A second pinnace sledded out of the sun behind the first, braking sharply as she approached; her pilot was not an experienced gunner and couldn’t expect a second chance if he wasted his first. A shimmer in the target told him its hull was on one-way transparent, increasing the risk that he’d be seen. Even so he continued slowing, relying on the sun to hide him. At thirty meters his sights would coincide exactly with his line of fire. He rode his sights in, thumb poised, until at thirty-five meters their focus sharpened suddenly. He hit the makeshift firing stud, sticked back and banked sharply.
A hundred meters to starboard now the Alpha still floated as she had.
“We did it!” the pilot said. “We must have! Otherwise she’d be taking evasive action. Ivan, get ready to board.”
Ivan nodded, pulled a mask over his face and adjusted the straps. “Okay, Willi, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I just hope this mask works like it’s supposed to.”
“It will. Dr. Uithoudt tested it herself.”
“Okay. But let’s be careful with me, huh? I’m a motor tech, not a bloody daredevil.”
The Beta moved delicately alongside Alpha, matching speeds. Ivan Yoshida leaned far out, reaching, the other hand gripping tightly to a rail, slapped a magnetic disk on the hull alongside, and then another. A line ran from each disk to his belt. “There must be a better way to do this,” he muttered, then called, “Move a little closer-half a meter.”
Willi gave him a few centimeters. After taking up the slack in his safety lines, Ivan jumped, landing with his feet against the Alpha’s hull, and Beta drew away, ahead and to starboard. Some highly toxic gas would come out of Alpha when Ivan activated the door.
They saw the panel slide back, and after a short pause to peer inside, Ivan pulled himself in. A minute later his voice came from the radio. “All dead in here except me. You not only socked her in the air intake; you must have put her right down the nostril. The way the fan sounds, she penetrated the control unit and rammed part of it into the circulator. I turned it off so she wouldn’t burn out.”
“Okay. Better leave the door open then, speed her up, and fly around for a few minutes before you start down. That’ll blow her out more than good enough. And it wouldn’t hurt to run up the commast and turn the snorkel on. Just don’t be in any hurry to take off your mask.”
Willi turned to the silent Northman seated by the aft bulkhead. “I’ll call the ship now, Nils, and tell them we’ve got Alpha back. That’ll make the skipper happy. Then, if you’re ready, we’ll go down and get on with it.”
The Northmen stopped and sat their horses casually as they watched the two pinnaces settle half a kilometer ahead of the lead elements. Then Kniv Listi, Sten Vannaren, and four others walked their horses toward the landing spot.
Beta touched down and Willi Loo activated the door and landing steps. “Help Nils, Charley.” The other man guided the blind warrior, although he no longer needed help.
“That’s sure a pretty prairie,” Willi said to no one in particular. “I wish my dad could see it. He loves good land.” He touched the send switch again. “Ivan, when you set Alpha down, activate your shield, drag the bodies out, shift a hundred meters or so and reactivate. Then check out the damage to the circulator, and any other possible damage the rocket may have done.”
Charles DuBois was coming back up the steps and Willi activated his shield. Six Northmen were riding up to Nils, and the audio pickup brought the tonal unintelligibility of their speech. One dismounted and led his horse while he walked beside Nils; all seven went to the Alpha and watched Ivan unload. When he’d lifted again they inspected the corpses.
He’d heard they scalped their enemies, but they did not bother with these.
Meanwhile a second party of six Northmen had ridden up to Beta’s shield. Five dismounted and tied their reins to a leather rope held by the sixth. The five wore swords but had left their shields attached to their saddles. These must be the ones, Willi thought, the rescue commando. They were grinning as if they really looked forward to it; there was no trace of grimness.
Nils and the group with him were returning now, and they too grinned. Willi eyed Kniv Listi and guessed it was he who commanded this army; but the insignia he wore were his eyes, his body, his bearing, and maybe subtle things. He looked not cruel, not even unfriendly. But hard. I wouldn’t want to tangle with that one, Willi thought. He looks like he could disembowel a man with his fingertips.
“One of the dead men is Draco, the orc ruler,” Nils called. “Maybe Ram would like to know that. Send Charles out to us now. I’m going over the plan with the rescue party, and he should listen. Sten will translate for him. Then, if Ivan is ready, we’ll load and get started. And tell Ram I’ll fly with you instead of in the Alpha.”
“With me? Then who’ll guide the rescue party?”
“I can leave my body with you as surety and still guide the raiders. I will project my spirit so that they can see it, and hear my thoughts. Ram has misgivings, because once our warriors are aboard the Alpha, they could take it over if they decided to, and your people with it. But if I’m with you in the Beta, then I am his hostage.”
It all sounded strange to Willi, regardless of which pinnace Nils was on. He’d heard how Nils was supposed to have escaped, and that he’d come down in the spirit to plan with the Northmen, but that didn’t make it feel real. On the other hand it didn’t distress him. Willi was a very practical engineer; his ultimate criterion was not how well something fitted his pre-existing notions, or its explainability. It was its workability that counted. And this blind man, by whatever means, had escaped a guarded dungeon.
“Ivan,” he said into the radio, “come over and be ready to take on the troops. Nils will stay with me, but he says he’ll still be able to guide you.”
There was a pause. “Huh! Well, I guess that’s not much weirder than if he was here with me, considering… How’s he going to manage that? I’m no telepath.”
“You’ll have to wait and see, I guess. He seems totally confident about it. Captain Uithoudt, have you followed this transmission?”
“Affirmative. What was that about Nils staying with you?”
“He says you’ll feel better having him in our control when his warriors are occupying Alpha with some of our people.”
Ram grunted. He had felt concern, but he wasn’t sure how much this relieved it. “All right,” he said. “Just make sure you are in control.”
Of one thing Ram was certain. He was committed, done with waiting, and he wasn’t going to back down now.
When the two pinnaces had taken off, the Northman army began to move. They didn’t continue eastward however. Two platoons of warriors turned back in the direction they’d come from. The remainder, roughly eight hundred warriors and one thousand bowmen, divided into two equal forces. Half rode north, the other south.
