James White - Federation World

“The loss of this group saddens me, off-worlder,” the Keidi ended, “but this part of my obligation, you must agree, is impossible for me to discharge.”

“If they won’t accept help from an off-worlder,” Martin persisted, “they might listen to you or the doctor. Can you spare him if he will come with me?”

“I will come,” the doctor said. The First remained silent.

“Don’t worry,” Martin said impatiently, “we won’t criticize you in any way. I won’t even mention your name.”

“In that camp,” said the First, “your words of criticism would not be believed. You may have the doctor, off-worlder, and I wish you success.”

THE two newly fabricated transports, which had the capacity to evacuate all of the training camp personnel in a single trip, were ready to leave within the hour. The delay had been due to the special equipment which had to be taken along: remote-controlled vehicles, life sensors, restraints and handling devices for injured, unconscious, or actively uncooperative refugees, as well as the external PA and translation systems. Ever since the original detonations, Beth had foreseen a probable need for a wide range of disaster medication tailored/ to die Keidi life form, and this had been synthesized in quantity-including, in case of dire need, enough anesthetic gas to stop a small war.

“I may be too old for this kind of work,” the doctor said in a worried voice as they were about to leave for the launching bay. “I’m stiff in the mind as well as the joints. What can I possibly do, alone in an enormous transport vessel I cannot understand or control, if something goes wrong? You have already said that these vessels are untested. In the old days I couldn’t even repair my grandchild’s play cart.”

Reassuringly, Beth said, “One of the transports will be remotely controlled by the other, which will contain you and my life-mate. If necessary I can control both vessels from here. And this is a hypership, Doctor. Its fabricator module does not produce substandard equipment. You will be quite safe.”

The doctor did not speak until the hypership had shrunk to a blob of light behind them and their transport was encountering the buffeting characteristic of hypersonic flight through the upper atmosphere.

“Your life-mate,” he commented sourly to Martin, “is not riding in this thing.”

Storm-force winds and heavy rain were sweeping the area when the transports arrived above the camp. It was a collection of low, log buildings whose uniformity of structure and precise positioning made it plain that this was a military establishment and not a settlement of civilians. In no sense was it a covert approach as they dropped slowly below the level of the high, thickly wooded mountains surrounding the camp. Maximum external lighting on both ships brightened the noon overcast and brilliantly flashing communications probes shot ahead of them to spear the ground outside the buildings.

With the volume controls set on high because he was competing against the sounds of the wind and rain, the doctor began to speak-to only a handful of Keidi who opened up on them with small-arms fire.

From the scraps of translated conversation being picked up by the sound sensors, Beth was able to piece together the reasons for the hostility. Even in ideal weather conditions the surrounding mountains made radio communications with the rest of the Estate uncertain, she explained, and the last coherent signal to come through had been the news that a ship of the Galactics had violated Estate air space. Since then they had heard only incomplete messages, rendered almost unintelligible by radiation interference, ordering evacuations from many areas, and they had assumed that the Federation ship which had triggered the initial warning had been the forerunner of an invasion fleet. The manner of the transports approach had supported that assumption.

“We haven’t time to argue,” Martin said. “Patch the First through and let him explain it to them, but quickly.”

‘There’s worse to come,” Beth said. “The trainees have been scattered in small groups all over the valley, out of radio contact with the camp and each other. This seems to be common practice with them, aimed at instilling self-reliance, initiative, and character. The problem is.. ”

“That we have an unknown number of Keidi boy scout patrols to rescue,” Martin finished for her.

“Not quite,” she replied. “After the lander was first sighted, they were sent out with orders to disperse and conceal themselves as part of what could have been turned into a war situation. They had solid-projectile-firing weapons, and when they see you their response will be extremely hostile.”

Martin swore but under his breath so as not to confuse the doctor’s translator, and said, “We’ll hold back until the First has tried to straighten them out. We need a reassuring message, couched in very general terms, which we can record and rebroadcast to all the trainee groups. Tell him to do it quickly.”

“I’d better ask him to do it quickly,” Beth said. “He’s very busy just now.”

“Who isn’t?” Martin replied shortly.

He was already guiding the transports toward the nearest group of young Keidi. But the ships had been hovering silently, and Martin had been waiting impatiently, for nearly ten minutes in the rainclouds above them before the First came through.

“Off-worlder,” he said briskly. “If I am to reassure the young people sufficiently to make them board your vessels, I must know something about them. Tell me their size, shape, the sounds they make, the method of boarding and their interior accommodation. Tell me quickly…”

In a surprisingly short time the First’s message was blaring out of the soft-landed speakers, and the Keidi on the ground had overcome their natural suspicion and were obeying their leader’s instructions. The unmanned transport dropped silently through the cloud layer and onto the wooded mountainside, where the sound of thunderously snapping tree trunks and branches stopped the trainees dead in their tracks. It took several additional minutes of reassurance from the First Father, delivered in a manner which would have been the envy of an Earth drill sergeant, before they boarded the transport.

“I could not have done that,” the doctor said quietly.

“Nor I,” Martin said.

Inside the transport there was more reassurance in the form of external view-screens which would enable them to see the takeoff and subsequent evacuations, comfortable seating, and the pleasant but authoritative voice of Beth speaking through the translator in the manner of one of the pre-Exodus air hostesses that they had been born too late to remember. She was telling them to move away from the entry hatches so as not to hamper later boarders who might be injured or in a greater hurry than they had been.

They did as they were told, and without the First having to reinforce her request. Within a few minutes the hatches closed and the transport was on the way to the next group.

The repeater in the manned transport was showing induction centers already covered by the fallout symbol and others where the angry red markers were moving dangerously close. But at all those centers the people were either already under cover or would reach it in time. Martin could not say the same for the groups of Keidi scattered all over this mountain valley.

In all, the sensors had located eleven groups of trainees, averaging twenty to a group. While Martin and the doctor went after those which were most likely to contain injured Keidi, Beth and her remote-controlled transport had been assigned the more simple and accessible pickups, and had done very well.

While she was boarding her seventh group and the doctor and Martin their third, the area was shaken by two severe, closely spaced ground tremors. Trees all around the last party of trainees uprooted themselves and toppled onto their sides. The situation was further complicated by a minor avalanche.