Horsip looked through the telescopes for a while, then straightened up decisively.
“Well, Moffis,” he said, “we’re in a mess. We’re like a man in an ice-block house when the spring thaw sets in. We don’t dare step down hard anywhere lest the whole thing fall apart. We’ve got to walk easy, and just hope the cold wind gets here before it’s too late. But there is one thing we ought to do.”
“What’s that?” said Moffis.
“The reserves. They aren’t committed anywhere. We’ve got to hold them in hand. And if we need them, we want them to be a club, not a length of rotten wood. We’ve got to train them so hard they don’t have any time to get flabby.”
“Truth,” said Moffis. “There are so many leaks to patch, one forgets other things.”
* * *
The occupation army got through twenty-four of the thirty days like a ship sinking slowly on a perfectly even keel.
On the twenty-fifth day, however, a procession of native military might passed by Horsip’s mountain headquarters in such strength that the ground was felt to tremble steadily for three hours and a half.
On the twenty-sixth day, a native delegation called on Horsip and politely but very firmly pointed out to him that this military occupation was disrupting business, and was causing all manner of trouble to everyone concerned; it should, therefore, end. Horsip was very agreeable.
On the twenty-seventh day, three hundred traveling forts blocked traffic on one of the main highways for more than two hours.
On the twenty-eighth day, a flying bomb came down a mile-and-a-half from headquarters, and left a hole big enough to hide a rocket fleet in. The ground shuddered and quaked with marching feet. That evening, the native delegation called again on Horsip and stated their position in short pithy sentences, and words of few syllables. Horsip pleaded that he was tied up in red tape. The natives suggested the best way to get rid of red tape was to cut it with a knife.
In the early morning of the twenty-ninth day, a flight of Centran airplanes, trying to scout the strength and direction of the native movements, was forced down by humanoid aircraft, that flew at and around them as if they were standing still. Horsip ordered the rest of his airplanes grounded and kept hidden till he gave the word. The observers of the planes forced down straggled in to report massive enemy concentrations flowing along the roads past the small forts and splat-gun nests as if they did not exist. The troops in the forts and nests were apparently afraid to fire for fear of being obliterated.
Horsip received the reports while Moffis carried out a last minute inspection of the fortifications at and around headquarters. Late that morning, a hot meal was given to all the troops.
At noon, a traveling fort of a size suitable to have trees planted on it and take its place among the foothills was seen approaching headquarters. It moved into range, came up close, and swung its huge gun to aim directly at the concrete doorway heading down into the mountain. Horsip ordered his gunners not to fire, his unexpressed reason being that he was afraid it would have no effect. He then bade Moffis a private farewell, walked out the concrete doorway in full regalia, glanced at the huge fort, laughed, and remarked to a white-faced man at a splat-gun that this would be something to tell his children. He carried out a calm, careful inspection of the fortifications, reprimanding one gunner mildly for flecks of dirt in a gun barrel. He glanced confidently up the mountainside where ranks of cannon-snouts centered on the huge fort. The gunners around him followed his gaze. Horsip returned the salute of the officer in charge and went back below.
On the plain before the mountain, hundreds of traveling forts were grinding across-country, clouds of dust rising up behind them.
“We should open fire,” said Moffis.
“No,” said Horsip. “Remember, we’re playing for time.”
The traveling forts swerved and began approaching. Behind them, the hills were alive with troops and guns.
Horsip gave orders that a huge orange cloth be unrolled on the far side of the mountain. A landing boat circling far above did a series of dips and rolls and rose rapidly out of sight.
The traveling forts came closer.
The monster fort just outside headquarters debouched one native who came in under guard and demanded Horsip’s surrender.
Horsip suggested they hold truce talks.
The native returned to his fort.
The troops in the distance began spreading out and crossing the plain.
The huge fort moved its gun a minute fraction of an inch, there was a blinding flash, a whirl of smoke. The tunnel entrance collapsed. There was a deafening clap and a duller boom. The ground shook. Tons of dirt slid down over the entrance. There was a fractional instant when the only sound was the last of the dirt sliding down. Then the earth leaped underfoot as the guns on the mountain opened up.
The traveling forts roared closer, their firing a bright winking of lights at first, the boom and roar coming later. The troops behind followed at a run.
Horsip ordered the planes up, to ignore the forts and attack the troops.
Humanoid planes swooped over a nearby hill.
* * *
Life settled into a continuous jar that rattled teeth, dulled thought, and undermined the sense of time. Things began to seem unreal and discontinuous.
Reality passed in streaks and fragments as Horsip ordered the movement of cannon by prepared roadways to replace those put out of action. There was a glaring interval where he seemed to live a whole lifetime while reports came in that enemy troops were swarming up the hillside to silence the guns by hand-to-hand fighting. When the attack slowed he sent a body of reserves to drive the attackers back down and away. But more came on.
The enemy planes began a series of dives, unloosing rockets that bled his troops like long knives stabbed into flesh. Moffis ordered the highest guns to fire on the planes and the rest to carry on as they were. Horsip spent a precious second damning himself for not making that arrangement prior to the battle, and then a yell from the enemy sounded as they surged through the doorway Horsip had thought blocked. He sent a few troops with splat-guns to fire down the corridors, then had to turn his attention to a rush up the reverse side of the hill that had captured a number of the lower gun positions there. He sent in a picked body of the Headquarters Guard he had ordered concealed on the side of the hill for that very purpose.
Evening had at last come, and with it a steady rumbling from the near distance, where the sky was lit with a blue and yellow blaze. Centran ships were pounding the gun positions on the opposite ridge, and their screens were flaring almost continuously with the impact of missiles slammed against them.
The fighting had died out around the mountain, and Horsip and Moffis went out with a small guard to inspect the positions personally. The air was pungent and damp. Their ears felt as if they had layers of cloth over them. There was a thin moon, and here and there on the ground pale glimmerings could be seen as wounded men moved. There was an almost continuous low moan in the air. A soldier with his back against a gun feebly raised a hand as Horsip came near. “The Great One bless you, sir,” he said. “We threw ’em back.”
Horsip went back to his command post after ordering several guns moved and some spike-bar barriers set up. He felt dazed. He lay down on a cot for a few hours sleep, and was wakened in the early morning to be told an important message had arrived.
On the thirtieth day, five million reinforcements landed.
* * *
Horsip spent the day explaining the situation to Drasmon Argit, the Supreme Integrator.
Argit paced the floor, ate meals, lay down on a couch, stretched, pounded out questions, gave orders to hurrying subordinates, and listened, questioned, listened, as Horsip in a desperate urgency to get the situation across, explained and expounded, using charts, maps, diagrams, and photographs. He tried to get across the sensation of struggling uphill through a river of glue, and was gratified to see that Argit seemed to be getting the idea faster than he—Horsip—had.
After the evening meal was eaten and cleared away in the privacy of a small office, Argit got up and said, “All right, I think I see your point. The natives are technologically more advanced than we are. By a freak, they don’t have space travel. We beat them for this reason and because we caught them off guard and they attacked each other. There is also the possibility that they are more intelligent than we.