Starship Troopers (31 page)

“Sarge-“

“Yes, Mr. Rico?”

“Do you want to catch a nap with the even numbers? I’ll wake you a minute or two before I wake them.”

He hesitated slightly. “Sir, I’d like to inspect the listening posts myself.”

“Haven’t you already?”

“No, sir. I’ve been asleep the past hour.”

“Huh?”

He sounded embarrassed. “The Captain required me to do so. He placed Brumby temporarily in charge and put me to sleep immediately after he relieved you.”

I started to answer, then laughed helplessly. “Sarge? Let’s you and I go off somewhere and go back to sleep. We’re wasting our time; Cap’n Blackie is running this platoon.”

“I have found, sir,” he answered stiffly, “that Captain Blackstone invariably has a reason for anything he does.”

I nodded thoughtfully, forgetting that I was ten miles from my listener. “Yes. You’re right, he always has a reason. Mmm . . . since he had us both sleep, he must want us both awake and alert now.”

“I think that must be true.”

“Mmm . . . any idea why?”

He was rather long in answering. “Mr. Rico,” he said slowly, “if the Captain knew he would tell us; I’ve never known him to hold back information. But sometimes he does things a certain way without being able to explain why. The Captain’s hunches -- well, I’ve learned to respect them.”

“So? Squad leaders are all even numbers; they’re asleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alert the lance of each squad. We won’t wake anybody . . . but when we do, seconds may be important.”

“Right away.”

I checked the remaining forward post, then covered the four posts bracketing the Bug village, jacking my phones in parallel with each listener. I had to force myself to listen, because you could hear them, down there below, chittering to each other. I wanted to run and it was all I could do not to let it show.

I wondered if that “special talent” was simply a man with incredibly acute hearing.

Well, no matter how he did it, the Bugs were where he said they were. Back at O. C. S. we had received demonstrations of recorded Bug noises; these four posts were picking up typical nest noises of a large Bug town— that chittering which may be their speech (though why should they need to talk if they are all remotely controlled by the brain caste?), a rustling like sticks and dry leaves, a high background whine which is always heard at a settlement and which had to be machinery -- their air conditioning perhaps.

I did not hear the hissing, crackling noise they make in cutting through rock.

The sounds along the Bug boulevard were unlike the settlement sounds— a low background rumble which increased to a roar every few moments, as if heavy traffic were passing. I listened at post number five, then got an idea -- checked it by having the stand-by man at each of the four posts along the tunnel call out “Mark!” to me each time the roaring got loudest.

Presently I reported. “Captain—“

“Yeah, Johnnie?”

“The traffic along this Bug race is all moving one way, from me toward you. Speed is approximately a hundred and ten miles per hour, a load goes past about once a minute.”

“Close enough,” he agreed. “I make it one-oh-eight with a headway of fifty-eight seconds.”

“Oh.” I felt dashed, and changed the subject. “I haven’t seen that sapper company.”

“You won’t. They picked a spot in the middle rear of ‘Head Hunter’ area. Sorry, I should have told you. Anything more?”

“No, sir.” We clicked off and I felt better. Even Blackie could forget . . . and there hadn’t been anything wrong with my idea. I left the tunnel zone to inspect the listening post to right and rear of the Bug area, post twelve.

As with the others, there were two men asleep, one listening, one stand-by. I said to the stand-by, “Getting anythin?”

“No, sir.”

The man listening, one of my five recruits, looked up and said, “Mr.

Rico, I think this pickup has just gone sour.”

“I’ll check it,” I said. He moved to let me jack in with him.

“Frying bacon” so loud you could smell it!

I hit the all-hands circuit. “First platoon up! Wake up, call off, and report!”

And clicked over to officers’ circuit. “Captain! Captain Blackstone! Urgent!”

“Slow down, Johnnie. Report.”

“ ‘Frying bacon’ sounds, sir,” I answered, trying desperately to keep my voice steady. “Post twelve at co-ordinates Easter Nine, Square Black One.”

“Easter Nine,” he agreed. “Decibels?”

I looked hastily at the meter on the pickup. “I don’t know, Captain. Off the scale at the max end. It sounds like they’re right under my feet!”

“Good!” he applauded—and I wondered how he could feel that way. “Best news we’ve had today! Now listen, son. Get your lads awake—“

“They are, sir!”

“Very well. Pull back two listeners, have them spot-check around post twelve. Try to figure where the Bugs are going to break out. And stay away from that spot! Understand me?”

“I hear you, sir,” I said carefully. “But I do not understand.”

He sighed. “Johnnie, you’ll turn my hair gray yet. Look, son, we want them to come out, the more the better. You don’t have the firepower to handle them other than by blowing up their tunnel as they reach the surface and that is the one thing you must not do! If they come out in force, a regiment can’t handle them. But that’s just what the General wants, and he’s got a brigade of heavy weapons in orbit, waiting for it. So you spot that breakthrough, fall back, and keep it under observation. If you are lucky enough to have a major breakthrough in your area, your reconnaissance will be patched through all the way to the top. So stay lucky and stay alive! Got it?”

“Yes, sir. Spot the breakthrough. Fall back and avoid contact. Observe and report.”

“Get on it!”

I pulled back listeners nine and ten from the middle stretch of “Bug Boulevard” and had them close in on co-ordinates Easter Nine from right and left, stopping every half mile to listen for “frying bacon.” At the same time I lifted post twelve and moved it toward our rear, while checking for a dying away of the sound.

In the meantime my platoon sergeant was regrouping the platoon in the forward area between the Bug settlement and the crater—all but twelve men who were ground-listening. Since we were under orders not to attack, we both worried over the prospect of having the platoon spread too widely for mutual support. So he rearranged them in a compact line five miles long, with Brumby’s section on the left, nearer the Bug settlement. This placed the men less than three hundred yards apart (almost shoulder to shoulder for cap troopers), and put nine of the men still on listening stations within support distance of one flank or the other. Only the three listeners working with me were out of reach of ready help.

I told Bayonne of the Wolverines and Do Campo of the Head Hunters that I was no longer patrolling and why, and I reported our regrouping to Captain Blackstone.

He grunted. “Suit yourself. Got a prediction on that breakthrough?”

“It seems to center about Easter Ten, Captain, but it is hard to pin down. The sounds are very loud in an area about three miles across and it seems to get wider. I’m trying to circle it at an intensity level just barely on scale.” I added, “Could they be driving a new horizontal tunnel just under the surface?”

He seemed surprised. “That’s possible. I hope not -- we want them to come up.” He added, “Let me know if the center of noise moves. Check on it.”

“Yes, sir. Captain—“

“Huh? Speak up.”

“You told us not to attack when they break out. If they break out. What are we to do? Are we just spectators?”

There was a longish delay, fifteen or twenty seconds, and he may have consulted “upstairs.” At last he said, “Mr. Rico, you are not to attack at or near Easter Ten. Anywhere else—the idea is to hunt Bugs.”

“Yes, sir.” I agreed happily. “We hunt Bugs.”

“Johnnie!” he said sharply. “If you go hunting medals instead of Bugs and I find out -- you’re going to have a mighty sad-looking Form Thirty-One!”

“Captain,” I said earnestly, “I don’t ever want to win a medal. The idea is to hunt Bugs.”

“Right. Now quit bothering me.”

I called my platoon sergeant, explained the new limits under which we would work, told him to pass the word along and to make sure that each man’s suit was freshly charged, air and power.

“We’ve just finished that, sir. I suggest that we relieve the men with you.” He named three reliefs.

This was reasonable, as my ground listeners had had no time to recharge. But the reliefs he named were all scouts.

Silently I cussed myself for utter stupidity. A scout’s suit is as fast as a command suit, twice the speed of a marauder. I had been having a nagging feeling of something left undone, and had checked it off to the nervousness I always feel around Bugs.

Now I knew. Here I was, ten miles away from my platoon with a party of three men each in a marauder suit. When the Bugs broke through, I was going to be faced with an impossible decision . . . unless the men with me could rejoin as fast as I could. “That’s good,” I agreed, “but I no longer need three men. Send Hughes, right away. Have him relieve Nyberg. Use the other three scouts to relieve the listening posts farthest forward.”

“Just Hughes?” he said doubtfully.

“Hughes is enough. I’m going to man one listener myself. Two of us can straddle the area; we know where they are now.” I added, “Get Hughes down here on the bounce.”

For the next thirty-seven minutes nothing happened. Hughes and I swung back and forth along the forward and rear arcs of the area around Easter Ten, listening five seconds at a time, then moving on. It was no longer necessary to seat the microphone in rock; it was enough to touch it to the ground to get the sound of “frying bacon” strong and clear. The noise area expanded but its center did not change. Once I called Captain Blackstone to tell him that the sound had abruptly stopped, and again three minutes later to tell him it had resumed; otherwise I used the scouts’ circuit and let my platoon sergeant take care of the platoon and the listening posts near the platoon.

At the end of this time everything happened at once.

A voice called out on the scouts’ circuit, “ ‘Bacon Fry’! Albert Two!”

I clicked over and called out, “Captain! ‘Bacon Fry’ at Albert Two,

Black One!” -- clicked over to liaison with the platoons surrounding me:

“Liaison flash! ‘Bacon frying’ at Albert Two, Square Black One” -- and immediately heard Do Campo reporting: “ ‘Frying Bacon’ sounds at Adolf Three, Green Twelve.”

I relayed that to Blackie and cut back to my own scouts’ circuit, heard: “Bugs! Bugs! HELP!”

“Where?”

No answer. I clicked over. “Sarge! Who reported Bugs?”

He rapped back, “Coming up out of their town—about Bangkok Six.”

“Hit ‘em!” I clicked over to Blackie. “Bugs at Bangkok Six, Black One I am attacking!”

“I heard you order it,” he answered calmly. “How about Easter Ten?”

“Easter Ten is—“ The ground fell away under me and I was engulfed in Bugs.

I didn’t know what had happened to me. I wasn’t hurt; it was a bit like falling into the branches of a tree—but these branches were alive and kept jostling me while my gyros complained and tried to keep me upright. I fell ten or fifteen feet, deep enough to be out of the daylight.

Then a surge of living monsters carried me back up into the light— and training paid off; I landed on my feet, talking and fighting:

“Breakthrough at Easter Ten -- no, Easter Eleven, where I am now. Big hole and they’re pouring up. Hundreds. More than that.” I had a hand flamer in each hand and was burning them down as I reported.

“Get out of there, Johnnie!”

“Wilco!”—and I started to jump.

And stopped. Checked the jump in time, stopped flaming, and really looked—for I suddenly realized that I ought to be dead. “Correction,” I said, looking and hardly believing. “Breakthrough at Easter Eleven is a feint. No warriors.”

“Repeat.”

“Easter Eleven, Black One. Breakthrough here is entirely by workers so far. No warriors. I am surrounded by Bugs and they are still pouring out, but not a one of them is armed and those nearest me all have typical worker features. I have not been attacked.” I added, “Captain, do you think this could be just a diversion? With their real breakthrough to come somewhere else?”

“Could be,” he admitted. “Your report is patched through right to Division, so let them do the thinking. Stir around and check what you’ve reported. Don’t assume that they are all workers -- you may find out the hard way.”

“Right, Captain.” I jumped high and wide, intending to get outside that mass of harmless but loathsome monsters.

That rocky plain was covered with crawly black shapes in all directions. I overrode my jet controls and increased the jump, calling out, “Hughes! Report!”

“Bugs, Mr. Rico! Zillions of ‘em! I’m a-burnin’ ‘em down!”

“Hughes, take a close look at those Bugs. Any of them fighting back? Aren’t they all workers?”

“Uh—“ I hit the ground and bounced again. He went on, “Hey! You’re right, sir! How did you know?”

“Rejoin your squad, Hughes.” I clicked over. “Captain, several thousand Bugs have exited near here from an unestimated number of holes. I have not been attacked. Repeat, I have not been attacked at all. If there are any warriors among them, they must be holding their fire and using workers as camouflage.”

He did not answer.

There was an extremely brilliant flash far off to my left, followed at once by one just like it but farther away to my right front; automatically I noted time and bearings. “Captain Blackstone answer!” At the top of my jump I tried to pick out his beacon, but that horizon was cluttered by low hills in Square Black Two.

I clicked over and called out, “Sarge! Can you relay to the Captain for me?”

At that very instant my platoon sergeant’s beacon blinked out.

I headed on that bearing as fast as I could push my suit. I had not been watching my display closely; my platoon sergeant had the platoon and I had been busy, first with ground-listening and, most lately, with a few hundred Bugs. I had suppressed all but the non-com’s beacons to allow me to see better.