The truck finally jolted to a stop. Gloved hands jerked the cover from Pritchards eyes. He was not surprised to recognize the concrete angles of Haacin as men passed him hand to hand into a cellar. The attempt to hijack Barthes powerguns had been an accident, an opportunity seized; but the crew which had kidnapped Pritchard must have been in position before the call from S-39 had intervened.
Is this wise? Pritchard heard someone demand from the background. If they begin searching, surely theyll begin in Haacin.
The two men at the bottom of the cellar stairs took Pritchards shoulders and ankles to carry him to a spring cot. It had no mattress. The man at his feet called, There wont be a search, they dont have enough men. Besides, the beastll be blamedas they should be for so many things. If Pauli wont let us kill the turncoat, then well all have to stand the extra risk of him living.
You talk too much, Mayor van Oosten muttered as he dropped Pritchards shoulders on the bunk. Many civilians had followed the captive into the cellar. The last of them swung the door closed. It lay almost horizontal to the ground. When it slammed, dust sprang from the ceiling. Someone switched on a dim incandescent light. The scores of men and women in the storage room were as hard and fell as the bare walls. There were three windows at street level, high on the wall. Slotted shutters blocked most of their dusty glass.
Get some heat in this hole or you may as well cut my throat, Pritchard grumbled.
A woman with a musket cursed and spat in his face. The man behind her took her arm before the gunbutt could smear the spittle. Almost in apology, the man said to Pritchard, It was her husband you killed.
Youre being kept out of the way, said a husky manKruse, the hothead from the hijack scene. His facial hair was pale and long, merging indistinguishably with the silky fringe of his parka. Like most of the others in the cellar, he carried a musket. Without your meddling, therell be a chance for us toget ready to protect ourselves, after the tanks leave and the beasts come to finish us with their powerguns.
Does Riis think I wont talk when this is over? Pritchard asked.
I told you one of the men shouted at van Oosten. The heavy-set mayor silenced him with a tap on the chest and a bellowed, Quiet! The rising babble hushed long enough for van Oosten to say, Captain, you will be released in a very few days. If youcause trouble, then, it will only be an embarrassment to yourself. Even if your colonel believes you were doing right, he wont be the one to bring to light a violation which was committed withso you will claimthe connivance of his own officers.
The mayor paused to clear his throat and glower around the room. Though in fact we had no help from any of your fellows, either in seizing you or in arming ourselves for our own protection.
Are you all blind? Pritchard demanded. He struggled with his elbows and back to raise himself against the wall. Do you think a few lies will cover it all up? The only ships thatve touched on Kobold in three months are the ones supplying us and the other mercs. Barthe maybes smuggled in enough guns in cans of lube oil and the like to arm some civilians. He wont be able to keep that a secret, but maybe he can keep the Authority from proving whos responsible.
Thats with three months and pre-planning. If Riis tries to do anything on his own, that many of his own men are going to be short sidearmstheyre all issued by serial number, Lord take it!and a blind Mongoloid could get enough proof to sink the Regiment.
You think we dont understand, said Kruse in a quiet voice. He transferred his musket to his left hand, then slapped Pritchard across the side of the head. We understand very well, the civilian said. All the mercenaries will leave in a few days or weeks. If the French have powerguns and we do not, they will kill us, our wives, our children. Theres a hundred and fifty villages on Kobold like this one, Dutch, and as many French ones scattered between. It was bad before, with no one but the beasts allowed any real say in the government; but now if they win, therell be French villages and French minesand slave pens. Forever.
You think a few gunsll save you? Pritchard asked. Kruses blow left no visible mark in the tankers livid flesh, though a better judge than Kruse might have noted that Pritchards eyes were as hard as his voice was mild.
Theyll help us save ourselves when the time comes, Kruse retorted.
If youd gotten powerguns from French civilians instead of the mercs directly, you might have been all right, the captain said. He was coldly aware that the lie he was telling was more likely to be believed in this situation than it would have been in any setting he might deliberately have contrived. There had to be an incident, the French civilians had to think they were safe in using their illegal weapons. The Portelans, say, couldnt admit to having guns to lose. But anything you take from mercsus or Barthe, it doesnt matterwell take back the hard way. You dont know what youre buying into.
Kruses face did not change, but his fist drew back for another blow. The mayor caught the younger mans arm and snapped, Franz, were here to show him that its not a few of us, its every family in the village behindour holding him, van Oosten nodded around the room. More of us than your colonel could dream of trying to punish, he added naively to Pritchard. Then he flashed back at Kruse, If you act like a fool, hell want revenge anyway.
You may never believe this, Pritchard interjected wearily, but I just want to do my job. If you let me go now, itmay be easier in the long run.
Fool, Kruse spat, and turned his back on the tanker.
A trap door opened in the ceiling, spilling more light into the cellar. Pauli! a woman shouted down the opening, Hals is on the radio. Theres tanks coming down the road, just like before!
The Lords wounds! van Oosten gasped. We must
They cant know! Kruse insisted. But weve got to get everybody out of here and back to their own houses. Everybody but me and hima nod at Pritchardand this. The musket lowered so that its round black eye pointed straight into the bound mans face.
No, by the side door! van Oosten called to the press of conspirators clumping up toward the street. Dont run right out in front of them. Cursing and jostling, the villagers climbed the ladder to the ground floor, there presumably to exit on an alley.
Able only to twist his head and legs, Pritchard watched Kruse and the trembling muzzle of his weapon. The village must have watchmen with radios at either approach through the forests. If Hals was atop the heap of mine tailingswhere Pritchard would have placed his outpost if he were in charge, certainlythen hed gotten a nasty surprise when the main gun splashed the rocks with Hell. The captain grinned at the thought. Kruse misunderstood and snarled, If they are coming for you, youre dead, you treacherous bastard! To the backs of his departing fellows, the young Dutchman called, Turn out the light here, but leave the trap door open. That wont show on the street, but itll give me enough light to shoot by.
The tanks werent coming for him, Pritchard knew, because they couldnt have any idea where he was. Perhaps his disappearance had stirred up some patrolling, for want of more directed action; perhaps a platoon was just changing ground because of its commanders whim. Pritchard had encouraged random motion. Tanks that freeze in one place are sitting targets, albeit hard ones. But whatever the reason tanks were approaching Haacin, if they whined by in the street outside they would be well within range of his implanted transmitter.
The big blowers were audible now, nearing with an arrogant lack of haste as if bears headed for a beehive. They were moving at about 30 kph, more slowly than Pritchard would have expected even for a contact patrol. From the sound there were four or more of them, smooth and gray and deadly.
Kruse, Im serious, the Slammer captain said. Light from the trap door back-lit the civilian into a hulking beast with a musket. If you
Shut up! Kruse snarled, prodding his prisoners bruised forehead with the gun muzzle. One more word, any word, and
Kruses right hand was so tense and white that the musket might fire even without his deliberate intent.
The first of the tanks slid by outside. Its cushion of air was so dense that the ground trembled even though none of the blowers 170 tonnes was in direct contact with it. Squeezed between the pavement and the steel curtain of the plenum chamber, the air spurted sideways and rattled the cellar windows. The rattling was inaudible against the howling of the fans themselves, but the trembling shutters chopped facets in the play of the tanks running lights. Kruses face and the far wall flickered in blotched abstraction.
The tank moved on without pausing. Pritchard had not tried to summon it.
That power, Kruse was mumbling to himself, that should be for us to use to sweep the beasts The rest of his words were lost in the growing wail of the second tank in the column.
Pritchard tensed within. Even if a passing tank picked up his implants transmission, its crew would probably ignore the message. Unless Pritchard identified himself, the tankers would assume it was babbling thrown by the ionosphere. And if he did identify himself, Kruse
Kruse thrust his musket against Pritchards skull again, banging the tankers head back against the cellar wall. The Dutchmans voice was lost in the blowers howling, but his blue-lit lips clearly were repeating, One word.
The tank moved on down the highway toward Portela.
and maybe Ill shoot you anyway, Kruse was saying. Thats the way to serve traitors, isnt it? Mercenary!
The third blower was approaching. Its note seemed slightly different, though that might be the aftereffect of the preceding vehicles echoing din. Pritchard was cold all the way to his heart, because in a moment he was going to call for help. He knew that Kruse would shoot him, knew also that he would rather die now than live after hope had come so near but passed on, passed on.
The third tank smashed through the wall of the house.
The Plows skirts were not a bulldozer blade, but they were thick steel and backed with the mass of a 150 tonne command tank. The slag wall repowdered at the impact. Ceiling joists buckled into pretzel shape and ripped the cellar open to the floor above. Kruse flung his musket up and fired through the cascading rubble. The boom and red flash were lost in the chaos, but the blue-green fire stabbing back across the cellar laid the Dutchman on his back with his parka aflame. Pritchard rolled to the floor at the first shock. He thrust himself with corded legs and arms back under the feeble protection of the bunk. When the sound of falling objects had died away, the captain slitted his eyelids against the rock dust and risked a look upward.
The collision had torn a gap ten feet long in the house wall, crushing it from street level to the beams supporting the second story. The tank blocked the hole with its gray bulk. Fresh scars brightened the patina of corrosion etched onto its skirts by the atmospheres of a dozen planets. Through the buckled flooring and the dust whipped into arabesques by the idling fans, Pritchard glimpsed a slight figure clinging lefthanded to the turret. Her right hand still threatened the wreckage with a submachinegun. Carpeting burned on the floor above, ignited by the burst that killed Kruse. Somewhere a woman was screaming in Dutch.
Margritte! Pritchard shouted. Margritte! Down here!
The helmeted woman swung up her face shield and tried to pierce the cellar gloom with her unaided eyes. The tank-battered opening had sufficed for the exchange of shots, but the tangle of structural members and splintered flooring was too tight to pass a manor even a small woman. Sooty flames were beginning to shroud the gap. Margritte jumped to the ground and struggled for a moment before she was able to heave open the door. The Plows turret swung to cover her, though neither the main gun nor the tribarrel in the cupola could depress enough to rake the cellar. Margritte ran down the steps to Pritchard. Coughing in the rock dust, he rolled out over the rubble to meet her. Much of the smashed sidewall had collapsed onto the street when the tank backed after the initial impact. Still, the crumpled beams of the ground floor sagged further with the additional weight of the slag on them. Head-sized pieces had splanged on the cot above Pritchard.
Margritte switched the submachinegun to her left hand and began using a clasp knife on her captains bonds. The cord with which he was tied bit momentarily deeper at the blades pressure.
Pritchard winced, then began flexing his freed hands. You know, Margi, he said, I dont think Ive ever seen you with a gun before.
The commo techs face hardened as if the polarized helmet shield had slipped down over it again. You hadnt, she said. The ankle bindings parted and she stood, the dust graying her helmet and her foam-filled coveralls. Captain, Kowie had to drive and we needed Rob in the cupola at the gun. That left me todo anything else that had to be done. I did what had to be done.
Pritchard tried to stand, using the technician as a post on which to draw himself upright. Margritte looked frail, but with her legs braced she stood like a rock. Her arm around Pritchards back was as firm as a mans.
You didnt ask Capt. Riis for help, I guess, Pritchard said, pain making his breath catch. The line tanks had two-man crews with no one to spare for outrider, of course.
We didnt report you missing, Margritte said, even to First Platoon. They just went along like before, thinking you were in The Plow giving orders. Together, captain and technician shuffled across the floor to the stairs. As they passed Kruses body, Margritte muttered cryptically, Thats four.
Pritchard assumed the tremors beginning to shake the womans body were from physical strain. He took as much weight off her as he could and found his numbed feet were beginning to function reasonably well. He would never have been able to board The Plow without Sgt. Jennes grip on his arm, however.
The battered officer settled in the turret with a groan of comfort. The seat cradled his body with gentle firmness, and the warm air blown across him was just the near side of heaven.