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.
CHAPTER 16
At three minutes and fourteen seconds before midnight a small, fast spacecraft, with the insignia of the striding warrior on her bows, dropped down out of the starlight like a humming shadow. It could not have been heard far by human ears, but the farm dogs up and down the valley heard it and set up a startled barking. The scout came down, landed in the brushy meadow and was silent. And presently the distant dogs also fell silent.
Birrel stood up, whispering as he did so to Garstang, who remained crouched with the heavy shocker, beside Vinson and Mallinson.
'All right, you know what to do, and for God's sake make it fast when you move.'
He walked boldly out into the dark meadow. The scout lay black and brooding, its fish-tailed bulk a vague, darker silhouette against the brambles and weeds and pale, white blossoms of Queen Anne's Lace. Birrel stepped toward it, and as he did so he took out a tiny pocket-lamp and flashed it briefly, once.
He was sweating now. If Tauncer had arranged a specific recognition signal, he would be cut down before he took ten more steps. He had to gamble on the chance that the homing-beam from the flitter would be the only signal. It had seemed like a good gamble, until now. Now it did not seem so good.
Several eternities went by while he took four more steps forward. Then there was a familiar grinding sound and a door in the side of the scout opened, showing, inside it, a small airlock, illuminated by the faintest of blue light.
Birrel swallowed hard. His gamble had paid off. He was going to live, but maybe only two minutes more, if things went wrong.
A uniformed man appeared in the faint, blue light of the airlock, and stood in a waiting attitude. That would be the captain of the scout-vessel, Birrel thought. He surely would be there to meet Tauncer on a mission so important as this one. He did not see anyone else, but he knew very well that one crewman would be standing just inside, at the air-lock panel.
Birrel walked forward in the darkness. He raised his voice, in as good an imitation of Tauncer's as he could muster, speaking in sharp complaint.
'You should have been earlier! Don't show any lights — we've got to get out of here fast!'
'Earlier?” said the man in the airlock. “Why, you said yourself—'
Birrel drew the shocker from his pocket and let go with it, at eight paces distance. The man who was speaking shut up and fell.
Now was the time, the decisive moment. Birrel ran forward the few yards to the airlock, his feet almost tripping in the briars. He ran into the lock just as an Orionid crewman with an incredulous expression on his face stepped in from the other side, staring at the officer lying on the floor. Birrel dropped him with a burst from the shocker and leaped over him as he fell, heading for the inner door.
His luck suddenly ran out. There was another crewman in the corridor, just beyond the lock panel, and he was drawing his side-arm. Birrel fired and ducked. He did not duck fast enough and the burst from the other's shocker grazed his right side and that whole part of his body went numb and be started to fall.
