First Command

by A Bertram Chandler

  “Too old,” said the nurse.

  “Then you’re quite safe.”

  Brasidus made his way from the tavern out into the street.

  Chapter 21

  HE WOULD HAVE RETREATED to the safety of the inn, but he was given no opportunity to do so. A roaring torrent of men swept along the street, hoplites and helots, shouting, cursing and screaming. He was caught up by the human tide, buffeted and jostled, crying out with pain himself when a heavy, military sandal smashed down on one of his bare feet. He was sucked into the mob, made part of it, became just one tiny drop of water in the angry wave that was rearing up to smash down upon the créche.

  At first, he was fighting only to keep upright, to save himself from falling, from being trampled underfoot. And then—slowly, carefully and, at times, viciously—he began to edge out toward the fringe of the living current. At last he was able to stumble into a cross alley where he stood panting, recovering his breath, watching the rioters stream past.

  Then he was able to think.

  It seemed obvious to him that Diomedes must have planted his agents in more than one tavern. It was obvious, too, that Diomedes, ever the opportunist, had regarded the unfortunate incident in the Three Harpies as a heaven-sent opportunity for rabble-rousing—and as an excuse for the withdrawal of all police from the city. And that is all that it was—an excuse. It was doubtful, thought Brasidus, that Grimes had demanded protection. The spaceman was quite capable of looking after himself and his own people—and if the situation got really out of hand he could always lift ship at a second’s notice.

  But there were still puzzling features in the situation. The military police were under the command of General Rexenor, with the usual tally of colonels and majors subordinate to him. Diomedes was only a captain. How much power did the man wield? How much backing had he? Was he—and this seemed more than likely—answerable only to the palace?

  The mob was thinning out now; there were only the stragglers half-running, stumbling over the cobblestones. And already the first of the scavengers were emerging from their hiding places, sniffing cautiously at the crumpled bodies of those who had been crushed and trampled. Brasidus fell in with the tattered rearguard, kept pace with a withered, elderly man in rough and dirty working clothes.

  “Don’t . . . know . . . why . . . . we . . . bother . . .” grunted this individual between gasping breaths. “Bloody . . . hoplites . . . ‘ll . . . be . . . there . . . first. All . . . the . . . bloody . . . pickings . . . as . . . bloody . . . usual.”

  “What pickings?”

  “Food . . . wine . . . Those . . . bloody . . . doctors . . . worse . . . ‘n . . . bloody . . . soldiers . . . Small . . . wonder . . . the . . . King . . . has . . . turned . . . against . . . ‘em.”

  “And . . . the Arcadians?”

  “Wouldn’t . . . touch . . . one . . . o’ . . . them . . . wi’ . . . barge . . . pole. Unsightly . . . monsters.”

  Ahead, the roar of the mob had risen to an ugly and frightening intensity. There were flames, too, leaping high, a billowing glare in the night sky. The crowd had broken into a villa close by the créche, the Club House of the senior nursing staff. They had dragged furniture out into the roadway and set fire to it. Some of its unfortunate owners fluttered ineffectually about the blaze and, until one of them had the sense to organize his mates into a bucket party, were treated with rough derision only. And then the crowd turned upon the firemen, beating them, even throwing three of them into the bonfire. Two of them managed to scramble clear and ran, screaming, their robes ablaze. The other just lay there, writhing and shrieking.

  Brasidus was sickened. There was nothing that he could do. He was alone and unarmed—and most of the soldiers among the rioters carried their short swords and some of them were already using them, hacking down the surviving nurses who were still foolish enough to try to save their property. There was nothing at all that he could do—and he should have been in uniform, not in these rags, and armed, with a squad of men at his command, doing his utmost to quell the disorder.

  Damn Diomedes! he thought. He knew, with sudden clarity, where his real loyalties lay—to the maintenance of law and order and, on a more personal level, to his friend Achron, on duty inside the créche and soon, almost inevitably, to be treated as had been these hacked and incinerated colleagues of his.

  The Andronicus warehouse . . .

  Nobody noticed him as he crossed the road to that building; the main body of the rioters was attempting to force the huge door of the créche with a battering ram improvised from a torn-down streetlamp standard. And then, looking at the massive door set in the black, featureless wall of the warehouse, he realized that he was in dire need of such an implement himself. He could, he knew, enlist the aid of men on the fringes of the crowd eager for some violence in which they, themselves, could take part—but that was the last thing that he wanted. He would enter the créche alone, if at all.

  But how?

  How?

  Overhead, barely audible, there was a peculiar throbbing noise, an irregular beat. He thought, So the Navy is intervening, then realized that the sound was not that of an airship’s engines. He looked up, saw flickering, ruddy light reflected from an oval surface. And then, in a whisper that seemed to originate only an inch from his ear, a familiar voice asked, “Is that you, Brasidus?”

  “Yes.”

  “I owe you plenty. We’ll pick you up and take you clear of this mess. I had to promise not to intervene—I’m just observing and recording—but I’ll always break a promise to help a friend.”

  “I don’t want to be picked up, Peggy.”

  “Then what the hell do you want? “

  “I want to get into this warehouse. But the door is locked, and there aren’t any windows, and I haven’t any explosives.”

  “You could get your friends to help. Or don’t you want to share the loot?”

  “I’m not looting. And I want to get into the créche by myself, not with a mob.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a look inside myself, before it’s too late. Hold on, I’ll be right with you.” Then, in a fainter voice, she was giving orders to somebody in the flying machine. “I’m going down, George. Get the ladder over, will you? Yes, yes, I know what Commander Grimes said, but Brasidus saved my life. And you just keep stooging around in the pinnace, and be ready to come a-runnin’ to pick us up when I yell for you . . . Yes, yes. Keep the cameras and the recorders running.”

  “Have you a screwdriver?” asked Brasidus.

  “A screwdriver?”

  “If you have, bring it.”

  “All right.”

  A light, flexible ladder snaked down from the almost invisible hull. Clad in black coveralls, Peggy Lazenby was herself almost invisible as she rapidly dropped down it. As soon as she was standing on the ground, the pinnace lifted, vanished into the night sky.

  “What now, love?” she asked. “What now?”

  “That door,” Brasidus told her, pointing.

  “With a screwdriver? Are you quite mad?”

  “We shall need that later. But I was sure that you’d have one of your laser-cameras along.”

  “As it happens, I haven’t. But I do have a laser pistol—which, on low intensity, is a quite useful electric torch.” She pulled the weapon from its holster, made an adjustment, played a dim beam on the double door. “Hm. Looks like a conventional enough lock. And I don’t think that your little friends will notice a very brief and discreet fireworks display.”

  She made another adjustment, and the beam became thread thin and blinding. There was a brief coruscation of sparks, a spatter of incandescent globules of molten metal.

  “That should be it. Push, Brasidus.”

  Brasidus pushed. There was resistance that suddenly yielded, and the massive valves swung inwards.

  Nobody noticed them enter the warehouse—the entire attention of the mob was centered on the door of the créche, which was still holding. When they were inside, Brasidus pushe
d the big doors shut. Then he asked, “How did you find me?”

  “I wasn’t looking for you. We knew about the riot, of course, and I persuaded John to let me take one of the pinnaces so that I could observe the goings-on. Our liftoff coincided with a test firing of the auxiliary rocket drive—even your Captain Diomedes couldn’t blame Commander Grimes for wanting to be all ready for a hasty getaway. And the radar lookout kept by your Navy must be very lax—although, of course, our screen was operating. Anyhow, I was using my infrared viewer, and when I saw a solitary figure slink away from the main party, I wondered what mischief he was up to. I focused on him, and, lo and behold, it was you. Not that I recognized you at first. I much prefer you in uniform. Now, what is all this about?”

  “I wish that I knew. But the mob’s trying to break into the créche, and I’ve at least one friend in there whom I’d like to save. Too . . . oh, damn it all, I am a policeman, and I just can’t stand by doing nothing.”

  “What about your precious Diomedes? What part is he playing in all this?”

  “Come on,” he snarled. “Come on. We’ve wasted enough time already.” He found the light switch just inside the door, pressed it, then led the way to the hatch in the floor. They went through it, down into the basement, and then to the big chamber. Peggy helped him to open the door, followed him to the far insulated wall. Yes, that was the panel beyond which lay the tunnel—the slots of the screw-heads glittered with betraying bright metal.

  At the far end of the tunnel the door into the créche was not secured, and opened easily.

  Chapter 22

  IT WAS QUIET in the passageway, but, dull and distant, the ominous thudding of the battering ram could be heard. And there was the sound of crying, faint and faraway, the infants in the wards screaming uncontrollably.

  “Which way?” Peggy was asking. “Which way?”

  “This way, I think.” He set off at a run along the corridor, his bare feet noiseless on the polished floor. She followed at the same pace, her soft-soled shoes making an almost inaudible shuffle. They ran on, past the closed, numbered doors. At the first cross alleyway Brasidus turned right without hesitation—as long as he kept the clangor of forcible entry as nearly ahead as possible, he could not go far wrong.

  And then one of the doors opened. From it stepped the tall, yellow-haired Arcadian whom Brasidus had encountered during his first trespass. She was dressed, this time, in a belted tunic, and her feet were shod in heavy sandals. And she carried a knife that was almost a short sword.

  “Stop!” she ordered. “Stop!”

  Brasidus stopped, heard Margaret Lazenby slither to a halt behind him.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “Brasidus. Lieutenant, Police Battalion of the Army. Take us to whoever’s in charge here.”

  “Oh, I recognize you—that painfully shy workman who strayed in from the warehouse . . . But who are you?”

  “I’m from the ship.”

  “What I thought.” The blonde stood there, juggling absently with her knife. And she’ll be able to use it, thought Brasidus. “What I thought,” repeated the woman. “So, at long last, the Police and the outworld space captain are arriving in the nick of time to save us all from a fate worse than death.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Peggy Lazenby told her. “Our respective lords and masters have yet to de-digitate. We’re here in our private capacities.”

  “But you’re hung around with all sorts of interesting-looking hardware, dearie. And I can lend Brasidus a meat chopper if he wants it.”

  Brasidus said that he did. It was not his choice of weapons, but it was better than nothing. The Arcadian went back through the door, through which drifted the sound of excited, high-pitched voices, returned with the dull-gleaming implement. Brasidus took it. The haft fitted his right hand nicely, and the thing had a satisfying heft to it. Suddenly he felt less helpless, less naked.

  “And what’s your name, by the way?” the blonde Arcadian was asking.

  “Lazenby. Peggy Lazenby.”

  “You can call me Terry. Short for Theresa, not that it matters. Come on.”

  With her as a guide, they found their way to the vestibule without any delays, bypassing the wards which the infants were making hideous with their screams. But the noise in this entrance hall was deafening enough; it was like being inside a lustily beaten bass drum. Furniture had been piled inside the door, but with each blow of the battering ram, some article would crash to the floor.

  There were doctors there, white-faced but, so far, not at the point of panic. There were nurses there, no braver than their superiors, but no more cowardly. They were armed, all of them, after a fashion. Sharp, dangerous-looking surgical instruments gleamed in tight-clenched fists, rude clubs, legs torn from furniture, dangled from hands that had but rarely performed rougher work than changing a baby’s diaper.

  “Heraklion!” Terry was calling, shouting to make herself heard above the tumult. “Heraklion!”

  The tall doctor turned to face her. “What are you doing here, Terry? I thought I told you women to keep out of harm’s way.” Then he saw Brasidus and Peggy. “Who the hell are these?” He began to advance, the scalpel in his right hand extended menacingly.

  “Lieutenant Brasidus. Security.”

  “Looks like a helot to me,” muttered somebody. “Kill the bastard!”

  “Wait. Brasidus? Yes, it could be . . .”

  “It is, it is!” One of the nurses broke away from his own group, ran to where Heraklion was standing. “It is. Of course, it’s Brasidus!”

  “Thank you, Achron. You should know. But who are you, madam?”

  “Doctor Margaret Lazenby, of the starship Seeker.”

  Heraklion’s eyes dwelt long and lovingly on the weapons at her belt. “And have you come to help us?”

  “I let myself get talked into it.”

  “I knew you’d come,” Achron was saying to Brasidus. “I knew you’d come.” And Brasidus was uncomfortably aware of Peggy Lazenby’s ironic regard. He said to Heraklion, more to assert himself than for any other reason, “And what is happening, Doctor?”

  “You ask me that, young man? You’re Security, aren’t you? You’re Captain Diomedes’ right-hand man, I’ve heard. What is happening?”

  Brasidus looked slowly around at the little band of defenders with their makeshift armament. He said, “I know what will happen: massacre, with ourselves at the receiving end. That door’ll not hold for much longer. Is there anywhere to retreat to?”

  “Retreat?” demanded Heraklion scornfully. “Retreat, from a mob of hoplites and helots?”

  “They—the hoplites—have weapons, sir. And they know how to use them.”

  “Your Doctor Lazenby has weapons—real weapons.”

  “Perhaps I have,” she said quietly. “But ethology happens to be my specialty. I’ve studied the behavior of mobs. A machine gun is a fine weapon to use against them—but a hand gun, no matter how deadly, only infuriates them.”

  “There’s the birth-machine room,” suggested somebody. “I’ve heard said that it could withstand a hydrogen-bomb blast.”

  “Impossible!” snapped Heraklion. “Nobody here is sterile, and to take the time to scrub up and break out robes at this time . . .”

  “The birth machine won’t be much use with nobody around to operate it,” said Brasidus.

  Heraklion pondered this statement, and while he was doing so a heavy desk crashed from the top of the pile of furniture barricading the door. Halfheartedly, three of the nurses struggled to replace it, and dislodged a table and a couple of chairs. “All right,” he said suddenly. “The B-M room it is. Terry, run along and round up the other women and get them there at once. Doctor Hermes, get along there yourself with all these people.”

  “And what about the children?” Achron, in his agitation, was clutching Heraklion’s sleeve. “What about the children?”

  “H’m. Yes. I suppose that somebody had better remain on duty in
each ward.”

  “No, Doctor,” said Brasidus. “It won’t do at all. Those wild animals out there hate the nurses as much as they hate you. To the hoplites, they’re helots who live better than soldiers do. To the helots, they’re overprivileged members of their own caste. Those nurses with the villa outside and the créche have all been killed. I saw it happen.”

  “But the children . . .” Achron’s voice was a wail.

  “They’ll be safe enough. They might miss a meal or a diaper change, but it won’t kill ‘em.”

  “And if there’s no other way out of it,” put in Peggy Lazenby, “we’ll make them our personal charge.” She winced as an uproar from the nearer ward almost drowned out the heavy thudding of the battering ram. “I sincerely hope that it never comes to that!”

  One of the nurses screamed. The pile of furniture was tottering. The men below it tried to shore it with their bodies, but not for long. A spear probed through the widening gap between the two valves, somehow found its mark in soft human flesh. There was another scream, of pain, this time, not terror. There were other spearheads thrusting hopefully and not altogether blindly. There was a scurrying retreat from the crumbling barricade. Suddenly it collapsed, burying the wounded man, and the great valves edged slowly and jerkily inwards, all the pressure of the mob behind them, pushing aside and clearing a way through the wreckage. And through the widening aperture gusted the triumphant howling and shouting, and a great billow of acrid smoke.

  The mob leaders were through, scrambling over the broken furniture, their dulled weapons at the ready. There were a half dozen common soldiers, armed with swords. There was a fat sergeant, some kind of pistol in his right hand. He fired, the report sharp in spite of the general uproar. He fired again.

  Beside Brasidus, Peggy Lazenby gasped, caught hold of him with her left hand as she staggered. Then her own pistol was out, and the filament of incandescence took the sergeant full in the chest. But he came on, still he came on, still firing, the hoplites falling back to allow him passage, while the Arcadian fumbled with her gun, trying to transfer it from her right hand to her left. He came on, and Brasidus ducked uselessly as two bullets whined past his head in quick succession.