Postmarked The Stars Part 16

Dane saw the captain's head give a little jerk. A moment later Jellico reported, "The brachs say there's a ground transport of some kind, two of them, moving under us."

"Could it be they are still pulling in men?" suggested Finnerstan.

"Pulling in men," Dane thought, and yet just this flitter load proposed to go up against what might be a thoroughly warned, armed, and well-defended base. Yet, looking about him from face to face, he saw no concern. They might have been making a routine flight. Though he was no longer hungry, the pain in his head remained a steady throb, and he felt very tired. How long had it been since he had had normal sleep? He tried to recall events for the past days, days that now seemed to stretch to months. Jellico was not noted for taking reckless risks unless the situation was such he had no other choice. No Free Trader did and kept a ship for long. But apparently the captain was determined on this attack.

"Only one unit ahead now." Finnerstan did not look up from the detect.

"Radar nil on anything airborne," Jellico replied. "Mixed report from the ground, a lot of interference."

Dane turned his head and tried to stretch to the point where he could look down from the cabin window. But it was physically impossible to see the ground from where he sat, even if it had been day instead of the dark of very early morning.

"No contact beam." Jellico might be reporting to them or only thinking aloud.

"I'm getting something new-maybe your distort." Finnerstan glanced back at Dane.

"All right, Thorson, what's down there?" Jellico demanded, and Dane pulled his thoughts together. This was the time when he must justify his inclusion in his company.

"s.p.a.cer landing to the south." He closed his eyes, picturing in his mind what he had seen during their quick sortie into the basin. "Then there are three bubble huts in a cl.u.s.ter about seven field lengths north-beyond those two long structures half buried in the earth, earth walls, turfed roofs-vehicle park by the bubbles. That's it."

"They will be expecting their men back in a captured flitter perhaps," Jellico said. "And that would come in without hesitation. So, we try to do it that way."

And maybe meet blaster fire dead center if there was some recognition code, Dane knew. He wished vainly that he had some kind of protective sh.e.l.l into which he could withdraw during the next few minutes. But the Patrol officer made no objection to Jellico's wild plan.

"Look there!" Finnerstan was against the cabin window on his side, staring down. But for the men behind him there was no chance to see what had caught his attention.

"Down." Jellico's hands were busy on the controls. "That must be the distort. Now, I'm going in on hover-"

Dane saw movement about him. The Patrolman by the exit hatch had his hands ready on the lock there. And the flitter began its descent, straight down, using the slow speed of the hover.

There was an odd light outside the windows, light that brightened suddenly, as if it had been turned from low to high. Perhaps it had been the pa.s.sing of a blanketing of diffuse lamps by the distort. But now they were apparently descending into a camp brightly aglow to aid activity.

"Now!" Finnerstan rather than the captain gave that order, only a second before the b.u.mp told them they touched earth.

The Patrolman wrenched open the hatch, made the practiced roll out and down, his neighbor following him in trained proficiency. The s.p.a.ceport policeman and rangers followed with less agility.

Finnerstan himself had already disappeared through the front door. And now, before Rip and Dane pulled themselves out, the brachs flowed away with a speed surprising in their stocky bodies.

Rip jumped. Dane was the last to disembark, his reflexes slowed, but he held a stunner in one hand. Jellico had vanished and was probably on the other side of the flitter.

As his boots met the ground, the thump of contact transmitted to his aching head, Dane looked about. It was light, but by some lucky chance they had landed some distance from the scene of the activity. The s.p.a.cer still stood, its nose pointed to the stars. Both its cargo hatches were wide open, and cranes were at work loading. There was a line of robo carriers speeding from the two earth-walled buildings, each bearing boxes and canisters, but their burdens were small. They were taking only lighter, easily stowed things, Dane judged with the eye of one only too used to handling shipments. The rest they would probably destroy.

There was one crawler pulled up with two cages on board, covered. But that stood by, and no one was there. The ramp leading to the crew and pa.s.senger quarters was still on the ground and- Dane was startled. That ramp was under guard. Two men in crew uniforms stood at its top, just within the open hatch. They were both armed with blasters, and they were looking steadily down the ramp. Now that he studied the scene, he could see in addition a similar guard on duty by the two cargo-hold openings, both eyeing the load the robos stacked to be taken on board.

So far no one on the field seemed to notice the landing of the flitter and the disembarking of her pa.s.sengers, but there was a knot of men nearer to the ship. They just stood there, their hands hanging empty by their sides, staring at the guarded ramp and the cargo holds.

"No room." Dane heard Finnerstan's low-voiced comment. "The Veeps are planning to leave their underlings behind. I wonder if they will agree-"

"They're disarmed, sir," one of his men reported.

There was an addition to the clanking of the robo carriers, to the general hum of the loading. It did not come from the group of men bitterly watching the preparations for withdrawal but from a distance. Then two more crawlers plowed on into the bright light around the ship.

The first carried only three men, each with a pack or box he supported against his body, as if to shield it from the jerks and jostling caused by transportation across very rough terrain. The second had one large, shrouded box amidships.

As the crawlers pa.s.sed the waiting men, there was a confused shouting, a slight surge forward as if they would have rushed those transports. Then a lance of blaster fire cut across the ground, laying down a smoking reminder to stay where they were. As they had moved forward, so now they stumbled back, away from that searing bar.

The crawlers did not halt, nor did their occupants so much as glance at the rejected. Instead, they moved steadily forward until they stopped by the ramp and the one cargo hatch. The lines of robos had come to a halt. Most of them were shut down and stood in a compact group, which grotesquely mimicked that of the frustrated men. Only two were still activated, and they went to work transferring the crate on the second carrier, working with exaggerated care that suggested their burden was of great importance. As they were making fast the lines for it to be lifted into the hold, the men on the other carrier started up the ramp, bearing their burdens with the same visible need for safety.

"About time for takeoff," Jellico said. "We have to move now-"

But someone else had the same idea. While they had remained in the shadow of the flitter, watching the scene and trying to estimate their best chance, the brachs had sped into action. Now they saw the male rear on his hind quarters, holding a stunner in his forepaws. He was at the foot of the ramp, and his ray beamed up in a back and forth sweep intended to take out the two guards.

They must have been so intent on watching their human opponents that they did not sight the alien until too late. The last man carrying a package stumbled, fell back, sliding limply down the length of the ramp, so that the brach had to leap out of the way. While that victim had deflected some of the stunner, he had not taken all the ray. From suddenly deadened hands above fell one of the blasters. The other guard, momentarily startled, aimed not at the brach but at those he knew were enemies, the group to be left behind, his fire cutting into them so that those not directly crisped by its beam scattered, some screaming.

Now those on guard in the still open hatch took up the fire, before crumpling under stunners used by the brach, while the second guard, still firing, fell at last, rolling in turn down the ramp, his blaster yet emitting a beam, whirling its deadly lance right and left as it b.u.mped by him and then fell to the ground.

"This is it!" The Patrolmen, followed by the others from the port, went into action, speeding for the ship. For takeoff, the ramp must be in, the hatch closed. Now one of the brachs darted out of hiding to reach for the blaster still discharging its fire power along the ground. But he or she did not reach it. There was a lance of fire from the hatch, poorly aimed, for the alien was not hit, merely went to ground again.

However, the force of Trewsworld law closed in about the s.p.a.cer, centering their aim on the open hatches, picking off anything trying to close that.

Dane stumbled along in the wake of the captain and Shannon. He found it hard going, and they left him well behind. But neither of the Free Traders were heading for the battle of the hatches. Instead, their goal was the third carrier, the one with the two cages on it. Rip reached it first, scrambled into the driver's seat, and was warming her for a start when the captain hurled himself in on the other side, half standing, half crouching, prepared to defend their capture. And defend it he did as several of the rejected, who had survived the burn-off, tried to rush the Terrans.

Jellico got two of them. Dane picked off the last, numbing his leg with a stunner. Rip set the carrier on high and was bringing it around, aiming it. Now Dane understood what he was trying to do. The weight of the carrier, if it was rammed up on the end of the ramp, would anchor the ship to the ground. There would be no takeoff because the safety factors of the s.p.a.cer would not permit it.

There was still firing by the s.p.a.cer, and Jellico was alert, watching for any sign of life at the hatch, any chance of Rip's being picked up out of the driver's seat. The a.s.sistant astrogator had the blunt nose of their vehicle pointed straight on target now.

Dane saw Rip's arm raise and fall, a stunner held by the barrel so its b.u.t.t could be used as a hammer. He was breaking the controls. And with those gone, no one could turn the heavy machine from its course.

Rip leaped out one side, Jellico the other, and the crawler clanked steadily on. There was a grating, a crushing sound loud even through the shouts, the crackle of blaster fire. The carrier's nose arose over the edge of the ramp, and the machine hung there, its treads cutting more and more deeply into the ground as it strove to push ahead and could not. But the anchor the Free Traders had devised would hold, though the ultimate taking of those in the ship might prove to be delayed. If help came from the port, they might be able to use gas bombs.

With the ship so anch.o.r.ed, part of the besieging party rounded up what was left of the men who had been scattered in the blaster attack. But Dane trailed Jellico and Finnerstan on an inspection of the base. Much of what had been there had been purposefully destroyed. One of the earth-embedded structures was caved in by an implosion bomb, and the others all gave the appearance of hasty plundering. A well-equipped com station had been left without destruction, and one of the port policemen slid into the seat there, sought the channel, and beamed a call for a.s.sistance.

'Trouble is," commented Finnerstan, "if they are really fanatical about secrecy, they will destroy what they have in the ship." He looked at the s.p.a.cer as if he would have cheerfully broken it open as one cracks an eggsh.e.l.l to get at the yolk. "By the time we get help, they will have disposed of everything we want."

"Parley?" suggested Jellico.

"Only give them more time to get rid of everything suspicious. If this was a local operation, a true jack raid, we might make a deal. But this is too big. They'll have information on board that must have threads out to perhaps half a dozen other worlds, perhaps some we don't suspect at all. What they carry is more important than the prisoners."

"What," Dane asked, "about those?" He pointed through the door of the com room to the men who had been rounded up. "They won't have any reason to support the ship people, and perhaps they can give you some idea of what is on board and whether they would readily destroy it."

Dane's suggestion might already have been in the Patrol officer's mind, for Finnerstan was already moving to such an interrogation. Most of the sullen men were uncooperative, but the fifth he questioned gave them the lead they needed. Though the others captured were mainly guards and workmen below the level of third-grade tech, expendable, the fifth man brought in was a reeling, half-conscious captive who had been rescued a few inches from having his life crushed out of him by the crawler on the ramp, the last one boarding who had been brought down by the brach's a.s.sault.

He was certainly of higher rank than the others. In fact, as the guards brought him past those other prisoners, two of them lunged for him, cursing. He was cowering, obviously badly shaken, when he stood before Finnerstan.

The combination of the stun attack, his close brush with death under the crawler, and the anger of his followers broke him. The Patrol officer learned what he wanted. Under his direction they dragged out of the wreckage in the base a tube by which they lobbed gas bombs into the opened hatches. Those broke on contact, spreading the sleep-compelling atmosphere. Masked guards from the flitter went on board to gather up prisoners, leave them wrapped by tanglers, then proceeded to put in safety all that had been about to be transported off-world.

It was three days later in Trewsport that the crew of the Queen were finally united for the first time since the LB had taken off. The settlers' government had been badly shaken. There was an interim Patrol command in control, and specialists from off-world had been summoned to examine the Trosti labs and the material taken from the ship.

Dane sat nursing a mug of coffee. His headache had gone at long last, leaving him feeling curiously light. He had slept away some twenty planet hours and was now able to summon alert attention to what Captain Jellico said.

"-so as soon as they clean her out, she's to be put up to auction as contraband taken in the midst of an unlawful act. There's no one here planetside who wants a s.p.a.cer or would know what to do with her if they had her. We will probably be the only bidders, as the Patrol is not going to go to the trouble of flying her to another world just to sell her. I have it on Finnerstan's word that if we put in a time bid, she's ours!"

"We have a ship-a good ship!" Stotz protested with the firmness of one not to be influenced.

"We have a good ship tied up by a mail contract," Jellico returned. "We have the mail fees, yes, but they are small. And if we can build up a fund as a starter when the contract is finished-"

It was a big step, expanding from the Solar Queen to a two-ship holding. Very few Free Traders had ever done it.

"We do not have to keep her long," the captain continued. "I do not even say deep s.p.a.ce with her. Use her in this system only. Trewsworld is an Ag planet. But if she can grow more crops-short-term crops-than just the lathsmers, she would be sooner ready for regular stellar trade. Now look here." He flashed a picture from a reader onto the wall. "This is the Trewsworld system. Those captured charts show that while there is some of that ore-they're calling it esperite-on this planet, there is much more on Riginni, the next planet out. And that can be dome-mined but can't be terraformed. So, miners have to eat, and they have to ship back ore to here for galactic transshipments. There's a two-way trade for you-steady, growing as the dome mines grow. And considering that we had a good hand in breaking up this Trosti mess, we can get the franchise. Profit all along."

"And a crew?" Steen Wilc.o.x asked that.

Jellico ran a fingertip down his burn scar. "Mail run is easy-"

"Easy," thought Dane, but did not say it aloud.

"We stagger our own men for a while. You lift her the first time, Steen, with Kamil for your engineer, Weekes as jet man. We hire on a local for steward. And, Thorson, since Van Ryke is on his way in to join us on the Queen, you can take cargo master. Next time around, Shannon can take astrogator-we change back and forth. We'll be short-handed, but an inner-system run is easy, and you can get by with robos and a limited crew. Is it agreed?"

Dane looked from one face to the next. He could see the advantages Jellico had mentioned. That there would be difficulties the captain had not mentioned, he could well guess. But when his turn came, he added his a.s.sent to the others'.

They would bid on the s.p.a.cer, begin a solar run from Trewsworld to her neighbor, spread their crew thin over two ships and hope for the best, be ready to face the worst as Free Traders so often had to. And what was the worst going to be next time? No use in allowing his imagination the chance to paint a dismal picture, Dane decided. The Queen had survived much in the past. Her new sister ship would have to learn to do the same.