John Rankine - Dag Fletcher 01

by The Ring of Garamas

  Toron’s mouth moved and the translator trailed by two seconds in giving the text. “I understand, Colonel.

  We have had enough waiting. Idmon will remain in the port. I myself will take Alope out and maintain a parking orbit above Kristinobyl. No I.G.O. craft will land without your approval.”

  “Good. This is a personal arrangement. Take orders only from me. It may be that others will try to move you out of station. But only my direct voice on this frequency is official. O.G.A. recognize me as the negotiator for Garamas.”

  “That is understood.”

  Pedasun cleared the link and selected another. This time the face on the screen was Laodamian, a farouche job with a low, sloping forehead that might have belonged to a space ape, except for the eyes-which were large and full of intelligence. He said, “Full coverage. As of now. Put out the programmes in sequence; but repeat the antI—I.G.O. loop every other one. Except in the Polytech area.

  There, I want them brought out on the streets in a mob.”

  The Laodamian grinned showing a fine set of canines. He looked as though he had been given a meaty bone.

  When the screen was clear, Pedasun looked at it in silence. That was another thing. He had no liking for his allies. What they could do for him, they could do for somebody else. As soon as he was set, he would have them out of it. It was no accident that the revolution’s watchword was “Garamas for Garamas.” It embodied a deep-seated element in the national character. In spite of the years of operating a neutral entrepot, they would prefer to be left alone with their own destiny.

  He spent the next hour leafing through the detail of the Putsch. Reports began to filter in. He had said that he would not take any outside calls and monitored a conversation between Duvorac and his own control room in which the commissar was trying to establish who had given permission for a Scotian frigate to blast off.

  It was early for chief officials to be at their desks in Government House. No doubt Duvorac had tried there first and found no answer. That was not surprising. Whoever was there would be equally baffled by it.

  At 1138 hours the first call that meant personal involvement came in. The precinct security headquarters, which took care of the Polytech area, reported that thousands of students had left the campus and were assembling on a public square.

  He rang through to his adjutant, “Four riot cars, a hundred specials. I want every man in standard riot gear dressed as government police. Flashes covered. Wait for me at the porch.” This was something he would enjoy. Liberals were a disease in the body politic. This time, he would have them where nobody could protect them. Those that were left, when their riotous assembly had been put down.

  Inside the Polytech it had started slowly. When the first transmissions of subliminal suggestion started up there were not many students about. Those that had arrived early at culture’s coal face were the dedicated researchers who had a problem to solve and had settled in at study alcoves to hear the word from selected tapes.

  Minds on load were not so easily infiltrated. But the persistent message worked its way in at every partial loss of concentration.

  Yola, who had time to make up, found herself taking a second run through a small jewel on factor analysis and put it down to too many extra-curricular activities. She found herself thinking about the Earthman Fletcher. How far was he to be trusted?

  Even in the matter of bringing a gift, he had shown how little he understood the Garamasian customs. By accepting it, she had virtually agreed to a pairing proposal. If he could be so insensitive in that area, what reason was there to expect that anything he did could come from a real knowledge of Garamasian needs? Fear the Greeks bearing gifts was an ancient warning from his own planet’s collection of wise saws. And that would include any importation from an alien culture. It was time to speak up for Garamas.

  She shook her head and restarted the tape. “The mathematical analysis of the factors determining performance in a series of operations can be approached by…” God, even the preamble was making no kind of sense. They ought to be out in the streets, people acting rather than people thinking. She stubbed the pause button. Restlessness was growing so that she could not sit still. Without any clear idea of where she would go, she stood up and walked quickly out of the booth.

  Others had done the same. Small groups formed and drifted aimlessly out into the circulation spaces.

  A muted pinger on high C started up to signal the first lectures of the day; but there was no move to enter the theatres. Newcomers were not entering the tower blocks at all and those already inside went out to meet them.

  All over the campus instant demagogues had set themselves up on any handy feature and were addressing packed meetings.

  Yola recognized Termeron standing on the centre plinth of a fountain, hair glistening with spray, holding on with one hand and making lavish gestures with the other. As she pushed near enough to hear what he was saying, there was a loud yell of assent from the auditorium.

  If she had been free to evaluate it, she would have heard the hysteria in it. But no longer a free agent, she responded as though to a logical proof. Whatever he had said was right.

  Even when she got within earshot and listened to a polemic, knocking every principle she had ever held, she went along with it with shining eyes. It was a revelation. It was their duty to give the hoi polloi a lead.

  The present liberal government had been and was a disaster. Only a reversion to traditional Garamasian values would give the planet its soul back. Out with all the foreign devils. Garamas for Garamas.

  The Laodamian broadcaster allowed some time for the ideas to ferment, using subtle reinforcement that seemed to be supplied from within the group itself. Then he began to feed in the new thought of a move into the streets.

  When the moment came, there were five thousand students packed in the open spaces between the towers and they flowed out into the approach trunk fifteen abreast, arms linked, stamping in rhythm, shouting every third step “Garamas for Garamas.”

  Yola went along in the middle of the crowd, carried along physically and mentally by the mass. As the leading files debauched into Crotopus Square there was a momentary slackening of tension as if the close, containing pressure had come off.

  The Laodamian manipulator was watching the scene, judging whether the demo had enough head of steam to be self energizing and had cut his transmission to an empty carrier wave merely giving general stimulation.

  Recall sounded a warning, she knew what had happened. They had all been tricked. Even those who knew about the mind-bending transmitters. Unless that was all an invention of Fletcher’s. Could it be that he had given them that handout to make them disbelieve what their own minds told them was best for Garamas?

  But that was too clever, even for an Earthman. She saw Termeron up ahead and began to fight her way towards him. Maybe between them they could sort it out. In any case, he should be warned.

  Youngsters on the edge of the crowd had begun pulling up paving tiles and were pitching them through the lower windows of the tower blocks that bounded the square. Noise was notching up into a frenetic clamour.

  Twenty metres off, she saw Termeron through a random gap in the mob that now seemed to be slowly gyrating round its centre. Before it closed and she was forced further away, she saw his face-pale, serious, troubled. He knew. She began shouting, “Stop. Listen.” Beating around at every handy chest with clenched fists like a Raggedy-Ann doll gone berserk. But it was one thin, etiolated strand in a growing cataract of random din, that was finally drowned out by the howl that went up when four government shuttles dived in from every quarter, spraying a fine green mist of choking gas, to clear themselves a space to land.

  Watching for the right second, the Laodamian boosted his prepared anti-government slogans so that the troops, spilling out of the cars with oblong shields up to their brows met a blind charge that surged over those who were crawling about the tesserae with streaming eyes.

  Still hol
ding on to a sagging intuition that there was something rotten in the state, Yola registered that every last one of the new arrivals was wearing shiny ear cuffs below the white domed crash helmets. It was the final and irrevocable proof. They carried personal screening against whatever was in the air.

  Another thought struck and stopped her dead in her tracks, oblivious of the surge of movement that left her isolated except for certain still figures who were totally out of programme. Whoever had sent in the marines, knew all about it. Not the government itself then, or they could have attacked the broadcasts at source. It was a complex, double manoeuvre, more sinister than a plain issue of keeping public order.

  She was still trying to work it out when two specials appeared on either side and grabbed her arms. No solution had come up when she was pitched to the floor of a shuttle and the door slammed at her back.

  Petrel’s scout car hovered like a dragonfly under the rim of the ravine a hundred metres from the blockhouse.

  Outcrops of multi-hued spars screened them from its slab side; but Fletcher had banked heavily on the heat factor. Insulation would be vital for long-term occupation. There would be no point in making observation ports on a side which was unassailable. Working in fifty metre stints he had crept along the cliff face with long stops wherever there was room to put down the skids.

  Now he was watching the scanner which gave them a half-moon picture of the apron above the post.

  Anytime now the relief shuttle should be coming in.

  Heat had stabilized at seventy-three Celsius, with hotter gusts rising from the bottom of the pit where angled mirror surfaces made pockets of thermal agitation.

  Half the car’s power pack was committed to fighting a rearguard. They were out on a technological limb with no fallback. Even the phlegmatic Carrick was getting edgy and tapping the buckle of his harness with a horny thumb.

  When it came, action transformed the set. From an empty quarter where only a fool would choose to be, they were part of an inhabited land as though the grey shuttle which whipped onto the screen and touched down on the ashlar strip was connected to Velchanos by a glowing streamer.

  It was still flexing on its skids as Fletcher said, “Now.” Bennett cut refrigeration and gunned for a crash climb. The car bucked out of the gorge as if booted in the belly by a gigantic toe.

  Fletcher had the firing grip of the laser tube that ran the whole length of the car’s axis and shut his mind to the sure knowledge that what he had to do was an act of war, which, if it was less than a hundred per cent successful, could embroil the galaxy. He said, “Right along the spine,” and they went down like a mosquito homing on a succulent flank.

  Chapter Eight

  Belatedly two guards spilled from the Garamasian transport, both in clumsy refrigeration gear like a collection of articulated boxes.

  It was a pantomime sequence as they clumped around in slow motion trying to sort out who was doing them wrong. Then one saw the car and ponderously lifted a machine carbine that sent up a lazy line of tracer.

  Hammer blows crossed the underbelly of the car in a single lucky strike, then the laser was breaking up the shuttle. It appeared to fold in on itself, before it opened like a vermilion flower edged in black smoke.

  A small plosive thud hit the car and lifted it ten metres with Bennett fighting for control. When he brought them round for a second run, it was all over, smouldering debris was scattered for a hundred metres and the two guards had disappeared.

  Carrick said, “Blown over the top, by god.”

  Face set, Fletcher said, “That’s a pity. We could have used those suits. Now we have to do it the hard way.”

  Bennett had them down in a neat landing, a metre from the rim and they baled out into furnace heat.

  Phase one was Carrick’s and he led his three marines, Adams, Curtiss and Powell for the edge of the paved strip at a shambling trot. They went down on one knee in unison, a grotesque chorus line and used vibrators to slice out holdfasts. Then they hooked in claw grabs and slithered backwards over the drop.

  Fletcher, pulling against the tension of the car’s spring-loaded hoist line leaned out with his heels chocked on the rim and had a bird’s eye view of the action. The four marines hit the surface of the ramp fifteen metres below, checked for two seconds to cast off and draw bulbous blasters, and slipped out of sight under the overhang in a classic reversal of the Indian rope trick.

  Fletcher signalled for down and Bennett lowered away. As his feet came clear of the wall, nervous reaction cramped his diaphragm. The whole scene could have been watched from inside the blockhouse.

  Even now, very now, Carrick and the others could be charred cadavers and the marksman was drawing a bead on his descending crotch. He was a fool to think they could do it this way. A cosmic blunderer, whose anonymous hand was destined to set the Galaxy ablaze.

  A heavy body brushed against his dangling legs and for a nanosecond he believed it was a shot striking home. But it was Adams, Carrick’s Number Two on the stick, on a search ploy that became plain as soon as he could see.

  The ramp ran down for another five metres and stopped dead at a blank wall.

  Insulation had been the over-riding factor even here. Not only was there no observation port, there was no visible entrance.

  Fletcher unhooked his toggle and went forward to where Carrick was running gauntlet hands over the smooth stone face. Already the suits were fighting a rearguard against heat. Sweat running into his eyes, Fletcher plugged a wandering lead into Carrick’s chest console and hissed, “There has to be a way in.

  Some kind of recessed lever.”

  “Adams is checking the slope for that thing.”

  Behind this wall, they could be talking to Velchanos, drumming up a support column. Passing on pictures that would identify Petrel’s car. He could be too late.

  Carrick stumbled on it, banging the toe of a clumsy boot on a six centimetre stub almost flush with the rock face where the blockhouse melded into the side of the gorge. He knelt down on all fours to get the full view in direct vision through his visor. Then he squatted back on his heels like a hound dog.

  Fletcher mimed urgently for him to shove it over and they lined up facing the blank, grey wall, blasters trained waist high.

  When the opening appeared, Fletcher was not immediately aware of it. By instinct, he had expected it to be in the centre, but it was far left, against the wall of the cliff, a low, narrow slit strictly for one-at-a-time entry, a blue painted culvert into the thickness of the insulation.

  Carrick, nearest the site, was moving before the opening was fully made. His bulky figure plugged the gap from edge to edge. A defender could not miss.

  Dag Fletcher was working out how they would proceed. Fire cover and movement. Drag the body clear.

  Work on until somebody succeeded in getting to the centre. Anyone could do the job. They had discussed it in fine detail in the hours of waiting. Nevertheless there was no hesitation when he shoved Adams aside and ducked into the tunnel.

  Almost at once, there was a bonus in heat loss. He could feel the sweat cool on his face as the recirculating gear dried it out. Up ahead, Carrick was plodding forward, until he disappeared round a right angle turn.

  There was the impression of a cool spacious chamber, as though deep in a natural cave. Through a long horizontal slit of window, glazed in great depth, there was a magnified panoramic view of the gorge and the first features of the flyover.

  Carrick had thrown every atom of muscular drive into a sprint that had taken him to the centre of the room and was sawing around for a target. Fletcher was out with his back to the near wall followed by Adams and Curtiss. Powell having stopped back to close the hatch was ten seconds late and found them set up as a tableau to spell out surprise, surprise.

  The place was empty.

  Carrick checked the air and found it good. Suit gauges had plummeted to twenty Celsius. He tipped back his visor and stuck up both thumbs in confirmation.

&
nbsp; Adams revealed as a bullet-headed youngster with a thin scar down his left cheek said, “What’s the angle, chief? I thought there was supposed to be goons in here.”

  Carrick said, “Don’t be disappointed, Rod. There’ll he other ways of breaking your fool neck. I reckon intelligence got it all wrong. Not for the first time. There’s a daily inspection visit. Some myopic agent put it down to a personnel switch. But what the hell. It’s fully automated. All it needs is a pat on the can at the right time which does nothing but good.”

  Over by the computer spread which filled the rear wall edge-to-edge, Fletcher thought it was a little hard that he should have drawn a Vaudeville duo in life’s lottery and broke it up with a call for action.

  He said, “All right. So it’s a bonus. Powell, up top and bring down a half dozen limpets. All hands search around for a hatch to get below. Every once in a while that paint howdah will have to be given a manual check out. And Powell, tell Bennett to bring the car onto the ramp. He can clear away your securing lines while he’s waiting.”

  In the event, he found the floor opening himself in a fast, totally concentrated survey of the control panels.

  Instructions were in Garamasian, but pictograph insets gave a lead to the main functions. He spun a wheel rheostat and a section of floor began to dip.

  Adams, who was currently crawling over it on hands and knees, looking for a tell tale crack in the parquet, scored high on reaction time by grabbing for a solid edge and holding on.

  Carrick said, “You found it Rod. Good, good, keep it marked,” and ignored the long string of profanity that came from the hanging man.

  A fresh smell of paint welled up from the hole and a courtesy light, that must have gone on as the floor opened, revealed a long workshop with the paint sprayer itself standing ready on parallel rails.