Nothing came. The screen generators were assembled and started. Defensive projectors and missiles were positioned. Sheds were put together for equipment, afterward for men. And no counterattack was made.
Airborne scouts and spaceborne instruments reported considerable enemy activity on the other continents and across the islands. Doubtless something was being readied. But it didn’t appear to pose any immediate threat.
The second slot opened. The second wave flowed down, entirely unopposed. Scorpeluna Base spread like an ink-blot.
His intention now being obvious, Cajal had various other orbital fortresses destroyed, in order that slots come more frequently. Thereafter he pulled his main fleet back a ways. From it he poured men and equipment groundward.
The last Avalonian ships edged nearer, fled from sorties, returned to slink about, wolves too starveling to be a menace. No serious effort was wasted on them. The essential was to exploit this tacit cease-fire while it lasted. On that account, the Imperials everywhere refrained from offensive action. They worked at digging in where they were and at building up their conquest until it could not merely defend itself, it could lift an irresistible fist above all Avalon.
Because he was known to have the favor of the grand admiral, Lieutenant Philippe Rochefort (newly senior grade) got his application for continued planetside duty approved. Since there was no further call for a space torpedo craft, he found himself flying aerial patrol in a two-man skimmer, a glorified gravsled.
His assigned partner was a marine corporal, Ahmed Nasution, nineteen standard years old, fresh off New Djawa and into the corps. “You, know, sir, everybody told me this planet was a delight,” he said, exaggerating his ruefulness to make sure his superior got the point. “Join the navy and see the universe, eh?”
“This area isn’t typical,” Rochefort answered shortly.
“What is,” he added, “on an entire world?”
The skimmer flew low above the Scorpelunan plateau. The canopy was shut against broiling air. A Hilsch tube arrangement and self-darkening vitryl did their inadequate best to combat that heat, brazen sky, bloated and glaring sun. The only noises were hum of engine, whirr of passage. Around the horizon stood mountain peaks, dim blue and unreal. Between reached emptiness. Bushes, the same low, reddish-leaved, medicinal-smelling species wherever you looked, grew widely apart on hard red earth. The land was not really flat. It raised itself in gnarly mesas and buttes, it opened in great dry gashes. At a distance could be seen a few six-legged beasts, grazing in the shade of their parasol membranes. Otherwise nothing stirred save heat shimmers and dust devils.
“Any idea when we’ll push out of here?” Nasution asked, reaching for a water bottle.
“When we’re ready,” Rochefort told him. “Easy on the drink. We’ve several hours to go, you and I.”
“Why doesn’t the enemy give in, sir? A bunch of us in my tent caught a ’cast of theirs — no orders not to, are there? — a ’cast in Anglic. I couldn’t understand it too well, their funny accent and, uh, phrases like ‘the Imperials have no more than a footgrip,’ you have to stop and figure them out and meanwhile the talking goes on. But Gehenna, sir, We don’t want to hurt them. Can’t they be reasonable and—”
“Sh!” Rochefort lifted an arm. His monitoring radio identified a call. He switched to that band.
“Help! O God, help! — Engineer Group Three… wild animals… estimate thirty-four kilometers north-northwest of camp — Help!”
Rochefort slewed the skimmer about.
He arrived in minutes. The detail, ten men in a ground-car, had been running geological survey to determine the feasibility of blasting and fuse-lining a large missile silo. They were armed, but had looked for no troubles except discomfort. The pack of dog-sized hexapodal lopers found them several hundred meters from their vehicle.
Two men were down and being devoured. Three had scattered in terror, seeking to reach the car, and been individually surrounded. Rochefort and Nasution saw one overwhelmed. The rest stood firm, back to back, and maintained steady fire, Yet those scaly-bristly shapes seemed almost impossible to kill. Mutilated, they dragged their jaws onward.
Rochefort yelled into his transmitter for assistance, swooped, and cut loose. Nasution wept but did good work at his gun. Nevertheless, two more humans were lost before the lycosauroids had been slain.
After that, every group leaving camp got an aerial escort, which slowed operations elsewhere.
“No, Doctor, I’ve stopped believing it’s psychogenic.” The major glanced put of the dispensary shack window, to an unnaturally swift sunset which a dust storm made the color of clotted blood. Night would bring relief from the horrible heat… in the form of inward-gnawing chill. “I was ready to believe that at first. Your psychodrugs aren’t helping any longer, though. And more and more men are developing the symptoms, as you must know better than I. Bellyache, diarrhea, muscle pains, more thirst than this damned dryness will account for. Above all, tremors and fuzzy-headedness. I hate to tell you how necessary a job I botched today.”
“I’m having my own troubles thinking.” The medical officer passed a hand across his temple. It left a streak of grime, despite the furnace air sucking away sweat before that could form drops. “Frequent blurred vision too? Yes.”
“Have you considered a poison in the environment?”
“Certainly. You weren’t in the first wave, Major. I was. Intelligence, as well as history, assured us Avalon is acceptably safe. Still, take my word, we’d scarcely established camp when the scientific team was checking.”
“How about quizzing Avalonian prisoners?”
“I’m assured this was done. In fact, there’ve been subsequent commando operations just to collect more for that purpose. But how likely are any except a few specialists to know details about the most forbidding part of a whole continent that nobody inhabits?”
“And of course the Avalonians would have all those experts safely tucked out of reach.” The major gusted a weary breath. “So what did your team find?”
The medical officer groped for a stimpill out of the open box on his desk. “There is a, ah, high concentration of heavy metals in local soil. But nothing to worry about. You could breathe the dust for years before you’d require treatment. The shrubs around use those elements in their metabolism, as you’d expect, and we’ve-warned against chewing or burning any part of them. No organic compounds test out as allergens. Look, human and Ythrian biochemistries are so similar the races can eat most of each other’s food. If this area held something spectacularly deadly, don’t you imagine the average colonist would have heard of it, at least? I’m from Terra — middle west coast of North America — oh, Lord—” For a while his gaze was gone from Scorpeluna. He shook himself. “We lived among oleanders. We cultivated them for their flowers. Oleanders are poisonous. You just need to be sensible about them.”
“This has got to have some cause,” the major insisted.
“We’re investigating,” the medic said. “If anyone had foreseen this planet would amount to anything militarily — it’d have been studied before ever we let a war happen, so thoroughly — Too late.”
Occasional small boats from the Avalonian remnants slipped among the Terran blockaders at high velocity and maximum variable acceleration. About half were destroyed; the rest got through and returned spaceward. It was known that they exchanged messages with the ground. Given suitable encoding and laser beams, a huge amount of information can be passed in a second or two.
“Obviously they’re discussing a move,” Cajal snarled at his staff. “Equally obviously, if we try to hunt them, they’ll scatter and vanish in sheer distance, sheer numbers of asteroids and moons, same’s they did before. And they’ll have contingency plans. I do not propose to be diverted, gentlemen. We shall keep our full strength here.”