The Shadow and Night (107 page)

“Fine. I'll have a helmet ready for you, sir.” Besides Frankie, Merral could hear men moving.

“Oh, and I want an explosive charge too.”

“For you, sir?” Frankie answered, his tone filled with doubt.

“Yes,” Merral answered, hearing the reluctance in his own voice. “I'm going to get inside the ship. I may need it.”

“Inside?
” There was a pause. “Er, sir, did we discuss that?”

“No, Lieutenant, we didn't,” Merral said, surprising himself with the sharp authority in his voice.

“Yes, sir,” Frankie answered. “A kilo charge with an intermolecular cement pad and a sixty-second fuse—will that be all right? That's all we have.”

I have no idea. I haven't a clue.
“Ideal. Thanks, and keep the line open.”

A sliver of brilliant red light suddenly rose over the horizon, and the rays of the new sun cut through the mist patches on the water. Even as Merral watched, the world seemed to change. The light lit up the hill around him, and he felt grateful for the warmth of its rays. He was suddenly awed by the realization that, with the exception of the space conflicts that ended the Rebellion, this was going to be the first true battle of mankind under a strange sun. Then he pushed the thought aside, telling himself that in reality it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference.

Merral switched his gaze back to the ship. Here it was now plain, even to the naked eye, that the camouflage was being dismantled. With the fieldscope, Merral could see piles of metal tubes and fabric sheeting accumulating on the sand and stones at the foot of the strange vessel. It must, he decided, be more than coincidence that this was happening only a day after the attack on Felicity. If they knew they were discovered, were they then also prepared against any attack?

Merral tried to count the figures opposite. There were perhaps a dozen or more of the ape-creatures and at least the same number of the cockroach-beasts. Of the winged creature or men there was no evidence.
We are at least matched in numbers, and there may be many more inside.

Without warning, the creatures burst into action. The fabric sheets and metal frames were hastily thrown aside, and the antlike figures began running about at the foot of the ship. A faint mechanical noise drifting up from the southern part of the lake explained the new activity. The hoverer was on schedule and had already been seen.

Merral stared down the lake. Far away in the middle of the water, the frail white dot of the hoverer was moving up toward them. He reached for the microphone, hoping that, away to the north, the other team was ready.

“Frankie,” he said, marveling at how steady his voice sounded, “the diplomatic team is in view and has been seen by the ship.”

“They said they were moving, sir. Everybody here is ready to go. Ready for your word.”

Merral turned his gaze back to the ship, where there was renewed activity. Some of the creatures had returned to packing the camouflage sheeting while others were bringing a tubular apparatus on a tripod down the ramp and out onto the lake strand.

A weapon,
Merral realized with a feeling of horror. He was tempted to call Frankie and have him order the hoverer to turn back. In the end, he resisted the idea. The rules they had agreed upon were plain. There had to be clear evidence of the failure of diplomacy and preferably active aggression by the intruders before any Assembly attack could take place.

With the fieldscope, Merral looked south down the lake, seeing the hoverer moving straight and steady toward the Intruder ship. He could make out the flags flying, the creamy V-shape of the wake behind, and could even make out dark forms of two people standing erect by the hoverer's prow. He lowered the scope, trying to gauge the present distance between the hoverer and the ship. Contact must only be minutes away.

There was a yellow flash on the other side of the lake.

A large, dirty orange sphere of flame rolled from below the ship across the water straight at the approaching hoverer. Trailing white steam behind it, the ball crossed the gap between the ship and the hoverer in under a second. As the burning sphere was on the point of engulfing its target, the hoverer lurched abruptly sideways.

The evasive action came too late.

The flaming ball, almost half the size of the hoverer, struck the side of the hull and rolled over the vessel in a explosion of oily golden light.

Merral, already speaking into the handset, had a confused impression of the white craft being thrown up and sideways, and of tiny figures being flung into the water.

“Hoverer attacked! Hoverer attacked!” he shouted. “Everybody start immediate operations!”

As he spoke, the boom of the explosion reached him. Waiting only a fraction of a second for Frankie to acknowledge his order, Merral flung the handset aside and grabbed his gun.

As he did, out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of another smoking ball of flame being fired from below the intruder ship. Whether it struck what was left of the hoverer Merral never saw, because he was already slithering down the stony slope toward the stream and his men.

Two thoughts hammered together in his brain as he raced down: a cold fury that the intruders had attacked an unarmed boat and a cloying fear that the sleds would suffer the same fate before they were halfway across the lake.

“Let it not be!” he gasped under his breath as he slid down, sending a volley of small stones flying around. “Lord, let us at least have a chance to fight!”

40

A
s Merral reached the bottom of the slope, the sled, full of men in uniforms grappling with gear and weapons, came silently skimming down through the shadows toward him. It slowed down briefly. He clambered clumsily on board, and outstretched hands guided him roughly into a seat near the front. The sled renewed its acceleration down the valley. All around him, Merral glimpsed anonymous-looking, pale, stern-faced men bracing themselves, holding guns, and checking webbing and straps. Lorrin Venn, scared excitement written across his face, passed him a helmet, while someone else fastened a belt around him. As someone passed him a small package labeled with ominous red symbols, Merral heard Frankie, sitting at the front of the sled, yelling into his helmet microphone. Merral, unable to make out his words, presumed he was talking either to the
Emilia Kay
or Zak's team.

Suddenly he turned to Merral. “What happened?” he shouted, tightening his helmet strap.

“They fired a big ball of flame without warning!” Merral yelled back, aware of the men around him on the sled listening. “It exploded over them. They didn't really have a chance! Then they fired again!”

Frankie shook his head angrily and turned to face forward.

The rock-strewn valley was opening up on either side of them now as they raced down, and then suddenly they were out onto the flat delta surface and into the full glare of the rising sun. Philip slowed the sled down to align it with the exact coordinates for the computer-controlled approach.

To the south of them, Merral glimpsed a turbulent column of dense white and gray smoke spiraling up from the waters of the lake. He tried to derive some comfort from its quantity, telling himself that it looked as if someone at least had survived long enough to trigger the smoke canisters.

“Now!” Frankie shouted. Merral caught a glimpse of Philip hitting a red switch newly welded on the control panel.

The booster pack ignited.

There was a surging, booming roar from the rear of the sled. Merral, pressed back against his seat, felt the hull beginning to vibrate like a beaten drum as the sled raced, with growing speed, over the desolate ground and green reed clumps.

They were still accelerating as they came to the water's edge, and Merral found himself holding on even tighter as the slipstream began to whip past him and snatch at clothing and straps. The sled was impossibly low, and he felt that there was barely a handbreadth between them and the wave crests. Every so often they clipped the top of a wave with a hissing slap and the sled gave a little bound that made Merral's tense stomach quiver again. At any second, he expected the sled to overturn. Glancing back at the shoreline they had come from—already diminishing into the distance—he could see the wake of spray and fumes trailing behind them.
They will have seen us now,
he thought, looking ahead to where the great dark silhouette of the fuselage of the intruder ship was now rising up above the approaching shoreline.

Merral braced himself again, remembering that at any moment the computer would use the gravity-modifying engine to flick the sled sharply to the side. A maneuver, he unhappily reminded himself, that they had never done at anything like this speed and that the sled had never been designed for.

Now!

The sled jerked a dozen meters to the right, bobbed sharply, and struck the wave crests with a great slapping noise. Merral felt that if he hadn't been strapped in he would have been thrown free of his seat. Yelps of exhilaration mixed with alarm went up from the other men. Over the roar of the motor, Merral could hear the creaking of the titanium skin and girders under the strain of the jump. The sled wobbled, smacked the water again, recovered its equilibrium, and raced onward.

Merral peered ahead, squinting into the dazzling sun, his eyes fixed on the intruder ship still visible only as a vast silhouette.

They were still accelerating but no longer at such a fast rate. Merral saw that they were already halfway across the lake.

They hit a wave. Water flew up everywhere into the sunlight, and for a second, a faint, ghostly rainbow appeared.
A covenant sign,
Merral told himself, his mind numbed by the wild vibration.
We must have hope and have faith.

The sled shot sideways, this time to the left, and again he found himself pounded back against the seat frame.

Now there was spray all around him, and Merral felt cold water on his face and seeping into his clothes.

From under the rear of the intruder vessel came a bright yellow flash. Then, like an infant sun, a glowing orange disk of fire came streaking straight toward them.

There was shouting around him. Everyone ducked.

Just as it seemed that they would be engulfed by the spinning fireball, the sled suddenly shot to the right. Barely two meters away, the fiery sphere—a man's height or more in diameter—flew past them with an angry hissing noise. The smell of steam and smoke drifted past from its wake.

Merral was suddenly aware of a new grimness on the faces of the men around him. Any remaining exhilaration had been removed by the realization that they had been fired upon. The beach was fast approaching, and there were other questions to ask.

Merral wiped cold spray from his eyes and tried to focus on the bouncing image ahead. The black ship now dominated the view, and below it Merral could make out distinct shapes of the long-limbed, slouching ape-creatures. At their feet, cockroach-beasts with their restless rocking movements scuttled around. Merral had a worrying impression that there were more of them than there ought to be. The ship, too, was bigger than he had imagined.

We've miscalculated.
His stomach lurched.
It's too late to turn back.

There was another flash, but this time it came from the nose of the ship and the sphere of flame flew north over the waters.
A second gun,
Merral thought in alarm as he traced the projectile's motion. Its target, another dark dot trailing spray and fumes behind it, was racing onward to the intruder ship.

He jabbed the man next to him. “Look! Zak's team!” he shouted, and as he watched he saw the second sled jink sideways. A moment later, the ball of flame sprinted harmlessly past it.

His own sled lurched violently to the left again, and water flew around them.

He could hear Frankie and Philip shouting together, their voices barely audible over the roar of the booster, the hiss of spray, and the booming slap of the hull against the waves.

Frankie leaned toward Merral, bellowing at him with exaggerated movements of his mouth. “Sir, Philip wants to go straight at the gun! A smoother landing there. Better hang on tight!”

Then there was another burst of light from the rear of the great black ship, and Merral saw a new flaming sphere coming toward them.

No!
He suddenly saw with relief that it was aimed to their right and would easily miss them. Then he realized that it had been so directed that when—as must happen any second—the sled made the next lateral slip, their rightward slide would take them into its path. Their tactics had been deduced and already countered.

“Down everyone!” Merral screamed, pressing himself down against the hard wet metal and expecting at any second to be thrown into the water.

Suddenly the sled lurched.

But to the left.

The flaming globe hissed well away from them. Merral made a mental note to praise whoever had written the program. If he got the chance.