“That’s a culvert,” Kobol said. “For carrying rainwater.”
“All right,” Alec commanded. “Hold your position. The others will be out there in a few minutes with heavier equipment. If you see anything else, don’t fire unless it looks hostile. Conserve ammunition. But call me immediately.”
“Yessir.”
“I want those buildings searched,” Alec told Kobol.
“It’d take every man we have to search them.”
“We can spare half the heavy weapons men, once we have the trucks spotted around the perimeter.”
“That’s only six men.”
“That’s all we can spare. I’ll lead the search as soon as the weapons are set up on the perimeter.”
Alec headed off toward Kurowski’s position, leaving Kobol to supervise the weapons set-up. He could see the buildings, gray and low, with holes in them for windows. A tower surmounted the central building, but its top was broken and charred. Someone could hide a hundred men in there. And a thousand more in those hills, he thought.
Kurowski was lying in the culvert, white-knuckled hands gripping his gun. Alec crawled down beside him.
“See anything else?”
“I’m not sure. Something was moving out there for a while. But it was heading away from us, and it didn’t walk like a man.”
Nodding, Alec said, “All right. We’re going to get a search party together. Let’s both watch the area until then.”
It was actually pleasant. Lying there wasn’t too uncomfortable, and Alec started to get a feel of this huge world called Earth. The breeze made noises, strange sighings and whisperings. Memories of old poems from his childhood school days started to make sense to him for the first time. And there were other sounds too. Alec had been told what bird songs and insect buzzings sounded like, but he had never heard them before.
“Look at that!”
Kurowski pointed six centimeters in front of his nose. In the stubby grass an insect was scurrying busily.
“I think that’s what you call an ant,” Alec said. “Or maybe a bee.”
“Bees can fly, can’t they?”
“Only the queens.”
The heavy weapons carriers finally trundled into position. They were six balloon-tired armored trucks, driven by smooth-humming electric engines, mounting high-powered lasers. Some of the men hustled up on foot, laden with heavy rocket launchers and machine guns. They began clicking the sections of their weapons together, quickly surrounding themselves with a bristling arsenal of gunbelts and finned rockets.
Alec led six men on a cursory, fruitless search through the gutted buildings. They found nothing but burned-out walls, crumbling floors, shattered roofs. And a few startled raccoons and other small animals that had claimed parts of the abandoned buildings for themselves. One of the troopers fired a burst from his automatic rifle at a brown furry something that simply blew apart when the bullets hit it.
“Glad it wasn’t a skunk,” muttered Beardon, who had made a special study of troublesome Earth animals as part of his preparation for the mission.
By mid-afternoon Alec gave the word to extend their perimeter. Most of the rocket launchers and heavy machine guns were repositioned on the roofs of the buildings, together with infrared sensors for night vision. One laser truck was parked in front of the central building. The others prowled the farther limits of the airfield, while troopers patrolled on foot alongside them, cradling their automatic rifles in their arms.
Back inside the first shuttle, Alec reviewed the situation with Kobol. The older man sat heavily in a padded seat, looking tired and wary. Alec leaned against the chair’s armrest.
“We’ve got to assume we’ve been spotted,” Kobol said.
“Right. It’s the safe assumption to make,” Alec agreed, thinking to himself, I never realized the shuttles made so much noise! The entire countryside must know we’re here.
“The shuttles would have been a lot easier to hide if we had landed in one of the valleys nearby,” Kobol went on.
With a shake of his head, Alec countered, “They’re safe enough here. None of the barbarians has weapons that can reach us from the edge of the airfield.”
“Really?”
“And there’s still no report from the satellite of a large number of barbarians moving our way. So we’re safe from a mass attack. For a day or two, at least.”
Kobol looked skeptical, but said nothing.
“All right,” Alec said. “We move out tonight. I...”
“Tonight? In darkness?”
“Right. We have infrared sensors. The barbarians don’t. We can move in darkness. They can’t and they won’t expect us to. I want a dozen men and one of the laser trucks. We have aerial maps of the region, the road between here and the Oak Ridge complex is clearly marked. We can be there before dawn and surprise any possible defenders.”
Kobol shook his head. “The men won’t want to move at night. And those who’re left here will be scared even worse, knowing that one-quarter of their strength is off in the dark.”
“Martin, I’m not in here to engage in debates,” Alec snapped, getting to his feet. “The men will follow my orders. By this time tomorrow we’ll be on our way back home.”
Shrugging, Kobol acquiesced. “You’re in charge. I presume you’ll want to lead the trek to Oak Ridge yourself.”
“That’s right. And I’ll want you along too.”
Kobol’s shaggy eyebrows rose a centimeter. “You don’t want to leave me here with the shuttles?”
“Jameson can hold the airfield,” Alec said, almost smiling at him. “I want you with me—to identify the fissionables.”
