Mack Reynolds - Border, Breed Nor Birth

El Hassan, would-be tyrant of all North Africa, was on the run.

His followers at this point numbered six, one of whom was a wisp of a twenty-four year old girl. Arrayed against him and his dream, he knew, was the combined power of the world in the form of the Reunited Nations, and, in addition, such individual powers as the United States of the Americas, the Soviet Complex, Common Europe, the French Community, the British Commonwealth and the Arab Union, working both together and unilaterally.

Immediate survival depended upon getting into the Great Erg of the Sahara where even the greatest powers the world had ever developed would have their work cut out locating El Hassan and his people.

Bey-ag-Akhamouk who was riding next to Elmer Allen in the lead air-cushion hover-lorry, held a hand high. Both of the solar-powered desert vehicles ground to a halt.

Homer Crawford vaulted out of the seat of the second lorry before it had settled to the sand. “What’s up, Bey?” he called.

Bey pointed to the south and west. They were in the vicinity of Tessalit, in what was once known as French Sudan, and immediately to the south of Algeria. They were deliberately avoiding what little existed in this area in the way of trails; the Tanezrouft route which crossed the Sahara from Colomb-Béchar to Gao, on the Niger, was some fifty miles to the west.

Homer Crawford stared up into the sky in the direction Bey pointed and his face went wan. The others were piling out of the vehicles. “What is it?” Isobel Cunningham said, squinting and trying to catch what the others had already spotted.

“Aircraft,” Bey growled. “A rocketplane.”

“Which means the military in this part of the world,” Homer said.

The rest of them looked to him for instructions, but Bey suddenly took over. He said to Homer, “You better get on over beneath that outcropping of rock. The rest of us will handle this.” Homer looked at him.

Bey said, flatly, “If one of the rest of us gets it, or even if all of us do, the El Hassan movement goes on. But if something happens to you, the movement dies. We’ve already taken our stand and too much is at stake to risk your life.”

Homer Crawford opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. He reached inside the solar-powered lorry, fetched forth a Tommy-Noiseless and started for the rock outcropping at a trot. Having made his decision, he wasn’t going to cramp Bey-ag-Akhamouk’s style with needless palaver.

Isobel Cunningham, Cliff Jackson, Elmer Allen and Kenny Ballalou gathered around the tall, American-educated Tuareg.

“What’s the plan?” Elmer said. Either he or Kenny Ballalou could have taken over as competently, but they were as capable of taking orders as giving them, a desirable trait in fighting men.

Bey was still staring at the oncoming speck. He growled, “We can’t even hope he hasn’t seen the pillars of sand and dust these vehicles throw up. He’s spotted us all right. And we’ve got to figure he’s looking for us, even though we can hope he’s not.”

The side of his mouth began to tic characteristically. “He’ll make three passes. The first one high, as an initial check. The second time he’ll come in low just to make sure. The third pass and he’ll clobber us.”

The aircraft was coming on, high but nearer now.

“So,” Elmer said reasonably, “we either get him the second pass he makes, or we’ve had it.” The young Jamaican’s lips were thinned back over his excellent teeth, as always when he went into combat.

“That’s it,” Bey agreed. “Kenny, you and Cliff get the flac rifle, and have it handy in the back of the second truck. Be sure he doesn’t see it on this first pass. Elmer, get on the radio and check anything he sends.”

Kenny Ballalou and the hulking Cliff Jackson ran to carry out orders.

Isobel said, “Got an extra gun for me?”

Bey scowled at her. “You better get over there with Homer where it’s safer.”

She said evenly, “I’ve always considered myself a pacifist, but when somebody starts shooting at me, I forget about it and am inclined to shoot back.”

“I haven’t got time to argue with you,” Bey said. “There aren’t any extra guns except hand guns and they’d be useless.” As he spoke, he pulled his own Tommy-Noiseless from its scabbard on the front door of the air-cushion lorry, and checked its clip of two hundred .10 caliber ultra-high velocity rounds. He flicked the selector to the explosive side of the clip.

The plane was roaring in on what would be its first pass, if Bey had guessed correctly. If he had guessed incorrectly, this might be the end. A charge of neopalm would fry everything for a quarter of a mile around, or the craft might even be equipped with a mini-fission bomb. In this area a minor nuclear explosion would probably go undetected.

Bey yelled, “Don’t anybody even try to fire at him at this range. He’ll be back. It takes half the sky to turn around in with that crate, but he’ll be back, lower next time.”

Cliff Jackson said cheerlessly, “Maybe he’s just looking for us. He won’t necessarily take a crack at us.”

Bey grunted. “Elmer?”

“Nothing on the radio,” Elmer said. “If he was just scouting us out, he’d report to his base. But if his orders are to clobber us, then he wouldn’t put it on the air.”

The plane was turning in the sky, coming back. Cliff argued, “Well, we can’t fire unless we know if he’s just hunting us out, or trying to do us in.”

Elmer said patiently, “For just finding us, that first pass would be all he needed. He could radio back that he’d found us. But if he comes in again, he’s looking for trouble.”

“Here he comes!” Bey yelled. “Kenny, Cliff … the rifle!”

Isobel suddenly dashed out into the sands a dozen yards or so from the vehicles and began running around and around in a circle as though demented.

Bey stared at her. “Get back here,” he roared. “Under one of the trucks!” She ignored him.

The rocketplane was coming in, low and obviously as slow as the pilot could retard its speed.

The flac rifle began jumping and tracers reached out from it—inaccurately. The Tommy-Noiseless automatics in the hands of Bey and Elmer Allen gave their silenced flic flic flic sounds, equally ineffective.

On the ultra-stubby wings of the fast-moving aircraft, a row of brilliant cherries flickered and a row of explosive shells plowed across the desert, digging twin ditches, miraculously going between the air-cushion lorries but missing both. It was upon them, over and gone, before the men on the ground could turn to fire after it.

Elmer Allen muttered an obscenity under his breath.

Cliff Jackson looked around in desperation. “What can we do now? He won’t come close enough for us to even fire at him, next time.”

Bey said nothing. Isobel had collapsed into the sand. Elmer Allen looked over at her. “Nice try, Isobel,” he said. “I think he came in lower and slower than he would have otherwise—trying to see what the devil it was you were doing.”

She shrugged, hopelessly.

“Hey!” Kenny Ballalou pointed.

The rocketcraft was wobbling, shuddering, in the sky. Suddenly it burst into a black cloud of fire and smoke and explosion.

At the same moment, Homer Crawford got up from the sand dune behind which he’d stationed himself and plowed awkwardly through the sand toward them.

Bey glared at him.

Homer shrugged and said, “I checked the way he came in the first time and figured he’d repeat the run. Then I got behind that dune there and faced in the other direction and started firing where I thought he’d be, a few seconds before he came over. He evidently ran right into it.”