Footfall (54 page)

“This is your thuktun.” Do it your way. “Takpusseh-yamp.”

“Lead me.”

“Raztupisp-minz told us that the humans in Africa often demand conditions before foot touches chest. What words did he use? ‘Not surrender surrender’?”

“We took to calling it a ‘negotiated loss of status.’ ”

“Draft me one to be used if we lose this battle.”

“Herdmaster, is this possible?”

“Probably not. What else are you busy at? You have said yourself that this is their last attempt to break from beneath our foot. When the intruder is gone, then we can let them study how to surrender to us. Meanwhile, exercise your skill. Prepare for us negotiated loss of status giving them as little as possible.”

“Herdmaster?”

The call came from one of the lesser posts. “Speak.”

“Camera twenty-eight.”

The Herdmaster tapped two buttons. A screen lit with a view of an air duct … and a small, red-haired human female.

“It’s — she’s just outside the aft control room, watching through the grill.”

“Send a warrior for her. Send another-send three to the human restraint cell. If she’s loose, they may all be loose. And summon Tashayamp!”

Half a dozen fithp were beyond the grill. They didn’t seem particularly excited by what they were watching, and they were all doing anything but switching the views on their TV sets. One view stayed. It showed a room like this one, but much larger. There were windows, with stars beyond.

There was Wes Dawson, against a wall, between two of the horrors.

And there, suddenly live on another screen, Alice saw herself peering through an air duct.

Time to move on, Alice thought. Forward. Windows on a spaceship had to be at the nose…

The big digital timer above the war screens ticked off the seconds since Michael’s launch. When it passed six hours, Admiral Carrell said, “Try it now.” He put on his own headset.

Jack Clybourne sidled through the room like an English butler, silently removing coffee cups and emptying ashtrays, before fading back against one wall. Can you type? Jenny thought. She touched keys, and gave orders that flashed across half the globe.

Somewhere out there a submarine sticks its nose up just so we can get a report. The situation boards had showed few changes in the past two hours. The missile sites in Georgia and Missouri were craters now, and a curious pattern of meteoric death, neither random nor any geometric figure Jenny had ever seen, had fallen on the South Atlantic. Nothing had hit Bellingham yet. Harpanet had been badly upset to learn that the Friendly Snout had been painted on the Archangel dome. If the digit ships were given leisure — if Michael fell — they would punish that affront.

There was static in her phones. “Try routing through Florida.”

“Trying, sir.” And if that doesn’t work … “Gimlet, we have Nosebleed.” The computer console identified Nosebleed: Ethan Allen.

“He must have gone deep,” Admiral Carrell said. “I thought we’d lost him.”

“Gimlet, we have Chickenpox.” Another nuclear sub.

“Two possible links. Good enough. Try to get through,” Carrell said.

“Michael, this is Gimlet.” Oh ye Thrones, Dominions, and Powers …

Static burst in her headset. She winced.

“Can you put it on the speaker?” the President asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Gimlet, this is Michael.”

Hurrah! “Michael, this is Gimlet. Your orders are unchanged. Continue your mission. Godspeed, Ed. Report, please.”

“Reporting. We’re 20,000 miles above Africa and climbing, present vel …” The voice faded.

“Come on,” General Toland whispered.

“Garble garble but no serious damage. Casualties are light. We have launched five gunships and one Shuttle to assist in breaking through garble garble …”

Damn!

“… a formation of digit ships above Africa. At plus one poi garble garble its drive. We believe the enemy mother ship running away. Garble garble.”

“They have to catch it!” the President said.

“Michael, continue pursuit.”

“… are in pursuit. Estimate we will be in effective rank within six to twelve hours. We will have to fight our way past a formation of sixteen digit ships they have left to delay garble garble.”

“Hoo boy.” General Toland thought he was whispering.

The countdown timer showed 6 hours, 12 minutes since Michael’s launch.

“We have not been attacked for four hours. The next attack may be worse. No missiles so far. We’ve used more missiles than I like, but we still have plenty, and the spurt bomb supply is garb blurbie garble garble.”

The static increased.

“Link with Nosebleed has been lost.”

“Should we try for a new link?” Jenny asked.

“How long until we have direct contact?”

“About two hours, Relay through the East Coast in half hour.”

“Any orders for them, Mr. President?” Admiral Carrell asked.

“You’re in charge, Admiral.”

“We’ll wait. Hide the subs,” Admiral Carrell said.

“All fishes, this is Gimlet. Run away!”

“Bogeys ahead are at extreme missile range.”

“All right, children, quiet hour is over!”

Harry jumped awake. He had slept! Harry found that amazing. He’d thought sleeping would be as difficult as pissing, which had required two men and fifteen minutes each to open the pressure suits and close them again. He’d slept, and he felt wonderful! Now, what?.

His forward view screens showed sixteen digit ships in a spreading ring. Their light swamped the stars, hellglare green. In their center was a violet-white glare.

It’ll be like a single pass through a Cuisinart. But we’re gaining on Big Mama!

“Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

Three kicks in the arse. One of the green suns faded, then became a fireball. “How did we do that?” he asked aloud.

“Gamma rays could have set off fusion in the deuterium,” Tiny Pelz said. “That’s a guess. We still don’t know just how their drive works.”

“One thing sure,” Jeff Franklin said. “Hot gamma rays can’t be doing their ships any good.”

“Crews either, if they’re anything like us.”

“Bandit at one o’clock high is changing color.”

“Roger. Take him, Jason. Acceleration. Stand by.”

WHAM

“Good shooting!”

Jason Daniels opened his faceplate. “Did you get through to Colorado Springs?”

“I did my best. No new orders. They may be missing all the excitement.”

“More excitement coming up,” Jason said. He scratched his nose, then closed the faceplate. “Missiles dead ahead.” They showed as a swarm of fireflies. Bullets would be as dangerous, and they’d be invisible. Harry winced. At these velocities, marshmallows would be dangerous. They would strike like meteors.

“Rotation. Stand by.”

Steam jets hissed. Michael turned ponderously.

“Don’t turn a cold shoulder; show your armored ass,” Franklin said.

“And if we don’t turn fast enough?” Harry asked.

“Keep the frivolous chatter to a dull roar,” Gillespie said.

Aw, shit! Harry turned his intercom switch to local. So did Jeff Franklin. Kid looks embarrassed. Harry did an exaggerated shrug so that Franklin would see it.

TV cameras looked up along the flanks of the Brick, toward digit ships spreading across the sky. The Brick’s massive nose would reflect some of that green glare, absorb some too. Some got through. The forward shield couldn’t hide them from all sixteen enemies, but turned arse on to the enemy they couldn’t accelerate.

Michael’s amidships guns were firing forward, assisting in rotating the ship. My guns. I put them in. Clouds of shotgun pellets made of spent uranium were arraying themselves ahead of Michael. Harry saw bright flashes among the missiles.

Steam roared again. Michael’s rotation ceased. Cameras on long booms looked out beyond the butt plate, and the ring of digit ships.

The first of the missiles struck. Whatever they carried for a warhead, it was puny compared to Michael’s own drive.

“Ten minutes. Then we turn again and accelerate like hell,” Gillespie said. “Amuse yourselves.”

Yeah. Sure.

“Stovepipes Seven and Eight. Shuttle Two. Your turn. Stand by.” The gunships cast loose, accelerating to the side. Shuttle Two followed. Harry watched the flames dwindle, then veer, around more oncoming missiles and toward the digit ships.

“It’s their last chance at us,” Tiny Pelz said. “They’ll pour it on.” “Rotation. Stand by.” Steam jets hissed. “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

Franklin had forgotten the intercom was on. Don’t blame him much. This was the trickiest part: as they passed through the ring of digit ships, they would rotate to face away from the thickest cluster, protecting themselves with the butt plate, but exposing Michael’s comparatively weak sides to others.

The ship turned ponderously. Spin, you bastard!

Missiles exploded. Light washed two screens. The ship kicked mildly, Wham Wham Wham pause Wham: snout missiles exploded under the butt plate.

“-now and in the hour of our death, amen. Temperature rising starboard amidships.”

“Gun turret four no longer reporting.”

“Bandit, nine o’clock.”

“Steam forming, bow section three.”

More missiles. Michael trembled to the shock waves.

“You can do it, baby, you can do it—”

A vastly larger shock wave kicked Michael sideways. Somebody screamed. Half a dozen screens blinked white and went blank. Tiny Pelz said, “Oboy.”

“Damage control, report!”

“Stand by,” Max Rohrs said. “Tiny, what the hell was that?”

“We got two! Two, digit ships blanked out!” Harry shouted.

“Fascinating. I didn’t shoot,” Jason Daniels said. “Who got them?”

“We’re tumbling,” Gillespie said. “I’ve got no attitude control. Damage control, do something!”

“I know what happened,” Pelz said. “I just can’t see it. Somebody deploy a camera.”

“Gamble, go. Tiny, talk.”

Hamilton Gamble left his seat on the jump. Tiny Pelz said, “I think we’ve lost one of the spurt bomb bays. The snouts set off a nuclear missile close enough to pump some spurt bombs. Maybe the whole bay fired! One tremendous blast of gamma lasers. It’s not as bad as it sounds — I hope.”

We’ve had it! The implications hit him. We’re all there was. Aw, shit.

“Kasanovsky, get moving. I want to know what’s happened to our steam jets.”

Another suited figure left the bridge.

My turn soon. Harry played with his own TV screens, switching to internal cameras. Nothing here. Go around the ship. Assume we lost the ventral spurt bomb bay. Move from there. Ha!

Something had kicked an enormous dent in Michael’s port side. Forward of that, the port pipe room was swirling gray chaos.

“Ham Gamble here. I see it. Look for yourself, channel Alfa six.”

Harry switched his TV monitor. There.

The screen lit to show the sky. Digit ships were blurred green spotlights; the stars didn’t show at all. The camera swung down. Spurt Bomb Bay 1 was gone. Only its melted-looking base still stood up from the Shell. The much larger tower that was Thrust Bomb Bay 1 had a chewed look. As Gamble swiveled the camera, their view ran along the flank of the Brick. Meteor holes pocked it. The base was ripped. A stream of fog jetted away.

Max Rohrs spoke quietly, a litany of disasters. “Port water tank gone. I’ve got the port fission pile scrammed. We’ve got no water for it anyway. The whole portside attitude jet system is dead.”

“Slow response to starboard control system,” Gillespie said.

“Nothing from the Stovepipes or the Shuttle. I think they’ve had it.”

“Overheat, starboard amidships.”

“We’re still taking hits,” Gillespie said. “Max, if you can get a wiggle on—”

“Situation assessment coming up,” Rohrs said. His calmness was a rebuke.

“Okay, I have the picture,” Pelz said. “It could have been worse. Most of the energy must have gone forward. Better figure we killed all of the ships we deployed, and the two snout ships that aren’t firing lasers anymore. We got some spillover energy to the side.”

“Anything coming apart? If we shake and rattle, do we break anything?”

“Not by me,” Rohrs said.

“Stand by. I’ll try to stabilize. Jason, get ready! Kill something! Acceleration and rotation, stand by!”

“Wait one. Bombs away — she’s yours.”

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

quiet

“It sure sounds good in theory,” Tiny Pelz said.

“What does?” Franklin demanded.

“Firing bombs off center to compensate for rotation. Sure sounds good in theory.”

The screens showed they were still rotating, but more slowly. Michael was the center of a ring of dazzling green lights… receding aft.

“We’re through, or close enough,” Jason said. “Their missiles can’t hit us, we can’t hit them, but this is the closest approach to those damn lasers. The steam we’re losing — the cooling effect may be all that’s saving us.”

“If we don’t get attitude control, we’ve got a big bloody pinwheel! Acceleration. Stand by. Jason.”

“Bombs away. Locked on. She’s yours.”

WHAM

“Try again. Jason…”

“Roger.”

WHAM

“Shuttles Three and Four. We may not make it. We have to hit this mother with something. You’re on. Stand by.”

“Roger.”

“Max, get me some attitude jets!” Harry already had his faceplate closed.

Max Rohrs used a light pen to trace lines on the screen. “There’s plenty of pressure in the starboard system, and we have working attitude jets starboard, ventral, and here and here dorsal.” The pen flicked across a stylized view of Michael. “The port jets look okay in TV pix, but they won’t hold pressure. The electronics aren’t much good either.” No wonder! Half the portside pipes are gone!

“What we’ve got to do is isolate the working chunk of the portside system, then shunt steam in there from the starboard generators. We don’t have electronic control of those valves — or if we do, we don’t have any feedback on what they’ve done, which is just as bad. What we have to do is start at the breaks and move toward the jets, patching as we go.”

Harry laughed. His screen showed a three-foot pipe with a six foot section missing. Beyond it was a hole in the hull, a neat oval with a rim that bulged outward. Stars showed through.

Rohrs pointed at Harry’s display. “The merely difficult we do immediately. The impossible we leave for dry dock. You’re supposed to use judgment, but get the damn lines fixed! Patch anything you can patch, and use the manual valves to shut off everything else.

“Lambe, Donaldson, go through the starboard system and check it out. Get things set up to shunt steam across to the port system, and stand by. We’ll need pressure to test.

“Reddington, Franklin,”

Here it comes.

“Start with the big hole in the port system and work your way up to the jets. Your goal is to make the port jets work with starboard steam. Got that, Harry?”

“Righto.” All this so I could wear a pressure suit? “Move.”

ChunkChunk. Roy Culzer, in Shuttle Four, named Atlantis in a more peaceful era, felt the prongs unlock at the nose. The main tank was moored to Michael by the same matings that in gentler times would have gripped solid fuel boosters. Now only the aft matings were still attached, and Atlantis’s nose pointed beyond the overhang of Michael’s roof.

Jay Hadley had the motors going. Blue flame played down the flank of the Brick. The aft prongs released, and Atlantis was free.

The sky was a hot green.

“Turning. Stand by.” The Shuttle turned as it pulled away. Earth and Michael were behind, the violet-white flame of the prime target ahead. Four, five green spotlights sank below window view. “Okay,” Jay Hadley said, “now they’re only heating the main tank. We’ll burn that fuel before the tank blows up.”