Hence, if this initial advantage could be overcome, Dhil’s reenforce-ments could be brought up much sooner that the enemy’s. If, in addition, the vortex could be extinguished before it had done irreparable damage, neither side would have any real advantage and the conflict would subside instead of flaring into another tri-world holocaust.
Cloud pondered. He would have to do something, but what? That vortex had to be snuffed; but, with the whole Nhalian army to cope with, how could he make the approach? His vortex-bombing flitter was screened against radiation, not war-beams. His cruiser was clothed to stop anything short of G-P primaries, but it would take a month at a Patrol base to adapt her for vortex work … and he’d have to analyze it, anyway, preferably from the ground. He had no beams, no, ordinary bombs, no nega-bombs. How could he use what he had to clear a station?
‘Draw me a map, will you, Luda?’ he asked.
She did so. The cratered vortex, where an immense building had been. The ring of fortresses: two of which were unusually
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far apart, separated by a parkway and a shallow lagoon.
‘Shallow? How deep?’ Cloud interrupted. She indicated a depth of a couple of feet.
‘That’s enough map, then. Thanks.’ Cloud thought for minutes. ‘You seem to be quite an engineer. Can you give me exact details on your defensive screen? Power, radius, weave-form, generator type, phasing, interlocking, blow-off, and so on?’
She could. Complex mathematical equations and electrical formulae flashed through his mind, each leaving a residue of fact.
‘Maybe we can do something,’ the Blaster said finally, turning to the Chickladorian. ‘Depends pretty much on our friend here. Are you a pilot, or just an emergency assignment?’
‘Master pilot. Rating unlimited, tonnage or space.’
‘Good! Think you’re in shape to take three thousand centimeters of acceleration?’
‘Pretty sure of it. If I was right I could take three thousand standing on my head. I’m feeling better all the time. Let’s hot her up and find out.’
‘Not until after we’ve unloaded these passengers somewhere,’ and Cloud went on to explain what he had in mind.
‘Afraid it can’t be done.’ The pilot shook his head glumly. ‘Your timing has got to be too ungodly fine. I can do the piloting, meter the blast, and so on. I can balance her down on her tail, steady to a hair, but piloting’s only half what you got to have. Pilots never land on a constant blast, and your leeway here is damn near zero. To hit it as close as you want, your timing has got to be accurate to a tenth of a second. You don’t know it, mister, but it’d take a master computer half a day to …’
‘I know all about that. I’m a master computer and I’ll have everything figured. I’ll give you a zero exact to plus-or-minus a hundredth.’
‘QX, then. Let’s dump the non-combatants and flit.’
‘Luda, where shall we land them? And maybe you’d better call out your army and navy—we can’t blow out that vortex until we control both air and ground.’
‘Land them there.’ Luda swung the plate and pointed. ‘The call was sent long since. They come.’
They landed; but four of the women would not leave the vessel. The Manarkan had to stay aboard, she declared, or be disgraced for life. What would happen if the pilot passed out again, with only laymen around? She was right, Cloud con-
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ceded, and she could take it. She was a Manarkan, built of whalebone and rubber. She’d bend under 3 + G’s, but she wouldn’t break.
The squatty insisted upon staying. Since when had a woman of Tominga hidden from danger or run away from a fight? She could hold the pilot’s head up through an acceleration that would put any damn-fragile Tellurian into a pack—or give her that funny axe and she’d show him how it ought to be swung!
The Chickladorian girl, too, stayed on. Her eyes—not pink, but a deep, cool green, brimming with unshed tears—flashed at the idea of leaving her man to die alone. She just knew they were all going to die. Even if she couldn’t be of any use, what of it? If her Thlaskin died she was going to die too, right then, and that was all there was to it. If they made her go ashore she’d cut her own throat that very minute, so there! So that was that.
So did the Vegian. Tail-tip twitching slightly, eyes sparkling, she swore by three deities to claw the eyes out of, and then to strangle with her tail, anyone who tried to put her off ship. She had come on this trip to see things, and did Cloud think she was going to miss seeing this? Hardly!
Cloud studied her briefly. The short, thick, incredibly soft fur—like the fur on the upper lip of a week-old kitten, except more so—did not conceal the determined set of her lovely jaw; the tight shorts and the even tighter purely conventional breast-band did not conceal the tigerish strength and agility of her lovely body. It’d be better, the Blaster decided, not to argue the point.
A dozen armed Dhilians came aboard, as pre-arranged, and the cruiser blasted off. Then, while Thlaskin was maneuvering inert, to familiarize himself with the controls and to calibrate the blast, Cloud brought out the four semi-portable projectors. They were frightful weapons, designed for tripod mounting; so heavy that it took a very strong man to lift one on Earth. They carried no batteries or accumulators, but were powered by tight beams from the mother ship.
Luda was right; such weapons were unknown in that solar system. They had no beam transmission of power. The Dhilians radiated glee as they studied the things. They had stronger stuff, but it was fixed-mount and far too heavy to move. This was wonderful—these were magnificent weapons indeed!
High above the stratosphere, inert, the pilot found his spot
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and flipped the cruiser around, cross-hairs centering the objective. Then, using his forward, braking jets as drivers, he blasted her straight downward.
She struck atmosphere almost with a thud. Only her fiercely-driven meteorite-screens and wall-shields held her together.
‘I hope to Klono you know what you’re doing, chum,’ the Chickladorian remarked conversationally as the fortress below leaped upward with appalling speed. ‘I’ve made hot landings before, but I always had a hair or two of leeway. If you don’t hit this to a couple of hundredths we’ll splash when we strike. We won’t bounce, brother.’
‘I can compute it to a thousandth and I can set the clicker to within five, but it’s you that’ll have to do the real hitting.’ Cloud grinned back at the iron-nerved pilot. ‘Sure a four-second call is enough to get your rhythm, allow for reaction time and lag, and blast right on the click?’
‘Absolutely. If I can’t get it in four I can’t get it at all. Got your stuff ready?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Cloud, staring into the radarscope, began to sway his shoulders. He knew the exact point in space and the exact instant of time at which the calculated deceleration must begin; by the aid of his millisecond timer—two full revolutions of the dial every second—he was about to sej_the clicker to announce that instant. His hand swayed back and forth—a finger snapped down—the sharp-toned instrument began to give out its crisp, precisely-spaced clicks.
‘Got it!’ Cloud snapped. ‘Right on the middle of the click! Get ready, Thlaskin—seconds! Four! Three! Two! One! Click!’
Exactly with the click the vessel’s brakes cut off and her terrific driving blasts smashed on. There was a cruelly wrenching shock as everything aboard acquired suddenly a more-than-three-times-Earthly weight.
Luda and her fellows merely twitched. The Tomingan, standing behind the pilot, supporting and steadying his wounded head in its rest, settled almost imperceptibly, but her firmly gentle hands did not yield a millimeter. The Manarkan sank deeply into the cushioned bench upon which she was lying; her quick, bright eyes remaining fixed upon her patient.
The Chickladorian girl, in her hammock, fainted quietly.
The Vegian, who had flashed one hand up to an overhead
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bar at the pilot’s first move, stood up—although she seemed to shorten a good two inches and her tight upper garments parted with a snap as back- and shoulder-muscles swelled to take the strain. That wouldn’t worry her. Cloud knew—what was she stewing about? Oh—her tail! It was too heavy for its own strength, great as it was, to lift! Her left hand came down, around, and back; with its help the tail came up. To the bar above her head, around it, tip pointing stiffly straight upward. Then, smiling gleefully at both Thlaskin and the Blaster, she shouted something that neither could understand, but which was the war-cry of her race: ‘Tails high, brothers!’