Stepping outside on Naraka with the full power of Alpha and Beta
Centauri beating down was like stepping into a river of fire. Even
with the cooling unit in his suit, Terrence was aware of the searing
heat that filled the parade ground. Looking off across the makeshift
native huts, he could see the bright sides of a huge space ship-like
object. The big dirigible _Sun Maid_ was lying in an open field. It's
a funny world, he thought to himself, where you have to use dirigibles
for planetary travel. But a dirigible was the only practical aircraft
when you had to use steam turbine engines because of the lack of
gasoline and the economic impracticability of transporting it in the
limited cargo holds of the occasional spacers that came out from Sol.
The Narakan Rifles were marching toward him now, the band doing
absolutely nothing for _The Wearing of the Green_. Three hundred big,
green bodied, beady eyed, frog-like creatures were marching in the
boiling heat with their non-coms croaking out orders in English which
might have come out of _Alice in Wonderland_.
As they marched by him, he snapped a salute. Watching them closely he
tried to find two men who were in step with each other or one man who
had his rifle at the right angle. Unable to find either, he stood
there conscious of failure; failure which went beyond mere military
precision however. Sloppiness at review could have been overlooked if
he had been able to find that the Narakans had any ability as fighting
men but after a year of training they seemed almost as hopeless as
they had at first. It wasn't that they were completely unintelligent.
In fact, other than the Galactic traveling Rumi, they were the only
extra-solar race of intelligent beings encountered by man so far. It
was just, he thought, that the hundreds of years during which the Rumi
had dominated their planet had reduced the Narakans to a state of
almost complete ineptitude.
He stood there as they passed in review three times because he knew
that his presence pleased and encouraged them. Then he turned, and
with dragging feet made his way down Dust Bin's single street toward
Government House.
In a few minutes he was standing in the cool, air conditioned living
room of the Wilsons. Wilson was seated at his desk rummaging through
some papers while Norris and Mrs. Wilson were lounging in contour
chairs admiring each other over tall, frosty drinks.
They took the news just as he expected them to. Wilson ran his hand
through his sparse, gray hair and murmured something about it being a
shame to have to leave the natives on their own after having more or
less dragged them out of their comfortable swamps. A glance from his
wife silenced him.
"What the hell," Norris said, "they're only blasted thick witted
Greenbacks."
Mrs. Wilson yawned, "It'll be something of a bother packing but it'll
certainly be a pleasure to get back to New Chicago. Some women's
husbands get good posts in half-way civilized parts of the Universe. I
don't know why I should always have to be stuck in every backwater,
hick town there is."
Wilson smiled apologetically, "Now, dear...." he began but was
interrupted by the sudden ringing of the telephone on the table near
Norris' chair.
"Get that, will you, O'Mara?" the captain said, making no attempt to
reach for it, "It's probably the Command Post."
Terrence put the phone to his ear angrily and growled into it. An
excited Bill Fielding was on the line. "Terry? Is that you? Fielding
here. Hell's breaking loose. There's a bunch of blasted Rumi trying to
force their way into town. They attacked the sentries down this way
and may be heading for your end of town too."
Terrence dropped the phone and headed for the door. "_Rumi!_" he
shouted and there were shouts and cries from outside in answer. Then
he heard the clack, clack, clack of Rumi spring guns. Windows of the
room crashed in and Wilson collapsed across his desk. Norton grabbed
Mrs. Wilson and pulled her down onto the floor. Terrence dropped to
his hands and knees and continued toward the door as he drew his
forty-five.
* * * * *
Somewhere, someone had cut loose with a Banning and its high whine
drowned out the clack of the spring guns. With a quick look around,
Terrence started at a run for the next building which was the native
schoolhouse. He didn't make it. There was a clack, clack from off to
his left and he threw himself forward, skidding and sliding in the
dust and gravel of the street. A warehouse across the square was on
fire and three Rumi had darted from behind it. In one brief glance he
saw those long barreled spring guns of theirs and the tall, graceful
bodies and the feline faces under the plastic protective clothing.
He snapped four shots at them and saw one fall. Then he began to
slither along the ground raising enough dust to mask his movements.
There were half a dozen of them in the square when he reached the rear
door of the schoolhouse. Several gleaming plastic bolts smashed into
the wooden outer door a second after he had raised up to open it and
then had dropped back down.
Norton fired from the residency and momentarily scattered the Rumi and
Terrence was inside the school room and racing for the side window
from which he could get a clear line of fire at the raiders. He had a
brief glimpse of Joan Allen, the school teacher, standing in a corner
of the room with the tiny green figures of native children huddled
around her. Then he was at a window and had beaten out the heavy
protective glass and was firing into a mass of the catmen, firing and
cursing as his gun emptied. He cursed in a stream of Martian, English
and Greenback profanity as he forced another clip into the gun.
"Lieutenant O'Mara, if you'll be so kind as to restrain your language
in front of these children," a voice said from over his shoulder.
Terrence reached back and felt something soft and forced it over
against the wall out of the line of the window. Then he risked a quick
look which was almost his last. A spring gun bolt burned a groove in
the windowsill next to his head and smashed into the blackboard across
the room.
"Lieutenant O'Mara, would you mind telling me what this is all about?"
came the same calm determined woman's voice from beside him. He fired
again at a darting figure across the square and saw it stumble before
he had to drop to his haunches as the window above him was smashed and
scattered by bolts and glass rained down about his head.
He put another clip into his gun and cursed because he had only two
left. He turned his head briefly and had a quick glimpse of a white
face framed in straight dark hair and a small, neat figure in a yellow
dress.
"Rumi attack. One of their patrols must have gotten around the
battalion."
A husky, whimpering little sound made him look down. A native child or
pollywog as the Terrans called them was clinging desperately to the
teacher's skirt. His tiny webbed feet clutched at the cloth as he
buried his face against her leg. From behind her peered still another
child, its baby frog face working spasmodically in the beginnings of a
sob. Six or seven others were lying flat on the floor their bodies
trembling in terror.
Terrence took another look outside and what he saw sent him into
another stream of cursing. The Narakan Rifles were hurrying to the
scene of action. Down the middle of the street they came in a column
of fours with their drums and bugles blaring out a poor imitation of
_The Wearing of the Green_. Their standard bearer was running at the
head of the column beside Sergeant Major O'Shaughnessy.
"Oh, my God! He wouldn't...!"
"Lieutenant, please!"
"Teacher, will you shut up!" he roared as he leaped across the room
toward the front door. At the harsh tone of his voice, the whimpering
sounds in the room suddenly burst forth in full volume as the ten
pollywogs raised their hoarse voices into full throated croaks.
Terrence braced his body against the wall and held his gun ready as he
pulled open the door. In parade formation his men were moving up the
street and in a moment they would be away from the buildings'
protection and directly in the Rumi line of fire.
"O'Shaughnessy, you idiot!" he roared above the croaking from behind
him and the rattle of firing outside.
O'Shaughnessy came to a skidding halt almost directly in front of the
schoolhouse but his men kept on going, their faces set and determined.
O'Shaughnessy came to attention and snapped a salute.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Lieutenant."
"Halt! Damn it, HALT!" Terrence yelled at the column of greenbacks.
Their formation crumbled as they ran into each other, stepped on each
other's feet and pushed and shoved. But they halted.
"O'Shaughnessy! Break ranks ... take cover ... line of skirmishers!"
Terrence shouted and hit the dirt behind a sandbox in the schoolyard
as the Rumi resumed firing. There was a mad scramble among the
Narakans as they scattered behind walls and into buildings, moving
with an incredibly rapid jumping motion which they used when in a
hurry.
Terrence was so glad to see only one sprawled figure in the dust of
the street that he just lay there for a few seconds spitting dust
before he realized that he had forgotten to close the face visor of
his radiation clothing.
* * * * *
There was a slight clucking sound from beside him and when he turned
he found O'Shaughnessy lying almost beside him, squinting along his
carbine. The Narakan's face split into two replicas of the map of
Ireland and he saluted flat handed, his webbed fingers at just the
proper angle.
"O'Shaughnessy, you don't have to salute when you're lying down!"
O'Mara tried to keep his voice as calm as possible.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Lieutenant. Pretty quick we fight now?"
His lieutenant ignored him and searched for signs of life in the
houses across the square. There wasn't a Rumi in sight except for one
on the roof of a shed next to the burning warehouse. He tried a couple
of shots with his automatic and missed. He grabbed O'Shaughnessy's
carbine and dropped the creature as it tried to scramble off the shed.
"Pretty soon we fight with bayonet?" O'Shaughnessy asked as Terrence
handed back the carbine.
"O'Shaughnessy, why do you do things like this to me, me who took you
out of your damn mud hole and made a soldier out of you?"
O'Shaughnessy's mouth formed a huge round moon, "Not understand,
Lieutenant...." he began but he was ignored again as Terrence stared
across the street in pained disbelief to where the heavy weapons squad
of the Narakan Rifles was gathered in a huddled group behind a native
house, struggling to set up their Banning Automatic Blaster and two
machine guns. One of the men was down on his hands and knees balancing
the heavy barrel of the blaster on his back while two others were
attempting to push the ponderous breech onto it by main strength. The
two machine guns were half on and half off their tripods. The leg of
one of them had been bent in the wrong direction and the other was so
covered with grease that the parts wouldn't fit together.
"Oh, Lord!" moaned Terrence and was bracing himself for a dash across
the street when a figure in Terran battle armor came around the
building on the run, dodging and crawling as spring bolts raised the
dust in front of him. It was the short, stout Gunnery Sergeant,
Polasky. Terrence breathed a sigh of relief.
He turned to O'Shaughnessy, "Now, Sergeant, this is our problem. Those
buildings over there are filled with Rumi. They have automatic weapons ...
spring guns ... firing a clip of twenty plastic bolts. They're deadly at
close to medium range. They can penetrate our battle armor." He looked at
the thick, knobby skin of the Narakan, "Yours too. Now, they are probably
just a patrol about the size of one of our companies. They don't seem to
have any heavy weapons and ours will be in action in a few minutes. Then,
O'Shaughnessy...." The Narakan was squinting along the barrel of his
rifle.
"Are you paying attention, Sergeant?"
"Yes, sir! Attention, yes, sir." O'Shaughnessy started to lift his
bulky three hundred pounds up off the ground. Terrence heaved with all
his might against those thick khaki clad legs to knock him down again.
"Man, what are you doing?" he yelled.
"Attention, sir. Sir said...."
"No, no, O'Shaughnessy. I meant, listen to me. O'Shaughnessy, how
could you? Haven't I been like a brother to you? Didn't I share my
whiskey and candy ration with you?"
"Yes, sir. That's why...."
"Then for the sake of your two headed frog-faced gods, shut up and
listen to me."
"Yes, sir."
"Look. In a minute our Banning will be in action," his voice was
drowned out by the scream of tortured air as the Banning cut loose.
"Now there is a sweet sound. What do we do next, O'Shaughnessy?"
One of the row of buildings across the square glowed red briefly as
the beam from the Blaster caught it; glowed red and then burst into a
ball of fire. O'Shaughnessy's mouth was open wide, his chinless face
resting on the edge of the sandbox and his little black bead eyes were
as large as they could get.
"What do we do now, O'Shaughnessy ... come on...."
The Narakan made a thrusting gesture with his carbine, "Bayonet ... we
go in with bayonet now," he said.
O'Mara slapped him on the seat of his khaki pants. "No, no. You got to
get this stuff straight."
The whine of the Banning interrupted him again and it was joined by
the chatter of machine guns and rifle fire and answered by the rapid
clacking of spring guns. Bolts dug into the wall of the schoolhouse
and showered them with plaster. Others shattered the front window.
Terrence wiped plaster off his visor and tried again. "You've got to
get this straight, O'Shaughnessy, because ... well, because you may be
getting an independent command pretty soon and there won't be anyone
around to tell you what to do."
The Narakan was listening to him but wide-mouthed and uncomprehending.
"We're going to burn them out of those huts; burn them out or burn the
houses down over their heads. About the time Polasky gets to the third
one, those guys are going to break and then they'll either rush us
or...."
Norton was yelling something from the Residency. There was a noise of
clanking armor behind him and he could hear Fielding's voice cracking
out orders as he came up with twenty hastily armed and armored clerks,
cooks and radiomen from the HQ unit.
"O'Mara! O'Mara, they're breaking! They're running! Let's go!" Norton
was on the porch of the Residency pouring Tommy gun slugs at the rear
of the burning row of houses.
"Okay, let's go," Terrence said, lurching to his feet. The Narakan
sergeant blew his whistle and the riflemen swarmed out from their
shelters and started at a run across the square with Norton, Terrence
and O'Shaughnessy at their head. The rest of the Terrans in full
battle armor lumbered along after them.
One or two bolts whistled overhead and Corporal O'Brien dropped his
rifle and fell forward clutching his leg. The smoke from the burning
buildings obscured their vision but Terrence had a momentary sight of
Rumi radiation clothing and emptied his clip at it.
Someone from behind threw a grenade which fell short of its target and
rolled in front of them. Norton took two quick strides and kicked it
into one of the flaming buildings.