Chapter 20
GRIMES WAS NOT A SOLDIER.
He possessed a fair theoretical grasp of space strategy and tactics but knew little of the principles of land warfare; throughout his Survey Service career he had always been elsewhere when courses in this subject were held at Lindisfarne Base. Nonetheless, he had glimmerings. He called for maps and a conversion scale. He demanded an inventory of arms and ammunition and explosives. He wanted to know how many members of the underground had military experience and how many, if any, were still serving in the Taraplan Army.
He got the maps first—a small scale one comprising the entire planet, other small scale ones for its continents, of which Taraplan was one, large scale charts of Taraplan’s coastline and large scale maps of the inland regions. With Lennay instructing he soon got the hang of the various symbols, the color coding that was used in conjunction with contour lines, the stipplings used to indicate population density and all the rest of it.
Lennay put him into the picture regarding probable future developments. It seemed certain that Hereditary President Callaray would soon sign a treaty of peace and friendship with the Shaara Queen and, shortly thereafter, would find some excuse, probably a manufactured incident, to declare war on Desaba, the island-continent-nation to the north. The Shaara would be his allies. First Desaba, then Kootar, then Raitu, then the Pinnerba Confederation . . . Finally, his ride on the tiger over, it would be President Callaray’s turn to be eaten.
And that would be the way of it, thought Grimes. Even if Baroom were not employed as a flying fortress the Shaara would have command of the air. Their blimps were helium filled and would mount long range weapons; the native airships were hydrogen filled, pitifully vulnerable, and would be armed only with primitive, slow-firing, hand-powered machine guns. Too, the Shaara blimps could be—probably would be—used as carriers for platoons of drones, flying fighters who, with their laser hand guns, would make short work of the airships. And, he realized, there was his own Little Sister—a virtually invulnerable spacecraft also extremely maneuverable inside an atmosphere, a potential bomber, fighter, troop carrier, or all three.
So the Shaara would have to be stopped, now.
But how?
He studied the map on which the location of the cave-temple had been marked by Lennay, on which was Korong, the town from which he and Tamara had been rescued, and, further to the south east, Plirrit, near which the Shaara had landed, where their ship still was. Grimes was surprised to discover how close he was to what he regarded as enemy headquarters. Since the first landing he had travelled many kilometers by blimp, but, he realized, it had just been a case of there and back, there and back, there and back. This was the most thickly populated part of Taraplan with the major industries, the coal mines, the natural gas wells, the iron and the copper.
He picked up a pair of dividers, did some measuring off. As the crow flew it was just over five hundred drli from the temple to Plirrit. He consulted the conversion scale; that was three hundred kilometers almost exactly. The cave was a mere six drli from the railway track, the line between Korong and the copper mining town of Blit in the mountains to the north west. He assumed that his army—his army?—would have to be assembled in or near the temple and then would have to be transported to Plirrit. It was too far to walk, and a convoy of rail cars would be conspicuous. And, talking of rail cars . . .
He asked, “Mr. Lennay, has there been any sort of search for us? Has anybody found the rail cars that we abandoned?”
Lennay replied, “Very little time has passed since your rescue, Captain Grimes, and we have never, as a people, been in such a hurry as you Earthmen.” He shrugged. “Often I have deplored this, but there are times, such as now, when this leisurely attitude is to the advantage of the True Believer. We have had ample time to ensure that the rail cars can not be spotted from the air and that the marks of their precipitant passage through the bush have been erased. But there has been considerable activity by the Shaara flying patrols, up and down the railway line. And at least four square drli of the city of Korong have been burned, melted, vaporized with the marketplace as the focal point for the destruction.”
“How many killed?” demanded Grimes.
Lennay shrugged again. “Only seventeen—in exact retaliation for the number of Shaara killed. There were none of our people among them.”
“Wasn’t that fortunate?” said Grimes.
“You have a saying,” Lennay told him. “You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
It was Grimes’ turn to shrug. He realized that a sarong is not a suitable garment in which to perform such a gesture. But it did not matter. The god Samz would go clothed or unclothed as he saw fit. He resumed his study of the map, jabbed the symbol for Blit with the points of his dividers.
“Copper mines . . .” he murmured. “Smelters, presumably.”
“Yes, Captain Grimes.”
“And the copper from Blit goes where?”
“Some to the householdware factory in Korong. Some to Plirrit, to the arsenal. Some to be transshipped to barges to Plirrit for passage to the coast, to Blargo, for export.”
“Mphm.” Grimes traced the course of the Kahar River with his dividers. At one point it was less than a drli from the field in which Baroom and Little Sister had landed.
He asked, “Do you have people in Blit?”
“Yes.”
“In the railway service? But you must have. Those rail cars. The river steamer and barge crews?”
“Yes.”
“I’m thinking out loud,” said Grimes slowly. “Don’t hesitate to shove your oar in, Mr. Lennay, if I’m getting too far off the beam . . .”
“Please?”
“Interrupt me if what I’m saying doesn’t seem to make sense. What I have in mind is a consignment of copper ingots—it comes in ingots, doesn’t it?—from Blit. It will be a normal shipment, up to a point. Korong will get their full quota. So will Plirrit. But the trucks that should be full of transshipment copper won’t have any copper, although they’ll have a full load. Us.”
“I begin to understand, Captain Grimes. Our forces will proceed down the Kahar River in the copper barges, will be disembarked at the closest point to the Shaara ships and then attack. But what can we do with our puny weapons against what is no less than a flying battleship?”
“Precious little,” admitted Grimes. “But I do not intend to attack Baroom—or, if I do, it will be only as a diversion. My intention is to regain possession of my own ship, Little Sister. Once I have her I shall be able to do something.”
“Is she armed?” asked Lennay.
“She wasn’t when I was last aboard her, although the Shaara, by now, may have mounted a few cannon. But we must get her . . .” Another thought struck him. “How will you communicate with your people in Blit, in Plirrit? You have no radio, no telephones . . .”
“We have the railway,” said Lennay. “There are pick-up points, known only to our people, along the track for messages.”
“You were remarkably well prepared,” said Grimes.
Lennay made one of his abrupt transitions from Dog-Star-Line-Agent-cum-guerrilla-leader to religious fanatic. He declaimed rather than merely said, ‘This was all foretold in the Book of Deluraixsamz.”
“Mphm,” grunted Grimes dubiously—but he had no intention of looking a gift horse in the mouth.
***
He discussed matters with his fellow deity.
She said, “We have to go through with it. It’s the only chance we have to get the mail to its destination.”
He could hardly believe his ears. Was she serious? He could not be sure. He said, “The mail? At this tune, of all times, you’re worried about the mail!”
“Of course,” she said.
“I’m the wrong god,” he told her.
“What do you mean?”
“I should be Mercury, the Heavenly Messenger,” he grumbled.
“As long as you can make out as Ares . . .” She grinned. “You don’t do so badly as Aries.”
He grinned back. “All right, Superintending Postmistress Delur. I’ll get your bloody mail through. Eventually.”