by J. T. Wilson
“He’s that big an ass?” Folkard asked. George simply answered with a sour expression. “Right then,” the captain continued. “I’d send Miss Somerset and you other two civilians up but there’s no telling what I’d be sending you into—the jaws of the enemy or perhaps a full-blown battle. Private Williams.”
“Sir,” the injured Marine answered and pushed forward through the others. He came to attention smartly enough but his hands still trembled and his head shook slightly from side to side, as if denying everything he saw and heard.
“Up the lift with you. Get to Major Larkins or, if there’s no alternative, to Colonel Harrison, and tell them we are holding the Heart but expect to be attacked by Russians and… No, just stick with the Russians for now. A company of the Lifeguard Jaegers, tell them. The attack on Otterbein Base is a diversion; this is their real objective. We are very few in number and short of ammunition. We require reinforcements, as many as they can spare, and quickly, or all is lost. Now, repeat that back.”
Williams stared at him, his head shaking slightly. He opened his mouth to speak but then became confused and fell silent.
“Booth, have you any paper?” George asked. “Splendid. Give it here and I’ll write the despatch.” That was her George, Annabelle thought—always practical, always keeping his head when everyone else was losing theirs.
Her George? Where had that thought come from? She had no right to think that, no claim on him, and yet she had never before known such a description to leave such a warm glow after its use. Despite the desperation of their situation, she smiled.
Chapter Thirteen
“Hand on Heart!”
1.
NATHANIAL APPROVED of the manner in which Folkard seemed to have regained control of his former sense of confidence, and had taken command of the party. Nathanial also noticed that Erasmus seemed to have shaken off the trance-like stupefaction which paralysed him during the fight. What made Nathanial uneasy was the possible explanation for this.
“Erasmus, you are feeling better?” he asked, his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“I am,” Erasmus answered with a smile. “I don’t know what came over me there—the sight of the Heart, I suppose. Well, it’s passed now.”
“No more buzzing in the brain?” Nathanial asked. Erasmus shook his head no. “How about you, Captain Folkard? Is your brain troubled by the Heart?”
Folkard looked at him. “No. What of you, Doctor Grant? Have you a mental sense of the Heart?”
Grant looked up from the floor where he still sat next to the Drobate Bing. He looked from Folkard to the Heart and his already-pallid face seemed to shed even more colour. “Good Heavens! I do not!” He sprang to his feet and dashed over to the metal wall, leaping over the now-still carcasses of red Selenites. Once there he planted his hands on the wall. Nathanial remembered the last time he had seen him thus, the glow that was then emanating from the Heart spreading to Grant. This time, however, nothing happened.
Folkard made his way to Grant and Nathanial followed as well. “Is it…dead?” he asked, dread in his voice.
“No, thank heavens. It is simply uncommunicative.”
Folkard reached out to touch the Heart but Grant suddenly cried out, “No!” and struck him a furious blow to the chest which sent the captain staggering back. “You will injure it! All I could gather from it was that this…” he swept the scene of carnage around them “…this butchery traumatized it. You took part in it, Folkard, you killed. It will sense that violence in you and recoil from your touch.” His diatribe stopped abruptly.
“Grant?” Folkard said softly, waving in a hand before Grant’s eyes. There was no reaction.
Nathanial went to join them, but stopped in shock when Grant suddenly shouted; “Of course!”
Folkard exchanged a worried glance with Nathanial, but Grant seemed not to notice.
“What a fool I’ve been. Nothing we have can penetrate this metallic shell, and yet something killed that part of the brain in the City of Light and Science, and now I know what it was—the blood-stained altar before it told the story eloquently enough! Living sacrifices, years of them, generations of them, finally killed it.” Grant looked at the Heart for a moment and then ran his hands through the wild tangle of his hair, his eyes wide in alarm. “The Russians! We must not fight them here! Who knows what that additional slaughter could do to the Heart? We must withdraw and…no! The Drobates! If they fight the Russians here…” He sank to his knees by the Heart, shaking his head and babbling. “No, it cannot stand it. It will destroy everything, everything. It will never speak again.”
“Grant, pull yourself together!” Nathanial shouted, but when he tried to lift the scientist to his feet the old man collapsed, sobbing at the base of the wall. Nathanial turned to see Annabelle hurrying across the cluttered floor.
“What is it? What is wrong with uncle?” she asked.
“No time to explain. Bedford, can you help Annabelle get Grant to safety? Perhaps over by the lift. Folkard, come with me.” Nathanial led the captain over to where Naporrow Bing sat beside the corpses of the two slain Drobate scientists. “Folkard, you can communicate mentally with them, can you not? Find out from Bing if this is the only direct tunnel from the City to the Heart.”
“I don’t see what…”
“Just do it, man!”
Folkard looked at him and smiled. “Yes, sir,” he replied and then closed his eyes in concentration.
After a moment Nathanial could tell a conversation passed between the captain and Bing, for Folkard’s facial expressions changed, eyebrows up and down, lips now pursed, now frowning, exactly as a man talking to another. He opened his eyes.
“No, not the only tunnel. There is one more which enters the cavern further down that way,” he said with a wave toward the other end of the cavern.
“And how will the Russians come?” Nathanial asked.
“Well, through the natural cavern entrances, I would imagine. What are you about here, Stone?” Folkard finally demanded.
“We need dynamite, or more of those propellant charges, whatever explosives we can lay hold of, and fast! We cannot fight these approaching forces here in this chamber without damaging the Heart, so we must seal this chamber from all access save only the lift from Otterbein.”
“Damn! That’s a tall order,” Folkard said and he looked quickly around the chamber. “Still, it is our only real hope, isn’t it? Bedford!”
Lieutenant Bedford straightened up from having settled Grant against the far cavern wall and crossed to them as fast as his lame ankle and gory walking staff allowed. “Sir?”
“You’ve been down the lift before. Do you remember the orientation of the great cavern above from the lift shaft?”
Bedford looked at the gates to the lift shaft and thought for a moment. As he did so the electric winch started up, the great wheel beside the shaft began to turn. Bedford looked at Folkard and Nathanial but then shrugged slightly. “Yes, sir, I remember.”
“Splendid. Now from which direction did those Russian carrying parties come?” Bedford pointed to the right of the lift shaft as he faced it. “You’re certain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lieutenant Booth!” Folkard called. When Booth joined them Folkard pointed to the only large passage entering from that direction. “Take your two armed men and make your way down that passage, fifty yards at least, although a hundred would be better. Find yourself a place to make a stand. We think the Russians will come through that passage. You need to buy us as much time as you can. Do you understand?”
Booth cast a nervous glance at the lift’s gate and the loud whirring winch. “Don’t bother with that, Lieutenant, we’ll see to it,” Folkard said.
“Sir.” Booth gathered his two men and they disappeared into the uneven downward-sloping passage.
2.
“HOW IS he?” Bedford asked Annabelle. She looked up at him with troubled eyes.
“I have never seen him thus. He sp
oke oddly before, back in the laboratory, but now he only babbles, as if his mind has come completely unhinged.”
The lift ground to a halt and the doors opened to show a tight-packed group of red uniforms, and Bedford felt some of the burden on him lift. “Do what you can, my dear. I will be back shortly.”
Major Larkins stepped from the lift, saw Bedford hobbling toward him, and hurried over to meet him, the balance of Sovereign’s Marine contingent behind him. All of them cast wide-eyed stares at the scene of slaughter by the Heart.
“Good Lord, Bedford, you look a fright! What’s happened here? Are you wounded?”
“Just a sprained ankle. I can hardly tell you how good it is to see you and the men.” They shook hands heartily and Bedford nodded his greeting to the others. “Too much has transpired to explain now, Major. Do we need to send the lift back up for further reinforcements?”
“No,” Larkins answered with a sour expression. “This is all Harrison would consent to allow me to bring, and even then I had to claim a command from Captain Folkard took precedence over his orders due to my attachment to the ship. I’m not sure that’s true, but it satisfied him. Where is the captain, by the way?”
Well, Bedford had not expected any better reaction from Harrison and feared much worse. At least the station above was still secure. “Captain Folkard is defending one approach to this chamber, by himself, with only an alien artefact as a weapon. Professor Stone does the same with another, and that large passage is held by Booth and the last two of his Marines still standing. I believe that communicates the desperation of our situation here, Larkins. I’ll keep your men as our reserve here, and God grant we do not need them. You go back up to Otterbein and gather up as many explosives as you can manage, enough to close off every tunnel and passageway into this chamber.” Larkins looked around and gave a low whistle. “Take the wounded and civilians with you, as well as Stevenson to help carry. Doctor Phillips may be able to take you directly to the explosives. Don’t ask permission, do you understand? Just get them and bring them back, and hurry. Oh, and give me some revolver cartridges before you go; I’m out.”
Within moments Larkins had almost everyone in the lift, save only Annabelle.
“I won’t go,” she said. “I won’t leave you here alone.”
“I am hardly alone; I have a section of Royal Marine Light Infantry for company,” Bedford answered.
“You know perfectly well what I mean,” she answered.
Bedford thought for a moment, considered simply lifting her bodily and carrying her to the lift, but did not. “There is no time for an argument. I do not know what future we have together, but if we have any at all, it must include a respect for each other’s values. By now you must know that duty guides me as a beacon in the night. I do not demand you obey me, Annabelle Somerset, but if there is ever to be anything between us, you must honour my sense of duty. Your duty is with your uncle. Now go.”
Annabelle looked at her uncle being helped into the lift by Stevenson, looked at the carpet of Saltator bodies around the Heart, and nodded. She entered the lift and turned to face Bedford, eyes locked on his, studying him, perhaps memorizing the look in his eye in case it was the last time she would ever see him. As for him, Bedford was certain the image of Annabelle Somerset, dirty and bedraggled but upright and clear-eyed, her weight supported on a bloody metal spear, would be one he would carry with him to the grave.
3.
“DAMNED GOOD position you found here, Booth,” Bedford said. Booth had slid down off the rubble pile which formed his breastwork and was trying, unsuccessfully, to load his revolver one-handed.
“Here, take mine, it’s loaded.” Bedford gave him his Enfield, taking Booth’s and sliding it into his own holster. Booth was trembling slightly, but from excitement rather than fear.
“Thank you. Yes, it is a good spot. Good spot. Jones suggested it. We pinned them down a bit but Heighway took a bullet in the forehead. Killed him. I think the Russians were getting ready to rush us when Colvin and his lot showed up. Damned glad to see them, I’ll tell you. Damned glad.”
Colvin and his men kept up a steady fire—intended more to keep the Russians pinned down than to actually kill anyone—but the Russians were returning as good as they gave. The fact that the passageway sloped down toward the Russians, and the extra elevation of the large rubble spill, made it hard for the Russians to find cover, but the Russians further back could fire over the heads of the leading men without fear of hitting them.
Bedford crawled up to the lip of the barrier and started to look over when Booth pulled him back.
“Don’t stick your head up like that unless you want it blown off. You see that large rock sticking up just there? Get your head behind it and then look out to one side or the other, never directly up over the top.”
Bedford took his advice—this was Booth’s sort of war, not Bedford’s. He could see some movement down below, occasional flickers of a bit of white tunic or forage cap and muzzle flashes—many muzzle flashes. Bullets whined and echoed and ricocheted off and over the breastwork, sending rock chips flying. He ducked back behind the rock and a bullet grazed the boulder and sent a rock chip into his cheek.
“Ow! Damn that stings!” he said, and clapped a hand to it. His fingers came away bloody, but it was nothing more than a superficial cut. Three yards away a Marine groaned and slumped over his rifle—nothing superficial about that. Bedford crawled over to him, keeping below the lip of the breastwork, and pulled him down behind cover. He rolled him over and saw blood trickling down from under his helmet, saw the shredded side and rear of the cork helmet, and slid it off, fearing the worst. The man was lucky—a grazing wound that had knocked him out. Still, he was out of this fight. Bedford opened his ammunition pouches and scooped out the bullets—half a dozen loose rounds and four paper-wrapped packages of five rounds each—and stuffed them in his jacket pockets.
“Booth, I’ll take over here. You get this man back to the lift.”
“Sir.”
Bedford retrieved the man’s rifle and checked it to make sure it was still functional. They might need it before long.
Where was Larkins?
4.
NATHANIAL TURNED to face his new attackers, tried to bring his electric rifle up in his left hand, but instead of facing Drobates he looked into the expressionless eyes of two Selenites, and he saw more behind them.
“What are you…? NO! You have to go back. They will kill you!”
Already he heard the drumming of feet in the other tunnel. The Selenite closest to him reached out its left forelimb and gently pushed him against the wall and the first two slipped past him. A Drobate rounded the corner, electric rifle at the ready, but faltered when he saw the Selenites. He fired and the one closest to Nathanial collapsed. Nathanial even felt a jolt of electricity himself, standing in contact with it but the ant absorbed the bulk of the charge. Its partner lunged forward and slashed the Drobate’s throat open with its mandibles and the soldier collapsed in a spray of blood.
Nathanial stared at the corpse and the dead Selenite for a moment as if a spectator at a play rather than an actor, unable to even move. Then he clamped his mouth shut and sprang forward, grabbed the Drobate’s electric rifle, and dashed back. His left hand, he noticed, had regained sensation and muscle control. More feet thudded down the corridor, more electric rifle blasts splashed against the wall. Nathanial turned to face them, a rifle in either hand. On Earth he would have been unable to hold both of them up and level, but in Luna gravity it was child’s play.
A single Drobate came around the corner and Nathanial shot him. As if waiting for him to discharge his weapon, three more soldiers sprang around the corner and he fired into their midst with the second rifle. He hit one of them for sure, although he could not tell which as all three of them seemed affected by the shot, twitching and collapsing to the ground. For all he knew the charge had been dispersed enough none of them were dead, but now the Selenites surged past him,
almost knocked him down, attacked the wounded Drobates and then the next wave of soldiers rounding the corner.
“Back!” Nathanial commanded the Selenites still behind him. “Back!” They bumped into each other and stumbled but obeyed, backing up down the corridor. Nathanial followed them, both rifles now recharged, as the savage fight at the corner continued.
He heard the sizzling snap of more electric rifles, the high death shriek of Selenites, but also the scream of more than one Drobate. When the last Selenite collapsed on top of the others, trying to get at the Drobates, the tunnel was partially blocked. After a moment the pile of Selenites moved, twitched, and one of the bodies shifted to the side. Nathanial fired at the opening and heard a Drobate cry out in pain.
“Back, faster!” Nathanial ordered his Selenites and fired again with his second rifle.
He was easily thirty yards away now and no longer bothered to aim for a specific spot. As each rifle finished its charge cycle he fired it at the logjam of bodies; if he did not hit a live target, he reasoned he had a good chance of shocking those trying to clear a path.
An electric rifle snapped from the tangle of torsos and limbs, narrowly missed Nathanial, and he heard a Selenite behind him scream. Then four more Selenites surged past him, oblivious to his shouts and even blows, and charged the Drobates. Electric rifles felled two of them but the last two piled into the barricade, dragged themselves over it, tore at the Drobates and shrieked until more electric rifle fire silenced them.
Nathanial discovered tears on his cheeks as he turned to the last four Selenites, the weakest of the group. “Won’t you go? Won’t you please just go?” he pleaded.
No, they would not go, and at last he thought he understood why. He had sent them into the chamber containing the Heart, and they had come back, not to protect him, but to defend the Heart.