He felt faint with relief when the Mark 32 dove ahead, sat down on the top-front section of the drone, and put on its magnetic grips. They held!
The heat indicator of the viewscreen showed the Mark 32 had shut off its motors.
Jonnie watched. He expected the drone to nose down, possibly to crash. It did sag. Then its engines started to compensate and it rolled gently, thundering along, still going on its lethal way. Nup had landed off-center, inducing a continuous roll, right to left, left to right. It would roll to the right, and the balance motors would compensate and bring it back too far to the left, and then overcompensate in the other direction. Only about ten degrees each way. But this did not at all change the steadfast course the drone was following. A very slow roll. Was it also crabbing slightly?
6
With Nup out of the way, at least for now, Jonnie got down to the business of seeing what could be done to halt the drone.
He drew off a bit to give his screens better play on it. It looked like a derelict! Here was a mark where an atomic bomb had hit it, there was a scar where possibly a plane had crashed into it leaving the charred remnants of oil and fuel. There a row of minute dents where surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles had struck it. But such marks were notable only for their stains, not for any damage they had done.
He flew the battle plane down under it. He looked at the big skids used for parking and storing. No joy there.
He brought the battle plane alongside it again. He felt like a hummingbird flapping along with a buzzard.
Probably when the last mission of this thing was completed and it had crashed, demolishing the then-known city of Colorado Springs, the company had just let it lie there until it had built hangars and, as an afterthought, had probably flown water tanks over it and way above it and washed the radiation off of it and then stored it.
A chilling thought as to why they must have done that. Psychlos had no room for sentiment or art in any form. They would not have kept it for any other reason than that they couldn’t dismantle it on this planet. Psychlo alone would have the massive shops to do that. They certainly didn’t want it back. It had done its job. They wouldn’t leave it out where it could be measured up by some enemy agent. They had kept it because the company couldn’t destroy it on this planet. What it was built of, the devil only knew!
Well, he tried to cheer himself, Nup’s plane skids had stuck to it. These magnetic so-called skids were actually whole-molecule reorientation fields. The molecules in the surface of one substance became, with the field, comingled with the molecules of the other substance like a temporary weld. So this thing was built of molecular metal, possibly some unknown—to this planet—metal, alloyed with some other strange metal. It even could be that the combination of such metals was, while molecular, irreversible and couldn’t be melted or pounded apart once mixed. Maybe the Psychlos had something that, when certain elements were mixed together, could not then be “unmixed” by flame, electrical arcs, radiation, or anything. Maybe even laminated layers of such metals, each one protecting the one under it.
A very chilling thought. Jonnie did not consider himself even a kindergarten-level metallurgist, but he recalled the prohibition the Psychlos had of ever teaching an alien race anything about that subject. And here he was trying to solve it, flying along in the night, without texts, without a calculator, and without even the mathematics to use it if he had it.
What would destroy that drone? And before it reached even the coast of Scotland.
He had thought a Psychlo was a monster when he first saw one. Now he was really looking at a monster. An ultimate in indestructibility.
Out of the tail of his eye he thought he saw something move on the viewscreen. He looked at it closely. There it was again. A rhythmic pulse under the bottom of the drone. He counted it out. Once every twenty seconds, regular as his watch. Suddenly he realized he had been studying just one side of the drone. He guessed he was feeling a bit overwhelmed. Well! Easily remedied. He hit his console with rapid fingers and flick, he was over on the other side of the drone.
This side had been away from him when he first saw the thing from the plains after it fired. Nup had been flying on the other side also.
He trimmed in his viewscreens.
What? The huge loading door was unlatched. And since Nup had landed on the nose, making the drone roll and crab periodically, the door was swinging open and closed.
A door.
Unlatched.
He televiewed it with quivering fingers. It had the broken stub of a key in it.
He viewed the whole mammoth door. It was open when the plane rolled down on that side, then was closed by the rushing air and gravity when the plane rolled back.
Every twenty seconds.
He suddenly regretted the tenderheartedness that had caused him to refuse a companion on this voyage. It would be dangerous, but hanging from a dangling wire ladder, it would be possible to drop down and into that door. No, it would require a pilot to run the plane and somebody going into that drone who knew enough to paralyze it if possible. And he had no pilots, and Glencannon couldn’t be spared.
Open, closed, open, closed.
Size? He looked at the door. He compared his own ship’s span and depth. This ship could fly into that door! Top and bottom a very narrow squeeze. Plenty to spare on the sides.
Yikes! Fly this ship sideways at 302 miles per hour? And then in?
Well, it was standard battle tactics to fly sideways with these teleportation motor drives. There was no wing support area needed such as birds used. When you shut off these motors, the ship didn’t glide anywhere. It just dropped like a stone. It was leveled with small teleportation balance motors, not fins.
Yes, in theory one could fly sideways and then dart forward and in.
But the timing! Ouch. That rolling drone was moving the opening up and down about thirty feet each roll.
He’d try it.
But that slamming door had to be taken off first. The way it swung, it barred the available opening.
Jonnie decided he would first try to shoot the hinges off. He dropped the battle plane back, setting the firing controls to “Needle Width,” “Flame,” and “Single Shot.”
He lined up the plane and sights, fingers dancing on the console, one foot extended to the floor firing button—always hard to reach in a plane built for nine- or ten-foot-tall Psychlos. Even Ker had trouble with floor controls.
Line up, door open, hinge exposed. Stamp!
A needle of hot flame hit the hinge. It didn’t sever. The door began to swing shut again.
His local command channel burst into life. “What the crap are you doing?” cried Nup, alarmed.
“I don’t have a copilot, Your Executiveship. I have to shoot the door open to change the controls and destination.”
“Oh.” Then, as Jonnie was lining up for the next try, “You be careful of company property, Snit! Willful damage is a vaporizing offense.”
“Yes, Your Executiveship.” Jonnie fired the next try.
The hinge glowed briefly. The door hid it from view again. The door didn’t sag. Maybe the hinge was binding. Jonnie looked at the infrared target scope. Yes, there were two hinges, one up, one lower.
He lined up on the lower hinge. Door open, hinge in scope. Stamp! Flash!
The door still didn’t fall off.
Maybe if he alternated his shots, upper hinge, lower hinge, one then the other.
He drew off a bit to flex his fingers. The other scopes showed ice and sea endlessly below him. Nothing else in the sky.
Back to it. Upper. Stamp! Flash! Lower. Stamp! Flash! Over and over. But a shot possible only every forty seconds.
This was time-consuming! Well, he wasn’t too pressed for time. Not yet anyway.
Stamp! Flash! Wait. Stamp! Flash! Wait.
Those hinges would get cherry red but they didn’t sever.
Getting nowhere, Jonnie drew off. Then, with a bright inspiration, he took a position
above the drone and slightly to the other side so he could fire into the back of the door as it rolled open. He changed his gun setting to “Broad,” “No Flame,” and “Continuous.”
He sighted carefully. The next time the door swung open he stamped on the firing button and sent a string of flashes against the inside of the door. It swung open. He shifted his plane over to the side gradually as he fired. Despite reverse roll, the door was forced open and then, despite a three-hundred-two-mile-an-hour rush of air, suddenly sprang back under the hammering and lay against the hull. Wide open!
Jonnie stopped firing.
The door stayed open. Wide open, pinned back to the hull.
He examined the hinges by throwing the sight to “Tele.” They were a bit twisted, probably from the shots. It was the hinges that precariously held the door open. Would it close again? Maybe. It was vibrating from wind force.
Watchfully, Jonnie drew off. His fingers raced on the console as he sought to correct for flying sideways. He got the sequence of combinations that did it. He inched the plane exactly opposite the yawning doorway.
Up went the doorway, down went the doorway. Yikes, this had to be timed!
He thought he had better just sit there and study it for a bit. He turned on the plane’s lights to get direct visual. You couldn’t do this on instruments alone.
The black pit lit up. He could see inside. Yes, there was an area just inside the door. A flat platform. Probably needed for loading canisters. Ow! Canisters were stacked just in front of that platform. Would they explode if hit in an overshoot?
He calculated the distance and combination on the console. Then, with a sudden inspiration, he braced his foot against the magnetic-grip-setting lever. The jar of any impact would cause his foot, jolted, to set the magnetic skids.
He took a deep breath. He looked around him to be sure there were no loose objects. He moved the belted revolver they had issued him so its holster wouldn’t punch him in the stomach if he jackknifed forward. The lanyard from the revolver was around his neck. He pulled it a bit to the side so it wouldn’t catch on the control console if he pitched forward, for if it did, it could choke him. He laid a soft map case on the upper part of the console in case his head hit with the sudden stop.
Jonnie took another deep breath. He adjusted his air mask.
He watched the door. His fingers dancing on the console to get in the exact position, he zeroed in on the doorway. Count, count, count. How far would the doorway move up after he started forward?
He spread four fingers of his right hand across the huge keyboard to the four buttons that would start him. He spread four fingers of his left hand across the buttons that would stop him.
Up, up, up. Right hand ready. Punch!
The battle plane stabbed into the open door.
Crunch, down with the fingers of his left hand. Stop.
Crash!
He had not quite cleared the top of the door and a wide peel of metal screeched away.
His foot was jolted on the grip lever and the grips went on.
Jonnie’s head slammed against the map case.
Lights flashed in his skull.
Blackness.
7
During all this time, Zzt had been fluctuating between hope and suspicion.
The antics of that plane puzzled him. He knew he had no friends. Who would want to rescue him? He couldn’t think of anybody. Char had been his shaftmate, and Char had vanished and was undoubtedly dead, for who would miss a chance to go home? And Char had not shown up at the firing. Terl. Probably Terl had killed him. So it was not Char. Who else was there? Nobody. So who was interested in rescuing him? It was a highly suspicious circumstance.
That dimwit Nup had apparently landed on top of the drone to keep from going down into the ice below—and it was ice; one could feel the Arctic in this awful chill. Ice felt a certain way in the atmosphere. Terrible planet. One couldn’t blame Nup for that. Common enough tactic for one plane to land on another when shot up or out of fuel, and get carried to safety. So it wasn’t any real credit to Nup to think of it. But the crazy fool had landed off-center, and it was making the drone crab but mainly roll. And that roll was making Zzt sick at his stomach.
When he realized that somebody was evidently interested in the door, he had searched in his bag for a molecular metal cutter and found to his dismay he didn’t have one. Not that it would have worked on this laminated molecular plating. But he would have tried.
Then whoever it was had let loose shots into the place.
Somebody was trying to kill him! He’d been right in believing he had no friends.
The interior had huge frames on the inside of the skin and Zzt had hastily drawn himself flat against the hull to take advantage of the projection of the wide frame.
He peered out cautiously. Then he relaxed a bit. The target was the hinges. Somebody was trying to get the door off. Zzt knew the hinges wouldn’t part, but at the same time it was interesting indeed that somebody would try to part them. Why? How come somebody wanted to remove the door? That didn’t make any sense at all.
Every mining plane, whatever else it was used for, followed a mining tradition. Every employee was basically a miner. Mining techniques, procedures and equipment were into the mining company like kerbango was into the bloodstream and far more permanently. Hoists, lifts, cable ladders, safety lines, hooks, nets . . . they even shoveled paper around with scoops that looked like mine shovels. It was totally inconceivable that that plane out there didn’t have a cable ladder and safety wires.
So why didn’t it just lower a cable ladder and safety wire to him and let him time those door swings and dart up the ladder to the plane? They could lower him a jet backpack and even pick him out of the air.
All this was so routine to Zzt that the idea of anybody having to remove a door to make it wide open was a strange precaution.
Was somebody trying to steal a canister? That was impossible. They were all locked in. Everything in this damned derelict was armored, inside and out. Such ships were hell to repair, and he had resented the time Terl had taken. You couldn’t get at anything in it. It was just a one-time-use rig, built to be expended. So nobody could steal anything here.
Were they trying to send it elsewhere? Well, you couldn’t do that without keys, and he had no keys.
So what was going on?
The battering barrage that got the door all the way open and warped it in that position made it easier to lower a cable ladder. All right! Where was the ladder and safety wire? Nothing came dangling down into the huge open maw.
Zzt had just moved forward to peek when blinding lights flashed on, throwing the interior into a blaze of dirt motes and floating rust dust shaken loose in the firing.
He heard a plane’s motor suddenly race.
He didn’t even have time to get behind the protective frame.
Before his half-blinded eyes a plane shot in the door!
The floor plates shook! Metal shrieked.
The plane had crashed on the loading stage platform directly inside the door.
Zzt stumbled backward, expecting it to blow up. But its motor suddenly died and the peculiar fang-setting-on-edge sound of molecular cohesion pierced the dying whine of components. The thing had set its skid grips with a timing and precision Zzt had never seen before.
Staggered by the concussion and already sick with the rolling, Zzt lurched to his feet. It still had its lights on. He peered through this glare to see the pilot. He couldn’t make it out. He staggered forward, hand on his belt gun. He still couldn’t see the pilot. The armored glass door . . . the pilot was sitting up slowly.
A small being! A mask! A strange fur coat collar!
Zzt let out a near hysterical shriek. “A Tolnep!”
In blind confusion, Zzt drew and fired his belt gun. He fired again and again and again.
His shots were hitting an armored window. He was trying to shoot an armored window! He was also trying to back up and get awa
y.
The drone rolled; Zzt collided with a gas canister, tripped on its cable, started to fall, and threw out his paws to save himself. His gun went flying, hit the floor plates, slithered, and dropped out the open door into the waiting void below.
Skidding and catching his breath in sobs, Zzt got behind a distant frame to protect himself. He believed he was one dead Psychlo!
8
Jonnie came out of it. The shock of the crash had knocked him out for a moment. He guessed he was getting tired with the strain and the cold. A jolt like that shouldn’t have knocked him out.
Then he found his left knee was bruised from hitting the console, the fingernails of his left hand were bleeding from stubbing on keys, and his forehead ached. He decided it must have been a harder crash than he thought.
The magnetic grip brake was on, but peering, he was having a hard time seeing it. He took off his air mask and found that his forehead had been cut on the mask faceplate rim and the blood was getting in his eyes. He reached back and got the tail end of a mining tarpaulin and staunched the blood and wiped out the faceplate. Now he could see.
The landing had been successful. An ancient gag he had found on a cartoon card over at their base occurred to him: “A successful landing is one you can walk away from.” Well, he could walk, he hoped.
The ship was slewed. The wind pressure had come off the nose as it went in, but it was still on the tail. The tail was sticking way out of the door but was pushed over against the side of the doorframe. Was the ship hurt?
He looked around inside. The main motor housing and the two right and left balance housings seemed all right. He reached for the door latch to get out and then something tugged at his memory. Something about the crash. What was it? Ah, something must have exploded in the drone. He dimly recalled hearing a series of explosions. He reached over to the pilot window and touched it, intending to wipe some steam from it. It was hot! Yes, something had exploded in this drone.
Well, that was a good sign, maybe. It meant something could break in this place.