“Yes, sir.”
“All right, get started.”
“Yes, sir.”
Towers went into the Guard Detail office. “There’s a wire mesh prisoners’ cage on the barracks across the way. It’s been broken out of. Have it repaired with more and heavier fastening rings to bind the sections of wire together, and put in some arrangement so prisoners can be watched unseen. See that the prisoners are watched unseen. Put a patrol outside, just in case. Also, there’s a humanoid upstairs in this building, with a gorilla on guard. The humanoid is either dead or playing possum. If he’s dead, blow his head off just to be on the safe side, and deliver the body to the medic for examination. If he’s alive, stick him back in the cage. And see that he’s watched.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then check up on exactly how the prisoners got out, and let me know.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it as soon as possible.”
“Good.”
Towers went back to his room, washed, dressed, went out to eat breakfast, then walked back to his office. He felt like a man after a two-week binge, but he had accomplished this overnight, and without benefit of any pleasure in the process.
As he entered the office, Logan, one arm in a sling, was just putting down his telephone.
“Sir,” said Logan. “The Centran ammunition supply has been cut.”
Towers shut the door, and nearly fell over a tied stack of Centran reports that lay tipped over on the floor. Logan sprang up, and heaved the stack back against the wall. The whole long row of stacks teetered precariously, and two at the end tipped out and fell over with a heavy crash.
Logan spat out an unprintable oath. “That thing,” he added, “was tipped over when I came in, and I no sooner sat down then it fell over again. I’ll—”
Towers said, “Wait a minute. The trouble is, when they brought these reports in, they just set them here. They should have leaned them against the wall. Or at least set them close enough to it so—” he heaved a stack upright, and leaned it back. He heaved the other stack upright, and wrestled it into place. Everything now seemed to be in order, save that the whole row was slumping a little toward the door. Towers scowled, then shrugged. “Good enough. Now, what was that about the Centran ammunition supply?”
“A bunch of humanoids got into one of their biggest munitions works, and raised so much hell that the garrison got excited and forgot where they were. One thing led to another, and the place blew up.”
Towers pulled out his chair and sat down.
“What did that take out?”
“Thirty per cent of the Centran ammunition capacity. They’ll feel the pinch in three or four days, which is about all the local reserves are good for.”
Towers’ phone rang, and he picked it up.
“Sir,” said a voice, “you wanted me to let you know when the blockhouse was finished. It’s finished now, and ready to take the prisoners.”
“Good. Thank you.” Towers hung up and glanced at Logan. “The blockhouse is ready. Now all we need are some prisoners to put in it.”
Logan said exasperatedly, “Well, at least, the Centrans ought to be able to give us some more of them.”
“Call up and see. We may still have one alive, anyway.” Towers called up the Guard Detail.
“Yes, sir,” said a voice on the other end. “That one upstairs with the gorilla watching was alive, all right. When we went to pick it up, it almost put Private Higgins through the wall. That big gorilla on guard went to work before we could stop him, bashed the humanoid through the fiberboard, and wrapped him around an overhead beam. Doc’s working him over now. About how they got out of the barracks, sir—”
“Wait a minute. Doc’s working who over now?”
“Sir? Oh, Higgins.”
“What about the humanoid?”
“Dead. As you suggested, sir, we blew his head off for good measure. I guess that takes care of the four of them.”
Towers looked at the phone. “The four of them?”
“Yes, sir. The one dead in your room, the one dead in Major Logan’s room, the one we killed, and the one Doc was dissecting when we got Higgins over there.”
“Wait a minute. Do you mean to say there were four prisoners?”
“Yes, sir. I have the receiving sheet right on my desk here. There were four male humanoid prisoners, all captured yesterday, delivered at 10:58 last night, signed for by Cartwright, also by Meigs, private in charge of temporary detention barracks.”
Towers glanced at Logan, but Logan was busy on the phone. Towers thought a moment, then said, “Listen, I think you’ve counted one of the dead humanoids twice. One was killed in Logan’s room, one in my room, and one upstairs. Cartwright had orders to take the one in Logan’s room and the one in my room over to the medic for examination. I think you saw the humanoids in those rooms, then had the fight with the one upstairs. Meantime, Cartwright brought the one in Logan’s room over to the medic. Then you took Higgins over there, saw the one Cartwright had brought over, and counted it again.”
“Then one’s still loose. I’ll get right at it, sir.”
“How did they get out of the detentions barracks?”
“Through a join in the wire, through the first-floor ceiling, up through the second-floor ceiling, and out the roof.”
“O.K. Find out about that other humanoid.”
“Yes, sir.”
Towers hung up. Logan said, “Sir, the Centrans say they can supply us with all the humanoids we want. But it will take a half-hour or so before they can get us one. What they do is to let him climb up to the top of the wall, then knock them over the head with a big hammer, grab them with hooks, and strap them up.”
Some kind of oddly-shaped bug droned past Towers’ head, distracting him for a moment, then settled on the opposite wall.
“Well,” said Towers, bringing his mind back to business, “the blockhouse is finished, and we’ll have some prisoners in a little while. Better get the arrangements for testing set up.”
“I’ve taken care of it, sir. They were all set up even before the blockhouse was ready.”
“Good work,” said Towers approvingly.
The phone buzzed, and he picked it up. “Hello?”
“Sir, the first of the scouts is back from observing that jungle down below. We thought you’d want to hear his story.”
“Fine. Send him in.” Towers turned to Logan. “They’re sending in one of the scouts. And just incidentally, Logan, how many of those humanoids did you think we had around this morning?”
“Well,” said Logan. “There was a dead one halfway through your window when I got back from getting patched up. There was the one in my room. And there was that terrific fight going on upstairs after those two got finished. That makes three.”
“The guard detail has record of four being delivered to us last night.”
“Four.” Logan glanced around, the hair at the back of his neck seeming to bristle.
There was a respectful knock on the door, and a tired-looking Special Effects lieutenant of about average height came in, and saluted. “Sir, second Lieutenant James Andres, in charge of Scout Unit One—two Wings and six Mark II Supercondas.”
“You were down in the forest.”
“Yes, sir. It’s actually more of a jungle down there—the growth is luxuriant. Sir, we were supposed to observe particularly the humanoids. When we got down, it was approaching dusk, and as it got light this morning we had to pull the ‘condas back into a swamp. The jungle growth is so thick that from the Wings it’s next to impossible to see what’s going on, while from the supercondas we had a splendid view, but were attacked on sight by any humanoid that happened along. What I mean, sir, is that I can give a fairly clear report of what we saw, but during daylight we couldn’t get into the place where the humanoids were really thick, without creating such an uproar that it defeated our purpose.”
Towers nodded. “Go ahead. I’d like to hear your impressions.”
“Sir, the place is a hellhole. There are humanoids all over, crouching on limbs, behind tree trunks, and hiding in the brush. We saw them eat just about everything in sight, but they seem to prefer—from our short observation—a kind of berry on a thorny vine that grows up high into the trees.”
“They spend most of their time eating?”
“No, sir. That just seems to be their objective. They actually spend most of their time creeping up on each other, and bashing each other’s brains in. When they’re not attacking, they’re looking over their shoulder for fear somebody’s going to attack them.”
“That’s in the daytime?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How is it at night?”