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Suddenly Jo
He brought the glasses back to the breathe-gas dump.
Suddenly, with a surge of hope, he knew he had his uranium detector.
Breathe-gas!
A small bottle of it would let out through its regulator the minute quantities required for masks.
If one let a little breathe-gas escape in the vicinity of radiation, it would make a small explosion.
A Geiger counter reacted when the radiation activated gas in a tube, or so the old books told him. Well, breathe-gas didn't just react: it exploded violently.
Dangerous sort of instrument perhaps. But with care it just might work.
Jo
Twenty minutes later, at the base, he was saying to the council: “A Chief mustn't go on a scout. Right?”
“Aye,” they all agreed, glad he had gotten the point at last.
“But he can go on a raid,” said Jo
“I may have solved the uranium detector problem,” said Jo
Chapter 4
Jo
Things had definitely not gone well tonight. The first plan had been aborted, making for last-minute changes. All afternoon a mixed herd of buffalo and wild cattle had been ideally located on the plain.
It was said that when a winter was going to be a very bad one, buffalo drifted down from the vastnesses of the north. Or perhaps it was a sort of migration to the south that would happen anyway. The wolves, long and gray, a different kind of wolf, came with them.
The wolves were still out there but the buffalo and cattle were not. The plan had been to stampede the mixed herd across the compound and create a diversion. It happened now and then and would not be suspicious. But just as the raid was about to be launched, the herd had taken it into their heads to trot eastward and were now too far away to be of any use. It was a bad omen. It meant hastily changed plans and a raid with no diversion. Dangerous.
Twenty Scots were scattered out there on the plain, among them Du
The Scots were under specific orders to converge upon the breathe-gas dump, separately pick up cases of small pressure cylinders, and get back to the base.
The trick was to raid an enemy who would never know he had been raided. They must not suspect at the compound that the “animals” were hostile. It was a raid that must look like no raid. The Scots must not take any weapons, must not collide with any sentries, must not leave any traces.
There was some protest that Jo
Jo
The horses were not there. Perhaps nervous because of the wolves or seeking better grazing, they had wandered off. Through the glasses, Jo
He had pla
No horses. Wait. A dim increase in blackness in the black at the bottom of the cliff ahead of him. Jo
But when he arrived, it was only Blodgett, the horse with the crippled shoulder, probably not given to much wandering due to the lameness.
Oh, well. Better Blodgett than none at all. The horse nuzzled him in greeting but obeyed the order to be silent.
With a hand on Blodgett's jaw, causing the horse to stop a bit every few feet, walking back of the horse's shoulder and protected from any detector the sentry might be carrying, Jo
and if the lame shoulder permitted, Jo
The Psychlo was looming up under the reflected glow of a dim, green light burning somewhere in the dome. There was no fire in the cage.
Twenty feet. Fifteen feet. Ten feet...
Suddenly the sentry turned, alert. Ten feet! Way out of striking distance.
But just as Jo
The Psychlo hefted the six cumbersome feet of his blast rifle. He muttered something inside his own helmet dome, answering.
The other sentry must be down by the dump. Had a Scot been seen? Was the operation blown?
The cage sentry went lumbering off to the other side of the compound, in the direction of the dump.
Whatever was going on down there, Jo
"Chrissie!" he whispered as loudly as he dared into the darkness of the cage. Silence.
"Chrissie!" he hissed more urgently.
"Jo
“Yes. Where is Chrissie?”
“She's here...Jo
There was an odor in the air and in the green dimness Jo
“Do you have any food?”
“Very little. And we have had no firewood for a week.”
Jo
“Her head is hot. She just lies here. She doesn't answer me. Jo
“Hold on,” said Jo
He could do little right now. “Is there ice in the pool?”
“A little. Very dirty.”
“Use the heat of your body to melt it. Pattie, you must hold on for a day or two.”
"I’ll try.”
“Tell Chrissie I was here. Tell her-' What did girls want to hear, what could he say? “Tell her that I love her.” It was true enough.
There was a sharp sound down by the dump. Jo
Gripping Blodgett's mane to drag the horse along, Jo
He stared down the hill toward the dump. He knew exactly where it was but there were no lights. Yes, there was a light!
A sentry flashlight flicked across the dump.
Two sentries were down there. The silhouettes against the dump showed they were a hundred feet this side of it.
Jo
A light flicked at him, dazzling. It passed on.
“Just one of those damned horses,” said a voice ahead of him. “I tell you there's something to the right of that dump.”