“Aunt Vulgy!” she trumpeted. “Where in Quopp have you been? I’ve been worrying myself into a premature molt—”
The other Rhoon, a scant five hundred yards distant now, banked up suddenly, shot away, rising fast, its rotors whick-whicking loudly. Gerthudion swerved, causing her riders to grab for better holds, gave chase.
“Auntie! It’s me, Gerthudion! Wait . . . !” The agitated flyer was beating her rotors frantically as she fell behind the unladen Rhoon, a quarter of a mile ahead now and two hundred feet higher. Sunlight glinted on spinning rotors as the strange Rhoon tilted, swung in a tight curve, swept down at top speed on its pursuer.
“Duck!” Retief called. “It’s a zombie!”
Yellow light winked from a point behind the pouncing Rhoon’s head. The buzz of a power gun cut through the tumult of rushing air. There was a harsh rattle of sound from behind Retief; blue light glared and danced at close hand as a pencil-thin beam lanced out, picked out the attacking Rhoon’s left rotor, held on it as Gerthudion wheeled to the left, dropped like a stone, rocking violently in the air blast as the enemy flyer shot past.
“I nicked him,” Leon growled. “The range is too long for a handgun to do much damage.”
“He’s got the same problem.” Retief leaned forward. “Gertie, I’m sorry about Aunt Vulugulei, but you see how it is. Try to get above him; he can’t fire through his rotors.”
“I’ll try, Tief-tief,” Gerthudion wailed. “To think that my own auntie—”
“It’s not your aunt anymore, Gertie; just a sneaky little Voion getting a free ride.”
Gerthudion’s rotors labored. “I can’t gain on her—or it,” she bawled. “Not with this burden . . .”
“Tell her not to try dumping us off,” Leon barked. “My gun is the only thing that’ll nail that Jasper! Just get me in position!”
The Voion-controlled Rhoon cadaver was far above now, still climbing. Gerthudion, her rotors thumping hard, was losing ground.
“He’ll drop on us again in a minute,” Retief said. “Gertie, as he gets within range, you’re going to have to go into a vertical bank to give Leon a clear shot . . .”
“Vertical? I’ll fall like a stone from a frost-shattered peak!”
“That’s the way it’s got to be, I’m afraid. Lead him down—and don’t flare out until we’re at treetop level. If we give him time to think, it will dawn on him all he has to do is stay right over us and pour in the fire!”
“I’ll try . . .” The Rhoon was in position now, above and slightly off-side to the right. It stooped then, moving in for an easy kill. Gerthudion held her course; abruptly the enemy gun fired, a wide-angle beam at extreme range that flicked across Retief’s exposed face like a breath from a blast furnace.
“Now,” Retief called. Instantly, Gerthudion whipped up on her left side, her rotors screaming in the sudden release of load, and in the same moment Leon, his left arm clamped around Retief, lanced out with his narrow-beam weapon. A spot of actinic light darted across the gray belly-plates of the zombie, then found and held steady on the left rotor.
The fire from above was back on target now, playing over Gerthudion’s exposed side-plates with an odor like hot iron.
“Stay with that wide beam another ten seconds, and you’re a gone Bug,” Leon grated out. The Rhoon above dipped to one side now, feeling the sting of the blaster, but Leon followed, held the rotor in the beam while air shrieked up past him like a tornado.
“Right myself now I must, or perish!” Gerthudion honked. “Which is it to be, Tief-tief?”
“Pull out!” Retief grabbed for handholds as the great body shifted under him, surging upward with a crushing pressure. The whirling vanes bit into air, hammering; Leon broke off his fire—
“Hey, look!” The attacking Rhoon had veered off at the last possible instant, gun still firing; now lazily it rolled over, went into a violent tumble. Pieces flew; then the zombie was gone against the darkness below.
“I think you burned through his wiring,” Retief called. “Gertie, stay low now; it’s only another couple of miles.”
“Low shall I stay, like it or no,” the Rhoon called. “I thought my main armature, its windings I would melt!”
Retief felt the heat of the overworked body scorching his legs. “If we meet another one in the air we’ve had it.”
“If far it is, we’re lost,” she wheezed. “I’m all but spent . . .”
“There it is!” Leon pointed to a tiny cluster of buildings against the sweep of jungle ahead, ringed by tilled fields.
Gerthudion flew on, dropping even lower, until she labored just above the high crowns of trees whose leaves glittered in her backwash like rippling water. The forest ended abruptly, and she was swooping across the fields that surrounded the trading town, packed solid now with Voion soldiery.
“Look at ’em,” Leon called. “Jammed in so tight they can’t even maneuver! If those Bugs knew anything about siege tactics, they’d have wiped us out the first night!”
“Better try some evasive action,” Retief called. “They may have some big stuff down there.”
Gerthudion groaned, complied sluggishly.
“If they have, they’re holding it back,” Leon yelled behind him. “All they hit us with so far is a lot of talk, plenty of rocks and arrows, and a few handguns.”
Blasters winked below now, searching after the Rhoon as she threw her massive weight from one side to another, flying a twisting course toward the squatty palisade ahead and the cluster of low buildings behind it. Leon took careful aim, poured a long burst from his power gun into a Voion gun crew. There was a flicker, then a violent burst of pale yellow light that puffed outward in a dingy smoke cloud, faded quickly as fragments whistled past Gerthudion’s head and clattered against her rotors. Then the giant flyer staggered over the wall in a billow of dust, slammed the ground at the center of the wide central plaza of the town. Men appeared, running toward the Rhoon.
“Hold your fire!” Big Leon bellowed. “It’s me—and Retief! This Rhoon’s a tame one! The first bushwhacker lays a hand on her’s got me to answer to!”
The embattled Terrans were all around now, gaping as Retief and Leon slid down from their places.
“Jumping jinkberries, Leon—how’d you catch that critter?”
“You sure it don’t bite?”
” . . . thought you was one of them that been buzzing us all day—”
“Quiet, the lot of you!” Leon held up his hands. “The bug rebels are out of the picture. We’re on our own.” He motioned to Retief. “I picked up a recruit, name’s Retief.”
“Well, you’re just in time for the massacre, Mister,” someone greeted.
“Hey, Leon—what about this Rhoon of yours? Maybe it could airlift us out of here—”
“I’ll carry no burden . . . this day,” the Rhoon gasped out. Her rotors sagged as she squatted, her massive keel against the ground. “Grave damage . . . to my windings . . . I fear I’ve done . . . such burdens to bear up . . . the while I gamboled like a Phip . . .”
“You did OK, Gertie,” Leon said. “Just take it easy, girl.” He faced the crowd of some forty unshaven, unwashed frontiersmen. “What’s been going on while I was gone?”
“They hit us again just after First Eclipse,” a wide, swarthy man with a low-slung pistol belt said. “Same old business: Come at us in a straight frontal assault, whopping it up and shooting arrows; a couple Rhoon making passes, dropping leaflets and stones; our guns—we still got three working—kept ’em at a safe altitude. We kept our heads down and peppered ’em and they pulled back before they hit the stockade. They been quiet since noon—but they’re up to something. Been working since before dawn on something.”
Leon grunted. “After a while those Bugs are going to figure out all they have to do is hit us from four sides at once, get a couple magnesium fires going against the walls, and we’ve had it.”
“Their tactics are likely to improve suddenly,” Retief said. “There’s a Groaci military adviser in the area. I imagine he’ll take the troops in hand before many hours pass. In the meantime, we’d better start making some plans—”
“Some wills, you mean,” someone corrected. “They’ll flatten us like a tidal wave once they get rolling.”
“Still, we don’t want to make it too easy for them. Leon, what have you got in the way of armaments, other than those three guns I heard mentioned?”
“My iron makes four; it’s got about half a charge left. There’s a couple dozen heavy-duty hunting bows; some of the boys are pretty good with ’em—and I had Jerry trying to tinker up a rig to drop a few thousand volts to the perimeter wall—”