“We'll have to slow down,” I said.
“We should slow down anyway. Both sides will be looking for war craft, and they travel fast.” It was a relief to be moving again, anyway.
Sunset seemed unusually prolonged for the season. There were also sounds in the air that puzzled me. As we headed toward München we saw lights streaming up from the surrounding hills, lights in the sky, rising orange blossoms of fire, with the diffuse background glow of that strange slow sunset behind them.
It was like no light I had seen before: a wavering, pulsating orange glow.
Something moving in the sky against the glow, something black. Kleist grabbed my arm.
“Kzin aircraft!”
I wrenched the car round in a tight turn. The dark shape turned too, with a deliberation that was somehow terrifying in itself, and began to move towards us.
“What weapons do we have?”
“Personal strakkakers, a couple of big ones mounted on the car, some bullet projectors. Flashlight lasers.”
“No use. Glass and teflon needles won't stop that thing.”
“Ram it!” said Dimity.
“That means the end of us.”
“We bail out with lift-belts. Keep the strakkakers by you.”
Instinct had taken over my fingers. I had the car close to the ground, jigging violently from side to side. Our pursuer had lost height too, and was closing with us. I estimated it would be on us in two to three minutes.
“They like to get in close,” Kleist said.
“Then get belts on, fast!”
Desperate fumbling. I programmed the car to fly steady and stop in two minutes. Then we stepped out, three hundred feet in the air. We fell for another two hundred feet or so and then the ground effect of the lift-belts operated and we hovered. There was the alien craft, big and black and fast.
Some instinct made me shut me eyes and throw my hands in front of my face. It hit the car with an explosion that deafened us and painted multicolored light across my eyelids. A blast of hot air knocked me spinning away.
There was the alien craft, stopped in midair. There were flames curling up out of its front part and its nose was dipping. It was sinking, quite slowly, toward the ground.
A hatch opened in its side, and we saw dark bulky shapes emerging. So they had lift-belts too. Of course they would, and with their gravity technology they would be better belts than ours.
There was the whirr of a strakkaker in the air behind me and a hideous scream. The first of the creatures became suddenly fuzzy in outline, and then disintegrated, leaving a half-skeleton hanging in the air.
Two others followed, fast, and they were shooting as they came. The exit port was their point of vulnerability. Kleist and Dimity had their strakkakers trained on it, and though the aliens were fast, they couldn't get through the glass needles.
But a strakkaker has a limited magazine capacity. I heard theirs fall silent, and brought up my own, ready at the movement I could see beyond the hatch.
More alien shapes, horribly bigger than men, were maneuvering something out of the hatch, and leaping onto it. It was rectangular, and I thought idiotically for a moment of a flying carpet, realizing it must be some sort of evacuation vehicle.
Whatever it was, it seemed to be an emergency device only, like a sledge. The aliens on it must, I thought, be dazed and injured by what had happened, but there was no opportunity for mercy now. They were still carrying weapons, and, though the flames of the burning craft in the air beside them must have affected their night vision, they would surely be able to see us soon. I fired the strakkaker again in a long burst, and swept them off the sledge as the two craft separated. I realized the fact that the strakkaker, unlike a beam weapon or bullet-rifle, had no betraying flame might be a great advantage.
The main alien craft was falling faster now, and breaking up, pouring fire from several ports. There was an internal explosion, and it dropped like a stone, exploding again as it hit the ground and scattering wreckage.
Our own lift-belts were bringing us down, too. They were emergency devices only, with limited power, intended at altitudes like this to slow a fall more than to fly. One of the floating aliens was still firing a beam weapon, but it was either dead or badly wounded, for the bolts were flying at random. I raised my strakkaker again to finish it.
I fired a burst of a second or so, and the gauge clicked on empty. But the thing dropped its weapon. I thought I heard it scream, but between the deafening explosions and the flames I couldn't be sure. I marked where the weapon fell, though, as my own feet touched the ground. The others landed nearby. I was amazed we were all alive.
Kleist and I lifted the alien weapon between us and we staggered away. There seemed to be something still moving in the wreck of the alien craft, and I thought there might be explosions still to come.
“They were trying to capture us, weren't they?” said Dimity. “That's why they didn't shoot at first.”
“They often try to capture if they can,” said Kleist. “It's better not to let them…
“Well,” he continued after a moment, “at least it should be difficult for them to find us now. Have either of you got any metal prostheses in you?”
We hadn't. The small locator implant in my arm was plastic.
“Good. Get rid of the belts, and any electronic gadgets you've got on you. Watches, calculators, pocketbooks. They can detect electronic activity in space. I don't know how much metal their detectors need, but why make it easy for them? And they can use the heat-induction ray to cook any metal parts you have inside you while you're still alive. I've seen it happen…”
“Are we worth coming after?” I wondered if it would affect plastic and decided I could cut the locator out if I had to. It had already buzzed and vibrated once, which I did not like at all, but then had stopped.
“If another ship saw anything of what happened, they'll come. They're big on revenge, we've noticed.”
The alien weapon had an orange light glowing on one side.
“I hope that's to show it's charged,” he said. He broke off suddenly to cough. “I hope it isn't calling them… Funny, it's got a trigger like a human weapon. Convergent engineering…” His voice was becoming rambling.
“You're hurt,” said Dimity. “I ought to look at you.”
“No time now. We're dead meat if the pussies find us here. Got to get out of the area.”
“Where do we go?” My question. I was feeling numb and stupid. The caves had proven no hiding place. But we were still in arid open country. I wanted to get away from the terrible sky.
“We still head for München.”
“Where is it?”
“There.” He pointed to the glow in the sky. “See the flames.”
I suddenly understood what that glow meant. It looked as if the whole city was burning. Now that I looked, I saw shifting green lasers passing through smoke-clouds. We were still on high ground, and had a long view and wide horizons.
There, too, apparently crawling across the ground toward us, were lights. In my glasses they swam into focus as a column of vehicles.
“They're fleeing out of the city,” said Dimity. “But why don't they scatter?”
With higher magnification we could make out details. Some of the vehicles had laser and other weapons mounts and some of them were shooting beams and bullets.
“They must be holding together on purpose. Strength in numbers. They're still fighting.”
“Not enough strength, not enough numbers. The kzin can pick them off at leisure.”
“Why don't they, then?”
“They're cats. They like a bit of sport,” said Kleist. “Sometimes, and until they get tired of it. See there!”
There were other vehicles on the ground moving toward the human column from the north. Quite different vehicles.
“Those will be kzin ground forces. As far as we can gather, they like a bit of personal combat. I'd guess they'll call in a strike from space when they've had
enough.”
The kzin vehicles were advancing in a broad line. They seemed to ignore natural cover, and they were in a relatively concentrated mass. They were pouring out fire but lasers and guns firing from the more dispersed human line were hitting them. The area around Manstein's Folly was also sparkling with gunfire.
“I've seen that in space,” said Kleist. “It's another reason we lasted as long as we did. They play around for a time and then something snaps and they just charge in headlong. No sense of tactics, once an attack actually starts. If we had aircraft to give support now we could make a real mess of them.”
“We have an aircraft,” said Dimity. She pointed to the kzin sledge, still floating above the wrecked vehicles on the ground, dead kzin hanging in the air around it. “There should be enough power left in three lift-belts for one of us to reach it. I'm the lightest.”
“Could you control it?”
“It must be simple enough.”
“No,” said Kleist, “I'll go. I've seen some of their instrumentation.”
“Some of those dead kzin have weapons,” said Dimity. “Get them if you can.”
Chapter 13
Let every Greek contingent
Meet the fury hand to hand.
But none of it will matter
If the Spartans cannot stand…
- Peter Kocan
The kzin sledge was simple to fly. Its small motor was controlled by a wheel and joystick: left, right, up down. Even a monkey could understand them, especially a monkey used to flying aircraft. The motor was making a loud purring noise, but we had no idea if that was normal or not. It was a lot more stable and powerful than a human ground-effect car, further evidence of a terrifyingly advanced technology.
The sledge was armed, too, with a beam projector heavier than a personal sidearm. If we had not shot the kzin before they brought it into action we would have been wiped out in short order. The kzin sidearms we salvaged were heavy enough.
“I think we can make one pass,” said Kleist.
There were recognizable kzin and human lines now, and enough smoke to show the shafts of beam weapons. One end of the human line seemed to be anchored at Manstein's Folly. As we approached it the human fire increased. We still had our pocket-vision enhancers and they showed some details.
There were recoilless guns, copies of an ancient design, mounted on small vehicles and firing rocket projectiles, firing and moving. A few of the human super-Bofors guns, hunkered down behind rocks and gully walls, were throwing out lines of shells as well. Some of these glowed in the air. Their explosions looked feeble, and I couldn't think they were doing much good, but perhaps the sight of them was cheering. There were a number of kzin vehicles wrecked and burning but most were the victims of beam-weapons—probably the adapted police message-lasers. Beams passing through swirling clouds of smoke created a surreal effect in the night.
I remembered a statement in my hasty reading on strategy that for a general to retreat into a fortress was an act like grabbing hold of the anchor on a sinking ship. On the other hand, this half-repaired straggle of ruined walls and ditches was hardly a fortress.
The human fire seemed to be concentrating on the kzin machines. The higher these flew the easier it was for them to fire back, but the better targets they became. Mostly, they kept very close to the ground. We could just make out the shapes of the aliens leaping down from some of the nearer ones. We saw two or three get hit by fire, crash, and burn.
The kzin were throwing missiles and beams the other way, and to effect—the human line was being torn up from end to end, and the route of the human army was marked by the burning wrecks of vehicles. I saw the white flash of a molecular-distortion battery rupturing among the explosions, a big one that must be near full charge. Not many near that would survive. And as we approached there were more of the smaller dark shapes—kzinti advancing on foot. Either they didn't notice the sledge against the night sky or took it for the kzin vehicle it was.
Then they did see us. I can only guess they sent some identification call or challenge to which we did not respond, but a second later they were firing at us. Kleist fired back and took us down in a steep dive into a dead area behind a long rock ridge, beams passing above us.
“No good,” said Kleist. “They've too much firepower. We'd never get through. And, in case you didn't notice it, the humans were firing at us as well.”
“We've got to do something to help.”
“Let's get to the human lines.”
“Won't they see us coming and shoot us?”
“Try the communicator. Let's hope they've got one functioning at their end.”
During a partial lull in the bombardment we found Grotius, von Diderachs and van Roberts in the ruined “keep” of Manstein's Folly. There was an odd flag flying from a pole above them, an outline of a man holding a lightning bolt and standing on two feline heads.
Neither party recognized the other at first, not merely because they were still wearing the filthy remains of those “uniforms.” We had all changed. Von Diderachs with a bloody cloth bandage around his head, his proud beard cut away, looked Herrenmann leader no more. They were huddled around a table with an old-fashioned paper or fabric map, spread on it. Van Roberts was shouting into a communicator.
“Fire and move! Fire and move! Their radar can track your launching points!” Something must have happened because he stopped shouting and shook his head. “Fools.” Then again, “Disperse! Disperse and fire!”
Human were running and firing from widely separated points, never staying in the same place after they had fired. Still some did not move quickly enough to avoid the returning fire. There were heavy automatic guns in armored cupolas that rose, fired, and retracted, installed as part of the restoration of the fortress. But none seemed to get off more than a few shots before the kzin fire found them and destroyed them.
Another group of humans rushed up to the wall and leveled a heavy beam weapon but didn't fire. None of them looked surprised to see us. I suppose no one had any emotion left. Von Diderachs took in what was left of Kleist's pilot's outfit with the comment, “A professional. But we're all becoming professionals now.”
“What are you doing?”
“Buying time. Time for the evacuations. The lucky ones get to the slowboats. The less lucky may get out of the city. Peter… Colonel Brennan is taking some guerrillas to the hills.”
Whump! Whump! Whump! Three muffled sounds, almost like implosions, from somewhere farther down the human line, followed by the white light of MD batteries exploding, then a much louder explosion from the same direction. Van Roberts spoke into the communicator again.
“They got under cover in time. That was a human team. We're running out of smart automatics. Three rounds off from the mortar and they're still alive.” Then: “Disperse! Disperse! Let them clump together!” I could see more humans scattered up and down the line now, crouched behind rocks and old walls and too scattered to be picked off easily.
“How long can they last?” I asked Kleist.
“I told you. Till the kzin get tired of playing.”
“The Tesla Towers did some good at first,” said Grotius. “The waves seemed to upset their motors. Then they knocked them all down. They found the naval base we were trying to build at Glenrothes Field and nuked it, but they fought for a while on foot at the perimeter first… The last of the garrison got a message out… and it was a low-yield nuke… nice of them.”
“You see we're cooperating now,” said von Diderachs. “A little late in the day. Herrenmanner and Prolevolk, Teuties and Tommies. And I'm a general, like some of my distant ancestors. Do you know how recently we didn't know what a general was?” He laughed and laughed and then began to weep. Grotius slapped his face.
Suddenly the fire from the kzin heavy weapons stopped.
“Thank God!” gasped Kleist. He too was looking all in now.
“Don't be too quick to do that,” Grotius told him. “The only reason they'd rai
se the bombardment is that they're sending in infantry. They like a bit of that,” he added, evidently for me.
“Call in the picket! It can't do any good now!”
“Too late! Look!” From a depression in the ground beyond we saw a confused fight: bombs and beams. There was a hammering of gunfire.
“Poor bastards, poor tanj bastards,” muttered Kleist, ceaselessly.
“Artillery!” van Roberts was shouting into a communicator. “On top of them! Put it right on top of them. They're dead men already.” The whole depression seemed to explode as human heavy guns converged on it. I saw kzin and human bodies, whole and in pieces, hurled into the air.
“Here they come!”
“Stand to!” shouted von Diderachs, his weeping fit gone. “Infantry, rally to me!” To my surprise a man nearby began to beat with sticks on a little drum slung on his hip. It must have been a prearranged signal, because other humans sheltering behind scattered rocks and ruins began to converge upon it in crouching runs. Something that could not be blocked electronically.
A couple of robot guns and lasers, very new things that sought their own targets and took their own cover, were jumping and blazing, their muzzles dancing faster than the eye could follow. If only we had had more of them!
There were bigger lasers than I had realized, crude, strapped-together things, some with hideously dangerous unshielded conduction cables snaking across the ground.
The weapon at the wall began to fire. Other humans dashed forward, some bent in a crouch, hunched over the weight of the Lewis guns that they fired as they ran. There were a lot more humans scattered about the rocks and ruins than I had realized, and for a second I felt cheered.
There were the huge forms of kzin, carrying heavy arms, dashing across the open ground toward us, firing and snarling as they came. And they were fast.
Most of them seemed to be naked but for equipment, and under the light of Alpha Centauri B their brilliant orange fur made them stand out as targets. Human fire met them, strakkaker needles—which seemed to do little good against whatever the clothed ones were wearing but made straw and skeletons of the others—exploding Bofors shells, beams, bullets. A human would have tried to dodge that fire or to take shelter behind some ridge of ground, but the kzin kept coming straight at us. I thought at that moment that any space-traveling race would have a science of hard materials and wondered that they did not all wear armor. With the primitive and makeshift propellants we had, largely copies of antiques, our missiles would have bounced off modern armor like raindrops. Further, it would have camouflaged their brilliant coats.
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