A new sound tore at their nerves. The rockets of the armored HQ were blasting. They felt the vibration of the ground as it began to move off. They all—even Sparks—scrambled up to see whether it was abandoning them, moving out of range.
But, vents roaring, wheels racing, it was shooting straight as an arrow towards the dim bulk of the giant tank.
Far from abandoning them, it was championing them.
Emotionally wrought up as he was, George felt an odd lump arise in his throat. It was David against Goliath, but mad, useless courage in this case. The monster tank was far too big and heavy to be overthrown, as the midget tank had been, by the sheer impetus of the HQ. If it tried that, the HQ would only smash itself to pieces like a boat splintering on a rock. George thought, no, it won’t do a fool thing like that. It’s just aiming to be of nuisance value. It’ll worry the monster, like a dog worrying a bear. It’ll keep throwing it off its aim, using its own far superior speed to keep itself out of danger.
Using unsuspected small quick-firing guns, the huge tank opened up on the thing rocketing towards it. The HQ drove through this crackling gunfire unchecked. It veered out to the right, as though it were going to bypass the big tank. Then it swung around sharply and made a flanking attack. Its sharp nose caught the tank squarely in the side. There was a flash of white light which seemed to rive both heaven and earth. While the watchers were temporarily blinded, the blast wave hit them and bowled them over like so many ten-pins.
They picked themselves up, dazed. Thunderous echoes of explosion were repeating themselves endlessly around the horizon.
Sparks needed immediate medical attention. His lower lip was just raw flesh now, like a burst tomato. He was moaning with the pain of it. Off came Freiburg’s shirt again. This time he ripped it into rough bandages. Between them they made a good job of binding the radio-operator’s jaw, though it meant gagging him.
When they took a look at the wreck of the giant tank, it was blazing like a great bonfire. Both its tracks had been blown clean off, and its turret lay in two pieces maybe half a kilo away. Its gun was broken off short as though it were a stick of chalk. There was a jagged crack down the thick frontal armor-plate. It was just a mass of scrap metal.
By some freak, one wheel of the HQ had been blown back in their direction. It lay out there in the middle distance isolated from other general debris. It appeared to be the only remaining trace of the HQ, and to George at least there was a poignant touch obout this.
The small tanks which had sheltered behind their champion had been scattered like rubbish in a gale. Those which had survived intact had fled out of sight.
Their own guard of white circle tanks had lapsed into silence and disinterestedness.
The skipper turned from surveying the battlefield, and was obviously moved. He said to George; “They were really great guys. They were riding a cargo of dynamite. They knew it and didn’t care so long as they knocked out the big fellow. Their fuel tanks burst, I guess.”
George said: “And we’ll never even know who they were… if they existed.”
“What’s that?” said Freiburg, sharply.
“Well, we’re only surmising that the thing had a crew, aren’t we?”
“I’ll stake my life there were people in there who knew just what they were doing,” said the skipper, stubbornly.
George didn’t argue. For one thing, you can’t argue without knowing the facts. For another, it was obvious that Freiburg had an emotional need to believe that there were Venusians on his side, faithful unto death, that the whole planet wasn’t hostile towards the men from Earth. That belief had lifted him from despair, had given him some faith back. What did it matter if the belief was right or wrong, so long as it sustained him? He could be right, anyhow. They inspected their space-ship inside and out. Things had been pretty badly shaken up, but the only thing beyond ultimate repair was the radio apparatus. The fins were grotesquely crumpled, but could be straightened out on the portable workbenches, given time.
After that, the great problem would be to get the ship back to standing vertically on its tail in the blastoff position.
“If only we had some winches,” said Freiburg.
By now the mate had recovered his nerve and demonstrated that his wits were back in good order. He suggested: “Maybe we could use the tanks to haul the ship up… somehow.”
Freiburg pondered. “H’m. I rather suspect these tanks were directed and powered from the vehicle we called the ‘HQ.’ As that’s been atomized, the odds seem against the idea. Besides, we’d need cables—and we don’t have any cables.”
“I remember reading in old war books about tank warfare that tanks sometimes got bogged in mud-holes,” said George. “And that they carried cables and winches for getting themselves out. It could be worth taking a close look at those things…”
They found that each tank had a cable locker at the rear, containing some fifty metres of oiled steel cable—thick, tough stuff.
“It’s like an answer to a prayer,” said Freiburg. “We can join the cables together. Then if— if—we can get eight or nine of these tanks working somehow…”
George said: “You know, I’ve been wondering about those driving seats. Seems to me they point to the fact that the tanks weren’t always remotely controlled. Maybe they don’t always have to be, even now. There could be alternative provision for manual control. That panel facing the seat certainly has manual switches on it. I’m going to try everything. Keep clear of the treads.”
He climbed into the nearest tank.
None of the switches or levers was marked, and he began a game of trial and error with them. He hit the forward movement lever at the second try. The engine burst into life and the tank jolted and ground forward. It went quite a way before he discovered how to stop it. He experimented some more, and found the controls simple to use once he’d mentally labelled them. The TV screen provided a sharp view of his surroundings. Twenty minutes later, he was giving Freiburg driving lessons. The skipper mastered the tank almost as quickly, brought it to a halt, then sat thoughtfully regarding the image of the fallen space-ship on the TV screen. He said, presently: “We’ve a fortnight’s work to do on those fins. Even if the triangle gang doesn’t attack us again, and we’re left in peace to finish it, there’s always the danger these tanks may take it into their heads to wander back wherever they came from—before we have a chance to use ’em. Wonder if there’s any way of switching off the remote controls?”
“We can try,” said George.
They experimented, and found eventually that if one of the antennae was removed, the tank’s engine stopped and all its instruments went dead. George said: “Well, there you are, you can do it that way. But it also means the manual controls become useless, because you aren’t getting any power. So, while you’re actually using the tanks, you’ll just have to accept that they may be taken over by remote control at any moment.”
“Fine if that happened just as we were raising the ship,” said Freiburg. “It could cause a first-class catastrophe. Look, George, I want you to try to contact the white circle General Headquarters, whoever and wherever they are. I know you’re itching to scout around in your helicopter and see more of Venus. So you might as well make it a definite mission.”
“I’d like to, Skip. What do I tell ’em, provided they haven’t scalped me first?”
“Tell them we appreciate the way they’ve defended us, and we hope they’ll continue to act that way. That we come in peace. Ask ’em if they mind our borrowing their tanks just for a while to set up the ship. Tell ’em we’d be grateful for any help they could offer in effecting our repairs—maybe they’ve got mobile workshops. And tell them how enormously impressed we are by the magnificent action of their comrades in sacrificing themselves to save us.”
“Sure, Skip, I’ll do that. I didn’t aim to quit Venus without meeting the Venusians or having a wider look at the place. Let’s unload the ’copter now.”
It wa
s easy to do that. The helicopter had been very carefully packed in sections, and was undamaged. Normally, it would be lowered piece by piece from the hatch near the ship’s nose. But now that hatch was almost at ground-level, and it was like unloading from a railroad box-car. The Earthmen assembled the helicopter and adjusted the variable pitch vanes to cope with the denser air. The trail flight was wobbly, but a further adjustment got the pitch right. George circled the area widely and saw no signs of any other tanks, friendly or enemy.
Meantime, the others packed his concentrated food rations, and tested the Teleo components.
The Teleo had helped to make Earth One World with one tongue. It looked simple but wasn’t. There was a lightweight skull cap connected by twin cable to a small box fixed on a belt. The solitary control: a push-pull switch. Two or more people could communicate via the Teleo, even if they spoke different languages. A thought, in essence, was a measurable electrical discharge from the brain cells. The Teleo precisely measured that discharge and transmitted it on a short-wave. Or it could receive such an impulse; it was a two-way radio. The discharge was reproduced in the receiver’s brain, became a thought which was interpreted in the recipient’s language. Only the frontal lobes, concerned with deliberately conscious thoughts, were affected by the cap. Subconscious or unconscious thoughts remained screened. If a sender had difficulty in controlling or clarifying his thoughts, he merely switched off until he was good and ready to communicate. The effective range of the Teleo was but three metres, and this had both advantages and disadvantages.
George decided to take six sets, packed in a satchel. He said; “If I do meet up with the Venusians, I hope they’ve got heads to fit these things on.”
He checked his supplies, then shook hands with the others, and said goodbye. Freiburg warned: “Keep away from the ceiling. Remember, those clouds are poisonous. Look for that white circle—and steer clear of the green triangle. Good luck, George.”
George took off, and climbed slowly. The faces below became white dots and then imperceptible. The spaceship shrank until it looked just like an old stick lying on the ground. The stick floated away behind and was lost in the distance. Ahead, the blur on the horizon was revealing itself as a range of white-peaked mountains. Soon, he was passing between those peaks and staring down into desolate, twisting valleys. Beyond, the plain resumed, and went on and on. Visibility continued to be poor.
He came down pretty close to the ground, looking for friendly vehicles or signs of the white circle. All at once he glimpsed a great metal wheel, similar to the one which had created a barrier around the ship and its crew. It was bowling busily along upon a secret errand, cutting its path as straight as a bee-line. It was all alone on the spreading plain but seemed confident of its mission. He swooped down to follow it. The ultimate target, more likely than not, would turn out to be white circle elements.
However, from directly behind and above it was so thin that he soon lost sight of it. Circling, he caught a glimpse of it later, so far off that it looked no larger than a silver dollar. It was too distant and moving too fast for him to have a hope of catching up with it now.
He kept a look-out for another, but that was the only moving object he saw until a jet plane dropped from the clouds and came screaming down at him. It shot past and banked widely. In those moments he saw it clearly: a stubby craft, gray as the clouds, with swept-back wings. On each wing was a white circle. His heart leaped. A friendly plane. Perhaps it would guide him to the G.H.Q. Perhaps it had come for that very purpose.
The friendly plane, having zoomed around a semicircle, now drove straight at him, spitting unfriendly rocket missiles. The confusion in his mind was mirrored by the noisy physical confusion without.
There were ear-splitting bangs and widening smoke trails. He lost control of the helicopter. It was taken from him and bounced about the sky like a rubber ball. Sometimes the greeny-brown plain usurped the place of the cloud layer. Sometimes it turned itself into a wall, standing first on this side of him, then on that. Smoke blotches stained all aspects impartially. He pressed the ejector button—voluntarily or not, he never decided. But suddenly he was flying without the doubtful benefit of the ’copter. Then he was falling. His parachute opened automatically, and he began to rock under its see-sawing canopy.
The ’copter, with only air where its tail had been, was side-slipping away and below. Its assassin had vanished, presumably back into the clouds. Angry, bewildered, feeling betrayed, he watched the helicopter crash on the plain. Why had the white circle plane shot him down on sight?
A mistake? But surely the white circle crowd had a radio. Surely information about the Earthmen had reached all their fighting forces by now? If not, then the white circle G.H.Q. wasn’t up to its job, and its help could only be regarded as a doubtful quantity.
Or perhaps they’d changed sides yet again? In which case they could never be trusted for a moment.
He landed with a foot-tingling jar. It looked much the same as the place where the space-ship had landed. The murky plain was pitted with similar shell or bomb craters.
But now he was alone and unarmed, and both sides appeared to be gunning for him.
He threw off the parachute harness, and plodded off in the direction of the crashed ’copter. He must try to salvage the food. He was less concerned about the Teleos. There didn’t seem much point to them now. Venusians, with or without heads, were clearly people to avoid.
III
MARA RETURNED with a bundle of the succulent loogo stalks even before Dox had missed them from the well-guarded store. Swift as she’d been, it was already too late. Mother sat up in bed with her mouth open as if eager to be fed at once. But she’d never eat again. Her mouth was open this time merely because her jaw had dropped.
Mara looked at the fat, still body, shrugged and thought: well, that servitude is ended. She fed well. None can say I failed in my duty. Absently, she nibbled a stalk herself. She felt no sorrow, only relief. She was free from the onus of feeding that insatiable appetite. Now she wished to be free from Fami itself. It was a problem. The only known way to leave Fami was the way her mother (most reluctantly, she was sure) had gone: along Death’s road.
Maybe Leep knew another way. He knew most things. Still nibbling, she went along to his cave. He was squatting outside writing painfully upon a strip of bleached cloth.
“Go away,” he said, without looking up. “Even my disciples aren’t allowed near me when I’m composing.”
She sat down silently, watching him, and eating.
“Give me a loogo stalk, and you may stay.”
She would have stayed, anyway, but she gave him a stalk.
“Your mother is dead,” he said, with his mouth full. She nodded, not questioning his source of knowledge. Leep was often aware of events without being told of them. He was a mystic, a seer, a versifier, and very lazy. Because of his rare qualities, he had a circle of devotees who stole for him.
“You may have this.” He passed her the cloth strip. She read it, as slowly and painfully as he’d written it. It’s all a pointless game,
Played by a forgotten name,
The warlord and child,
Immortal, bored Senilde,
In a house of tricks,
A box of bricks,
Beneath the verdant tower.
Who commands the power
To stifle his breath
And bring him death?
“Become my artist now, and I shall write you many such verses,” Leep said. Mara tucked the strip carefully in her one pocket. It was worth preserving. Cloth was scarce. This was good cloth. She could use it for patching. She shook her head. “I wish to leave Fami. Which is the way?”
“There’s only one way: to follow your mother.”
She nodded in calm agreement.
“All ways lead to death,” he said, sententiously. “Even the way of acceptance, of remaining here. All shall die soon, for soon the glacier will flow over Fami.”
; Again she nodded, and left him. As she walked back through the village of Fami, she looked around. This wide, fertile ledge, with its caves, shacks, and vegetable patches, this odd fault on the margin of the great glacier, was the only world she or its inhabitants had ever known.
Their ancestors fled here in the mountains for refuge from the pitiless, unending war sweeping the greater world.
But the war followed them.
Flying machines dropped fire and thunder on them, blowing great masses away from the mountain-side. The path had vanished in those rock-falls, leaving a sheer precipice on that side of the village.
On the other side, as always, was only the steep glacier, with its arm extended to overhang the village. It was so steep and glassy that if you went down it, you’d never be able to climb back—if you survived the descent. Above the glacier, snow-slopes reached up into the perpetual clouds. You might, possibly, climb them to the clouds. But only to meet death—for to breathe in the clouds was fatal.
There was good earth on the ledge. The survivors decided to remain there and make the best of things. They built shacks from the material residue of their caravan, hollowed out caves, tilled and sowed the earth, and called the place
“Fami,” which simply meant “Home.”
Most of the men were Army deserters. They brought the Army code with them. They’d lived so long by looting that they’d come to accept it as the primary method of acquiring food and property—indeed, the only honorable method. To do it properly, especially among fellow soldiers, required all one’s wits and ingenuity.
If you were too stupid, weak, or fearful to make a good thief, then you had to labor to grow the food and make the utensils for living. To have to fall back, thus, on merely producing was a confession of failure and carried a social stigma.
Mara was lucky, in one way. Her father’s father’s father had been in charge of Army provisions, knew all the tricks, and taught his family well. Her father had taught Mara well. She had, in fact, surpassed him, never fumbled it once.
But he did get caught once, at Filo’s granary. It was the law that if you caught a thief in the act of thieving, you had the right to kill him. It was justice: bungling must be punished. It was the only way to keep the standard of performance high, worthy of the name of art—for a professional chief claimed the title of “artist.”
Battle on Venus Page 4