as tight a patrol as we could manage. This isn’t tight enough; any one spot would remain free of observation for at least three or four minutes between patrol waves — and a lot of Bugs can come out of a very small hole in three to four minutes.
Radar can see farther than the eye, of course, but it cannot see as accurately.
In addition we did not dare use anything but short-range selective weapons — our own mates were spread around us in all directions. If a Bug popped up and you let fly with something lethal, it was certain that not too far beyond that Bug was a cap trooper; this sharply limits the range and force of the frightfulness you dare use. On this operation only officers and platoon sergeants were armed with rockets and, even so, we did not expect to use them. If a rocket fails to find its target, it has a nasty habit of continuing to search until it finds one … and it cannot tell a friend from foe; a brain that can be stuffed into a small rocket is fairly stupid.
I would happily have swapped that area patrol with thousands of M.I. around us, for a simple one-platoon strike in which you know where your own people are and anything else is an enemy target.
I didn’t waste time moaning; I never stopped bouncing toward that anchor-corner crater while watching the ground and trying to watch the radar picture as well. I didn’t find any Bug holes but I did jump over a dry wash, almost a canyon, which could conceal quite a few. I didn’t stop to see; I simply gave its co-ordinates to my platoon sergeant and told him to have somebody check it.
That crater was even bigger than I had visualized; the
I did not find any but I did run into crater watches set out by adjacent platoons of the Fifth and First Regiments, so I arranged to split up the watch by sectors such that the combined watch could yell for help from all three platoons, the patch-in to do this being made through First Lieutenant Do Campo of the “Head Hunters” on our left. Then I pulled out Naidi’s lance and half his squad (including the recruits) and sent them back to platoon, reporting all this to my boss, and to my platoon sergeant.
“Captain,” I told Blackie, “we aren’t getting any ground vibrations. I’m going down inside and check for holes. The readings show that I won’t get too much dosage if I—”
“Youngster, stay out of that crater.”
“But Captain, I just meant to—”
“Shut up. You can’t learn anything useful. Stay out.”
“Yes, sir.”
The next nine hours were tedious. We had been preconditioned for forty hours of duty (two revolutions of Planet P) through forced sleep, elevated blood sugar count, and hypno indoctrination, and of course the suits are self-contained for personal needs. The suits can’t last that long, but each man was carrying extra power units and super H.P. air cartridges for recharging. But a patrol with no action is dull, it is easy to goof off.
I did what I could think of, having Cunha and Brumby take turns as drill sergeant (thus leaving platoon sergeant and leader free to rove around): I gave orders that no sweeps were to repeat in pattern so that each man would always check terrain that was new to him. There are endless patterns to cover a given area, by combining the combinations. Besides that, I consulted my platoon sergeant and announced bonus points toward honor squad for first verified hole, first Bug destroyed, etc.—boot camp tricks, but staying alert means staying alive, so anything to avoid boredom.
Finally we had a visit from a special unit: three combat engineers in a utility air car, escorting a talent — a spatial senser. Blackie warned me to expect them. “Protect them and give them what they want.”
“Yes, sir. What will they need?”
“How should I know? If Major Landry wants you to take off your skin and dance in your bones, do it!”
“Yes, sir. Major Landry.”
I relayed the word and set up a bodyguard by subareas. Then I met them as they arrived because I was curious; I had never seen a special talent at work. They landed beside my right flank and got out. Major Landry and two officers were wearing armor and hand flamers but the talent had no armor and no weapons — just an oxygen mask. He was dressed in a fatigue uniform without insignia and he seemed terribly bored by everything. I was not introduced to him. He looked like a sixteen-year-old boy … until I got close and saw a network of wrinkles around his weary eyes.
As he got out he took off his breathing mask. I was horrified, so I spoke to Major Landry, helmet to helmet without radio. “Major — the air around here is ‘hot.’ Besides that, we’ve been warned that—”
“Pipe down,” said the Major. “He knows it.”
I shut up. The talent strolled a short distance, turned and pulled his lower lip. His eyes were closed and he seemed lost in thought.
He opened them and said fretfully, “How can one be expected to work with all those silly people jumping around?”
Major Landry said crisply, “Ground your platoon.”
I gulped and started to argue — then cut in the all-hands circuit: “First Platoon Blackguards—
It speaks well for Lieutenant Silva that all I heard was a double echo of my order, as it was repeated down to squad. I said, “Major, can I let them move around on the ground?”
“No. And shut up.”
Presently the senser got back in the car, put his mask on. There wasn’t room for me, but I was allowed — ordered, really — to grab on and be towed; we shifted a couple of miles. Again the senser took off his mask and walked around. This time he spoke to one of the other combat engineers, who kept nodding and sketching on a pad.
The special-mission unit landed about a dozen times in my area, each time going through the same apparently pointless routine; then they moved on into the Fifth Regiment’s grid. Just before they left, the officer who had been sketching pulled a sheet out of the bottom of his sketch box and handed it to me. “Here’s your sub map. The wide red band is the only Bug boulevard in your area. It is nearly a thousand feet down where it enters but it climbs steadily toward your left rear and leaves at about minus four hundred fifty. The light blue network joining it is a big Bug colony; the only places where it comes within a hundred feet of the surface I have marked. You might put some listeners there until we can get over there and handle it.”
I stared at it. “Is this map reliable?”
The engineer officer glanced at the senser, then said very quietly to me, “Of course it is, you idiot! What are you trying to do? Upset him?”
They left while I was studying it. The artist-engineer had done double sketching and the box had combined them into a stereo picture of the first thousand feet under the surface. I was so bemused by it that I had to be reminded to take the platoon out of “freeze”—then I withdrew the ground listeners from the crater, pulled two men from each squad and gave them bearings from that infernal map to have them listen along the Bug highway and over the town.
I reported it to Blackie. He cut me off as I started to describe the Bug tunnels by co-ordinates. “Major Landry relayed a facsimile to me. Just give me co-ordinates of your listening posts.”
I did so. He said, “Not bad, Johnnie. But not quite what I want, either. You’ve placed more listeners than you need over their mapped tunnels. String four of them along that Bug race track, place four more in a diamond around their town. That leaves you four. Place one in the triangle formed by your right rear corner and the main tunnel; the other three go in the larger area on the other side of the tunnel.”
“Yes, sir.” I added, “Captain, can we depend on this map?”
“What’s troubling you?”
“Well … it seems like magic. Uh, black magic.”
“Oh. Look, son, I’ve got a special message from the Sky Marshal to you. He says to tell you that map is official … and that he will worry about everything else so that you can give full time to your platoon. Follow me?”
“Uh, yes, Captain.”
“But the Bugs can burrow mighty fast, so you give special attention to the listening posts
