Hunter Patrol
Page 1
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+--------------------------------------------------------------------+| || Transcriber's Note || || This etext was produced from Amazing Stories May 1959. There is no || evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed. || |+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
HUNTER PATROL
By H. BEAM PIPER and JOHN J. McGUIRE
+Many men have dreamed of world peace, but none have been able to achieve it. If one man did have that power, could mankind afford to pay the price?+
At the crest of the ridge, Benson stopped for an instant, glancing firstat his wrist-watch and then back over his shoulder. It was 0539; thebarrage was due in eleven minutes, at the spot where he was nowstanding. Behind, on the long northeast slope, he could see the columnsof black oil smoke rising from what had been the Pan-Soviet advancesupply dump. There was a great deal of firing going on, back there; hewondered if the Commies had managed to corner a few of his men, afterthe patrol had accomplished its mission and scattered, or if a couple ofCommunist units were shooting each other up in mutual mistaken identity.The result would be about the same in either case--reserve units wouldbe disorganized, and some men would have been pulled back from the frontline. His dozen-odd UN regulars and Turkish partisans had done theirbest to simulate a paratroop attack in force. At least, his job wasdone; now to execute that classic infantry maneuver described as, "Let'sget the hell outa here." This was his last patrol before rotation home.He didn't want anything unfortunate to happen.
There was a little ravine to the left; the stream which had cut it inthe steep southern slope of the ridge would be dry at this time of year,and he could make better time, and find protection in it from any chanceshots when the interdictory barrage started. He hurried toward it andfollowed it down to the valley that would lead toward the front--thethinly-held section of the Communist lines, and the UN lines beyond,where fresh troops were waiting to jump from their holes and begin theattack.
There was something wrong about this ravine, though. At first, it wasonly a vague presentiment, growing stronger as he followed the dry gullydown to the valley below. Something he had smelled, or heard, or seen,without conscious recognition. Then, in the dry sand where the ravinedebouched into the valley, he saw faint tank-tracks--only one pair.There was something wrong about the vines that mantled one side of theravine, too....
An instant later, he was diving to the right, breaking his fall with thebutt of his auto-carbine, rolling rapidly toward the cover of a rock,and as he did so, the thinking part of his mind recognized what waswrong. The tank-tracks had ended against the vine-grown side of theravine, what he had smelled had been lubricating oil and petrol, and theleaves on some of the vines hung upside down.
Almost at once, from behind the vines, a tank's machine guns snarled athim, clipping the place where he had been standing, then shifting torage against the sheltering rock. With a sudden motor-roar, the muzzleof a long tank-gun pushed out through the vines, and then the low bodyof a tank with a red star on the turret came rumbling out of thecamouflaged bay. The machine guns kept him pinned behind the rock; thetank swerved ever so slightly so that its wide left tread was aimeddirectly at him, then picked up speed. Aren't even going to waste ashell on me, he thought.
Futilely, he let go a clip from his carbine, trying to hit one of thevision-slits; then rolled to one side, dropped out the clip, slapped inanother. There was a shimmering blue mist around him. If he only hadn'tused his last grenade, back there at the supply-dump....
The strange blue mist became a flickering radiance that ran throughall the colors of the spectrum and became an utter, impenetrableblackness....
* * * * *
There were voices in the blackness, and a softness under him, but underhis back, when he had been lying on his stomach, as though he were nowon a comfortable bed. They got me alive, he thought; now comes thebrainwashing!
He cracked one eye open imperceptibly. Lights, white and glaring, from aceiling far above; walls as white as the lights. Without moving hishead, he opened both eyes and shifted them from right to left. Vaguely,he could see people and, behind them, machines so simply designed thattheir functions were unguessable. He sat up and looked around groggily.The people, their costumes--definitely not Pan-Soviet uniforms--and theroom and its machines, told him nothing. The hardness under his righthip was a welcome surprise; they hadn't taken his pistol from him!Feigning even more puzzlement and weakness, he clutched his knees withhis elbows and leaned his head forward on them, trying to collect histhoughts.
"We shall have to give up, Gregory," a voice trembled withdisappointment.
"Why, Anthony?" The new voice was deeper, more aggressive.
"Look. Another typical reaction; retreat to the foetus."
Footsteps approached. Another voice, discouragement heavily weightingeach syllable: "You're right. He's like all the others. We'll have tosend him back."
"And look for no more?" The voice he recognized as Anthony falteredbetween question and statement.
A babel of voices, in dispute; then, clearly, the voice Benson had cometo label as Gregory, cut in:
"I will never give up!"
He raised his head; there was something in the timbre of that voicereminding him of his own feelings in the dark days when the UN hadeverywhere been reeling back under the Pan-Soviet hammer-blows.
"Anthony!" Gregory's voice again; Benson saw the speaker; short, stocky,gray-haired, stubborn lines about the mouth. The face of a man chasingan illusive but not uncapturable dream.
"That means nothing." A tall thin man, too lean for the tunic-likegarment he wore, was shaking his head.
Deliberately, trying to remember his college courses in psychology, heforced himself to accept, and to assess, what he saw as reality. He wason a small table, like an operating table; the whole place looked like amedical lab or a clinic. He was still in uniform; his boots had soiledthe white sheets with the dust of Armenia. He had all his equipment,including his pistol and combat-knife; his carbine was gone, however. Hecould feel the weight of his helmet on his head. The room still rockedand swayed a little, but the faces of the people were coming into focus.
* * * * *
He counted them, saying each number to himself: one, two, three, four,five men; one woman. He swung his feet over the edge of the table, beingcareful that it would be between him and the others when he rose, andbegan inching his right hand toward his right hip, using his left hand,on his brow, to misdirect attention.
"I would classify his actions as arising from conscious effort atcortico-thalamic integration," the woman said, like an archaeologist whohas just found a K-ration tin at the bottom of a neolithickitchen-midden. She had the peculiarly young-old look of the spinsterteachers with whom Benson had worked before going to the war.
"I want to believe it, but I'm afraid to," another man for whom Bensonhad no name-association said. He was portly, gray-haired,arrogant-faced; he wore a short black jacket with a jewelledzipper-pull, and striped trousers.
Benson cleared his throat. "Just who are you people?" he inquired. "Andjust where am I?"
Anthony grabbed Gregory's hand and pumped it frantically.
"I've dreamed of the day when I could say this!" he cried."Congratulations, Gregory!"
* * * * *
That touched off another bedlam, of
joy, this time, instead of despair.Benson hid his amusement at the facility with which all of them werediscovering in one another the courage, vision and stamina of truepatriots and pioneers. He let it go on for a few moments, hoping toglean some clue. Finally, he interrupted.
"I believe I asked a couple of questions," he said, using the voice hereserved for sergeants and second lieutenants. "I hate to break up thismutual admiration session, but I would appreciate some answers. Thisisn't anything like the situation I last remember...."
"He remembers!" Gregory exclaimed. "That confirms your first derivationby symbolic logic, and it strengthens the validity of the second...."
The schoolteacherish woman began jabbering excitedly; she ran throughabout a paragraph of what was pure gobbledegook to Benson, before theman with the arrogant face and the jewelled zipper-pull broke in on her.
"Save that