Battle for the Stars

CHAPTER 15

The not knowing, the not feeling, the not caring. A nothingness so complete that you were only aware of it when pain began to drag you out of its comfort.

Pain in his head, like lances thrusting repeatedly through his skull. The pain of feeling again, of hearing again. And what he heard was a soft sobbing, but what he felt was a pair of hands roughly shaking him.

"Come on, Jay, come out of it.” That was Garstang's voice, with an edge of desperation in it.

Another voice said, “It's passing off."

"That's easy for you to say,” mumbled Birrel. “It's my head."

The way the words dribbled off his lips disgusted him, and he made a determined effort to open his eyes. He succeeded.

He was lying on a couch in the living-room. It was twilight now, the windows dark and lights on. Lyllin hung beside the couch, with the marks of tears on her face. He thought they were tears of rage rather than anything else. Joe Garstang had knelt and was shaking him.

Kane, the operator of the probe, stood by looking uncomfortable. He said loudly, as though exculpating himself, “I told them to let you be. I told them you'd have a bad headache if they woke you too soon."

"It's over an hour now, he'll have to stand the headache,” retorted Garstang. He shook Birrel again. “Come on, snap out of it."

For the moment, Birrel bated Garstang and his rough hands and his monotonous voice. Then what he had heard penetrated to his brain. More than an hour? It was too long to be lying here like a log, much too long.

He tried to sit up. Garstang helped him, saying, “That's the boy."

"For God's sake spare me your hearty cliches,” said Birrel, and then he said, “Sorry, Joe. Thanks."

The man Kane had gone out of the room. Almost at once Mallinson came into it. He came over to where Birrel sat shakily on the couch and looked down at him with sour dislike.

Birrel looked up at him. “Well? You probed me?"

"Yes."

"Then you know now that I'm not here to make any grab for Earth, but to keep Orion from doing it."

"I'll admit this,” said Mallinson slowly. “That those are your orders at present."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean,” said Mallinson, “that Ferdias could send you other orders, as soon as Orion is disposed of. I still don't trust Ferdias one bit more than Solleremos."

"Good God!” cried Garstang. “Does that mean you're still going to disarm the Fifth? After what you've heard?"

Birrel looked at Mallinson, whose mouth was pursed obstinately. He said, “You know this much for sure now, Mallinson — that I will take the Fifth out and fight beside the UW fleet against Orion's squadrons. You know it, don't you?"

"Yes, I know it,” Mallinson said doggedly. “It's what happens after that I'm thinking about."

"There won't be any after to worry about if your UW fleet meets two heavy squadrons alone,” said Birrel. “And you know it."

Mallinson's face got longer. After a moment, he said, “I don't have authority to make such a decision. We'll put it up to Charteris when we get back to New York. And we'd better get started."

Birrel stared at him. “What do you mean get started? We can't leave here! Have you forgotten that that Orionid scout is coming here tonight — in a few hours — to keep its rendezvous with Tauncer?"

Mallinson replied, with a hint of complacency, “I've taken care of that. I sent word to Admiral Laney. There'll be two cruisers waiting for that scout that will grab it before it ever reaches Earth."

Birrel looked at him, and then he looked at Joe Garstang, who stared back strickenly.

"He took care of it,” said Garstang. He spoke a profane word. “He took care of it fine."

"What's the matter with you two?” demanded Mallinson. “You wanted that scout captured. Its commander will know where the squadrons of Orion are. This way we make sure of capturing it."

Again, Birrel had to master his anger before he spoke. He said slowly, “Look, Mallinson. You know a lot more about some things than I do, but you don't know navy or you'd never have sent that order. It will destroy any chance of capturing the scout."

"Why will it? It can't get away from our cruisers."

Birrel nodded grimly. “No, the scout can't get away. And it's captain knows Orion's attack plan, and he will know that if he surrenders it'll be probed out of him. So what will he do?"

Mallinson thought about that, and the angry flush on his face began to fade.

"He'll fight,” Birrel continued. “Suicidal, of course, but no officer would let himself be captured and give away a whole, big operation like this one."

He said nothing more, for a moment. He gave Mallinson time for it to sink in. And it did. Almost imperceptibly, Mallinson's expression changed from tough self-confidence to worry.

Again, when he spoke, the young bureaucrat surprised Birrel. He said levelly, “I can see I made a mistake. What do you suggest?"

"Call off your fleet,” Birrel said instantly. “Let that scout come through. We'll find Tauncer's flitter and turn on its homing-beam and the scout will land here. Then we'll grab them, and if we can take their captain alive the probe will get out of him what we want to know. How many men have you got here?"

"Six,” said Mallinson. “I could call more, but it might be too late now."

Birrel glanced at the windows. The twilight was deepening into darkness now.

"It's a lot too late,” he said, and added bitingly, “You had plenty of time to call them when I was blacked out, if you'd been thinking. We'll have to do with what we have. Joe and Vathis and I make three more — ten against fifteen or sixteen in the scout. Not bad odds, if we can surprise them."

Mallinson said, “I'll call the fleet and have the two cruisers recalled. The porto's in my car."

He hurried out, and Birrel got hold of Garstang's arm and dragged himself to his feet. Lyllin came to support him on the other side, and he walked shufflingly back and forth across the lamplit room between them, feeling his motor-centers regain control of his limbs. But his head still felt as big as a balloon, and all painful.

He said finally, “I'm all right now.” But Garstang and Lyllin kept close to him as he walked unsteadily out onto the porch.

It was full darkness now, but the west wind was blowing the clouds off in scattered tatters. Stars were showing, and among them he saw the blue flare of Vega. He thought of Ferdias there. He thought what a mess of things he had made here and what Ferdias would say about that.

Mallinson's men — a knot of dark figures — were gathered out by his car in the lane. Mallinson came hurrying back to the porch.

"We're ready to start hunting for that flitter. You've got shockers?” Then, as he made out Lyllin in the darkness. “Hadn't your wife better get out of here?"

Birrel had been looking off into the darkness, back toward the slightly deeper shadow that was all that could be seen of the ragged woods behind the fields. He had been thinking.

"Wait, Mallinson,” he said. “I've been in that woods, a little. We could flounder around in it all night without finding Tauncer's flitter. All we know is that he landed it in a small clearing and pushed it under trees. We need a guide to find it. If we can force Harper to lead us to it…"

Mallinson interrupted, and his voice was unhappy. “I sent Tauncer and Harper down to New York under guard, while you were still out. I supposed we'd be following them right away."

Birrel would have liked to swear again but, with time running out, he could not afford the luxury. He said, after a moment, “Then that's out. But we still need a guide. There's a neighbor just down the road — man named Vinson — who should know those woods. We'll go get him."

He took hold of Lyllin's hand and led her down off the porch with him. “You're going too, Lyllin. You can stay in Vinson's house a little while."

It was one of the few times he had ever given Lyllin a direct order. She would do anything for him, but she would not be ordered. For an instant she hung back, but then she came quietly along. Her pride was such that she would not make a scene about it, but he felt that he would hear about it later.

Mallinson drove, barrelling the car dangerously fast down the narrow road. Above the bordering trees, the stars gleamed all across the sky. Whatever else Earth might or might not have, Birrel thought sourly, it certainly had capricious weather.

When they pulled into the lane beside Vinson's big stone farmhouse, Birrel saw that the lights inside were dimmed. But, almost at once, Vinson and his wife came out onto a side stoop, while from behind them the bright, artificial dialogue of a Tri-V program continued to chatter.

"Why, it's Commander Birrel,” said Vinson. “And his wife. Hi, neighbor! Come right on in—"

"There's a little trouble,” Birrel interrupted. “I wonder if Lyllin could stay here with your wife an hour or so? And I want to talk to YOU."

Vinson's wife enveloped Lyllin like a motherly hen and bustled her into the house. Vinson, looking puzzled, came down off the step.

"This is Ross Mallinson, secretary to John Charteris,” Birrel told him. “Listen, you know the woods behind our fields?"

Vinson goggled, and Birrel had to repeat the question before he answered.

"Why, sure. But what—"

Birrel told him, as rapidly and concisely as he could. Presently Vinson went back up onto the step and called and his wife came out.

"What's the trouble?” she asked. “I was asking Mrs. Birrel, but she—"

Vinson interrupted her, saving in a wondering, half-incredulous tone, “They say a war may start. And the first fighting is going to be right here, tonight."

"Don't worry, I only need your husband to guide us in the woods,” Birrel told the woman. “I'll send him back before anything happens."

Vinson suddenly spoke in a loud and emphatic tone. “The hell you'll send me back! This is my world, same as yours, I've got an old hunting-shocker. Back in a minute."

He raced into the house, with his wife hurrying after him, and, in the splash of dim light from the window, Mallinson looked at Birrel and said ironically, “His world, the same as yours."

Birrel shrugged. “I'm a local boy in a way, remember?"

Vinson came running out, carrying an old shocker of nonlethal type, and climbed into the back of the car.

As they rocked back along the country road, he talked excitedly.

"There's three — maybe four — little clearings back there where a flitter could set down. But one of them hasn't got any trees near it that would be big enough to hide a flitter under."

"Then forget that one and take us to the others, as fast as you can,” said Birrel, as the car slewed sharply into the lane where Mallinson's men and Garstang and Vathis were waiting.

Mallinson started to lead the whole group back toward the fields and the woods beyond, but Birrel hung back.

"Wait a minute,” he said. “Tauncer had a heavy-duty sonic shocker and we'll need that. It's in the bushes—"

One of the dark figures interrupted. “We found that. We have it."

"All right, then, let's move,” said Birrel. He felt a little better about their prospects. Mallinson's men — UW security agents, he supposed — seemed to know their business.

Vinson led as they tramped back across the ragged fields, their feet crushing the Queen Anne's Lace and ironweed and tall grass, their knees raked by blackberry briars. They had no light, but the stars were out and, after a little while, Birrel's night vision cleared and he could make out the dark, low wall of the woods just ahead of them.

He turned sharply as from the north came an eerie sound of barking that sounded like witch-laughter.

"Just a fox,” said Vinson. “This way. Past that big clump of sumac."

The field had been dark, but the woods were a tangled darkness. There was brush that tripped them, and thornapple trees, whose sharp spikes clawed at their faces. They made as little noise as possible, but, when Vinson stopped to get his bearings and they all stopped behind him, sudden silence was a sharp contrast.

This was, Birrel thought, a devil of a way to begin the long-feared, long-awaited struggle with Orion. Not out in open space, not in some mighty cluster of suns, as he had always supposed the first real clash would come. No, it had to be here in the nighted woods on this old planet, fossicking about amid thorns and briars and brush, with a farmer to guide them.

Tiny insects he could not see in the darkness hummed and buzzed in his ear and he felt himself stung in face and hands as by small needles. One of the Earthmen swore under his breath and then was silent.

"Over here,” said Vinson. “Got lost for a minute — don't often come here in the dark."

His voice was high and excited, though he tried to keep it down. He led them through a mass of tall weeds, a sort of brushy meadow, into a grove of big trees.

"No,” he said after a moment. “There's no flitter here."

"Try the other places,” Mallinson said. “And hurry."

They worked through more brush, splashed rather noisily across a small stream, and finally emerged into another clearing of high weeds.

"Wait,” said Vinson's voice suddenly from ahead.

"Anything?” asked Mallinson sharply.

"The sumac and milkweed are all crushed down here. Let me look."

They waited, fighting the tiny, stinging insects, while Vinson moved off into the darkness. They heard him groping and fumbling, and then heard nothing.

Birrel's headache, which he had almost forgotten during the urgency of the search, returned to plague him.

It made him feel irritable. When Garstang slapped his cheek and muttered, he turned to tell him to shut up. But he did not. There was no use in taking his headache out on Joe.

There were rapid, heavy footsteps and Vinson came blundering back out of the darkness. His voice was a high, triumphant whisper.

"Found it! Over in that grove of beeches — they set down here and hauled it under cover—"

Mallinson cut him off. “Take us to it."

In the shadows, beneath huge trees that had curiously smooth bark, the light flitter gleamed dully. Mallinson said, “Kane!” The man who had operated the probe hurried forward and got into the open cockpit of the flitter and squatted down. There was the gleam of a small light, quickly hooded.

After what seemed a very long few minutes, Kane spoke up.

"It's here. Simple oscillator to send out a beam that'll be almost entirely masked by the ordinary Tri-V frequencies. It's a clever—"

"Never mind that,” Mallinson interrupted. “Turn it on.

They heard nothing, saw nothing, but Kane presently scrambled out of the flitter. “It's on."

Mallinson looked around and then after a moment he said, “Birrel."

Birrel stepped closer to him. “Yes."

"You know what this Orionid scout will be like and what it will do, better than we,” said Mallinson. “Will you set up the ambush?"

"Do I give the orders in the attack?"

"Yes. Of course."

"All right,” said Birrel. “Let's go back to that clearing. That's where the scout will come down."

In the starlit, brushy, open space, he stopped and tried to figure. Posting the men strategically around the meadow was not difficult, but it was the heavy-duty shocker that worried him. They were going to have to rely on it a lot, and they would not have time to bundle it around much.

He finally kept Garstang and the shocker with him, at a point on the edge of the clearing nearest the hidden flitter. Mallinson stayed with him as a matter of course and he retained Vinson, too — he was afraid that, in his excitement, Vinson would give the whole show away.

They squatted down beside the shocker, then.

They waited.