by Bob Shaw
As Sondeweere had predicted, there was a tall fence around the rim—barely visible as a hazy grey ellipse—and in it was a darkish knot suggestive of an entrance. His telescope was virtually useless because of the jouncing of the transporter, but its slewing images told him that at least two other mechanised vehicles had been parked across the gateway. Farlanders appeared as moving specks of blackness milling in the general vicinity.
"We must avoid the gate and break through the fence," he said to Sondeweere, putting the telescope away. "Can you make the wagon go faster?"
"Yes, but there is the risk of breaking an axle on this kind of ground."
"Use your best judgment—but remember that if we don't go through the fence we don't go anywhere."
Toller turned to the others and knew at once that they had experienced a loss of confidence, something he had seen happen many times in the irreducible few minutes before a battle. Bartan's face was almost luminous in its pallor, and even Berise and Wraker—proficient in the abstract art of long-range killing—had a look of glum uncertainty about them. Only Zavotle, busy checking his musket, seemed to be unperturbed.
"Don't try to plan anything ahead," Toller told them. "Believe me, you can trust your sword arm to do all the thinking that will be necessary. Now, get those covers out of the way." Within seconds the coarse material screening the truck bed from the outside world had been pulled down and cast off behind the dangerously swaying vehicle. Cold rain swirled in around the lightly clad figures.
"There's something else to bear in mind." Toller glanced at the teeming heavens and gave an exaggerated grimace of distaste. "Anything is better than living in this accursed place and slowly turning into a fish."
The laughter his remark drew was louder than it deserved, but Toller had long since learned that subtlety was out of place in battlefield humour, and he was satisfied that vital psychological bridges between him and the crew were being maintained. He drew his sword and positioned himself behind Sondeweere, looking forward over the top of the driving cabin.
The transporter was starting up the incline towards the rim of the crater, and now he could see that the fence was made of spear-like metal uprights railed to stout posts. He considered urging Sondeweere to strive for more speed and momentum, then remembered that her understanding of the mechanics of the operation far surpassed his own. The smokestack ahead of him spouted orange sparks as the heavy vehicle clanked its way to the top of the slope. Far to his left Toller saw Farlanders running, and beyond them he glimpsed a complex greyish lesion in the landscape which indicated road works barely a mile away.
"Hold on!" he shouted and gripped the cabin roof as the transporter sledged into the fence.
The entire section was torn from its supports and fell inwards, the sound of the impact merging into an appalling mechanical clamour from the engine and a hissing explosion. Hot vapours fanned out around the boiler, momentarily whiting out the entire scene, then the vehicle was rolling down into a circular depression at the centre of which was the symbonite ship. It was sitting on an area of masonry ringed by what was meant to be a moat or a wide drainage ditch.
Toller had tried to visualise the ship's appearance in advance, but he was unprepared for the sight of a nearly featureless metal sphere supported by three flaring legs which ended in circular pads. The sphere was a good ten yards in diameter and had a ring of what seemed to be portholes on the upper half, but there was no sign of an entrance.
In the instant of eyeing the strange ship which embodied his future Toller became aware of brown-clad Farlanders, who had chanced to be near the breach in the fence, running towards the transporter from the right. Although the vehicle was now on a downward slope it was rapidly losing speed, amid a continued metallic thrashing, and the Farlanders were easily intersecting its course. They looked like circus grotesques as they bounded along on stocky legs, cowls thrown back to reveal hairless skulls. Toller's stomach gave an icy spasm as he saw they were not carrying weapons.
"Stay back!" he cried involuntarily as the two reached the side of the transporter, but one of them sprang and gripped its siding while the other leaped on to the running board of the cabin, reaching for Sondeweere with a powerful hand. Toller split his unprotected skull with a downward sword-stroke which went deep into the head, and he fell away without a sound, radially spurting blood.
The other, trying to raise himself over the siding, took Wraker's sword through the throat. He sank down again, but his fingers remained in view, obstinately clinging to the wooden edge. Wraker and Berise both hacked at his fingers, severing most of them, before he dropped to the ground. He lay where he fell, but to Toller's amazement the one with the cloven skull was on his feet. The alien took several steps in the grassy wake of the transporter, arms outspread, before sinking to his knees and pitching forward.
So hard to kill, Toller thought. These little people could bring down giants…
The transporter clanked and shuddered to a halt, wreathed in smoke and mist. Toller glanced towards the gateway on the crater's rim and saw that other Farlanders were coming through it and beginning to head down the long slope in groups of two or three. Occasional dull flashes told him they were armed. He took a musket, straddled his way over the side of the transporter, and jumped down to the ground as part of a general abandonment of the vehicle.
Sondeweere flitted ahead of the others, unencumbered by weapons, and sped across a simple wooden bridge. Toller and the others followed her, feeling the boards quiver beneath their feet. As Sondeweere neared the ship a rectangular section opened in its side, gliding outwards on elbowed hinges. Toller slid to a halt, raising his musket.
"Don't shoot!" Sondeweere called out to him. "I opened the door. A ladder will now descend, or … or…" An uncharacteristic note of indecision had crept into her voice.
Toller, following the upwards direction of her gaze, noticed empty metal brackets below the doorway, and for the moment his soldier's mind was abreast of hers in comprehending that the ship was normally entered by means of a fixed ladder. Someone had taken the simple and pragmatic precaution of removing it, and as a result entry was denied to genius and fool alike. The lower edge of the doorway was at least twelve feet above ground level, on the out-curving lower half of the sphere, and to an individual of typical Farlander stature its elevation would have created a formidable barrier indeed. But for humans…
"Bring the wagon across the bridge," Zavotle shouted. "We can climb on it."
"It cannot be moved," Sondeweere replied. "And the bridge is too light, anyway."
"We can reach the door," Toller said, laying his weapons on the paving. "Sondeweere, it is logical that you should go first. You will stand on my shoulders. Come!"
He looked briefly towards the advancing Farlanders, then made a gesture which took in Zavotle, Wraker and Berise. "Go forward and defend the bridge! Use the muskets as much as possible. Take mine as well and persuade the wretched pygmies that they would be better to keep their distance. And see if the timbers of the bridge can be torn up."
They ran to the bridge, unhitching their nets of pressure spheres, inside which minute measures of pikon and halvell had already been combined. Toller positioned himself beneath the ship's doorway and extended his hands to Sondeweere, who came to him immediately. He put his hands around her waist and lifted her to his shoulders, a process which she aided with a kind of scrambling movement of her feet. She straightened up, standing on him, and became steady as she got her hands on to the sill of the doorway.
Concurrently, the first groups of Farlanders racing down the slope were coming within musket range and the defenders were opening fire. The first volley of shots appeared to bring down only one of the attackers, but the musket reports—magnified by the natural amphitheatre—threw them into disarray. They slid and skidded into each other in their efforts to check the downward rush.
Toller turned away from the scene to get his hands under Sondeweere's feet and as he was straightening his arms to
propel her into the ship's doorway he was acutely aware of a nerve-thrumming pause before the muskets could be fired again. The delay, caused by the need to unscrew each expended sphere and replace it, was the main reason he had scant regard for firearms.
By the time Sondeweere was safely into the ship it was beginning to dawn on the Farlanders that, no matter how terrifying the psychological impact of the unfamiliar weapons, the actual casualties inflicted by them had been light. They were surging forward again, short swords in hand. A fresh volley of shots, this time at shorter range, knocked over at least three more of the aliens, but failed to check their general advance.
"Find a rope," Toller shouted up to Sondeweere.
"Rope? The ship has no need of ropes."
"Then find something!" Toller turned towards the bridge in time to see a knot of Farlanders press across it.
liven Zavotle, fighting his own war against a private enemy, ran to meet them with a musket in his left hand and sword in his right. He fired the musket at point blank range through a Farlander's out-thrust belly and almost at once was lost in a flailing confusion of arms and swords. Toller sobbed aloud as he saw that his oldest friend, the patient eroder of problems, was being hacked to death.
Within seconds there came a fresh round of musket fire and this time, on the narrow front of the bridge, the effect on the Farlanders was considerable. They fell back, leaving their dead and convulsing wounded, but retreated no farther than the opposite bank, where one who seemed to be a commander began to harangue them in the staccato alien tongue. Facing them across the bloodied bridge, the three remaining Overlanders were feverishly recharging their guns.
Toller ran towards his companions, at the same time glancing back at the ship. Sondeweere was visible in the dark rectangle of the doorway, helplessly watching the fighting.
I'll be with you soon, he vowed inwardly, repulsing a new enemy, an enemy of the mind which could wreak even greater havoc than an external foe by implanting the idea that defeat was inevitable. Nearing the bridge from the side, he confirmed his first impression that it was simply an arrangement of thick timbers resting on a masonry shelf on each side of the moat.
"Berise," he shouted, "take the muskets and try to use all of them. Bartan and Dakan, help me with these boards!"
He knelt beside the bridge, got his hands under the nearest timber and used all the power of his back and thighs to stand up with it. Bartan and Wraker lent a hand, and together they turned the massive waterlogged timber and hurled it down into the moat. There was a shout from the Farlanders and a fresh surge on to the remaining five boards. Berise fired four muskets in rapid succession, during which time Toller and his helpers, working with panic-boosted strength, lifted and disposed of four more timbers, sending bodies—living and dead—down into the brown water. Toller did not look at the curious white-and-crimson thing which had been Zavotle.
He picked up his sword as desperate Farlanders streamed on to the last timber. Wraker, already facing them, caught the leading alien with a lateral blow to the neck which cart-wheeled him into the moat. Berise shot the next Farlander in the throat, propelling him back against the one behind. They both swayed and began to fall sideways, but in the instant of parting company with the bridge the uninjured one hurled his sword. The short heavy weapon flew with freakish accuracy and buried itself almost to the hilt in Wraker's stomach. He emitted a terrible bubbling belch, but stood his ground.
Toller pounced past him, dropping to his knees, and grasped the last timber. It was slimed with algae and the extra weight of the Farlanders moving on to it defeated even his vein-corded muscles. He was vaguely aware of another musket shot and of Bartan taking up a protective stance over him. He pushed the timber to one side, this time aided by its slippery surface, and got it almost off the shelf. Two Farlanders reached him as he was making the final effort which sent the timber tilting down and away, and he heard the impact of blows just above him as Bartan engaged the aliens. The tip of a sword sliced through Toller's right ear as he threw himself back and scrambled to his feet.
One of the Farlanders had disappeared with the timber, but the other had leapt on to the paving and his arms were circling as he strove to regain his balance. Wraker, still on his feet in spite of being transfixed, disposed of him by driving the point of his sword into the alien's face, sending him backwards over the edge.
Bartan, looking pale and introspective, was standing close by, clutching a wound in his left shoulder. Blood was flowing copiously through his fingers. Berise was on her knees, her diminutive figure bowed over the muskets, fingers flying as she changed pressure spheres.
Toller looked beyond the milling group of Farlanders on the far side of the moat and saw a much greater force of them pouring through the gateway on the crater's rim. The action at the bridge had bought the defenders some time, but a miserly amount, a period which could conveniently be measured in seconds—and they were going to be at their most vulnerable while trying to enter the ship.
Toller turned his attention to Wraker, wondering if the soft-spoken young pilot understood that he was dying, that his history book would never be written. Bloodstains were spreading swiftly in his rain-soaked clothing, from around the protruding handle of the Farlander sword, and he was becoming unsteady on his feet, but he managed to speak clearly.
"Toller, why are you wasting valuable time?" he said. "Go while the going is good. I'm sorry I am unable to join you—but I have some unfinished business with our unprepossessing little friends."
He turned at once and sank to his knees at the edge of the moat, placing his sword in readiness on the masonry beside him. Berise stood up, carried three loaded and charged muskets to Wraker and laid them with his sword. He looked around as if to say something to her, his eyes seeking hers, but she had already retrieved the fourth musket and had run to Bartan. She pushed Bartan, rousing him from his bemused state, and they both ran towards the waiting ship.
Toller hesitated. He saw two Farlanders leap out from the other side of the moat, their short legs pedalling the air as they strove for maximum distance. Even if the aliens were inept swimmers they would soon be able to make use of the strewn timbers of the bridge to cross the water barrier—all the more reason to abandon Wraker, who was already doomed, and get on board the spacecraft. Still unable to shake off the feeling that he was betraying a comrade, Toller turned and ran to where Berise and Bartan were waiting for him below the huge, enigmatic sphere.
"There aren't any ropes," Sondeweere cried from the darkness of the doorway overhead. "What can you do?"
"As before," Toller replied. "I can lift Berise and Bartan."
"But what about you? How will you get in?"
Battle fever inflamed Toller's mind as he heard Wraker fire a musket. "Lower a sword belt—I'll be able to reach." He sheathed his sword and extended his hands to Berise. "Come!"
She shook her head. "Bartan is hurt and he needs help even to reach your shoulders. He must go first."
"Very well," Toller said, reaching for Bartan, who was swaying drunkenly. Bartan made as if to evade him, but there came the sound of another musket shot and Toller's forbearance deserted him. Growling with rage and frustration, he encircled Bartan's thighs with his arms and hoisted him upwards. Berise joined in, steadying Bartan and getting a shoulder beneath one of his feet, and from above Sondeweere lent her own strength to pull the protesting man over the rim of the doorway.
The entire operation had been completed in a few seconds, but in that sliver of time Toller had heard two more musket shots. He glanced towards the moat and saw that Wraker had his sword in hand and was chopping downwards at Farlanders who must have been threatening him from the angled timbers of the bridge. Toller's heartbeat became a series of dull internal explosions as he realised that his precious store of hard-won seconds was spilling away at a prodigious rate.
Berise had slung her musket on her back and was reaching out to him. He caught her by the waist and raised her to his shoulders in
one movement. Even then she was not tall enough to reach the sill of the doorway, and she swayed precariously for a moment before Sondeweere and Bartan reached down, found her hands and drew her up into the ship.
During that moment Wraker was snatched out of sight, down to join Zavotle in the pit of death, and the white-gleaming heads of four Farlanders appeared above the moat's nearer edge. They threw weapons in front of them and began to squirm up on to the pavement. The slope beyond them was now massed with Farlander reinforcements, swarming like a field of brown insects.
Toller looked up into the mysterious interior of the ship, which now seemed as remote as the stars to which it was to carry him, and after a subjective lifetime saw Bartan's leather belt being reached to him. It had been re-buckled to form a loop, and the three inside the doorway each had a hand on it.
Two Farlanders, more agile than their fellows, were on their feet and running, swords at the ready.
Toller estimated the time left to him and knew he could expect only one chance to reach safety. Sondeweere's voice rang in his head: Hurry, Toller, hurry! He tensed himself—aware of the snorting approach of the Farlanders, hearing the slap of their feet—then sprang upwards and caught the belt with his right hand. The sudden manifestation of his weight on the belt was too much for those above, dragging them downwards and away from whatever purchase they had on the inside of the hull. Berise, lightest of the three, was pulled halfway through the opening and would have fallen had she not released the belt and grabbed the rim of the doorway.
Toller let go in the same instant.
He had his sword half-drawn when he hit the ground between the two Farlanders, but there was little he could do to compensate for the terrible disadvantage of his position. He turned the withdrawal of the weapon from its sheath into a cross-stroke which deflected a thrust from the alien in front, and at the same time leaped sideways to evade danger from behind—but he was slowed by his recovery from the drop.