“It’s a mob, is what it is,” said Napier, closing up the front of his tunic.
“But, still—” Greibenfeld began.
“Dammit, Connie,” Napier said. “A mob is like mud; it has no mind, no form, no reason—only movement. If you don’t stop all of it, you haven’t stopped any of it. It’ll roll over you, smother you, and kill you without ever knowing anything was in its way.”
Chapter Forty-Two
“We did the best we could do,” Colonel Ian Ferguson said into the communications pickup. He was screening from his command car. His tunic collar was open. He looked haggard. “As it is, Governor, we’ll be the rest of the night charging and booking the ones we have in custody—if the town doesn’t bum down first.”
Ben Rainsford wanted to take a handful of his own whiskers in each fist and pull them out. “Ingermann— Ingermann—INGERMANN!” he raged. “That fat little son of a khooghra has caused me more grief than the entire planetary government put together. I hope they can hang something with mandatory death sentence on him; I want to be the one that pulls the trigger. How many got through, Ian?”
“As nearly as we can tell,” Ferguson said quietly, “almost two hundred vehicles. We have no idea how many people that involves, though.”
Rainsford had been lighting his pipe. He waved his hand to clear the dense cloud of tobacco smoke between himself and the communications screen. “You better—no, you’re busy enough—I’ll screen Napier. Keep me posted, Ian. And don’t worry; if you did as good as you could, you did good.”
Jack Holloway was nearly two hours south of Fuzzy Valley, almost to Fuzzy Divide. The stars were bright, overhead, and Xerxes had climbed almost halfway from the horizon to the zenith. He had been busily making lists in his head of things to do and was happy to conclude that during the week or so that everyone was going to be on Xerxes, he could just about handle all the work that had piled up since the afternoon when Ahmed Khadra gave a whoop and shouted that he had found an enormous titanium object buried under the soil of what was now called Mount Fuzzy. Now, who could be calling him on the screen? No one knew he was in the air, except…
“Major Stagwell, here, Commissioner.”
“Yes, Dick,” Holloway said. “What’s up?”
As Stagwell spoke, Holloway laid Gerd’s airboat over into a long, flat arc that would take it back to a reverse course.
“What do they have to shoot with?” he asked as soon as Stagwell had outlined the situation.
“We don’t know yet,” Stagwell answered. “My guess would be nothing heavier than individual weapons, but I expect they’ll have some automatic stuff—maybe a few machine guns.”
“I’m on my way, Dick,” Holloway said. “Have you raised Xerxes yet?”
“We’ve signaled and are waiting for the authentication code,” Stagwell said. “I’ve done a lot of riot work, but I want guidance from upstairs on this one.”
“Makes sense,” Holloway said. “Look, when you get them, tell them I’m returning. I’m the Commissioner, that’s where I belong. And tell them I’m going to raise George Lunt—see how many men he can send up. It’s his jurisdiction as the ZNPF head cop.”
The Rev walked unsteadily into the dispensary at his own mission and sat down heavily in a chair at the nurse’s station. There was blood on his face and he felt as though every bone in his body had been broken.
The evening nurse, a volunteer in street clothes, dropped the stack of files she was moving from one desk to another. They went skittering and sliding across the floor in a jumble of forms. “Father Gordon!” she said. “Are you all right? You look like you’d been trampled by a veldbeest stampede.”
The Rev managed a smile. “I was,” he said.
She keyed the automatic page that summoned the doctor. She brought a wet cloth to the chair. “Let’s get that cleaned up and see what else we have, here,” she said.
“Double vision,” The Rev said, shaking his head vigorously. “Funny. I usually don’t get that till the next morning.”
“Jack, they haven’t got a chance,” George Lunt said over the screen. “They’re going up against three companies of trained troops.”
“I’m sure the thought never crossed their mind, George,” Holloway said. “This is a mob. A mob never thinks; it just charges like a damnthing. By being totally unaware that they don’t have a chance, they just might make it. You see?”
George nodded. “I’m afraid I do,” he said. “I’ve seen it work. Okay. I’ll round up as many men as we can spare without leaving ourselves wide open down here. If there are as many variable unknowns as you say, we may have to fight at Holloway Station. People seem to identify you with sunstones, you know.”
Stephen Aelborg had just finished delivering his situation estimate to the meeting. As Intelligence Officer he was naturally cautious, but had to admit that for thirty minutes’ notice, it wasn’t too bad.
“Gentlemen,” Napier said, “we have a still-developing set of actions here. It remains in a fluid state, not yet fully formed. Therefore we want to keep our ability to respond flexible but quick. Another thing we have to consider is the lag-fac between decisions we make here and the travel time needed to put troops on the ground on Zarathustra.”
Helton had noticed Greibenfeld look at him in an odd way when Napier used the term “gentlemen.” He was amused, but made a mental note not to trust Greibenfeld any more than was absolutely necessary.
Napier turned to Helton. “Gunnie,” he said, “what is your evaluation of the First Battalion in terms of weapons and readiness?”
Helton felt his ears flush slightly. He got to his feet. “First rate, Commodore,” he said, and proceeded to concisely outline his views.
When Helton sat down again, O’Bannon realized—and felt slightly foolish about it—that he had been holding his breath. Quietly, he exhaled.
“Good,” Napier said. “I still want the balance of the Second Battalion loaded aboard the San Pablo. Even if the First won’t be needing any hand-holding, I’d feel better about having additional men on the surface. Ops will alert another suitable vessel, and the Third will board it and remain there for further orders.”
McGraw’s Exec was making notes.
The Operations Officer paused, his pencil above his own notes. “Do you plan to intervene, again?” Carl Johnsen asked.
“Emphatically not,” Napier said. “Only in the case of the most extreme emergency or at a request for assistance from the Colonial Government. It’s something that has to be planned for, in any event, although the very thought of it gives me the willies. I don’t want to infringe on First Battalion’s operation, but I don’t want to leave them out on a limb. The doctrine that applies here, gentlemen, is one of minimums—minimum show of troops—minimum show of force—and minimum application of force. If the colonial population gets the idea that we’re going to step in every time there’s a fist fight on Zarathustra, they never will get around to forming a completed government. They’ll just look up at Xerxes when the going gets a little rough, sit down, and wait for us to tell them what to do. That’s not the kind of attitude that colonized all these worlds in the first place, and I refuse to foster it.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Jack Holloway stood, with his feet slightly apart and his hands on his hips, puffing his short pipe and looking eastward. He had given his rifle—he was carrying his 6-mm Stecker in the airboat—a part-way takedown and cleaning. Have to tear that thing down to the last screw and really go over it. Someday soon. Time. Time. Never enough of it these days. That’s all he wanted when he came out to Cold Creek Canyon—time by himself. Funny how you never got what you wanted when you searched for it; only when you stopped and let it find you.
Nothing to do now but wait. Everything that could be done was already done. He liked the way Stagwell had laid out his forces; it showed a businesslike knowledge backed up by experience—same kind of attitude that let Helton calmly blow in that tunnel face without knowing what, o
r how much of it, was on the other side. Holloway chuckled in the back of his throat. He particularly liked the idea with the riflemen on the bench at the north end of the site; a separate group of sharpshooters made up of picked marksmen from each company, placed at an elevation from the rest of the area.
Stagwell came up beside him, his boots blowing up little puffs of dust ahead of the toe. “Anything?” he asked.
Holloway shook his head.
“How soon, do you think?” he asked.
“Can’t say,” Holloway replied, keeping his gaze on the horizon. “Depends on how fast they’re going and whether they really know where we are. They may not have a definite course. If they just cast about till they find the valley it could be quite a while.”
Stagwell nodded, sighed, and was silent for a moment. “By the way, Mr. Commissioner—” he began.
“Jack,” Holloway said.
“Jack,” Stagwell corrected himself. “I’ve been meaning to ask what your tobacco is.”
“OLDTERRANCUT.” Holloway said. He jerked a thumb to his right. “But they grow it down on South Beta.”
“Can I get it in Red Hill?” Stagwell asked.
Holloway nodded. “I get it from Walt Davis. Got a little gun store and tobacco shop there.”
“Mmmmmm,” Stagwell said. “I’d like to pick some up before we leave.”
“Try some of mine, first,” Holloway said, handing him the pouch without taking his gaze from the horizon. “If you like it I’ll bring you a big tin on my next trip up.”
“Thanks,” Stagwell said, digging out his pipe.
Several minutes passed without conversation. Then, Holloway pointed to the east, where a little gob of light was coming over the horizon. “I think that’s company, coming to call,” he said.
Presently, the light separated into several, then separated again—and once again—until it was a cloud of lights, each one indicating a separate vehicle in the mob that had gotten out of Mallorysport.
Stagwell turned and looked over his shoulder. “Sergeant Major Miller!” he said.
The battalion sergeant major appeared out of the darkness. “Sir,” he said.
“Pass the word to look sharp,” Stagwell said. “They’re almost here.”
“Yes, sir,” Miller said. He sat down on the housing cover of a nearby vehicle and began talking to net control, his voice relayed throughout the tactical position on pocket radios like the one he was using. “All right, jarheads; get both eyes open. They’re coming in. Don’t get enthusiastic. First man fires without orders, I’ll have him up on battalion punishment and cut a stripe off him. Remember, these are civilians, but they’re a little dockered out…”
Five minutes later, the air cars and scows began to land in a ragged, jumbled disorder about seventy meters from the line Stagwell had established.
Holloway shifted his weight, and crossed his left foot over his right knee. He knocked out his pipe on his boot heel, blew through the stem, and put the pipe in his pocket. He unslung his rifle.
Stagwell signaled his engineer sergeant. Floodlight portables illuminated the scene with a blue-white light from about sixty feet overhead, where their contragravity sleds bobbed at the end of umbilical tethers.
“Uh—Major,” Miller said from his location behind the nearby vehicle, “hadn’t you two better find cover? You’re awfully easy to shoot at out there.”
“What?” Stagwell said, grinning. “And let them think we take them seriously?”
ZNPF Captain Joe Holderman stood looking out the window of the headquarters and smoothed his flawlessly groomed mutton-chop whiskers. Outside, in the barracks quadrangle, the floodlights reflected garishly off the vitrilite paving of the drill yard. A few hours ago, the yard had been swarming with men as George Lunt assembled forty constables and led them off in patrol jeeps toward Fuzzy Valley. Behind him, he heard footsteps as someone entered the room. That would be Jordan Nunez, coming in a half-hour ahead of the watch-change to get up-to-date on what was happening before he relieved Holderman and took the new watch.
Nunez sat down and started scrolling incident-log items up the readout screen. He let out a whistle and muttered something when he ran onto the entry about Fuzzy Valley.
Holderman didn’t turn around. “Too many rats in the box, Jordy,” he said.
Nunez stopped the scrolling. “Rats? Whattaya mean, rats, Joe? You know there’s no rats around here.”
Holderman turned and looked at him. “Too many rats in the box, Jordy,” he said again. “In Mallorysport. You get too many rats in a box, they start to eat their way out.”
The mob was milling around. Holloway could see Hugo Ingermann in the forefront. Poor, crazy Ingermann. Sunstones had finally done it for him—unhinged his mind.
“It’s your territory, Mr. Commissioner,” Stagwell said, and handed Holloway the audio pickup.
The mob swirled aimlessly for a few minutes, humming and buzzing with the conversation of anger and indecision, as Ingermann harangued them from the open cargo floor of a work scow. There were periodic shouts and curses from individuals, unintellible at this distance, and a good deal of fist-shaking. Presently the crowd turned and began to surge like a thick lava flow toward the Marines’ positions on the line.
Holloway had earlier had reservations about the overhead lighting, but now he saw why Stagwell did it. Misdirection; it gave the mob a focal point to keep their attention in more or less one place—the place Stagwell wanted them positioned. Good thing they had sent all the Fuzzies down into the woods at the south end of the valley. This could turn pretty ugly before it was over.
The vanguard of the mob moved forward perhaps thirty meters, still being swelled by people from among the grounded vehicles, before Holloway stopped them. There appeared to be close to a thousand of them.
Holloway raised the audio pickup to his mouth.
The mob moved another ten meters, their pace punctuated with muted shouts and muttered curses.
“HOLD IT!” Holloway’s voice boomed and reverberated as it was amplified over the loudspeakers of a dozen or so of the Marine vehicles strung across the valley. “This is Jack Holloway,” the amplified voice said, “Commissioner of Native Affairs. This is a legally established Fuzzy Reservation.” His words made ghostly echoes as the sound of the amplified voice coming from different locations reached the listeners’ ears at slightly different times. “Your presence here is a violation of law,” he said. “I order you to disperse.”
“Nifflheim with you, Holloway!” Ingermann yelled. “We came for sunstones! Sunstones that belong to the people!”
“Yeah! We want what’s ours!”
“You got no right…”
“Gonna keep ‘em for yourself?”
“This for your reservation!”
Ingermann turned to the mob. “You see?” Ingermann hooted. “Why should we starve while they get rich from sunstones?”
The mob was rumbling viciously, like an angry volcano. Weapons were being brandished in the air.
“I warn you!” Holloway said into the pickup. “We will use force. GO HOME!”
Ingermann turned back toward Holloway and made a derisive gesture. “You can bully your Fuzzies and your flunkies, old man,” Ingermann jeered, “but you can’t bully us!”
More clamor from the mob. “What’re we waitin’ for?”
“We can take ‘em.”
“Come on!”
“Sunstones, SUNSTONES!” In the front of the mob, a few knots of people took two or three steps forward.
“You’ll be the first to get it, Ingermann,” Holloway said. The rolling, amplified voice made it plain that he meant it. Just to punctuate his point, Holloway clipped the pickup onto his pocket, twisted his feet to dig his boots in, and leveled his rifle from the offhand position—taking a sight picture on Ingermann’s chest.
“Okay, okay,” Sergeant Major Miller said into his pocket radio. “Take your line of sight. Let’s put the volley shot about two feet over thei
r heads. If that doesn’t stop ‘em, pick your targets and go for it. On my mark, now—ready— ready.”
Ingermann turned pale, but he was a desperate man, now, and he had already come this far. If Holloway broke up his mob, he would very likely be arrested on the spot before he could get away. Surely they, too, must know he was wanted for attempted murder in Mallorysport. He grabbed a rifle from someone, raised it to his shoulder, and fired.
Standing where he was, Holloway was a slightly higher elevation than the mob. The shot took him from below, in the upper left arm. The impact spun him. When he felt the slap of the bullet hitting him, he tried to get off his shot on Ingermann, but he was already in motion and only succeeded in dropping the man next to Ingermann.
Holloway spun halfway around and went down.
Ingermann raised the rifle triumphantly over his head and waved the mob forward.
There was a roaring, deafening noise, drowning out the screaming mob, as all the Marines fired a single shot at the same time, sending a sheet of bullets shrieking over the mob’s head. They hesitated and ducked, then began running forward, firing as they came.
Rows of people in the front began falling. The charge slowed, faltered, and then broke, as the mob turned and ran back to take cover in the maze of grounded vehicles. From there, they began shooting again. Buried in the rabbit warren of vehicles, as they were now, it was going to be Nifflheim’s own job to root them out.
Stagwell got down on one knee and lifted Holloway’s head. “You get elected, Jack?” he asked.
Holloway coughed through colorless lips. “No, but I got nominated pretty good,” he whispered.
“Are you okay?” Stagwell asked.
“I’m going to be fine,” Jack said. “The thing damned near bounced off me. Get me out of this draft.” Bullets were whining through the air around them.
“Hey, Roy,” Stagwell shouted to his sergeant major. “Bear a hand, here.”
Miller came over in a short, crouching run.
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