Otherwise, he knew, he'd have to go back to ferrying fruit boats
between South America and Antarctica. Birchall would revert to his old
confidence games all over the System. Swede Steffansen would have to
manipulate a freight crane on Mercury again. And Limpy Austin--well,
there wasn't much a semi-cripple could do, outside of being lookout and
radio operator for his friends.
* * * * *
The two riders approached the mine enclosure which struggled into
visibility through the smothering haze. The fishman, fleeter than the
lumbering saddle-lizards, had already reached the high wire fence. He
gestured wildly at the guard nearest him, an alert armed Venusian who
stood on a stilt-platform that overlooked the fence to the mud flats
beyond.
The guard pressed a button that opened a gate in the wire barricade.
The mounted men pounded through, and over the wide muddy stretch to the
concrete wall.
Deeply embedded in the ooze, with the rock bed for a foundation,
the wall paralleled the outer fence and closed in the entire mining
grounds. Its polished outer face was deeply indented, like a sharply
curved concave lens. No joints showed in the smooth surface.
But Limpy Austin, up in the glass-walled lookout room atop the stilt
blockade house, saw them. He opened a tightly fitting door in the
concrete rampart. They rode through into the compound, dismounted near
the closed-cabin freight tractor that stood beside the smelter.
"The 'pedes are coming, aren't they?" asked a slow, heavy voice behind
them. Swede Steffansen came around the lizards. He was a big, placid
man, but his sky-blue eyes--blue as the heaven of Earth, not this white
hell--were troubled now. He said: "I could tell by the way the pack
animals are acting. They're touchy."
"They caught the scent," Mac answered. "The attack's due in about two
hours. Let all the animals out. We don't want them stampeding during
the battle."
Swede nodded, slogged off toward the corral.
"Tell the fishmen we're in for a fight with 'pedes," Mac ordered
Birchall. "Weed out the weak sisters. They'd only get in our way,
anyhow."
Stepping high to avoid splashing, Al bounded off in the direction of
the tipple at the mine entry. MacAloon went into the blockade house and
climbed to the lookout room.
Limpy Austin was standing at the infra-red glass wall. His left arm
and leg were shriveled, and one side of his face was twisted up in
a sardonic leer. Mercurian Paralysis, that strange disease which
immobilizes either half of a person depending on whether it is
contracted at the Day or Night Side, had made a hopeless cripple of him.
He turned around when Mac came in. "Well?" he asked.
"They're coming, all right," Mac grunted. He leaned over the control
panel, pushed the button that clanged the cease-work alarm down in the
mine. Then he threw the lever that halted the ore cars to bring the men
to the surface.
"How do things look?" Limpy pursued.
Mac shrugged. "We ought to have a better chance than before. There are
four of us this time."
Limpy shuffled to the radio. With his slender, sensitive right hand, he
twisted the dials.
"Adonis City," he said harshly into the microphone. "Limpy Austin
calling Adonis City...."
There was a squeal of static. "Adonis City," replied a harried voice.
"Come in, Austin, but make it short!"
"What's up?"
"'Pede attack on every damned mine. How about you? Aren't they--"
"Yeah," Limpy cut in. "That's why I'm calling. Send over a ship. Ours
is wrecked."
The weary voice cursed. "I can't, Austin. We figured you had a boat, so
we shipped them all to the other mines."
"Okay," Limpy shrugged. "Then we'll have to do without."
"Why don't you guys blow up the place and leave?"
"Maybe we'll have to. I don't know. When you get a chance--"
"Yeah," the man replied hastily. "The first ship that comes in, you
guys get. So long, and good luck!"
Limpy switched off and glanced inquiringly at Mac, his paralyzed grin a
slash of seemingly pure evil.
"Looks bad, Mac."
"Maybe," MacAloon said curtly. "If we can hold out till they give us a
boat, we'll come through all right."
Nevertheless, he frowned, worried by the simultaneous attacks. There
was something ominous behind them--and he didn't know what.
* * * * *
Limpy was sullen; the more the right side of his face drew down in
anger, the more sardonically leered the frozen left side. Swede's
placid features showed no emotion, but his clenched fists did. Mac
alone tried to appear cheerful, though his mind was furiously analyzing
their grave situation. While Birchall said nothing, peering absently
into space.
Silently, the men pulled on steel-soled shoes, lead-fiber gloves and
infra-red goggles. On their backs they strapped compact battery-radios
with short antennae, a fixed microphone at the chest. The loudspeaker
atop each small set, at neck level, could be heard in anything short
of a vacuum or explosion. Then the defenders armed themselves with
flame-throwers and machine guns that shot steel-piercing bomb bullets.