03. Quest for the Well of Souls (19 page)

She had again and again gotten away. She had come to expect it, waited for the improbable to happen, the nick-of-time hair's-breadth escape—even though, back in the darkest recesses of her mind, she knew that one day it wouldn't happen.

But this wasn't the day, she told herself, making herself believe it. She
couldn't
believe it.

However, she admitted ruefully, whatever was to save her would have to come from outside unless some better opportunity presented itself here. For now, she could only lie down and seek respite from the dry heat in sleep.

* * *

The sun was setting. In a few more minutes the long shadows would overtake the PGU as it steamed and lurched around the oasis-town and plunge the area into darkness. Already kerosene lanterns had been lit in the streets of the little town, visible as dull glows from the PGU watchtowers. There was little added risk from them. Any enemy would know where the town was by the smell of water. They would also know the general whereabouts of the PGU by its hissing, clanking, and belching; but there was no purpose in offering an extra bull's-eye for any eager cannoneers. The thing stayed dark.

Mor-ti had replaced Ti-gan on the con; she had much better night vision, although far less distance perception, than he, and so was better suited to the conditions. There was less threat at night, oddly enough. As Mucrolian night vision was so poor, an attacker would be approaching over unfamiliar terrain heavily guarded by the defenders. Though such an attack had been known to happen, the PGU relaxed a little; most of the people had been allowed to visit the water hole, leaving only the night guard aboard.

Again that sixth sense that marked the best lookouts came into play. Mor-ti couldn't put her finger on it, but there had been some sort of discord in the gathering gloom, and she signaled the engine room to slow.

A breeze was blowing from the west, off the distant sea. It was a bit stronger than the average sea breeze that cooled the length of the coastal plain at dusk, throwing the cloud of smoke from the stack almost at right angles to the stack lip.

Her ears strained to hear through the rumble of the idling engines and the hissing of the boilers. Something was out there, something both odd and wrong.

She blew into the speaking tube and got a response. "Two scouts up top," she ordered. "Something funny here. Keep pressure up. We may—"

Before she could complete the statement there was a series of reports to her right, quickly followed by a series of whistling roars all around the PGU.

"All crews to action!" she screamed into the tube. "We are under attack! Let's gun it! Zigzag pattern!"

The PGU roared to life and began a series of defensive course changes; Mor-ti pulled armored shielding around her spotter's perch and peered out from eyeslits.

More reports, and more explosions, closer now, all around them. Little bits of metal went
ping
,
ping
,
ping
as shrapnel bit at the steel flanks of the PGU. All around the huge steam tank the ground was erupting in explosive columns of heat and light.

Observers forward and aft tried to spot the flashes from the attacking PGU, for that was what it had to be. A spiked cannonball struck the PGU and detonated, causing tremendous concussion and vibration. The defenders screamed in rage and frustration.

"Hard right and scatter-shot!" Mor-ti commanded. "Let's see if we can smoke them out."

Ports fell with a clang from one side of the PGU, and as the vehicle turned sharply a series of cannon reports shook it again, this time the result of an outgoing volley of eight shots into the deepening night. They landed in a wide group and went off with a roar, their phosphor-gels load lighting up the countryside.

Mor-ti thought she spotted the enemy juggernaut in the dying light of the flare shells. She gambled on this and aimed her PGU where she felt the enemy was. The angle of fire showed her to be right; the new volley passed directly over her craft and struck a hundred meters to the rear.

Suddenly the enemy commander realized that he was being charged; he turned his black-painted craft and raised a nasty, sharp device on the front that looked much like a great can opener.

The defender was bearing down at full speed, which meant that he would need a good quarter-kilometer to turn fully, so the attacker slowed almost to a crawl and waited, his guns suddenly silent.

As the defender approached, it passed just to the right of the attacking armored craft. Suddenly, the attack commander screamed "Full ahead and hold!" into his speaking tube, and his PGU lurched forward with a roar.

The timing was almost perfect. The attacker struck the side of the defending PGU, not quite midships as he'd hoped but a bit behind, the great sharp corundum blade on the front ramming into the rushing defender.

The steam vents of the stricken PGU screamed as if living things; a boiler had been struck and Mor-ti's wounded craft jumped, then lurched slowly into the darkness. The attacker yelled "Feed kerosene!" into his speaking tube as his PGU lumbered immediately behind the slowed defender.

The enemy commander tried to keep pointing forward at the tear in the other's armor, angling for a good flamethrower shot.

The technique was tricky; the pressure in the flamethrower tube could not be held indefinitely, the PGU itself would have to do the aiming, and once the kerosene was ignited it would make them a perfect target.

The commander decided. "Ignite now!" he shouted. A small figure forward struck something against the side of the PGU and a glowing ember was suddenly thrust forward. The fuse was a target at which the defenders could fire, and they did. But the attacker ignited a stream of pressurized kerosene, and it passed through the torch and caught fire.

Suddenly a long, pencil-thin line of fire licked at the defender's gun ports, leaving a burning ichor as it crept toward the breech in the armor. It had to be done fast, for there was only so much kerosene, but the attack commander maneuvered against Mor-ti's equal driving skill to direct the jet of hot liquid fire into the gap.

Finally he could hear screams from inside the wounded PGU as the kerosene found the mark and the fire spread. Almost immediately the engine room, with its vulnerable rubber hosing and wooden superstructure, was engulfed, and the defending PGU ground to a halt, its boilermen unable to contain the flames and maintain boiler pressure simultaneously.

Sensing victory, the attacker rammed the now idle PGU and kept moving, its engines straining against the bulk of the disabled fighting machine. Slowly, with an agonizing metallic groan, the defending PGU was pushed upward, then over, falling on its back with a crashing roar.

The black attacker reversed. Already its infantry troops were off-loading from hatches in the rear and making for the town in the distance.

The defenders hadn't been idle. When the boiler room was evacuated, troops in the overturned PGU had scattered into the darkness, while others in the town fanned out. Kerosene lanterns winked out all over, leaving only a total darkness and the stars overhead.

Fighting erupted almost immediately, the skirmishers alone harassing the enemy troops until fixed cannon within the town suddenly roared to life.

The PGU turned and roared toward the flashes, then put its broadside to the town and fired.

Flashes from incoming and outgoing fire fitfully illuminated the scene, silhouetting hundreds of small, dark figures as they moved about.

Within the town the attacking PGU's fire rained down in deadly fashion. The bombardment knocked gaping holes in the adobe pueblos, and people began running to and fro, yelling and screaming.

Mavra and Joshi huddled in their cage, he with fear and she with frustrated rage.

Somebody ran into the square near them. "Scatter the livestock!" he commanded. "Defile the water hole! Out! Out!" he screamed.

Figures fanned out, determined to deny the attackers any fruits of their victory. Someone came down the line in the stockyard opening the gates, and panicked animals ran everywhere. He did not stop at their cage, though, but ran on.

A shell crashed very close to them, and some of the metal fragments struck the cage. They huddled as close together as they could, trying to get as far away as possible from the lethal bursts.

A second hit, then a third very close to them, struck the adobe building that loomed over their cage. A huge block of mud masonry tumbled, striking the side of the cage, ripping a great tear in it.

They neither waited for nor needed communication; they headed for the gap. It was hard to get out, part of the cage still blocked them, and Josh found himself jammed painfully at his stomach, half in and half out. Mavra, seeing the problem, rushed at him and butted him in the buttocks, pushing him out, but not without cutting his belly.

He fell to the ground and she tried it. Her legs were just too short, her fat pig's body too balanced, and she got hung up as he had. Not even thinking of his own pain and fear now, he hobbled to her, and she rocked forward desperately, trying to lower the front of her body. He finally took hold of a foreleg with his mouth and pulled. The sharp teeth tore her flesh, but it was enough, and she tumbled over on top of him.

She picked herself up and found she couldn't stand on her injured leg. Three-legged would have to do, she told herself in an instant, and she started off away from the action, he following quickly.

Shells crashed and boomed all around them, and Mucrolians were running around, yelling, screaming, firing blindly into the dark, and, once in a while, dying.

The dark itself looked like a gathering of white-and-orange fireflies as the attacking force closed in. They made no attempt, however, to encircle the town—in fact, they actually hoped that the defenders would withdraw. The oasis was the target, not the people. Realizing this, Mavra and Joshi headed for the dark at the rear, where no flashes were evident.

Their biggest problem was to keep from being trampled by the frightened animals and retreating defenders. Another, once they had been completely engulfed by the dark, was to avoid being shot by panicky defenders.

Eventually the sounds of the battle faded behind them. The attack had succeeded; they were free once more—but a new problem existed: they would have to share the harsh land with a large number of refugees—for whom food would be a major priority. If the pigs were caught, there would no longer be thought of breeding.

* * *

Dawn's light revealed an eerie scene to the three aerial observers. From four hundred meters, the desert terrain showed in all its colorful glory, off almost to the hazy mountains in the distance. Below was carnage—bodies, the hulk of a PGU, the bombed-out buildings of the oasis, and by the water a large group of Mucrolians siphoning scum from the surface of the pool to make it serviceable again. The attackers' PGU stood silently nearby; alongside, a ramshackle machine labored noisily to filter water, then transfer it to the flushed boilers of the imposing war machine.

"My God!" was all Renard could manage.

"If they were in that wreck, I don't see how they could have survived," Vistaru said glumly.

"This Mavra Chang will manage," Wooley reassured them in that cold but steady voice of the Yaxa. "I would not land or long dwell here, though. It is clear even from this height that most of the animals are dead or have escaped. The sun is now up. I would still keep to the most direct line for Gedemondas. They will be there."

The other two wished they could be as confident.

To the northeast of the bombed-out oasis they could see occasional pockets of Mucrolian refugees, some obviously well armed, trying to regroup. Once or twice those on the ground noticed the strange creatures above. Some were agitated, and several shots were fired at them, but for the most part they were ignored.

Of the three, the Yaxa had by far the best vision. Her range went far beyond the others in color perception, contrast, depth perception, and just about every other parameter, and they relied on Wooley for a careful canvass of the ground.

Several times she spotted small animals and they descended for closer inspection but always the creatures proved to be just what they seemed.

By early afternoon the false alarms had started to get on the party's nerves.

"Maybe we should go on further," Vistaru suggested. "Work up a ways maybe all the way to the border and then backtrack."

That made sense, but Wooley was reluctant to leave. "If they are in those washes, the refugees will make short work of them," she pointed out.

They shifted a little to the north where one of the dry washes opened into a salt flat that would have to be covered by anyone heading for the mountains.

"This is a good compromise," Renard decided. "They'll have to cross this flat sooner or later, and we can see everything for a great distance."

"Unless they've already been through here," Vistaru responded, obviously worried.

"Better than more blind searching," the Yaxa noted, and they decided to act on Renard's plan. After putting down for a half-hour or so to give themselves a break, they went aloft again.

It was past midday when something finally happened.

"To the right!" Wooley yelled. "Mucrolians chasing something! Two objects!"

At first, neither of the others saw what she had spotted, for the Lata are nocturnal and Renard's eyes were only average, but they followed the Yaxa.

"There!" Renard finally called out; he pointed, leaning forward in his saddle.

A half-dozen or so Mucrolians were chasing two smaller dark objects across the yellow-white flats. It was no contest; the natives were much too fast for their prey.

"It's Mavra!" Wooley shouted, the rising tone generating the first emotion they'd heard from the normally impassive butterfly—excitement.

Renard reached over and pulled his long rod from its scabbard, which hung from Domaru's great neck.

"Make sure I don't get shot!" he told the others. "I'm going in!"

On the ground the six Mucrolians were tiring of their chase and were closing in for the kill when they heard the beat of mighty wings just above them. One turned and looked up, and yelled to its comrades.