“Probably in there,” Freeman said, sparing once last glance back at the energy spheres.
“I wonder if they know we are out here?” I asked. When Freeman shrugged, I added, “You never know, maybe tachyons have eyes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We did not hear from the Avatars for two more days. They returned on the morning of the third day.
The day began with Corporal Boll pulling the first watch duty. That meant that he spent three hours sitting in front of an interLink-compatible command console. The console had forty-five five-inch screens, enough to assign one to each member of the platoon. We only used three of those screens, one for each of the helmets we left by the spheres. At 0300 hours, Thomer sent a man to replace Boll. At 0600, a third man took over. The spheres came to life at 0637.
The alarm rang on the communications console beside my bed. When I answered, Thomer said, “Lieutenant Harris, you better get down here, sir.”
“The Mudders?” I asked.
“The spheres are getting bigger,” Thomer said.
I rolled out of bed and punched up Freeman. “Freeman,” I said, “it’s on.”
“Can you record it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’ll get there as quick as I can.” By the sound of things, he’d left the hotel but had not gone very far. I did not have time to think about it.
Barely taking the time to throw on my uniform, I headed for the ballroom barracks. I passed Lieutenant Moffat in the hall. Definitely an aging athlete, Moffat had just come in from a long run in the cold. His face was pink, and his bristly hair was clumped with sweat. He looked winded but not exhausted. He wore the general-issue shorts and T-shirt of the Marines, his perspiration making the shirt adhere to his chest.
“Where are you going?” he asked in an accusing tone.
“Freeman and I left the Mudders a surprise by their base,” I said. Personally, I preferred the term “Avatar,” but Moffat was not among the elite group cleared to hear it. As far as he was concerned, the aliens were still “Mudders,” and we were able to kill them.
“Who authorized that action?” Moffat asked. The man could not help himself, acting like a prick came naturally to him.
“General Newcastle, General Glade …Freeman pretty much has carte blanche around here,” I said, trying to sound oblivious to the fact that I had gone over Moffat’s head. Then I decided to offer an olive branch. “They’re just beginning to arrive,” I said. “Want to watch?”
“What did you leave there?” Moffat asked, interest edging his voice.
“I left a couple of helmets. We’re watching ground zero over the interLink.”
“Are you heading over to General Glade’s office?”
“No, sir. This was strictly a personal experiment,” I said. “We have a command console set up in the barracks.”
“Nice, Harris. Very nice.” Moffat used that line so often that it sounded worse than canned.
We took the elevator to the mezzanine and trotted into the Valkyrie Ballroom. By this time a crowd had formed around the console. Men in boxers and undershirts were pushing in for a look. Moffat and I cut through the crowd.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The sphere is getting real big,” Boll said. “We haven’t seen any Mudders yet.”
“Is that where the Mudders come from?” Moffat asked. His mouth formed a strange sneer, the kind of fascinated repulsion you might see on a little girl as she watched a spider eating its prey. “What are those things?”
“I’m guessing it’s a broadcast device,” I said, lying and not looking back to see if Moffat took the bait.
Avatars appeared. First they showed as gold-colored smudges. I held my breath. In another moment, the aliens would step out of their incubator, and the trackers would open fire. With any luck, the particle beams would shred them.
The first row of Avatars took shape and strode out of the sphere. Nothing happened. The trackers did not open fire.
“Whose idea was it to place helmets out there?” Moffat asked, his eyes riveted to the screen.
“My idea, sir.” It took me a few seconds to answer. I was distracted. Why weren’t the trackers firing? What was wrong with them?
“Having cameras around ground zero was a good idea, Harris. I’m surprised the Science Lab didn’t come up with it,” Moffat said.
“They did.” Freeman’s low rumbling voice rolled over us. “They placed radars and cameras out there four days ago, but the experiment failed.”
“Satellite telemetry?” I asked, remembering the conversation we had as we placed the trackers.
Freeman did not answer. He did not need to answer. One thing about Ray Freeman, he only spoke when he saw the need. I looked away from the monitor just long enough for a quick glance at him. He stood just behind the crowd, towering over the rest of us. No expression showed on his dark face. His lips were pressed together, and his eyes were focused hard on the screens.
Around the console, Marines chattered back and forth as they watched; but I filtered out most of what they said. I concentrated instead on the three screens.
“Too bad you didn’t stick some trackers out there as well—maybe you could have massacred those bastards as they climbed out of their shell,” Moffat said. I heard lots of agreement among the men.
“We did,” I said.
By this time, dozens of Avatars had emerged from the sphere, maybe even hundreds. The trackers should have opened fire.
“We did place trackers, trackers armed with particle-beam cannons,” I said.
“Did you forget to switch them on or something?” Moffat asked. Like the rest of us, he did not look away from the screen as he spoke.
“They’re not detecting motion,” Freeman said.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Moffat asked. “I’ve seen trackers D-and-D a specking grasshopper from three hundred yards off.” “D-and-D” was Marine-speak for “detect and destroy.”
Freeman ignored Moffat.
“What are those things?” someone else asked.
“They’re the Mudders,” said Boll.
“They aren’t anything like the bastards I saw,” the first Marine said. He sounded confused, maybe even scared.
Then came the sirens signaling the call to quarters. “Suit up,” Moffat shouted.
I, of course, had to run back to my room to get my armor. As I headed for the door, I heard Moffat shout, “Hey, Harris, not bad.” He smiled and nodded his head. “Not bad.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
As the Avatars left their spheres, they took substance, and the early-warning radars that the Corps of Engineers rigged in the forest read movements that our trackers missed. As the Klaxons rang through the Hotel Valhalla, Base Command circulated the battle report. An estimated fifty thousand Mudders were headed toward town.
Freeman and I were not the only ones who came up with the idea of using trackers. Trying to find ways to
