The Big Black Mark - A. Bertram Chandler [45]
"Range ten. Closing."
"Ship buttoned up, apart from the hoses," reported Brabham.
"All engines on standby," said Tangye. "Enough reaction mass in the tanks for limited use."
"How limited?" demanded Grimes testily.
"He didn't say, sir. But the pump is still sucking in water."
"They're comin' on," muttered Flannery, "although they're not likin' the idea of it at all, at all. But—but they—they trust? Yes. They trust us, somehow, not to swat 'em down out o' the sky like flies."
"Ha!" barked Swinton, hunched eagerly over his fire control console.
"Watch it, Major!" warned Grimes sharply.
"Range five. Closing."
Grimes studied the thing in the visual pickup screen, which gave far greater magnification than his binoculars. It looked like a big balloon, with a car hanging from the spherical gas bag. But a balloon would never be capable of that sort of speed. Then the thing turned to make a circuit of the valley, presenting its broadside to the human observers. The shape of it made sense—a long, fabric-covered torpedo with a control cabin forward, a quartet of engine pods aft. The outlines of frames and longerons were visible through the covering. A rigid airship, thought Grimes. A dirigible.
"They're havin' a good look at us," said Flannery unnecessarily. "They know that we're from . . . outside."
The airship flew in a circle with Discovery at its center, maintaining its distance but well within the range of the spaceship's weaponry. Perhaps its crew, knowing only the capabilities of their own artillery, thought they were out of range.
"Another target," reported the officer at the radar. "Bearing 047. Range thirty-five. Closing."
"Holdin' the first one's hand, like," volunteered Flannery.
Swinton, tracking the dirigible within visual sight, complained, "The bloody thing's making me dizzy."
"It's stopped," said Brabham. "No. It's turning. Toward us."
Toward, or away? wondered Grimes. Yes, toward it was.
"They've made their minds up," whispered Flannery. "They're thinkin'—may the Saints preserve 'em!—that there's no harm in us."
The airship drove in steadily. On its new course it would pass directly over Discovery. It approached with a stately deliberation. Then, suddenly, from the gondola, a half dozen relatively tiny objects fell in succession.
Swinton cried out—in exultation, not fear. And Flannery screamed, "No! No!" Grimes, belatedly recognizing the falling things for what they were, shouted, "Check! Check! Check!" But the major ignored the order to hold his fire. The slashing, stabbing beam of his laser was a ghostly, almost invisible sword. Each of the falling bodies exploded smokily, even as the parachutes started to blossom above them, and as they did so there was the deafening rattle of Discovery's forty millimeter battery and a torrent of bright tracer. The airship disintegrated, her twisted, black skeleton in brief silhouette against the fireball of blazing hydrogen. The blast rocked the spaceship on her landing gear and a strip of burning fabric drifted down across her stem, blotting out the control room viewports with writhing blue and yellow flames.
"You bloody pongo murderer!" screamed Flannery, beating at the major with his fists.
"Call this lunatic off me," shouted Swinton, "before I have to kill him!"
Grimes grabbed the telepath by the shoulder, yanked him away from the Marine. He said, trying to keep his voice under some sort of control, "You bloody murderer, Swinton. You'll face another court-martial when we get back to Base!"
"I saved the ship!" Swinton was on his feet now. "I saved your precious ship for you. I call upon you all as witnesses. That was a stick of bombs."
"Bombs don't explode the way those bodies did," said Grimes coldly. "But living flesh does, when a laser beam at wide aperture hits it. The parachutes were