Iron mw-1

by Poul Anderson

  “We can’t let them go on… with the professor,” Laurinda shrilled. “We can’t, no matter what.”

  “He’s been like a second father to you, hasn’t he?” Dorcas asked almost absently. Unspoken: But your young man is down on Prima, and the enemy will let him die there.

  “No argument,” Saxtorph said. “We won’t. We’ve got a few choices, though. Kzinti aren’t sadistic. Merciless, but not sadistic the way too many humans are. They don’t torture for fun, or even spite. They won’t if we surrender. Or if we die. No point in it then.”

  Dorcas grinned in a rather horrible fashion. “The chances are we’ll die if we do surrender,” she responded. “Not immediately, I suppose. Not till they need our corpses, or till they see no reason to keep us alive. Again, quite impersonal.”

  “I don’t feel impersonal,” Saxtorph grunted.

  Laurinda lifted her hands—The fingers were crooked like talons. “We made other preparations against them. Let’s do what we planned.”

  Dorcas nodded. “Aye.”

  “That makes it unanimous,” Saxtorph said. “Go for broke. Now, look at the sun. Within three hours, nightfall. The kzinti could land in the dark, but if I were their captain I’d wait for morning. He won’t be in such a hurry he’ll care to take the extra risk. Meanwhile we sit cooped for 20-odd hours losing our nerve. Let’s not. Let’s begin right away.”

  Willingness blazed from the women.

  Saxtorph hauled his bulk from the chair. “Okay, we are on a war footing and I am in command,” he said. “First Dorcas and I suit up.”

  “Are you sure I can’t join you?” Laurinda well nigh beseeched. Saxtorph shook his head. “Sorry. You aren’t trained for that kind of thing. And the gravity weighs you down still worse than it does Dorcas, even if she is a Better. Besides, we want you to free us from having to think about communications. You stay inboard and handle the hardest part.” He chucked her under the chin. “If we fail, which we well may, you’ll get your chance to die like a soldier.” He stooped, kissed her hand, and went out.

  Returning equipped, he said into the transmitter: “Shep here. Spaceboat Shep calling kzin vessel. Hello, Kam. Don’t blame yourself. They’ve got us. We’ll leave this message replaying in case you’re on the far side, and so you can zero in on us. Because you will have to. Listen, Kam. Tell that gonococcus of a captain that we can’t lift. We came down on talus that slid beneath us and damaged a landing jack. We’d hit the side of the canyon where we are—it’s narrow—if we tried to take off before the hydraulics have been repaired; and Dorcas and I can’t finish that job for another several Earth-days, the two of us with what tools we’ve got aboard. The ground immediately downslope of us is safe. Or, if your captain is worried about his fat ass, he can wait till we’re ready to come meet him. Please inform us. Give Art our love; and take it yourself, Kam.”

  The kzin skipper would want a direct machine translation of those words. They were calculated not to lash him into fury—he couldn’t be such a fool but to pique his honor. Moreover, the top brass back on Secunda must be almighty impatient. Kzinti weren’t much good at biding their time. Before they closed their faceplates at the airlock, Saxtorph kissed his wife on the lips.

  Shadows welled in the coulee and its ravines as the sun sank toward rim rock. Interplay of light and dark was shifty behind the boat, where rubble now decked the floor. The humans had arranged that by radio detonation of two of the blasting sticks Dorcas smuggled along. It looked like more debris than it was, made the story of the accident plausible, and guaranteed that the kzinti would land in the short stretch between Shep and glacier. Man and woman regarded each other. Their spacesuits were behung with armament. She had the rifle and snub-nosed automatic, he the machine pistol; both carried potentially lethal prospector’s gear. Wind skirled. The heights glowed under a sky deepening from royal purple to black, where early stars quivered forth.

  “Well,” he said inanely into his throat mike, “we know our stations. Good hunting, kid.”

  “And to you, hotpants,” she answered. “See you on the far side of the monobloc.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you right back.” She whirled and hastened off. Under the conditions expected, drive units would have been a bad mistake, and she was hampered by a weight she was never bred to. Nonetheless she moved with a hint of her wonted gracefulness. Both their suits were first-chop, never mind what the cost had added to the mortgage under which Saxtorph Ventures labored. Full air and water recycle, telescopic option, power joints even in the gloves, selfseal throughout… She rated no less, he believed, and she’d tossed the same remark at him. Thus they had a broad range of capabilities. He climbed to his chosen niche, on the side of the canyon opposite hers, and settled in. It was up a boulderfields gulch, plenty of cover, with a clear view downward. The ice cliff glimmered. He hoped that what was going to happen wouldn’t cause damage yonder. That would be a scientific atrocity.

  But those beings had had their day. This was humankind’s, unless it turned out to be kzinkind’s. Or somebody else’s? Who knew how many creatures of what sorts were prowling around the galaxy? Saxtorph hunkered into a different position. He missed his pipe. His heart slugged harder than it ought and he could smell himself in spite of the purifier. Better do a bit of meditation. Nervousness would worsen his chances.

  His watch told him an hour had passed when the kzin boat arrived. The boat! Good. They might have kept her safe aloft and dispatched a squad on drive. But that would have been slow and tricky; as they descended, the members could have been picked off, assuming the humans had firearms—which a kzin would assume; they’d have had no backup. The sun had trudged farther down, but Shep’s nose still sheened above the blue dusk in the canyon, and the oncoming craft flared metallic red. He knew her type from his war years. Kam, stout kanaka, had passed on more information than the kzinti probably realized. A boat belonging to a Prowling Hunter normally carried six—captain, pilot, engineer, computerman, two fire-control officers; they shared various other duties, and could swap the main ones in an emergency. They weren’t trained for groundside combat, but of course any kzin was pretty fair at that. Kam had mentioned two marines who did have the training. Then there were the humans. No wonder the complement did not include a telepath. He’d have been considered superfluous anyway, worth much more at the base. This mission was simply to collar three fugitives.

  Sonic thunders rolled, gave way to whirring, and the lean shape neared. It put down with a care that Saxtorph admired, came to rest, instantly swiveled a gun at the human boat 50 meters up the canyon. Saxtorph’s pulse leaped. The enemy had landed exactly where he hoped. Not that he’d counted on that, or on anything else. His earphones received bland translator English; he could imagine the snarl behind. “Are you prepared to yield?”

  How steady Laurinda’s response was. “We yield on condition that our comrades are alive, safe. Bring them to us.” Quite a girl, Saxtorph thought. The kzinti wouldn’t wonder about her; their females not being sapient, any active intelligence was, in their minds, male.

  “Do you dare this insolence? Your landing gear does not seem damaged as you claimed. Lift, and we fire.”

  “We have no intention of lifting, supposing we could. Bring us our comrades, or come pry us out.”

  Saxtorph tautened. No telling how the kzin commander would react. Except that he’d not willingly blast Shep on the ground. Concussion, in this thick atmosphere, and radiation would endanger his own craft. He might decide to produce Art and Kam—Hope died. Battle plans never quite work. The main airlock opened; a downramp extruded; two kzinti in armor and three in regular spacesuits, equipped with rifles and cutting torches, came firth. The smooth computer voice said, “You will admit this party. If you resist, you die.” Laurinda kept silence. The kzinti started toward her.

  Saxtorph thumbed his detonator.

  In a well-chosen set of places under a bluff above a slope on his side, the remaining sticks blew. Dust and fl
inders heaved aloft. An instant later he heard the grumble of explosion and breaking. Under one-point-three-five Earth gravities, rocks hurtled, slid, tumbled to the bottom and across it. He couldn’t foresee what would happen next, but had been sure it would be fancy. The kzinti were farther along than be preferred. They dodged leaping masses, escaped the landslide. But it crashed around their boat. She swayed, toppled, fell onto the pile of stone, which grew until it half buried her. The gun pointed helplessly at heaven. Dust swirled about before it settled.

  Dorcas was already shooting. She was a crack marksman. A kzin threw up his arms and flopped, another, another. The rest scattered. They hadn’t thought to bring drive units. If they had, she could have bagged them all as they rose. Saxtorph bounded out and downslope, over the boulders. His machine pistol had less range than her rifle. It chattered in his hands. He zigzagged, bent low, squandering ammo, while she kept the opposition prone.

  Out of nowhere, a marine grabbed him by the ankle. He fell, rolled over, had the kzin on top of him. Fingers clamped on the wrist of the arm holding his weapon. The kzin fumbled after a pistol of his own. Saxtorph’s free hand pulled a crowbar from its sling. He got it behind the kzin’s back, under the aircycler tank, and pried. Vapor gushed forth. His foe choked, went bug-eyed, scrabbled, and slumped. Saxtorph crawled from beneath.

  Dorcas covered his back, disposed of the last bandit, as he pounded toward the boat. The outer valve of the airlock gaped wide. Piece of luck, that, though he and she could have gotten through both with a certain amount of effort. He wedged a rock in place to make sure the survivors wouldn’t shut it.

  She made her way to him. He helped her scramble across the slide and over the curve of hull above, to the chamber. She spent her explosive rifle shells breaking down the inner valve. As it sagged, she let him by.

  He stormed in. They had agreed to that, as part of what they had hammered out during hour after hour after hour of waiting. He had the more mass and muscle; and spraying bullets around in a confined space would likely kill their friends.

  An emergency airseal curtain brushed him and closed again. Breathable atmosphere leaked past it, a white smoke, but slowly. The last kzinti attacked. They didn’t want ricochets either. Two had claws out, one set dripped red—and the third carried a power drill, whirling to pierce his suit and the flesh behind.

  Saxtorph went for him first. His geologist’s hammer knocked the drill aside. From the left, his knife stabbed into the throat, and slashed. Clad as he was, what followed became butchery. He split a skull and opened a belly. Blood, brains, guts were everywhere. Two kzinti struggled and ululated in agony. Dorcas came into the tumult. Safely point-blank, her pistol administered mercy shots.

  Saxtorph leaned against a bulkhead. He began to shake.

  Dimly, he was aware of Kam Ryan stumbling forth. He opened his faceplate—oxygen inboard would stay adequate for maybe half an hour, though God, the stink of death!—and heard: “I don’t believe, I can’t believe, but you did it, you’re here, you’ve won, only first a ratcat, must’ve lost his temper, he ripped Art, Art’s dead, well, he was hurting so, a release, I scuttled aft, but Art’s dead, don’t let Laurinda see, clean up first, please, I’ll do it, we can take time to bury him, can’t we, this is where his dreams were—” The man knelt, embraced Dorcas’ legs regardless of the chill on them, and wept.

  They left Tregennis at the foot of the glacier, making a cairn for him where the ancients were entombed. “That seems very right,” Laurinda whispered. “I hope the scientists who come in the future will give him a proper grave—but leave him here.”

  Saxtorph made no remark about the odds against any such expedition. It would scarcely happen unless his people got home to tell the tale. The funeral was hasty. When they hadn’t heard from their boat for a while, which would be a rather short while, the kzinti would send another, if not two or three. Humans had better be well out of the neighborhood before then.

  Saxtorph boosted Shep inward from Tertia. “We can get some screening in the vicinity of the sun, especially if we’ve got it between us and Secunda,” he explained. “Radiation out of that clinker is no particular hazard, except heat; we’ll steer safely wide and not linger too long.” Shedding unwanted heat was always a problem in space. The best array of thermistors gave only limited help.

  “Also—” he began to add. “No, never mind. A vague notion. Something you mentioned, Kam. But let it wait till we’ve quizzed you dry.”

  That in turn waited upon simple, dazed sitting, followed by sleep, followed by gradual regaining of strength and alertness. You don’t bounce straight back from tension, terror, rage, and grief.

  The sun swelled in view. Its flares were small and dim compared to Sol’s, but their flame-flickers became visible to the naked eye, around the roiled ember disc. After he heard what Ryan knew about the asteroid tug, Saxtorph whistled. “Christ!” he murmured. “Imagine swinging that close. Damn near half the sky a boiling red glow, and you hear the steam roar in its conduits and you fly in a haze of it, and nevertheless I’ll bet the cabin is a furnace you can barely endure, and if the least thing goes wrong—Yah, kzinti have courage, you must give them that. Markham’s right—what you quoted, Kam—they’d make great partners for humans. Though he doesn’t understand that we’ll have to civilize them first.”

  Excitement grew in him as he learned more and his thoughts developed. But it was with a grim countenance that he presided over the meeting he called. “Two men, two women, an unarmed interplanetary boat, and the nearest help light-years off,” he said. “After what we’ve done, the enemy must be scouring the system for us. I daresay the warship’s staying on guard at Secunda, but if I know kzin psychology, all her auxiliaries are now out on the hunt, and won’t quit till we’re either captured or dead.” Dorcas nodded. “We dealt them what was worse than a hurt, a humiliation,” she confirmed. “Honor calls for vengeance.”

  Laurinda clenched her fists. “It does,” she hissed. Ryan glanced at her in surprise; he hadn’t expected that from her.

  “Well, they do have losses to mourn, like us,” Dorcas said. “As fiery as they are by nature, they’ll press the chase in hopes of dealing with us personally. However, they know our foodstocks are limited.” Little had been taken from the naval lockers. It was unpalatable, and stowage space was almost filled already. “If we’re still missing after some months, they can reckon us dead. Contrary to Bob, I suppose they’ll return to base before then.”

  “Not necessarily,” Ryan replied. “It gives them something to do. That’s the question every military command has to answer, how to keep the troops busy between combat operations,” For the first time since that hour on Secunda, he grinned. “The traditional human solutions have been either (a) a lot of drill or (b) a lot of paperwork; but you can’t force much of either on kzinti.”

  “Back to business,” Saxtorph snapped. “I’ve been trying to reason like, uh, Werlith-Commandant. What does he expect? I think he sees us choosing one of three courses. First, we might stay on the run, hoping against hope that there will be a human follow-up expedition and we can warn it in time. But he’s got Markham to help him prevent that. Second, we might turn ourselves in, hoping against hope our lives will be spared. Third, we might attempt a suicide dash, hoping against hope we’ll die doing him a little harm. The warship will be on the lookout for that, and in spite of certain brave words earlier, I honestly don’t give us a tax collector’s chance at Paradise of getting through the kind of barrage she can throw.

  “Can anybody think of any more possibilities?”

  “No,” sighed Dorcas. “of course, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Forget surrender. But we can stay on the run till we’re close to starvation and then try to strike a blow.”

  Laurinda’s eyes closed. Juan, her lips formed.

  “We can try a lot sooner,” Saxtorph declared.

  Breaths went sibilant in between teeth.

  “What Kam’s told us has given me an idea that I�
��ll bet has not occurred to any kzin,” the captain went on. “I’ll grant you it’s hairy-brained. It may very well get us killed. But it gives us the single possibility I see of getting killed while accomplishing something real. And we might, we just barely might do better than that. You see, it involves a way to sneak close to Secunda, undetected, unsuspected. After that, we’ll decide what, if anything, we can do. I have a notion there as well, but first we need hard information. If things look impossible, we can probably flit off for outer space, the kzinti never the wiser.” A certain vibrancy came into his voice. “But time crammed inside this hull is scarcely lifetime, is it? I’d rather go out fighting. A short life but a merry one.”

  His tone dropped. “Granted, the whole scheme depends on parameters being right. But if we’re careful, we shouldn’t lose much by investigating. At worst, we’ll be disappointed.”

  “You do like to lay a long-winded foundation, Bob,” Ryan said.

  “And you like to mix metaphors, Kam,” Dorcas responded.

  Saxtorph laughed. Laurinda looked from face to face, bemused. “Okay,” Saxtorph said. “Our basic objective is to recapture Rover, agreed? Without her, we’re nothing but a bunch of morons, and the most we can do is take a few kzinti along when we die. With her—ah, no need to spell it out.

  “She’s on Secunda’s moon, Kam heard. The kzinti know full well we’d like to get her back. I doubt they keep a live guard aboard against the remote contingency. They’ve trouble enough as is with personnel growing bored and quarrelsome. But they’ve planted detectors, which will sound a radio alarm if anybody comes near. Then the warship can land an armed party or, if necessary, throw a nuke. The warship also has the duty of protecting the planetside base. If I were in charge—and I’m pretty sure What’s-his screech-Captain thinks the same—I’d keep her in orbit about halfway between planet and moon. Wide field for radars, optics, every kind of gadget; quick access to either body. Kam heard as how that space is cluttered with industrial stuff and junk, but she’ll follow a reasonably clear path and keep ready to dodge or deflect whatever may be on a collision course.