The gas was a brilliant purple-gray and so hot that it blistered the hovercraft's refractory plastic hull. At sea the decoy would skitter over the tops of the waves, drawing enemy fire and attention until it cooled and flattened into an iridescent slick. Here—
K67's crew stumbled to the vessel's port side, driven by heat from the swelling decoy. A claw eighteen inches long drove through the glowing boundary layer of decoy and atmosphere, clacked twice, and then withdrew on its jointed arm. The muscles within the crustacean's translucent exoskeleton had already been boiled a bright pink.
Five guns dimpled the decoy's opaque surface with automatic fire.
"Cease fire!" Ensign Brainard ordered again. "We'll need the ammo soon enough."
Wilding got his breath back. He straightened. Brainard released him. The decoy began to ooze sluggishly away from the torpedoboat. It seared a broad track into the reeds behind it.
"All right," said Brainard without emotion. "This boat's shot. That's too bad, but we're still okay ourselves."
He looked from one crewman to the next, his eyes hard and certain. Wilding held his breath while Brainard's glance rested on him. "We're going to need more height in order to lase a signal to somebody who can rescue us. Since we don't have the ascender apparatus any more, we're going to climb that mountain."
He nodded in the direction of the island's hidden peak.
"God almighty, sir!" Caffey gasped. "We can't march through that jungle. Nobody could!"
Brainard looked at the torpedoman. The ensign's face was as calm as the sea, now that the feeding frenzy had burned itself out.
"No, Fish," Brainard said. "We're going to do it. Because that's what we have to do to survive."
"I don't think," said the Callahan, a man of fifty whose features were as smooth and handsome as the blade of a dress dagger, "that we need wait for the others."
His finger brushed a control hidden in a tabletop carved from a single mother-of-pearl sheet. The chamber's armored door slid shut, separating the Council of the Twelve Families from the crowd of servants in the anteroom.
The panel staggered as it mated with the slot inlet in the jamb. The machinery made a grunching sound.
Hal Wilding looked around the council chamber, cloaking his disgust beneath his usual sardonic smile. Nine of the twelve chairs around the circular table were occupied, but in three cases the occupant was only physically present.
The McLain was senile.
After a series of brutal tongue-lashings by the Callahan, the Hinson had learned to keep his mouth shut during council meetings; a success of some degree for a man with an IQ of 70, but a dog could have been trained more easily.
The Platt had mixed recreational drugs in an unfortunate combination. For the past ten years he had little more brain activity than a wax dummy. His family continued to send him to council meetings, because if they acted to remove their titular head, they would be faced with an internal struggle for succession.
The Wilding's seat was filled by the eldest son of the House. . . .
"I called this meeting when I saw the catch projections for the next twelve months," said the Callahan with his usual lack of ceremony. "They can be expected to drop to sixty percent of their current levels in that time—and current levels are already a third down on really satisfactory quantities."
The Galbraith frowned and fluffed his lace shirt out from beneath the sleeves of his frock coat. "Can't we build more netters and bring in more food, then?" he asked.
"That's the problem, you see, Galbraith," Wilding said. "We're already overfishing our grounds. That's the main reason the stocks have crashed."
The Callahan nodded. "Yes, that's correct," he said. "The problem is with empty holds, not lack of netting capacity."
Whenever the Callahan looked at Wilding, it was with cool appraisal for a potential rival. Wilding understood the attitude very well.
Wilding smiled coldly. With the rate of mutation and adaptive radiation on this planet, it was easy to imagine the appearance of life forms able to prey upon even the huge submarine netters which supplied the keeps with fish.
"Well, it's not as though anybody's going to starve, is it?" the Penrose said. "There'll still be plenty of vegetable protein."
"It's not starvation we need to worry about, it's riots," said the Callahan.
"You'd riot too, Penrose, if you had nothing to eat but processed algae," gibed the Galbraith.
The Penrose chuckled and patted the vest over his swollen belly. "No, no," he said. "We certainly can't permit that. What's the alternative?" He was looking at the Callahan.
Wilding interjected crisply, "We could colonize that land.
That
would provide additional resources." Wilding felt cold. He hadn't been consciously aware of what he was going to say until the words were out of his mouth. As soon as he spoke, he realized that the sub-strata of his mind had planned the statement from the moment he decided to attend the council meeting.
He wasn't sure of what response he expected. What he got was averted faces from everyone in the room except the Callahan.
The Callahan said in an icy voice, "Master Wilding, if you wish to dance through life, that is your right. You do
not
have the right to interfere with those of us who are keeping the system going."
The two men stared at one another. At last, Wilding shot his cuff, withdrew a snuffbox carved from a block of turquoise, and snorted a pinch from the crease of his hand and thumb.
"I believe the best course is to send our netters into the grounds of Asturias Keep," the Callahan resumed. "That will mean war within six months, so I suggest we start negotiations with one of the mercenary companies at once."
"Wysocki's Herd did a good job for us three years ago," the Galbraith said. "Shall we try them again?"
"I'm not sure six months is soon enough," said the Penrose, frowning. "The shortages will be obvious well before then. Perhaps we ought to speed matters up by leaking our plans directly to Asturias, rather then letting them learn when our netters are spotted."
"Oh, I believe the time frame should be adequate," said the Callahan. "We'll just need to inflate all their initial statements before we release them to the public. Say, three months before Asturias realizes what we're doing, and another three months of drawing out negotiations before it comes to war."
The Dahlgren was by far the eldest of the functional council members, but he lacked the drive that made the Callahan a leader. He nodded and said, "Yes, that's the better course. Twice the effect for the cost, very practical."
"I fail to see the practicality," said Wilding in tones of chilled steel, "since Asturias Keep has almost certainly overfished its own grounds as badly as we have ours. We need to expand our sources of sup—"
"I'm afraid you've missed the point,
boy
," said the Callahan. "The war emergency will take the mob's attention off the shortages. Shortages will be expected, in fact. Then, in the six months or so that our grounds go uncropped, the stocks will rebuild—whether or not the netters bring an ounce of protein from Asturias' grounds."
"I thought in past years," said Wilding, enunciating perfectly and locking his glare with that of the Callahan, "that Wyoming Keep's apparent lack of direction was because I heard council decisions filtered through my father's perceptions." He sniffed. "Or lack of perceptions. But I now realize that he was perfectly accurate. If this is an example of the policy of the Twelve Families, then the policy of the Twelve Families is bankrupt. Manipulating the common people to accept wretched conditions is pointless when we could be improving those conditions."
"You know,
boy
. . . ," the Callahan snarled.
All eyes in the council chamber were on Wilding. Some expressions were hot, some cold; all were full of hatred.
" . . . when I was informed that you would be representing your family, I was pleased." The Callahan nodded around the table. "Yes, pleased. Because I foolishly thought that you might be turning over a new leaf. I see now that I was wrong. You're simply a destructive dilettante, looking for something new to smash."
"You should let your father come in the future," said the Penrose. "After all, all the Wilding did was drool—and that was easy enough for the servants to clean up after the meetings."
Wilding stood. His whole body was trembling. He could not have spoken, even if he could think of something to say.
"You know, Prince Hal," said the Galbraith, "if you're so concerned about injustice to the common people, you should give up your perquisites and join them. Once you acclimate, I suspect you'll find the mob's round of drink, drugs, and sex much the same as that of your own circle."
Wilding began walking toward the door. He could not see for the red blur blindfolding him, but he heard the groan of the armored panel start to open.
On the threshold, with his back to the council, Wilding paused to shake imaginary dust from the tails of his frock coat.
From the deck Brainard looked at the wall of jungle beyond the tide-swept marsh. Vines, branches, and flowers like bright sucking mouths entwined in twisted agony.
There was movement. A stand of slender, black-trunked trees quivered back instead of leaning toward the humans over the salt-resistant reeds.
"What's happening with them?" said Wheelwright. "The trees."
That was the question that Brainard was afraid to ask. Brainard didn't know anything about the situation—except that he was terrified of having to think beyond the immediate next step.
"Morning stars," said OT Wilding coolly. "Plants can't normally move as fast as animals, even here, but these store energy by drawing back their stems like springs. When we come within fifty feet, they'll snap forward and grab us with the spikes in their branches."
"The edge of the jungle is worse than anything we'll find inside it," Brainard said. "It's like a warship's armor. Once we penetrate the shell, we'll be all right."
To build and maintain their bases, the Herd and other Free Companies fought a constant war against nature. There had been lectures on surface life forms during training, but Brainard had pretty much dozed through them.
Active duty hadn't given him any practical experience either. Large vessels, dreadnoughts and cruisers, provided the perimeter guards who battled the jungle's attempts to retake Base Hafner.
The line Brainard parroted was the only thing he remembered from the lectures. The words sounded empty.
Leaf frowned in puzzlement. A scar trailed up the little motorman's left cheek and into his hair where it continued as a streak of white. "How can we get through that, sir? We got two cutting bars and our knives."
He wasn't arguing. He just wanted an explanation of a plan that his mind couldn't make practicable.
"We can burn it," said Caffey unexpectedly.
"Go on, Fish," Brainard said. His face was expressionless; his mind was empty of useful ideas.
"It takes a fuze to make barakite explode," the torpedoman said. "If you just light a wad of it, it burns like the fires of Hell. And we've got a ton of the stuff we can take outa them two." He thumbed in the direction of the crumpled torpedoes.
Brainard nodded. "Right," he said. "Caffey and Wheelwright, begin removing the warheads. Newton—no, I'll guard you myself. Wilding—"
"Sir, we can't carry much, just the two of us," Wheelwright blurted.
"Boz and me'll lift a deck panel," Leaf volunteered. His boot tapped the ribbed sheets of radar-absorbant plastic which covered the hovercraft's upper surfaces. "We'll bend the end up and make a skid. You can dump the stuff on that."
"Wait," Brainard said. He thought for a moment. Barakite explosive was a white, doughy substance, as seemingly harmless as so much taffy. He'd seen what happened to a warship when a barakite torpedo exploded in her belly, though. . . .
"Just take the backplate off one of the warheads," he said. "The casing'll direct the flames out, like a flamethrower."
"Jeez, we better make sure we unscrew the fuze first!" Wheelwright gasped.
"Yes, you had better," said OT Wilding with a twist of his lips.
"Wilding," Brainard continued, "take charge of loading useful items into packs. Weapons, ammunition, food if you think we'll need it. You're the environmental expert. Remember that we'll carry loose barakite from the other warhead. We may need it farther along." He swallowed. "I'll take the communicator myself," he said.
The laser communicator was their one hope of rescue. With that solid security in his hands, Brainard thought he might be able to get through the hours until they reached the peak. Might.
Everybody looked at him. "Caffey, what are you waiting for?" he snapped. "Let's move!"
The two torpedomen swung immediately to the hovercraft's rail. Caffey snubbed up at the end of the hose connected to his environmental suit and paused. He looked back at Brainard.
Next problem. One at a time. "Until we're through the, the frontal wall of the jungle," Brainard said, "you can wear your suits or not as you choose. After that, they'll be too heavy and confining. We'll leave them."
They all
stared
at him. The tough suits were armor, real armor against the lethal surface environment, but men wearing them couldn't carry a load as much as a hundred yards with the air hoses disconnected.
"I'm going to take mine off now," said Brainard. His body began to obey his mouth, opening the catches and taking the direct shock of heat and saturated humidity. His mind watched the events as if they were taking place on the holonews.
Caffey unclipped his hose and clambered over the rail, followed by his striker. For the grace period Brainard had offered them, the discomfort of a disconnected suit was more bearable than facing the surface unprotected.
Leaf knelt and began cutting the tack welds with his multitool. The motorman directed Bozman as if his assistant were a barely-sentient tool himself.