“Don’t you think I know it! As fast as the Greenbacks can move when they want to, we could have caught the lot of them before they got into the grasslands. But Norton was worried about the fires! Of course, we’re going to burn all these buildings tomorrow or the next day but Norton was afraid the Residency would catch fire.”
“Probably didn’t want his sweetie’s fancy clothes to burn.”
“They got Wilson, you know.”
“Good Lord! Dead?”
“Right between the eyes. They almost got all four of us.”
Fielding took his heavy battle helmet off and pushed back the glass visor of his radiation helmet to wipe the perspiration and dirt off his face. “Well, maybe Norton didn’t want us to catch those damn cats. Maybe he figured he owed them that much.”
O’Mara shielded his eyes as he said, “Beta’s setting. It’ll be night in a couple of hours and we can walk around without this blasted radiation armor for a while.”
“Yeah, and we can start looking for a full scale night attack as soon as good old Alpha hides his hoary head.”
“If you see O’Shaughnessy, tell him I want to see him, will you? I’m going to stop at the schoolhouse for a few minutes.”
Surprise spread across Bill’s freckled face, “Not the school teacher? Not you! Buddy, you’ve been in Dust Bin too long. You’ve been on Naraka too long. You’ll be attending services at the Chapel next.”
Terrence muttered a few old Anglo-Saxon words under his breath and limped off in the direction of the school building.
The Reverend Ames Goodman was the smallest Narakan that Terrence had ever seen. The Johnathian missionary from Little Texas was somewhat under two hundred and fifty pounds which was slight for a Greenback. He also spoke the best English except for some of the big shots in New Chicago. Ordinarily he was a composite of superstitious reverence and natural dignity which Terrence had always found admirable. Today, however, he couldn’t have appeared more ludicrous if he had tried. He was dressed for a visit to the Residency in a white duck suit which was too small and out of which he bulged in a number of surprising places.
He and Joan Allen were talking half in English and half in Narakan as the lieutenant entered. The minister had a painfully surprised look on his round green face.
“I hope we didn’t bust up your school too much, Miss Allen.”
“If you are quite finished with your shooting and cursing, Lieutenant O’Mara, perhaps you have time to explain to Rev. Goodman and me what this talk about evacuation means.”
As she spoke, she brushed stray strands of black hair up under her radiation helmet. For the first time in the six months that she had been in charge of the orphan school in Dust Bin, Terrence decided that maybe she was pretty after all. He wasn’t sure whether it was the high color which excitement lent to her usually pale face or if Bill Fielding was right in saying he had been on Naraka too long, but Joan Allen was beginning to look good to him. At the moment the feeling wasn’t at all mutual.
“Is it true that the Defense Force is pulling out and leaving the rest of us to the Rumi?”
Terrence took off his helmet and let the rapidly cooling air strike his head. “Not exactly, teacher,” he said, “The Fifth is pulling out but so are all the Terrans in Dust Bin. Everyone’s being ordered back to Little Texas. That’s why the Sun Maid is standing by.”
“All the Terrans, Lieutenant? What about the people here who depend on us? What about my children?”
O’Mara somehow couldn’t quite look either of them in the face. He muttered something about having to get back to his command post and started out the door. Joan called after him as she noticed his limp, “Lieutenant, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you have been wounded.”
“Oh, it’s nothing… nothing,” he said, hurrying away, his neck reddening from something more than the attention of Beta Centauri. How in the name of Naraka’s sixty devils could you tell a woman that one of your own non-coms had stepped on your foot and nearly broken your instep?
The battalion straggled into Dust Bin during the night. It hadn’t exactly fought its way back from the river but had had enough casualties to make the men nervous and jumpy without tempering them at all. One of the casualties had been Lt. Colonel Upton. Now Major Chapelle was in command. The men of the battalion were nervous but Chapelle was riding on the thin edge of panic. He ordered everyone on board the Sun Maid at once and then countermanded the order and formed a defense perimeter around the town. He threw out patrols which were unable to contact any Rumi on the Dust Bin side of the river.
The next morning Terrence was summoned to Government House for an officers’ conference. As he hurried along its single street, Dust Bin was in a state of confused and helpless excitement. The three or four hundred Narakans who made up its population were all in the street or square. Many of them were carrying their belongings on their shoulders and looked as if they were only waiting for an order of some kind to send them scurrying off toward the Suzi swamps.
As O’Mara reached the veranda of the Residency, Rev. Goodman was speaking with Joan Allen by his side. His words were aimed at Chapelle, Norton and a large gray-eyed man whom Terrence recognized as the Captain of the Sun Maid.
“When you came, you earthmen in your great ships, the Narakan was a hunted creature on his own planet and had been back as far as he could remember. You drove off the Rumi and took parts of the planet for your own use but you did not hunt the Narakan. You brought him out of his swamps and taught him much; to wear clothes, to till the ground and many other things. You even gave him your religion. But now the Rumi have returned and you say you are not strong enough to hold all the planet.”
Major Chapelle was impatient, “That’s right, Reverend, there’s too many of them. The garrison just isn’t big enough to hold everything and it’s too far back to Earth for us to expect any reinforcements for a year or even longer.”
Norton took over. “You’re an educated… ah… man, Goodman. You see what the problem is. We can’t hold everything so we’ve got to cut our losses. All of the most important resources and towns are in the Little Texas area and so we’re pulling back into there.”
“I see. Yes, I understand. The people of Dust Bin are part of the losses that must be cut.”
“Now, now. Don’t put it that way, Reverend. The natives can always take refuge in the swamps, you know.”
“Yes. I suppose it must be so. Back to Little Texas for the Terrans and back to the swamps for the Narakans. Back to living naked in the mud, back to fishing for our food and back to thinking only of the next meal.”
“It really isn’t that bad,” Chapelle said. “As soon as the situation adjusts itself, the Terran forces will be coming back. Then you can come out of your hiding places and resume your regular life again.”
“Yes. And in the meantime our only problem will be to stay out of the way of the Rumi.”
“I don’t believe that they will go out of their way to harm you. It’s the Terrans they want to drive out.”
Suddenly the Reverend Goodman was shaking his fist in the Major’s face, forgetting in his excitement both his manners and his correct English. “Not hurt! Not hurt, Mr. General? No, they not hurt, they just eat! They favorite food is Naraka steak.”
“Now, now, calm yourself,” Norton put a hand on Goodman’s shoulder. “There’s plenty of room in the Sun Maid for you and the rest of your people will be safe enough in the swamps.”
“What about my children?” demanded Joan Allen.
“Children, Miss Allen? I don’t know…. Oh, yes, you mean the poly… the children. Why, I assume they will go with their parents.”
Joan placed a small fist firmly on each of her slim hips. “Major, all the children in the mission school are orphans. They have no parents. None of them have ever lived in the swamps.”
“Ah yes. But I hardly see what we can do about it, Miss Allen.”
“Well, Major, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do about it. Unless those kids are loaded on the Sun Maid in place of some of this junk,” she waved a hand at the piles of luggage which belonged to Mrs. Wilson, “I’m going to stay with my charges and leave you with the problem of explaining to the Mission Board and to the Bishop of New Chicago just why you left me behind.”
At the mention of the extremely influential Johnathian Bishop the Major looked more worried than ever. After
