Footfall

“Still coming,” Carruthers said. “Colonel, if they didn’t see his people, they won’t see us.”—

“And if they go straight past us, they’ll see the damn missile,” Carter said. They’ll be here in a second. Once past us, they’re sure to see the missile. He thumbed the cha

“Sir.” Harrison was invisible somewhere off to the left.

Lieutenant Carruthers unlimbered a light antitank tube. “Custer’s last stand.”

“Something like that,” Carter said. “Maybe they won’t come.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Semeyusov spoke quickly into his phone. “They are ready—”

The first skimmer reached the bottom of the hill. Another converged toward it.

Carter lifted the transmitter. “Mvubi. uSuthu!”

“Tchaka!” A moment later automatic weapons chattered from the veldt between Carter and the spaceport. The trailing skimmer

wobbled, then fell.

“Launch your bloody missile,” Carter ordered. “It’s too late to get the spaceship. Try for the laser anyway.”

“With respect, Colonel, perhaps they will launch their ship anyway. It is a better target.”

“Why in hell would they launch during an ambush?”

For answer, Semeyusov pointed. Thick white smoke rose from the base platform around the alien spacecraft.

“Son of a bitch! Okay!”

“Only now we got to stop those tanks,” Carruthers said carefully. “I don’t think Mvubi’s people will hold them long.”

“We’ll do the best we can—”

The alien ship rose suddenly. The rocket platform that boosted it fell back, as a brilliant blue-green beam stabbed up from the concrete structure at the center of the spaceport.

“Any time now!” Carter shouted. Lieutenant Semeyusov spoke rapidly.

The leading skimmer was climbing the hill toward them. There was a sharp flash from the bush to their right. A dark shadow moved toward the alien hovercraft, rushed at it, touched it— The skimmer exploded in fire. “Two down! Hoo hah!” Carruthers shouted. “Bring on the motherfucking tanks!”

Tanks hell, where’s that damn missile? Thunder rolled toward them. The spacecraft rose on its beam of green fire. Three smaller beams stabbed downward. They moved in an odd pattern. There was a flash of fire, and the Russian missile tumbled in smoke. It fell into the veldt.

The smaller beams moved up the hill toward Carter, moved past him, curved back toward him.

He was encased in a wide spiral of green. The spiral tightened.

The alien spacecraft vanished in the clouds.

37. THE IRON CRAB

One minute with him is all I ask; one minute alone with him, while you’re ru

The truck was an older Ford Club Cab with a roomy area behind the backseat. The space back there gave Roger ideas. He brooded

The truck rattled and stank of manure, but the seats were padded and softer than a motorcycle saddle, a difference Roger sorely appreciated.

“Snouts,” Roger said. “Harry, why would they hide snouts al the way up here in Bellingham?”

“Beats me—”

“Me too, but there’s a story in it. One the people are entitled to know.”

“Well, maybe—”

“Maybe a Pulitzer Prize,” Roger mused.

“Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman,” Harry said. “Both with beards. Yeah. Look, though, they’ve got guards on all the gates There’s no way in.”

“Maybe I can think of something.” I see the fine hand of Colorado Springs here. In’s no problem. Out’s something different. “Want to give it a try?”

“I guess so. Sure. Why not? But how do we get in?”

“Harry Reddington. I have a letter from Mrs. Carlotta Dawson for Mrs. Linda Gillespie. In case you haven’t heard, Mrs. Dawson and I captured a snout in the Kansas war.”

“That doesn’t add up to a pass.”

“Nobody in Colorado-Springs knows dick about passes,” Harry said. “Dawson. Did you catch the name? Dawson, as in the poor schmuck up there on the snout ship.”

“I heard the speech,” the guard said. “Whose side does he think he’s on?”

“Ours, by God, and he’s the only spy we’ve got, too!” From the sound of that indignant scream, Harry was about to deck the schmuck! But his next words were almost calm. “And here’s my ID. Gas ration card, even. Presidential commendation. Look, here’s the letter. For Linda Gillespie,” Harry said. “Mrs. General Edmund Gillespie.”

“I heard of her.”

Roger’s heart pounded. If they searched the truck…

If Harry knew how serous this was, he’d never carry it off. Snout prisoners, in Washington State? Bullshit. Not a bad story, because the snouts on the mother ship wouldn’t drop a meteor on their own people. And it would have to be concealed, because the good citizens might rise to violence against snout prisoners. But why confiscate the CBs?

Something was happening here that would bring meteors if the snouts ever learned of it. The CBs had to disappear, Bellingham had to vanish from the news… and what if they found Roger Brooks of the Capital Post hidden in the back of a pickup truck?

There was a long silence, with things happening but no way for Roger to know what they were. Finally he heard the guard again.

“Okay, Mrs. Gillespie says to send you on down with your letter. Her house is downhill from the Officer’s Club. That’s the old university student union building. I’ve marked it on this map. Just before you get to the Officer’s Club, you’ll come to another guarded gate. They’ll be expecting you. Go straight there. Nowhere else. When you’ve gone through that gate, go directly to Mrs. Gillespie’s house. Nowhere else. Here. Take this pass. You’ll need it to get out. Come back through the same way you went in, and end up back here. Nowhere else. Got all that?”

“Yeah-you sure make it complicated.”

“Wasn’t us wanted you in here.”

“Right. Thanks, Sergeant.”

“Sure. Any time.”

The truck started up. After a while it stopped again. “Okay, you can come out for a minute,” Harry said.

They were on a hillside. Off to the left was the harbor. Mist obscured water from water’s edge. There were outlines of ships, like ghosts. Closer in there were big structures, domes, some on land, some apparently floating on water. Further out in the hartx was the dim outline of a really big dome. A rounded metallic shape lay in the dock area — “Look like greenhouses to me,” Harry said.

“Too much activity,” Roger said. “Look. Listen.” Vehicle moved among the domes. Industrial sounds-rivet guns, pounding hammers, the whine of electrical drills-drifted up to them.

A thing like the shell of a huge metal crab covered several of the docks. It was a slice of a sphere-curved, with curved edges — like a section of a nuclear plant containment, before the section were welded together. Curved and wedge-shaped and two yards thick! If they were building a power plant here, it would be the biggest ever.

He said aloud, “There’s lots of work happening, but it’s inside They’re not building those domes. They’re built. So what are they hiding inside the domes? That piece of steel shell, what does that have to do with anything?”

“Not snouts?”

“Well, sure, snouts. But what do they have them working on Slave labor? We better get moving.” Roger ducked back behind the seats.

It wasn’t much of a house for a general to live in. There was moss growing on the roof, and it hadn’t been painted in years.

“What the hell do I do if they catch me?” Harry demanded.

“Catch you what?” Roger asked. “Walking the streets? Harry there’s a whole city here. Look out there, a lot of uniforms, a lot of civvies too. Act natural. Nobody’ll know you don’t belong here.” He glanced at his watch. “Meet you here in an hour.”