The Lotus Eaters

Carrera nodded. 'True enough.'

'And after I show you these I have something else to show you in reference to bunkers a deep penetrator might be worth expending on.'

'What's in the box?' Carrera asked.

'Toys and garbage,' Sitnikov answered, cryptically.

* * *

The range had been short. Thus, each of the six bunkers had taken a direct and well placed hit from the tank's main gun. The hits were, however well placed, off center.

'There's no point in testing for what happens if a major round hits the firing aperture,' Sitnikov explained. 'In that case the crew dies. We're more interested in what happens when a gun hits any other part of the bunker.'

The Volgan led the way around to the back of the bunker, to its entrance.

'This first one shows what happens when a tungsten or depleted uranium long rod penetrator hits anything but the firing aperture or hits at an angle that drives it through the bulk of the shelter. And it's . . . ugly.'

Carrera looked through the entrance. Inside, lit only by daylight, the butchered carcasses of three pigs lay on the concrete floor. No, Carrera thought, they're not all dead.

One of the pigs, still breathing, lifted its head and looked at Carrera hopelessly before laying its head down again and expiring. Air escaping from punctured lungs turned pig's blood into a red froth.

Ignoring the iron-coppery stench of porcine blood, Carrera looked at one wall, where a long deep furrow of concrete had been blasted out, leaving the rebar exposed. He nodded, not needing an explanation for what had happened. The penetrator, when passing through the concrete, simply forced displaced concrete out the most convenient side, explosively.

'The next one,' Sitnikov said, pointing and leading the way, 'is a high explosive plastic, or HEP, hit.'

Here, Carrera saw, the outside surface of the bunker was deeply pitted and cratered over an area of about a foot and a half in diameter. Walking to the back and, again, peering through the entrance, he saw something similar to what had been in the interior of the first bunker. This included three dead pigs—mercifully they were dead by this time—as well as a large, fairly round gap of exposed rebar.

'The exterior explosion sends a shockwave through the concrete. As the shockwave bounces back from the inner face, that face detaches . . . explosively.'

'I understand.'

'The next,' the Volgan said, walking on, still carrying his box of toys and garbage, 'was a simple high explosive round on a superquick fuse.' At the bunker Sitnikov opened a steel door. 'We only closed it for this one and the last,' the Volgan explained, 'to get a good simulation of concussion. It didn't matter for the others.'

Carrera said nothing but looked through the open portal and saw three . . . living pigs.

'Straight concrete,' Sitnikov said, 'and the concussion gets transmitted pretty much in full. This stuff . . . well, what we've done to it, plus the peculiar qualities of the coral fill, and . . . well, you can see for yourself.'

Carrera face grew mildly contemplative as he considered the stunned, staggering, but still living pigs. 'What were you planning on doing with our porcine brothers?' he asked.

'Back to the farm?'

'No,' Carrera shook head. 'Seems kind of cruel . . . maybe even double jeopardy. I think they ought be retired for 'service to the Legion.' '

'Your pigs,' Sitnikov shrugged. He walked to the next bunker. 'Now it gets interesting. Look for yourself.'

Carrera saw that, curiously, there was a wire mesh over the open portal and that behind the mesh were stunned but otherwise healthy porkers. He looked inside and saw no exposed rebar. He walked around front and confirmed that, yes, there was a pitted crater about where there had been one on the first bunker. For the moment, he withheld comment.

'This next one,' Sitnikov said, pointing, 'was another tungsten penetrator. You'll find the pigs are mostly healthy enough.'

Carrera walked over and looked again through wire mesh. As the Volgan had predicted, those pigs weren't even stunned.

'All right, what's the trick?'

Now Sitnikov placed his box on the ground and opened it. From it he withdrew a number of two to three inch colored plastic shapes, a tetrahedron, a square, a pyramid, a cube, a sphere. These he placed on the ground, then reached in again and set beside them a small, plastic soft drink bottle.

'Those are the tricks,' he said. 'For the last two bunkers, plus the one you haven't seen yet, we placed these more or less randomly in with the concrete as we poured. They have the effect of breaking up the shock wave from HEP, of providing space where concrete can go when displaced by a penetrator, and of muting the concussion from a hit or near miss with high explosive.'

Carrera mused on the concept for a half a minute, then pronounced, 'Clever . . . but I've got some questions,' Carrera said.

'Shoot, boss.'

'What the hell are these projections of concrete all around the base of the bunkers?'

'The technical term is 'rafts.' Basically, they help keep the bunker from flipping over from a near miss from a big shell or bomb.'