The Compleat Bolo

Happily, my hatch cover blew first, as designed, thus venting the greater part of the pressure harmlessly into the surrounding rock. My motor circuits are largely intact, though I have suffered serious loss of sensitivity in my sensory equipment. Still, if I can extricate myself from the entrapping rubble, I compute that I have yet sufficient energy-my Y grid having absorbed some two hundred mega-ergs from the blast and converted the simple kinetic force into usable C-energies-to extricate myself and report to base. I sense the overburden shifting as I apply pressure; now I emerge into sunlight. The way is clear before me. I descend the slope, taking care not to initiate an avalanche. It is clear that I will never again know my full potency, but I shall do what I can.

General Henry shouldered Freddy Frink aside and commandeered the chair before the remote view-screen in Kibbe's observation shed, now crowded with excited villagers, all talking at once, all anxious as to their impending fate.

"… do it? Are they going to be able to climb out?"

"… things come over that heap! Can you see them?"

Ma

"-see one of 'em-big fellow, lots bigger'n those little ones old Jonah tangled with. There's another one. They keep on coming. Blasting the cliff didn't do no good, it looks like. They're headed thisaway. Our museum-piece is way behind."

In a brief lull, Henry spoke up:

"Only the heavies apparently are able to dig out. Three, so far-and they appear to be sluggish. No doubt they suffered concussive damage at a minimum."

"Can I look?" Young Dub crowded in and Henry took the boy onto his lap.

"Where's Joh

"There he is," Henry cut in, pointing to a dust trail near the edge of the screen. "He's going to try to outflank them and beat them into the open."

"Think he can do it, sir?" Dub begged.

"He'll do his best," Henry reassured the boy. "It's his duty to return to base and report."

I win clear of the blast area, and by cha

"It's clear," General Henry said. "Incredible that a machine could withstand such a blast-treacherously planted within his hull-and still retain the ability to return to base-to say nothing of digging out from under thirty feet of rock."

"Did I hear you say something about treachery, Henry?" Kibbe demanded truculently. "I guess maybe the gubment won't see it that way. I guess it'll say I was a patriot, did what he could to save the town and maybe the whole durn planet."

"Dang right," Fred Frink chimed in. "How about it, Mr. Davis?" He sought out the eye of the government man in the crowd. "Are me and Cy traitors, or what?"

"The matter will be investigated, you may be sure, Fred," Davis replied coolly. "The matter of planting a bomb within the unit without authorization is questionable at best."

"Ha!" Frink cried. "Jest because some kid and a broke-down ex-soldier got all wet-eyed about that piece o' junk-"

"That's enough from you," Henry said, and put his hand in the noisy fellow's face and shoved him backward. Frink sat down hard, looked up at Henry resentfully.

"I orter get one o' them medals, me and Cy, too," he grumped.

"I told you to shut your big mouth, Frink," Henry cut him off. "Next time it will be my boot in your face."

Frink subsided. Kibbe eased up beside Henry.

"Don't pay no mind to Freddy, General sir," he said, "he don't mean no harm." Kibbe glanced at Frink cowering on the floor.

"Guess now old Jonah'll skedaddle back here to town," Kibbe rambled on, watching the screen. "He got out ahead o' them spodder machines; he's in the clear."

"It would serve you right if he did," General Henry said coldly. "But look: After all he's been through, he's preparing to ambush them as they come out. Instead of using the last of his energy reserve to run for cover, he's attacking a superior force."

"Don't do it, Joh

"Even if he could hear you," Henry told the boy, "that's one order he'd ignore. His destiny is to fight and, if need be, to die in combat."

"Damn fool," Kibbe said. "It ain't got a chance against them three Yavac heavies."

On the screen, the Bolo was seen to enter a wide side crevasse and come to rest. A moment later, the first Yavac appeared and at once erupted in fire as the Bolo blasted it at close range with its main battery of Hellbores. The next two Deng machines veered off and took up divergent courses back to the Cut.

"They'll stand off and bombard," Henry said. "I think Unit JNA has exhausted his energies. But of course, if their fire is accurate, he can absorb a percentage of it and make use of it to recharge. They don't know that, or they'd simply bypass him. Instead, he's got them bottled up. Even in death, he's protecting us."

It was an hour after the first ship of the Terran Relief Force had arrived. After Henry had briefed the captain commanding, he returned to Dub, who, with Mick, had been awaiting his return at the hastily tidied office of the Planetary Rep.

"I think we can be sure," Davis told them, after an exchange of SWIFT messages with Sector, "that the museum will be rebuilt promptly, better than ever, and that Unit JNA will be fully restored and recommissioned as a Historic Monument in perpetuity. And his commander will, of course, have free access to him to confer any time he wishes."

"That's good," Dub said soberly. "I'll see to it he's never lonely again."

My young commander has been confirmed in the rank of Battle Captain, and, after depot maintenance and upgrading to modern specifications, I have been recommissioned as a Fighting Unit of the Line. This carries with it permanent full stand-by alert status, an energy level at which my memory storage files are fully available to me, as are also my extensive music and literary archives. Thus, I have been enabled to renew my study of the Gilgamesh epic, including all the new cuneiform material turned up in recent years at Nippur. The achievements of the great heroes of Man are an inspiration to me and should the Enemy again attack, I shall be ready.