Branithar divined his meaning. Laughter barked in the thick blue throat. “The voice is borne from afar, by waves like those of light but longer,” he said.
“Talk sense!” I demanded.
“Well, we are being hailed by an observer at Ganturath fortress.”
Sir Roger nodded curtly when I translated. “Voices out of thin air are little compared to what we’ve already seen,” he said. “What does the fellow want?”
I could catch only a few words of the challenge, but got the drift of it. Who were we? This was not the regular landing place for scout craft. Why did we enter a forbidden area? “Calm them,” I instructed Branithar, “and remember I will understand if you betray
He shrugged, as if amused, though his own brow was also filmed with sweat. “Scoutship 587-Zin returning,” he said. “Urgent message. Will halt above the base.”
The voice gave assent, but warned that if we came lower than a stanthax (about half a mile), we would be destroyed. We were to hover until the crews of patrol aircraft could board us.
By now, Ganturath was visible: a compact mass of domes and half-cylinders, masonry over steel skeletons as we later found out. It made a circle about a thousand feet in diameter. Half a mile or so northward lay a smaller set of buildings. Through a magnifying view screen, we saw that out of the latter jutted the muzzles of huge fire-bombards.
Even as we came to a halt, a pale shimmering sprang up around both parts of the fortress. Branithar pointed. “The defensive screens. Your own shots would spatter harmlessly off. It would be a lucky hit that melted one of those gun muzzles, where they thrust out beyond the shield. But you are an easy target.”
Several egg-shaped metallic craft, like ridges against the huge bulk of our Crusader, approached. We saw others lift from the ground, the main part of the fortress. Sir Roger’s fair head nodded. “’Tis as I thought,” he said. “Those screens stop a fire-beam, mayhap, but not a material object, since the boats pass through.”
“True,” said Branithar by way of me. “You might manage to drop an explosive missile or two, but the outlying section, where the guns are, would destroy you.”
“Aha.” Sir Roger studied the Wersgor with eyes gone pale. “So you possess explosive shells, eh? Doubtless aboard this very craft. And you never told me. We’ll see about that later,” He jerked a thumb at Red John and Sir Owain. “Well, you two have seen how the ground lies. Co back to the men, now, and be ready to emerge fighting when we land.”
They departed, nervously eyeing the screens, where the aircraft were very near us. Sir Roger put his own hands on the wheels that controlled the bombards. We had learned, with some experimentation, that those great weapons almost aimed and fired themselves. As the patrol boats closed in, Sir Roger cut loose.
Blinding hell-beams stabbed forth. They wrapped the aircraft in flame. I saw the nearest one cut in two by that fiery sword. Another tumbled red-hot, a third exploded. Thunder boomed. Then all I saw was falling metal scrap.
Sir Roger tested Branithar’s claims, but they were true: his beams splashed off that pale, translucent screen. He grunted. “I looked for that. Best we get down now before they send up a real warship to deal with us, or open fire from the outlying emplacement.” While he spoke, he sent us hurtling groundward. A flame touched our hull, but then we were too low. I saw Ganturath’s buildings rush up to meet me and braced myself for death.
A ripping and crunching went through our ship. This very turret burst open as it brushed a low lookout tower. But the battlements of that were snapped off. Two thousand feet long, incalculably heavy, the Crusader squashed half Ganturath beneath itself.
Sir Roger was on his feet even before the engines went dead. “Haro!” he bellowed. “God send the right!” And off he went, across the canted, buckled deck. He snatched his helmet from the terrified esquire and put it on as he strode. The boy followed, teeth chattering but nonetheless in charge of the de Tourneville shield.