by John Dalmas
"Thank you, Captain," she answered.
Thank you, Captain? For what? Doing my job? Stoorvol powered up his gravdrive. Don't knock courtesy, he chided himself. Sergeant Haynes started his scooter, too, and they headed for the burn's nearest edge. There, back beneath the trees, they set down about a hundred feet apart. From the burn came a pleased shout: an entomologist had found a hornet's nest. Stoorvol hoped to hell they'd get what they needed quickly. He wanted to get back to the Mei-Li and off the planet as soon as possible. The collection order called for six nests-for statistical reasons, he supposed. It could keep them out there till dark, which meant till morning. A disturbing possibility.
***
Achmed Menges found a suitable location, unloaded his marines again, and had two of them guide him between the trees until he saw a glade ahead. He stopped sixty or eighty feet short of it, with a clear shot to scram if he needed to. By that time the gorge was a hundred yards behind him, and marine lookouts at the rim could no longer see the boat. Menges shut down all systems except shipsmind, to reduce detection risks, then waited while the Mei-Li grew slowly hot and stuffy.
***
On being relieved, Tech 1 Gortha turned his log over to the new watch officer. The Wyzhnyny ensign glanced at it. "What is this?" he asked.
Gortha didn't need to look. He'd logged just one item that wasn't routine. "It's a call from the courier bringing Colonel Dorthut from Grasslands, sir. While crossing High Falls Gorge, the pilot spotted a wrecked alien craft in the bottom."
The ensign's hackles rose. "Wrecked alien craft? How did he know?"
"I suppose, sir, because none of ours is reported missing. And because there are no aliens left on the planet."
"You suppose?" The ensign's jaw muscles bulged like melon rinds along his cranial keel. The observation had been radioed in nearly five hours earlier. Such a lapse was intolerable. Reaching to the work station keyboard, he tapped three keys.
A voice issued from the desk speaker. "Dispatcher's station, Tech 1 Rrunch."
"Rrunch, this is the officer of the watch. The dispatcher you relieved-is he still there?"
"No, sir. He just left, sir."
"Get him! Now!"
"Yessir!"
The ensign heard the quick soft thudding of feet, and waited scowling, fists clenching and unclenching. There were more footfalls, then a voice. "Tech 3 Agthok, sir. How can I help you?"
"Who piloted the courier from Grasslands?"
"Tech 2 Kroliss, sir."
"How can he be found? Promptly?"
"Sir, I saw him enter the messroom about… forty minutes ago."
"Thank you." The ensign bit the words out and disconnected, then with an angry finger stabbed more keys. "This is the officer of the watch. I must speak to Tech 2 Kroliss at once."
"He just left, sir, carrying a mug of something."
"Go and get him! Tell him the watch officer wants him at the watch office NOW! And call me when you've done it!"
"Yessir!"
An unpleasant rumble issued from the watch officer's throat as he disconnected. A mug of something! he thought. As if I had any interest in that!
Tech 1 Gortha was glad Ensign Rrishnex wasn't on his watch. But he didn't ask permission to leave. He'd slip away after Kroliss arrived. He wondered why the ensign didn't just order someone else out to investigate. Probably, he decided, because Kroliss could find the place more surely.
***
Gosthodar Qishkur, Governor of the Okaldei, lay on his AG couch with his torso upright. His eyes were obscured by their nictitating membranes, and his upper torso rocked back and forth like a dodderer's. Not a reassuring sight, thought General Gransatt.
"If it was mine to decide?" Gransatt asked. He was tempted to answer falsely, for it seemed to him the gosthodar would order the opposite of whatever he recommended. But he would not lie; not so blatantly.
"Lordship," he said, "I would order all scouts and all fighter craft to muster here. Then search the plateau between the Broken Hills and Long Inlet on the west, and the Green River on the east. Search it so that nothing living avoids detection. All attack squadrons to be on two-hour stepped alert, ready to destroy any aliens sighted. Until we find the alien and wipe him out, or are very very sure he does not exist."
The gosthodar's rocking increased, the sight transfixing his general. After a long moment the gosthodar spoke, his voice reflecting his age. "I thought we did all that a cycle ago," he said. "Was that not you in charge?"
Gransatt's hide heated; it required effort to avoid bristling. "That was not comparable. Then we needed to search the entire planet. A single region can be searched far more thoroughly."
The gosthodar ignored the general's omission of the honorific. "Mmmm. But that first scouring-did it not begin with an intensive search first of this very region, then that of Grasslands and Basin? And despite all that, was an alien not found reconnoitering this very settlement some weeks later?" Qishkur had stopped rocking, and his eyes had cleared. "You say you would make very very sure he is wiped out. That he ceases to exist. But what does such certainty mean? You were very sure before, and I accepted that. Until suddenly, there came the alien who had hidden under the hill. Then he died, and you were very very sure. But I was no longer so sure anymore. Eh?"
The general's hide felt hot as fire. He did not reply.
"And now this. How can you have so much certainty about what you will accomplish this time, and so little in what you accomplished before?" Briefly his head swayed from side to side in rejection. "I, on the other hand, believe you did well before, you and your fliers. Not perfectly it seems, but well. This was an alien outpost world, nothing more. There were no towers. No ghats. Not even towns. There were never more than a few sophonts here, and your fighters killed most of them. The few survivors, those who did not succeed in fleeing the planet, scattered to different regions, where they have hidden. In caverns no doubt. It seems they have an affinity for caverns.
"But they cannot hide forever. They must surface, walk beneath the sky, bath in the streams"-his words slowed for emphasis-"and grow food. And when they do, our surveillance buoys will find them. The aliens know this. They are not ignorant primitives. This appearance today-if it is real; if the report is not an aberration-this appearance is an act of desperation, perhaps to collect supplies from some old cache."
The gosthodar repeated himself, as if savoring the aptness of the phrase. "An act of desperation." He paused thoughtfully. "There may be caverns behind the cliffs of the High Falls Gorge, as there were behind the lesser. You must seek them, and destroy any you find."
He straightened, his old voice sounding fuller, less aged. "You will not gather the squadrons from Grasslands and Basin. You will do your searching with what you have here. If your fears reflect fact, and the aliens retain some little potency, to gather the other squadrons here would expose Grasslands and Basin to destructive raids."
The old head swayed again, side to side, side to side, and for a moment the eyes closed entirely. "Go," the old voice said, suddenly raspy again, "and heed what I have said."
The general backed away, arms spread, forelegs bent, belly low, trunk and head lowered in deference. "As you direct, your lordship, that shall I do. And as you enjoin, your lordship, that shall I not do."
The gosthodar was rocking again.
***
Tech 2 Kroliss had marked his approximate crossing point on Lieutenant Zalkosh's map. Zalkosh, piloting the armed scout, reached High Falls Gorge about two linear miles north of the marked point, at 5,000 feet local reference. He saw no alien craft below, nor did Kroliss, who sat beside him.
If there was an alien craft down there, they would probably have seen it. Nonetheless, Zalkosh began descending on a gravitic vector. The gorge meandered sufficiently that one just might be concealed down there by a rock wall. And at any rate, he wanted to examine the bottom.
Tech 2 Kroliss could imagine serious personal problems if they found no alien craft. It wo
uld strongly suggest there'd been one, and that it had escaped. The obvious alternative conclusion would be that he'd hallucinated. So far, the lieutenant hadn't seemed to judge.
Zalkosh paused some twenty feet from the bottom, then started southward along the curving gorge. Both he and Kroliss watched intently for any sign that an alien craft had been there. It was the dry season, and the stream level was low, exposing the larger rocks that had fallen from the walls. If an enemy ship had made a forced landing, it should either still be there, or have left signs of having been there.
It occurred to Kroliss that the alien ship might have been hovering just above the bottom when he'd seen it, and left no trace. Left because he, Kroliss, had flown over. That's what a Board of Investigation would think, and a court-martial.
Zalkosh proceeded for more than a linear mile past the point where Kroliss reported crossing. Then he switched on his transmitter, accessing Security directly.
"Security, this is Lieutenant Zalkosh, reporting on the alien sighting. I have examined more than three linear miles of gorge bottom, centered on Tech 2 Kroliss's reported crossing point, and have seen no sign of an alien craft. I suggest other scouts be sent to search this entire quadrangle, and that the surveillance buoys be instructed to intensify surveillance of this region. Unless otherwise instructed, I will continue south down the gorge to the ocean, or until I find an alien craft.
"Zalkosh out."
Kroliss imagined himself assigned to the death platoon, making amends to the tribe.
***
Hours had passed when one of the marine lookouts trotted up to the Mei-Li, to report that a small alien craft had snooped the gorge from the north, just above the bottom, and passed out of sight southward. A scout, Menges thought. He felt extremely nervous. Other Wyzhnyny might be flying a search pattern above the plateau, sensors scanning.
He'd heard that the Wyzhnyny didn't take prisoners, and wondered what might happen to him if they did. He decided he'd prefer a pounding from energy bolts. A quick death. Meanwhile he wondered how the hornet hunters were doing. He wasn't about to break radio silence to ask.
***
While the entomologists and Olavsdottir hunted for hornets' nests, and Captain Stoorvol's men napped, Stoorvol had scanned the known Wyzhnyny radio frequencies. Hearing a lot of traffic but learning nothing, except what Wyzhnyny sounded like on the radio. Finally, after five hours, Olavsdottir collected her sixth colony of hornets. Stoorvol had seen no bogies, and had no idea what the situation was at the big gorge. When everyone and everything was loaded and secured, he took off, the second scooter close behind. He'd wait till he was nearer before radioing Menges and getting the new coordinates. Assuming the Mei-Li was still intact, and Menges alive and free.
***
Before the additional Wyzhnyny scouts lifted from Seaside Base, their pilots were briefed. Among other things, they were given Tech 2 Kroliss's description of the alien craft: green, and about the size of a corvette. Actually, at eighty-three feet in length, a Wyzhnyny corvette was seriously longer than the forty-six-foot Mei-Li, and proportionately broader. A corvette could hardly be maneuvered into the rainforest.
***
Stoorvol's two scooters had barely cleared the trees behind them when one of the marines shouted, "Bogies aft!" Both Stoorvol and Haynes accelerated, snapping heads back, then darted down into the pirate gorge, to careen south together below the rim. They were quickly past the burn, then slowing sharply, lifted again to rim level, curved into the rainforest and proceeded eastward among the great trunks and dangling lianas. The whole sequence took perhaps fifteen seconds.
"Captain," said Olavsdottir, "that was exciting!"
"I'm glad you liked it," he answered drily. "Now let's hope they don't find us with their sensors." He switched on his transmitter. "Menges," he said, "this is Stoorvol. What are your coordinates?"
He got no answer. The forest damps transmission at both ends, he told himself. Ten minutes later, in a glade, he lifted above the trees and tried again, using more power. The reply was brief and faint, but readable. He fed Menges' coordinates into his scooter's navcomp, acknowledged Menges' reply, then ducked into the trunk space again and continued eastward.
"I didn't see the bogies," Olavsdottir told him.
"Right. They probably continued east when they lost us. But they'd sure as hell have reported us, which must have stirred things up considerably." And they haven't found the Mei-Li yet. That's the hopeful part.
He pushed as fast as he dared. The sun had been low when they'd left the burn, and once it set, this near the equator, it would get dark quickly. He didn't lift above the trees for a peek around. Didn't see the Wyzhnyny scouts' ground support fighters and APCs posted above the big gorge, waiting for word from the surveillance buoys. He didn't need to. He assumed they'd be there, they and more.
"How's our cargo doing?" he asked.
"All right so far," Olavsdottir answered. "But after a few more hours in those traps, they'll start dying."
Shit! "How much good will they be to us dead?"
"The composition of body fluids will begin to break down, probably including the venom. How much useful information we'd get then is impossible to tell. Some, possibly."
Stoorvol grunted. So we'll push, he thought. He stopped to rearrange personnel and transfer cargo, all the civilians and the hornets going to Haynes' sled. Stoorvol would haul the other four marines, in case a rearguard action was needed, or a fighting decoy, or someone to run interference. "If we run into trouble," he told Haynes, "don't hesitate to ditch the scooter and proceed on foot. Meanwhile load your belt nav from the navcomp right now, and be sure you take it if you ditch. And for godsake don't abandon the hornets!"
***
The two scooters went on again, side by side now. If they were detected beneath the trees, hopefully they'd read as a single unit. In the trunk space-the forest gallery-the light grew dimmer, more dusky. They were half a mile from the Mei-Li when bolts from a trasher ripped into and through the forest canopy, exploding overhead and on the ground. Broken branches and wood thudded and pattered behind him. Stoorvol shouted as if he had no helmet transmitter. "Set her down and run!" Then he darted upward through a gap in the foliage, evading branches as if by magic. In the air above, his marines poured blaster fire at the nearest Wyzhnyny gunboat, targeting its sensor arrays. Then he dove through another gap, and zigzagged erratically away from the hornet scooter. An APC was firing into the jungle as if tracking him.
He landed skidding, 300 yards short of the Mei-Li's coordinates. "Off," he barked, then triggered the scooter's delayed destruction charge and sprinted sixty yards before it blew. For a few seconds he lay panting, then got to his feet. His commandos were unhurt. After orienting himself in the deep dusk, Stoorvol sent the others on to find the Mei-Li. Alone he paused, squatting by a fallen forest giant overgrown with lichens, moss, and toadstools. The firing had stopped when the scooter had blown. Now it began again, and he sprinted around the root disk to crouch behind the great log. More debris rained down.
Clicking his transmitter, he spoke. "Gunny, do you read me?"
"Loud and clear, sir."
"Boats, do you read me?"
"Loud and clear, sir."
"Good. Gunny, if you've got any men on board, get them off now, ready to fight.
"Boats, Haynes and the civilians should reach you with the hornets soon. On foot. As soon as they're secured, get the Mei-Li out of there, without lights if possible. Gunny's people will help you. Did you both hear that?"
"Loud and clear, sir."
"Loud and clear, sir."
"Good. And Boats, those hornets need to reach the Bering as fast as safely possible; otherwise they may die, and dead they won't be much good. Then we'll have come all this way for nothing. Do not wait for me; I'll be keeping the Wyzhnyny distracted."
It seemed to him he'd already done a pretty good job of that. Otherwise they'd probably have found the Mei-Li and pounded hell out of her.
Meanwhile the trasher fire had stopped again. He suspected what that might mean, and getting to his knees peered over the log toward where the scooter had been. A minute later he saw Wyzhnyny troopers lowering through the canopy in slings.
Crouching, he padded off into the gathering darkness.
***
With the help of his helmet's active night vision, Stoorvol found his way readily. Even with his belt nav, and knowing his own and the Mei-Li's coordinates to four decimals, it would be easy to miss the boat in the jungle. Abruptly, gunfire sounded from multiple locations overhead: the rapid thumping of trashers, and the sizzling cracks of trasher bolts burning vacuum trails through the air. But without the tearing crashes of detonations in the forest roof, or the dull earthy whumps as they exploded against the ground. This continued for perhaps five long seconds, then cut off. The sound and its cessation told him what the target had been: the Wyzhnyny had been firing at the Mei-Li as she accelerated outward. But there'd been no explosion as of the collection boat blowing up or crashing. Menges had gotten away into warpspace.
Which meant that Haynes and his civilians had run all the way, carrying their hornet traps… Either that or Menges hadn't waited. His fists curled at the thought.
At any rate the situation had changed. He was here until he either died or was picked up by the Mei-Li, when and if she returned for Wyzhnyny prisoners. Stoorvol had ridden from Terra in stasis, and barely knew Weygand. Some commanders might justify leaving the system with what they had-the hornets. But there were others who'd try for the jackpot, especially since it seemed not to endanger the Bering herself. Weygand, it seemed to him, might be one of them.