The Escape Orbit (12 page)

“Acting like rabbits,” Sloan finished for him.

“Not in those exact words,” Hynds said, smiling but with an uncomfortable glance at Ruth Fielding, who was beside him. He went on, “Apart from this we are up to schedule. The weather posts and communications relays are, or will be, set up and operating on time. Hutton has given us an improved signaling device…”

The device, Warren knew from his examination of the drawings, consisted of the light from a bright-burning, shielded fire being focused into a tight beam and directed toward the next leg of the relay. The beam had just enough spread to compensate for the fact that the stations were usually mounted in trees and subject to wind movement, so there was no possibility of it being seen from above. It was used in conjunction with a telescope to increase the range and accuracy, at the same time cutting down on the number of relay stations needed.

“… But the final alignment and full-scale testing of the system, sir,”Hynds concluded, “must wait until the Escape site has been chosen.”

“Major Sloan,” said Warren.

“We carried out the practice run between Mallon’s Peak and a pretended Escape site twenty-three miles away,” the Training chief said in his tight, perpetually angry voice. “I used eight-man carrying platforms where there were no roads and wagons pulled by domesticated Battlers or my men where roads were available…”

Between the subsidiary smelters at Mallon’s Peak and the road two miles away the going had been hard. They used the trees for cover whenever possible, but soon discovered that the more effective the overhead concealment the more difficult it was for the platforms to move. They had the choice of moving like snails undercover or of making rapid progress leaving a trail which a Bug guard would probably be able to spot with his own naked eye. The compromise forced on them, crossing open ground on duckboards laid down ahead of the column and picked up in their wake, involved so much extra work and confusion that Major Fielding’s idea for maintaining smoothness and uniformity of effort could not be tried. The men were too busy cursing to have the time, or inclination, to sing.

When the thirty-two platforms with their simulated loads arrived at the road they were transferred onto wagons drawn up under the trees which bordered it. Sixteen domesticated Battlers, all that could be collected in the area, were already harnessed to these carts and moved off at once, but the other vehicles had to be pulled by his men.

It began to rain heavily.

Under normal conditions—five or six Battler-drawn carts and less than fifty pedestrians per week—the Committee roads were adequate. Their top-surface of broken rock cemented together with clay gave good support while allowing rain to drain away quickly. But with sixteen Battlers and upwards of three hundred men dragging maximum loads over it in a steadily increasingly rainstorm, the surface began to break up. Battlers pulling the leading wagons sink into it up to their knees, which meant that the men harnessed to the following wagons were almost hip-deep in the tracks the beasts had made. Then the wheels began to sink into the gradually liquefying surface and the struggling, cursing procession began splitting into three parts.

In the lead were the carts pulled by the domesticated cows, being dragged over or through all obstacles—in one case despite the loss of a rear wheel—by animals whose tremendous strength left them sublimely indifferent to loads, gradients or road conditions. Then came the wagons, bunched together and falling steadily behind the first group, which were harnessed to officers who were all too conscious of such factors. And finally there was the group which labored furiously to heal the deep, muddy scars left in the road so that when the sun came out and dried it out there would be nothing to arouse the suspicions of a possible observer in the guardship.

Three miles from the pretended Escape site the road crossed a bridge which spanned a deep ravine between two thickly-wooded hills. The first part of the convoy was slightly ahead of schedule at this point and the other two considerably behind it, and the bridge had never before been subjected to such a load. But the first three Battlers and their wagons went across without the structure showing any visible signs of strain, and everyone began to breathe easier.

It was when the fourth wagon was at the center of the bridge, with Sloan sitting beside the driver, when it happened.

A bull Battler, old, mean and large even for one of that physically massive species, erupted from the trees near the other end of the bridge. The cow pulling the wagon which had just crossed, reared and plunged sideways as the head of the bull crashed into its flank just above the middle set of legs. Suddenly it was on its side, rolling off the edge of the road and dragging the wagon with it into the ravine. The driver leapt clear and landed on his hands and knees on the steep slope below the road, scrabbling desperately for a hold on the grass covering it. Before the cow and the wreckage of its wagon hit the bottom of the ravine, and before Sloan could see whether the driver had made it or not, the bull was charging onto the bridge.

The cow harnessed to Sloan’s wagon reared and backed away, the lumps below her eyes twisting and throbbing. It was well known that the courtship of male and female Battlers was an incredibly violent business—they charged each other and slapped at each other with their twenty-foot trunks, rolling about and parrying each other’s blows in such a way that their trunks often appeared to be knotted together. But this was a domesticated Battler whose horn and trunks had been excised a few days after birth, and who had never had experience of anything but human beings and other domesticated Battlers like herself. So whether the advance of the bull was murderous or simply over-amorous she had no way of defending herself against the heavy tentacles battering at her head and back. There wasn’t space enough on the bridge to turn so she reared ponderously and retreated until the wagon, driven backwards and swinging off course, snagged against the heavy guardrail.

The driver realized what was going to happen before Sloan did and he began sawing frantically at the harness with his knife. Sloan joined him, hacking at the broad straps which hung slack one instant and were pulled tight the next with every movement of the terrified animal. It seemed only a split second after the last strap had parted that the cow’s evasive action became too much for the guardrail. With a tearing, splintering sound the Battler and a section of rail whisked out of sight, the shock of its impact with the ground shaking the bridge.

Jammed as it was at an angle across the bridge, and so heavily laden that they could not climb over it in time to escape the bull’s flailing tentacles, the only possible means of escape was to go under the wagon. Sloan, on the heels of the driver, was scrambling past the front axle when something smashed against the backs of his legs, tightened suddenly around them and began hauling him backwards. He was yanked upside down into the air, one of the bull’s tentacles wrapped tightly around his knees while the other one curled around his neck, under one arm and across his chest and together began pulling him in. The gaping red pit of the Battlers mouth and the deadly triangle of its horn seemed to rush at him, then slowed an instant before he was impaled as the Battler altered its grip.

Both hands were still free. Sloan grabbed the end of the horn and fought to push it away from him.

Had it been a younger Battler whose horn was still smooth and razor-edged instead of being roughened and blunted by the bodies of too many victims and the passage of too much time, Sloan’s terrible grip around the point of the horn would simply have caused him to amputate his own fingers. And if he had not been a man of unusual strength he would have been skewered within seconds anyway. But he held his grip and even tightened it as, forearms rigidly extended and elbows pressed against his pelvic bones for support the bull started shaking him from side to side.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the point of the horn as, pitted with decay and stained with earth, sap and the dried blood of previous victims, it twisted and jerked within a foot of his stomach. His hands were sweating and at any moment he felt they would slip, just as he felt that two steel bands were tightening around his legs and chest as the tentacles coiled tighter and tighter. He couldn’t see for sweat and he had no breath to shout for help, although about three hours later, so it seemed to him, help arrived.

The recognized way of killing a Battler quickly was a three-man operation aimed at placing a cross-bow bolt through the soft area inside the mouth which was close to the brain, after which the beast died with dramatic suddenness. But such fancy operations were impossible in the cramped space of the bridge, even if Sloan’s body had not been in the way, and somebody had thought of using one of the new grenades.

It wobbled into his field of vision, a small, heavy bottle mounted on a throwing stick, burning its last quarter inch of fuse. Sloan did not look at who was holding it because he was suddenly in greater danger from the grenade than he was from the Battler. As the grenade was pushed into the bull’s mouth he threw every ounce of strength he possessed into an effort to twist to one side.

There was a muffled thump, a surprisingly quiet sound, and the Battler’s mouth jerked open. Blood, brains, and fragments of broken glass erupted past him. The tentacles relaxed their hold and the beast rolled onto its side, toppled off the edge of the bridge and joined its last victim at the bottom of the ravine. Sloan would have gone with it, if somebody hadn’t had a strong grip on his kilt…

“Uh, yes…” said Warren.

He had never liked Major Sloan as a person and he could not like him now, Warren told himself, but he found himself wishing suddenly that it was possible for one senior prisoner of war to promote a subordinate prisoner, or to award a decoration or to do something more meaningful than the bestowing of a few words of praise. He was still trying to frame words suitable to the occasion when Ruth Fielding spoke.

“My non-Committee sources of information tell me that there was another spot of trouble on this practice,” Fielding said angrily. “Perhaps Major Sloan is too disturbed through reliving his harrowing experience to remember the second incident?”

Sloan and Kelso both glared at her while Hynds and Hutton merely looked uncomfortable, all of which told Warren that they all knew something he did not know and that the reason for him not knowing was that they had deliberately kept it from him. He also knew that it must be important because Fielding was not the sort to tell tales. Warren stared hard into Sloan’s ravaged face and snapped, “Well, Major?”

Sullenly, the other said, “When we got to the Escape site and officially ended the exercise one of the farmers complained about losing his two Battlers and wagon in the ravine.”

Warren nodded. “I can sympathize with him over the Battlers, at least—they have to be caught young and it takes six years of hard, patient work to take them. What did you say?”

“Nothing,” said Sloan. “I broke his jaw.”

“You broke…” began Warren, and stopped. The sudden reversal of his earlier feelings for the man was so great that he was too angry to speak.

“There was no need to do that,” began Hutton worriedly, but Sloan shouted him down.

“He didn’t have to pull his guts out dragging wagons through the mud! He didn’t have any trouble at all! All he did was lend us two lousy Battlers and then sit back on his fat—”

“I’d have done the same,” Kelso put in hotly. “I’m getting sick of sweet-talking these Civilians into doing things for us, making them think
they
are doing
us
a favor! We do all the real work and take all the risks, and we’re supposed to be obliged to
them!
”

“Major Sloan,” Fielding broke in, sarcasm tingeing the anger in her voice, “may be too emotionally disturbed to recall that the man whose jaw he broke was nearly sixty, lightly built rather than fat, and that another non-Committeman who went to his assistance was roughed up by some of the Major’s men—although in this case the injuries were not disabling. And that all this strong-arm stuff took place before the two men had any knowledge of the trouble the Major had just gone through…”

“Tempers were short on both sides,” said Hynds quickly, with a warning glance at Kelso. “A pity, but understandable in the circumstances. But we need the help of these people, Lieutenant, and flattering some of them into giving it—a lot of them give it willingly, remember—is one of the easiest chores facing us.”

“No!” Kelso raged back. “I’m sick of licking the boots of lousy Civilians, deserters! So called officers who think more of their deserter wives and brats than—”

Warren’s fist crashed into the table-top. In the silence which followed, his voice sounded loud even though he was trying to keep it down and trying to keep the anger and disappointment he felt from showing in it. He said, “When I allowed a measure of informality during Staff meetings I did
not
give you permission to wrangle among yourselves! I will think about this matter and decide what restitution and disciplinary action is needed. Meanwhile, and if you can refrain from sniping at your brother officers, Major Fielding, I’d like your report.”

But as the psychologist began speaking Warren was giving her only a fraction of his attention. He had seen the smug, unrepentant expressions on the faces of Kelso and Sloan. They knew, and rightly, that he could take no strong action against an officer as important to the success of the Escape as the chief of Training. Hutton, and to a lesser extent Hynds, had registered embarrassment and disapproval at what must look like weakness on his part.