when here they came. Practically parted my hair!"
"Wait," I said. I left the stick long enough to open the carriage door. A squadron of stubby little yellow-painted aircraft buzzed past.
"It's the Zhenders from this morning!" I said. I lunged back to the stick and just avoided a tree-trunk. "Pembrinn must have driven to Wangrove Mesa to tell them what's up."
"Good on him!" said Krimby.
My mind raced furiously. The children were beginning to stir again. "How close are you to take-off?"
"About a minute. I've fueled and almost have it linked. More BB-shot, and I'm off."
"Signal one of the Zhenders to land, and hold a written message in front of his wind-screen. Have you got some paper?"
"Certainly. I've got a pocket notebook and a . . ."
"Yes, yes! Write, 'Kidnappers under fire. Children still in danger. Follow me.' Got that?"
"Got it," said Krimby.
"I may end up liking Pembrinn after all!" I said. "I should have thought of reinforcements myself."
"So should we all," said Krimby. "You keep flying. I'll take it from here."
Suddenly my aircraft dipped and almost went out of control. I saw the children, open-mouthed and apparently yelling, start to run west again. Our Circlist must be firing at me. I came around quickly and zigzagged east, looking carefully. Another hard breeze, but I spotted movement this time. I headed straight for it, pouring out BB-shot in a power-dive.
As I pulled up, the Circlist emerged well to my left and slipped through undergrowth, heading for the children. I just missed a tree-trunk, failed to get a burst off, and he was hidden again. There was another buffet. I knew he wouldn't keep on missing.
"Blue Squadron!" I said over the landlines. "Come west, just north of the Road. The armed Circlist is here, chasing the children." Suddenly, I knew where I was: the area of the ancient burn-out, where I had turned north that morning. Within seconds, the Tobs came bursting into the sparser trees.
"Guide on me," I said, waggling my wings. "Echelon Right. Low velocity."
"There he is!" roared Dreshey.
Thirteen voices roared, "Where?" Every craft broke formation, and I was Lord of Chaos.
I triggered the landline. "All right, never mind formation; just try to spot him. Be careful of collisions, conserve your ammunition, and keep him away from those children!"
I got a chorus of affirmatives.
My next glimpse of the Circlist came when the children decided to cross the Road to the southern trees. He had picked a hiding place next to the shoulder, just within the undergrowth. When the children appeared, about three hundred yards away, he stepped onto the Road, drew his bead, and let fly. One of the children was thrown to the ground. The Circlist began loping toward them.
Maundel, who was closest and not yet out of ammo, leveled off behind him, firing a river of high-speed BB-shot at the back of his head. It physically knocked him somersaulting. He staggered back into the brush, pursued by more shot.
Suddenly I remembered the Hornets! I looked above the Circlist's hiding place and spotted the nests: festoons of fiber and dried mud running from tree to tree. Immediately I ran the length of them, blowing the structures to pieces with streams of shot. Dirt and chunks flew in all directions, and hundreds of the creatures - which aren't insect forms, but are more like tough little bats – fell, enraged and flabbergasted, into the undergrowth.
"Those are Hengston's Hornets!" said Maundel.
"Yes indeed," I said.
"You sadist!"
"Thank you. Let's try to find . . ."
But our Circlist came bursting onto the Road, covered in Hornets and clawing wildly at himself. He threw down his power rifle and, with a volcanic effort, cleared his face of the horrors. Having his bearings, he made for the southern trees at a mad, humping gallop. Apparently, he knew water was close by.
The children had emerged onto the road again, and were watching curiously. I tore down there to see which child had been hit. Drent, in the lead as they came toward me, was the one: his shirt was tattered and bloody. He was running with a wobble, and I couldn't see how serious the wounds were. I sobbed in miserable frustration. Buck fever for sure!
By this time, Krimby was arriving with the Zhenders. "Bret, what's up?" was his urgent question. I looked and saw them, a long line glittering in the sun about three hundred feet above me.
"Krimby! Take the Zhenders to the original spot and see what the other two Circlists are up to. We've left them alone too long!"
"We’re off," said Krimby. He waggled his wings, shed altitude, and led the Zhenders east down the Road. We chased after our scoundrel while Krimby kept us updated.
His two Circlists, their faces masks of blood, had the Autogyro out from under the trees and had deployed the wings. They were aboard and starting the engine when Krimby and the Zhenders approached. The Zhenders, getting the idea, came down, absolutely pouring out BB-shot, but the occupants were protected by the air-shedders. The shot rebounded harmlessly in all directions. Feet and legs were exposed, of course, but BB-shot in the legs won’t stop a desperate man. The props spun, the gyro lifted off, and the two Circlists were surely going to escape. Krimby's swearing all but raised a blue fog in my cockpit.
But one of the Zhender pilots was familiar with the Jenner Autogyro. He detached himself from the formation, approached the craft from below, and rammed into what looked like an exposed fuel line. He must have given instructions to his fellows, because they started doing the same thing, craft after craft, until suddenly a gush of black fuel exploded from under the gyro.
The propeller began to slow at once, and I fear the Circlist pilot was not up to his work. He failed to engage the flywheel soon enough, and their return to the ground was quite vigorous.
Krimby circled low and examined them. "Lovely," he said. "All four legs are crushed, and they're trapped. Those Circlists aren't going anywhere!"
There was mad cheering over our landlines. I spoke. "Krimby! Do you know where the rest of us are?"
"I can guess."
"Out over the lake. Our Circlist got a faceful of Hengston's Hornets . . ."
"Hengston's Hornets? Great thunder! Is he still alive?"
"Only too. He jumped into the lake to get rid of them; that’s where he is now. The children are all right, but we'll have to do something to keep that Circlist in place. His legs are perfectly sound, and he could swim to the far shore and escape under the trees. We couldn’t . . ."
I stopped, because Drent had just appeared on the hard shingle of the beach, carrying the Circlist's power rifle. He waved at me. Our villain, free of Hornets, was emerging dizzily from waist-deep water, hands to face, blood rinsing off him in streams. He froze at the sound of our aircraft, and at that moment, Drent fired into the water about twenty feet to his right.
The explosion was that of at least half a pint of water flash-vaporized. The sound must have been more impressive still, to say nothing of the wave that knocked the Circlist down. When he got back up, I could see that Drent was yelling something at him. He stayed where he was with his hands up and his head down. I circled the Circlist for a closer look.
He was crying.
Reaction set in at that point, and I simply could not stay in the air. Trembling, I came in low and made a dreadful landing on the shingle, barely holding upright. I turned off the engine. Drent, glancing at me over his shoulder, read my mind and hastened to show me his wounds: blisters and lacerations only. It had been a near miss.
Linnea now appeared and ran over to my craft. I saw her lips form the word "Daddy," before she planted a sound kiss on the wind-screen. I was hopeless by now, blubbering like an Old Earth walrus; tears pouring down my face; I couldn't even get up from my seat.
Buck fever with a vengeance.
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5. The Watch Arrives
Pembrinn came driving back with the Commander of the Zhender squadron, a man named Shondlep. I and Snapey, who had flown his hovercra
ft back, pounded them on the back and thanked them both. At about the same time, two squads of the Watch arrived in two big, black hovercraft. There being no way down to the Road, we had to observe through binoculars. One landed near the group of gesticulating children while the other circled. The squad on the ground got briefed at once, and three men double-timed to the lake and took over from Drent. When they had that Circlist manacled and aboard their craft, the rest of our Squadron, which had been circling, returned to base.
The Watch craft next lifted to a spot beside the wrecked Autogyro, and the squad disentangled those two Circlists from the wreckage. Drent told me later that even at that distance, and above the hovercraft's engine noise, their screams were impressive. That craft then headed back toward Dinnorbinn with the Circlists.
The other craft collected the children and, thoughtfully, the semivirtual aircraft still down there (mine, what was left of Krimby's, and of course the ruined Zhenders), and brought all up to us. They landed far enough away from the Briefing Tent to avoid blowing it over, and we got the treat of seeing a squad of the Watch, in full kit, quietly secure the top of Grand Mesa.
I seized and embraced my two as soon as they alighted, then greeted Commander DiMarco. Even in combat gear, he looked like a graying ribbon salesman. He shook hands all round, Old Earth style, asked some terse questions, and arranged by radio to have our families and the children's parents notified that no one was seriously hurt except Circlists. The Briefing Tent delighted him,
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