Part 12 (2/2)
”And there was a battle down in the Devil's Pigpen day before yesterday”
That had been outlaws; they had been annihilated by so itself Seekers for Merlin, Ltd, whose stock was still skyrocketing on the Exchange Heco for us, and as long as the country's full of so after them and leave us alone”
”Yes, and I havecompanies, and a lot of the outlaws, too,” Zareff said ”I think a lot of both are Federation agents; they're waiting till we find Merlin, and then they'll all juument to the old Rebel's obsession, ”I'll admit that, as a possibility If so, we'll need heavier weapons than we have This spaceport on Barathruht Defense arrab that place and uns and ht of a fight with minions of the Terran Federation see ”You take the _Lester Dawes_, and, let's say, three of these gunboats Let me see _Goblin_, Fred Karski And _Vaon_, Stefan Jorisson They're all good men
Ho, Colonel?”
”Oh, I'd like to, Conn, but I can't I don't want to be away froht happen But you keep in constant screen-contact; if you get into any trouble, I'll co I can put into the air”
IX
Barathrus of bare rock jutted up, lava-flows like black glaciers twisting a them It was split by faults and fissures, pimpled with ash-cones
Except for the seabirds that nested areen where seeds windblown from the mainland had taken root, it was as lifeless as when some ancient convulsion had thrust it up from the sea, Barathrum was a dead Inferno, untenanted even by the damned; by comparison, the Badlands seemed lushly fertile
The four craft crossed above the line of white breakers that unboat _Goblin_ in the lead, her sisters, _Vaht and left and a little behind, and the _Lester Dawes_ a few miles in the rear Fred Karski was at the _Goblin's_ controls; Conn, beside hi his eyes froain
So that it would be a nice place to be air-wrecked So hi: ”Can you see it, yet?”
”Not yet We're on the right ”
”We're picking up radiation,” Fred Karski said ”Way above nor that, too,” Rodney Maxwell said ”Looks like power radiation; so must be on there”
After forty years, that didn't seeer, then whistled If that was norh of the's operating there,” he said, and then realized what that meant Somebody had beaten them to the spaceport That would be one of the new co of Force Co, now, that he hadn't let hi here first Older and wiser heads indeed!
Fred Karski whistled shrilly into his radio phone ”Attention everybody! General alert Prepare for combat; prepare to take immediate evasive action We must assume that the spaceport is occupied, and that the occupants are hostile Captain Poole, will you please make ready aboard your shi+p? Reduce both speed and altitude, and ready your guns andfellow,” Poole began to argue ”You don't know--”
”No I don't And I want all of us alive after we find out, too,”
Karski replied
Rodney Maxwell's voice, in the background, said soraciously, ”Well, all right, if you think so”
The _Lester Dawes_ began dropping to the rear and going doard the ground Conn returned to the teleview screen in time to see the truncated cone of the extinct volcano rise on the horizon, dwarfing everything around it Fred Karski was talking to Colonel Zareff, back at Force Co him the radiation count
”That's occupied,” the old soldier replied ”Mass-energy converter going Now, Fred, don't start any shooting unless you have to, but don't get yourself blown to MC waiting on them to fire the first shot”