Footfall

by Larry Niven

  But Bill Shakes believes it. He didn't want me to find out. If Shakes doesn't know what's really going on in the harbor, nobody out here does. We'll have to go inside.

  He heard Harry's voice from the other room. "Like Sheena Queen of the Jungle. Miz D. hopped on, and out we came. Hey real coffee! Great!" There were other voices, children, and giggles

  Coffee! But to get any, he'd have to listen to Harry's story yet again . . .

  * * *

  So. We achieve escape velocity,

  Pastempeh-keph thought. From here we coast. We'll hold the African continent forever, and if new resistance rises, we'll trample it from space. Ultimately the dissidents may rule Message Bearer while my descendants trade them metals for food. The door to the mudroom opened. Pastempeh-keph waved happily from the mud. His fithp's mating season had come round at last—

  "I have a guest," said K'turfookeph.

  You what?

  Pastempeh-keph didn't say that. He said, "Enter. Soak your tired selves." This had better be urgent! K'turfookeph entered with Chowpeentulk. The females eased into the mud, carefully, under the low spin gravity. A few moments of quiet were allowed to pass, during which none of the tension left Chowpeentulk. Then she said, "My mate was murdered, Herdmaster. What have you done to find the rogue?"

  He had thought he could postpone this. There was a war on, and a sufficiency of dead fithp. Some fi' had removed a problem. The Herdmaster had taken steps to learn who, for he might act again, but there had been yet more urgent problems.

  He said, "Tell me first, what would you have done?"

  Chowpeentulk considered. "A rogue shows. He does not speak to his fithp, he abandons his mate, he does not trouble to hide who he is."

  "We have rogues enough," the Herdmaster conceded. "Warriors on Winterhome face strange and terrible pressures. But here? So you must have noticed him. Is there a herdless one aboard? A member of the Traveler Herd whom none will associate with? No? Then who could have come and gone so unnoticed?"

  Chowpeentulk shook her head. She was terribly tense. Why not? She had invaded the Herdmaster's private mudroom!

  He said, "Not a rogue. Then he did not act alone, and if he did, he must have shared the secret with someone. What would you do now?"

  "I would ask! No Ii' can lie to the Herdmaster."

  "That statement is too sweeping, but it has some truth. I have interviewed the heads of every fithp aboard Message Bearer. The sleepers do not ask that I seek a killer; they demanded only that I choose an Advisor from among them at once. This seemed promising. I set my attention on them. When that failed me, I questioned randomly chosen fithp: Fistarteh-thuktun's apprentices, Tashayamp, weapons officers aboard, warriors newly come from Winterhome, mothers, newly mated females, unmated females, humans.

  "Some spoke of roguish behavior in others. I challenged the alleged rogues; every accusation was unwarranted. None know how Fathisteh-tulk died. Few even know what his interests were, where he might have overturned a secret worth concealing—"

  "Few? What have you learned?"

  "I learned what you must have known, Chowpeentulk. Your mate was interested in the human prisoners. He questioned one Dawson, while Dawson was isolated."

  "So." She said, "In the communal mudbath, days before he disappeared . . . he wouldn't tell me what he intended, but he thought to learn something. It had to do with whether Winterhome was worth the taking."

  "It would. And where does that leave me? Did he question the Soviet prisoners? Did he learn anything? Humans may lie even to the Herdmaster, for I cannot read their body language. The Breakers were no help. It doesn't matter. Even if we consider that surrendered human might murder a ranking fi', another fi' murder be involved. No frail human could have pushed him into a vertical wall of mud under minuscule thrust. A fi' must have chilled the mudroom again after Fathisteh-tulk was dead.

  "Meanwhile a fithp-less killer walks Message Bearer. He killed among the highest rank, yet nothing shows in his stance. He know that he has played the Herdmaster for a fool."

  "We feared you had forgotten," K'turfookeph said, with a trace of apology in her tone.

  "Losing my fithp to thermonuclear bombs and wooden stick and madness, why should I ignore yet another death? But I hay no more footholds here! What should I seek? Some fi' appeared and killed and went, unnoticed, speaking to none."

  Chowpeentulk sprayed him. The Herdmaster didn't react at all "A rogue who came and went. So simple. Chowpeentulk, I will produce your mate's killer within eight days. Leave us."

  Chowpeentulk knew enough to keep silent. She surged from the mud and left, dripping. Pastempeh-keph said, "Was there no another place where you and that other female could confront me?"

  "Keph, she persuaded me. There are others who wondered too—"

  "Don't do that again. Now forget it, mother of my immortality The mating season flows always too fast."

  * * *

  The column made slow progress across the veldt. Movement was impossible at night. The snouts had excellent IR detection equipment. On a good day the commando could travel thirty kilometers on foot.

  They had learned that, and more.

  Julius Carter wanted time to understand what he had learned: of the strange relationships between the Afrikaner tribe-they could only be thought of as a tribe-and the various black tribes.

  Van der Stel, the thin Afrikaner who spoke of "Kaffirs" and expected blacks to call him "Baas"-but who also had genuine respect for the Zulu scouts, and always listened to their advice.

  Mvubi, who seemed servile to van der Stel and treated Carter as an equal—but took his orders from Carter.

  And the Russians, who understood none of this. Of the dozen who'd joined forces with Carter, only two spoke English, and none spoke any other language relevant to South Africa.

  A strange country. It had been strange before the invaders came. Now—

  Now the whole Earth is strange.

  Despite the chill wind, Carter sweated under his heavy pack load. They moved in small groups, slowly and carefully, taking advantage of every patch of cover, every depression in the ground. Up ahead Mvubi and his Zulu scouts were nearly invisible. A steady hiss sounded in Carter's left ear, showing that his radio receiver was on. Mvubi wouldn't activate the transmitter except in an emergency. A short, low-power transmission probably couldn't be heard by the snouts, but why take chances?

  "It is not far now," van der Stel said. "When we reach those trees, you will see their spaceport. The missile can be fired from there."

  "Thank God," Sergeant Harrison muttered.

  Lieutenant Ivan Semeyusov looked disapproval at Harrison. Russian noncoms did not speak to their officers until invited, and good communists would hardly invoke deity. Colonel Carter hid his grin. "Give 'em a ten-minute break, Sarge."

  "Yes sir." Harrison whistled long and low, knowing that Mvubi's people would hear. Then he crawled back down the column to pass the word to the Americans and Russians.

  Carter hunched in the lee of the best shelter he could find a wished he could smoke his pipe. How good is their sense of smell? The wind blew continuously. He looked cautiously around weird landscape. After all these months, there was still the odor of death in the air. What is a black boy from Pruett-Igoe doing way down here? "At least the rain has stopped," he said.

  "It is cold for November," van der Stel said. "Summer will late."

  If there's a summer at all

  , Carter thought. November in South Africa should have roughly the same weather as May in Southern California, warm and dry, not this blustery cold. The Russian officer produced a package of cigarettes. "No," Carter said. The Russian officer put the pack away.

  "This is a mad scheme," van der Stel said.

  "So? And why are you here?" Lt. Semeyusov asked. His mouth twisted into a deliberate grin.

  Learning some manners, anyway

  , Carter thought. "It is known that I am mad now," van der Stel said. "TI English found that all Afrikaners
have the capability. Now v must show the olifants. Tell me, Lieutenant, what brings you far from home to aid me in my madness?"

  Semeyusov wasn't going to touch that one. "You are certain they will launch a large craft today?" the Russian demanded.

  "Certain? How can I be certain of anything? Our friends at the spaceport, those who load the craft, say they believe it will be launched today or tonight or tomorrow. I have told you this. You think I deceive you?"

  "Naw," Lieutenant Carruthers said. "None of us think that mynheer. Ivan's nervous. We all are."

  With good reason.

  Carter glanced at the sun. "Since we don't know when they'll launch, the sooner we're in position, the better. Let's get moving."

  "Looks like they're about to button her up," Carruthers reported He handed the binoculars back to Carter. "Last-minute loading—"

  Julius Carter lay in the grass and turned his binoculars on where had been an airport, eight kilometers away.

  The Sunday comics had taught him to call them "rocket ships. This was the first rocket ship he had ever seen. Shuttles didn't look like this. Its belly was flat. It was the size of a building; made the nearby C-47 cargo transport look like a toy. Take the massive cone off the back and it would look more like an airplane, but not very. Too short, too wide, too little in the way of fins. The only windows were on a canopy the size of a 727 fuselage, and that was underneath the nose. The point of the nose glittered like a lens, but it wouldn't provide a view. A laser cannon?

  Van der Stel had been right, as usual; this was an excellent place to observe the spaceport, high enough to give them a good view, but not conspicuously high.

  Carruthers might have been reading too much into what he could see. On the other hand, he might not. In the past hour the snouts had certainly closed two cargo hatches on the big ship. They'd removed the two loading cranes that went with those ports. Most of the other baggage carts had been removed to the other side of the field. "It sure looks like they're doing something. How're the Russkis coming?"

  "We are coming quite well, Colonel," a voice said from behind him.

  Ooops!

  "Thank you, Lieutenant. You've got your missile set up?" "Presently."

  "Good. Looks like we have about half an hour."

  "I will encourage the crew to hurry."

  Carter sat in the tall grass and took out his pipe.

  "Nice thing about a pipe," Carruthers said. "Don't need to light it. Colonel—"

  "Spit it out."

  "Will it work? Sir? I mean, they had to carry it a long way, and—"

  "Got a better plan?"

  "No, sir."

  "It's worth a try, Lieutenant."

  "Yes, sir."

  And no, I didn't answer your question, son. How could I?

  He grinned, but to himself, as he remembered a story from one of the innumerable Arab-Israeli wars. An Arab president had cabled to Moscow: "Stop sending surface to air missiles. Send surface to aircraft missiles." So far it hasn't cost us anything but some sweat. So far.

  When they launched that Russian missile that would all change. They'd have to run for it, scatter, and hope they all made it to the rendezvous points. Carter glanced at his watch, then back to the low railed structure the Soviet troops had bolted together. "Okay, Sergeant. Spread 'em out." "Sir."

  There was definite activity at the spaceport. All the auxiliary vehicles had been withdrawn. Now the great hulk of the alien spacecraft sat alone.

  An enormous concrete structure opened nearby.

  "The laser," Carter said. "Hit that, and we splatter that ship all over the landscape." He handed his binoculars to Lieutenant Carruthers and turned to the Soviet officer. "All set?"

  "Da." Semeyusov's eyes glittered expectantly. "It is a good missile. A good missile."

  "I sure hope so." -

  "Colonel!"

  "Yeah, Carruthers?"

  "They've opened a hangar. Something coming out-coming this way. Shit!"

  Carter grabbed the binoculars.

  More than a dozen of the fast-moving light ground effect vehicles Carter had come to call "skimmers" moved across the spaceport. When they reached the fence they rose over it, then spread out across the veldt. One was coming directly toward their hill.

  Behind the skimmers came eight tanks.

  Lieutenant Semeyusov's voice was emotionless. "Your orders, Comrade Colonel?"

  "Wait. Maybe they won't see us."

  The skimmer came on, past the area where Mvubi's scouts were hidden.

  "Still coming," Carruthers said. "Colonel, if they didn't see his people, they won't see us." -

  "And if they go straight past us, they'll see the damn missile," Carter said. They'll be here in a second. Once past us, they're sure to see the missile. He thumbed the channel control on his helmet radio. "Sergeant Harrison. If that skimmer comes within fifty meters, take it out."

  "Sir." Harrison was invisible somewhere off to the left.

  Lieutenant Carruthers unlimbered a light antitank tube. "Custer's last stand."

  "Something like that," Carter said. "Maybe they won't come."

  "Yeah, sure."

  Semeyusov 'spoke quickly into his phone. "They are ready—"

  The first skimmer reached the bottom of the hill. Another converged toward it.

  Carter lifted the transmitter. "Mvubi. uSuthu!"

  "Tchaka!"

  A moment later automatic weapons chattered from the veldt between Carter and the spaceport. The trailing skimmer wobbled, then fell. "Launch your bloody missile," Carter ordered. "It's too late to get the spaceship. Try for the laser anyway."

  "With respect, Colonel, perhaps they will launch their ship anyway. It is a better target."

  "Why in hell would they launch during an ambush?"

  For answer, Semeyusov pointed. Thick white smoke rose from the base platform around the alien spacecraft.

  "Son of a bitch! Okay!"

  "Only now we got to stop those tanks," Carruthers said carefully. "I don't think Mvubi's people will hold them long."

  "We'll do the best we can—"

  The alien ship rose suddenly. The rocket platform that boosted it fell back, as a brilliant blue-green beam stabbed up from the concrete structure at the center of the spaceport.

  "Any time now!" Carter shouted. Lieutenant Semeyusov spoke rapidly.

  The leading skimmer was climbing the hill toward them. There was a sharp flash from the bush to their right. A dark shadow moved toward the alien hovercraft, rushed at it, touched it- The skimmer exploded in fire. "Two down! Hoo hah!" Carruthers shouted. "Bring on the motherfucking tanks!"

  Tanks hell, where's that damn missile—

  Thunder rolled toward them. The spacecraft rose on its beam of green fire. Three smaller beams stabbed downward. They moved in an odd pattern- There was a flash of fire, and the Russian missile tumbled in smoke. It fell into the veldt.

  The smaller beams moved up the hill toward Carter, moved past him, curved back toward him.

  He was encased in a wide spiral of green. The spiral tightened.

  The alien spacecraft vanished in the clouds.

  37

  THE IRON CRAB

  One minute with him is all I ask; one minute alone with him, while you're runnin' for th' priest an' th' doctor.

  -SEAN O'CASEY, The Plow and the Stars

  The truck was an older Ford Club Cab with a roomy area behind the backseat. The space back there gave Roger ideas. He brooded

  The truck rattled and stank of manure, but the seats were padded and softer than a motorcycle saddle, a difference Roger sorely appreciated.

  "Snouts," Roger said. "Harry, why would they hide snouts al the way up here in Bellingham?"

  "Beats me—"

  "Me too, but there's a story in it. One the people are entitled to know."

  "Well, maybe—"

  "Maybe a Pulitzer Prize," Roger mused.

  "Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman," Harry said. "Both with beards. Yeah.
Look, though, they've got guards on all the gates There's no way in."

  "Maybe I can think of something." I see the fine hand of Colorado Springs here. In's no problem. Out's something different. "Want to give it a try?"

  "I guess so. Sure. Why not? But how do we get in?"

  "Harry Reddington. I have a letter from Mrs. Carlotta Dawson for Mrs. Linda Gillespie. In case you haven't heard, Mrs. Dawson and I captured a snout in the Kansas war."

  "That doesn't add up to a pass."

  "Nobody in Colorado-Springs knows dick about passes," Harry said. "Dawson. Did you catch the name? Dawson, as in the poor schmuck up there on the snout ship."

  "I heard the speech," the guard said. "Whose side does he think he's on?"

  "Ours, by God, and he's the only spy we've got, too!" From the sound of that indignant scream, Harry was about to deck the schmuck! But his next words were almost calm. "And here's my ID. Gas ration card, even. Presidential commendation. Look, here's the letter. For Linda Gillespie," Harry said. "Mrs. General Edmund Gillespie."

  "I heard of her."

  Roger's heart pounded. If they searched the truck . . .

  If Harry knew how serous this was, he'd never carry it off. Snout prisoners, in Washington State? Bullshit. Not a bad story, because the snouts on the mother ship wouldn't drop a meteor on their own people. And it would have to be concealed, because the good citizens might rise to violence against snout prisoners. But why confiscate the CBs?

  Something was happening here that would bring meteors if the snouts ever learned of it. The CBs had to disappear, Bellingham had to vanish from the news. . . and what if they found Roger Brooks of the Capital Post hidden in the back of a pickup truck?

  There was a long silence, with things happening but no way for Roger to know what they were. Finally he heard the guard again.

  "Okay, Mrs. Gillespie says to send you on down with your letter. Her house is downhill from the Officer's Club. That's the old university student union building. I've marked it on this map. Just before you get to the Officer's Club, you'll come to another guarded gate. They'll be expecting you. Go straight there. Nowhere else. When you've gone through that gate, go directly to Mrs. Gillespie's house. Nowhere else. Here. Take this pass. You'll need it to get out. Come back through the same way you went in, and end up back here. Nowhere else. Got all that?"