Larry Niven - Footfall

Gradually Halverson dragged the story out of Harry. Finally it was done. “So I found the gun,” Harry said. “I thought about going after Mrs. Wilson, but I came here, instead.”

Halverson looked thoughtful. “Hell, what else could you do? You’re no army. The next time they’d just shoot you. But I sure wish I knew what they’re hiding out to the east—”

“Colonel?” The sergeant seated on top of the armored car jumped off. He looked older than Halverson.

“Yeah, Luke?”

“Colonel, I heard a funny story last night. Over in Collinston.”

“Collinston? That’s fifty miles from here! What were you doing in Collinston?”

“Took some of the boys over for a drink. You didn’t need us. We weren’t going anywhere.”

“Next time you leave camp, you tell me,” He chuckled. “Okay, so you found a bar open in Collinston. Guess it takes more than war and a parachute invasion to close the bars in that town.”

“Sure does. Anyway, there was a guy in the bar. He’d been drinking a lot, so nobody paid much attention. He said he’d seen an elephant. A little one. In a willow patch outside of town. Thought it escaped from some circus, because it was a trained elephant.”

“Trained? Trained how?” Halverson demanded, “Don’t know.”

“Harry.” Carlotta’s voice was low and urgent. “Harry, that’s an invader. We have to go capture it. We have to get it alive. Maybe it knows about Wes. Harry, we have to!”

Harry gulped hard. “Sure, but I need gas—”

“I’ll get it out of David’s car,”

“Hey, hold on,” Colonel Halverson said. “I can’t let you do that—”

“Why not?” Carlotta demanded. “You’re going east. You’ll see lots of invaders, you don’t need this one.”

“But-look, those things are armed—”

“It didn’t hurt that man in the bar,” Carlotta said. “Why would he think it was trained? Maybe-maybe it lay down and rolled over!”

“Holy shit!” Harry said. “Hey, she might be right.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Colonel, my husband was a personal friend of the President. President Coffey himself sent Wes up to meet the aliens. It’s my right to find out what happened to him. You give Harry some gasoline, and then go fight your war. Harry and I will do the rest.”

Yeah, Harry thought, sure.

“I say we go in after them.” Evan Lewis sounded very sure. “Hell, Joe, we have to! We can’t let those-things run all over Kansas ,”

“Wasn’t me arguing with you. Captain,” Lieutenant Colonel Halverson said. He looked at the others seated at Juana Morgan’s dining room table. Evan Lewis, who ran a tractor sales and repair agency, and commanded the tanks. George Mason, lawyer, who commanded the six helicopter gunships. The fourth man at the table was David Morgan, retired professor of business administration, Halverson’s adjutant and chief of staff. Morgan was the smallest one at the table, and he spoke with a clipped eastern accent that irritated hell out of Joe Halverson, but he was certainly the smartest man in the battalion.

“And I still don’t like it,” George Mason said. “Colonel, we don’t know what we’re up against, and we don’t know what the Army has in mind.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Halverson asked.

“Wait for orders.”

“How heroic,” Captain Lewis said.

“Enough.” David Morgan spoke quietly, but they all heard him. “We don’t need bickering.”

“So which side are you on, Professor?” Evan Lewis had never liked Professor Morgan. On the other hand, it was David Morgan’s house, and they all felt like guests, military uniforms or not.

“I agree with Colonel Halverson’s reasoning,” Morgan said. “The invaders are hiding something to the east. We’re a cavalry outfit. It’s our duty to explore-but carefully. In particular, we have to be certain that any information we get will be useful. That won’t be easy. They’re jamming all communications and the phones don’t work.”

Joe Halverson nodded thoughtfully. “Suggestions, Major?”

“We’ll have to string things out. Use the Bradley vehicles as communications links.” He sketched rapidly on the table cloth. “Corporal Lewis” — Morgan nodded to Evan Lewis; everyone knew that Evan’s son Jimmy was an electronic genius — “Jimmy rigged up those shield things that let the tanks talk to each other, as long as the antennas are aimed straight at each other. Fine. We send the choppers forward as scouts and flankers, making sure they stay in line of sight to the tanks. Tanks in the middle, concentrated enough to have some firepower, spread out enough to not make such a good target. Then string the Bradleys and the LAVs out behind as connecting links.”

“What do they connect to?” Mason asked.

“We leave two troopers here with my wife and a radio. Juana writes down everything, if we don’t come back, she gets the hell out.”

“Not much chance she’d have to do that,” Halverson said. “Hell, we’re not an army, but we’ve got a fair amount of strength here.” He looked out the window at his command. Six helicopters, with missiles. A dozen tanks, with guns and missiles. The communications weren’t any good because the Invaders were broadcasting static from space. But even without communications a troop of armored cavalry was nothing to laugh at.

“Sounds all right to me,” Lewis said. “At least we’ll be doing something.”

“I’d rather wait for orders,” George Mason said. “But what the hell, I’m ready if you are.”

Joe Halverson stood. “Right. Let’s go.”

“I’m Jimmy Lewis,” the corporal said. He climbed through the attic window to join Harry on the roof of the big frame house.

Harry nodded greeting. “Hi. They tell me you invented this.” He hefted the hand-talkie radio whose antenna was wrapped in a tinfoil cone stiffened with coat-hanger wire.

“Yeah,” Jimmy Lewis said. His tone was serious. “It’s the only way I’ve figured to keep communications. You have to point it pretty tight, though, or you’ll lose the signal

Harry regarded the device, then the similar but larger tinfoil monstrosity on one of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles in the yard down below. “Yeah. So I point this at the Bradley, and maybe I can hear. What then?”

“Use this,” Jimmy Lewis said. He handed Harry a Sony tape recorder. “There’s three hours of tape on there. More than enough. Just plug it into the radio, here, like that, and turn it on when we move out. Listen in the earphones, and you’ll hear a tone if you’re pointed close to the tank, and nothing at all when you’re dead on, except when they’re talking; then you’ll hear them talk, of course. It sounds hard, but it’s pretty easy, really.”

“Sure.”

Major Morgan was in the front yard. Harry couldn’t hear what he was saying, but Juana Morgan didn’t like it. Their housekeeper sat in the front seat of the four-wheel-drive Jimmy, but Juana Morgan didn’t want to drive it.

Finally, though, she got in, and the blue Jimmy drove off. And now it’s just Carlotta and me. David Morgan stood very straight as he went to his tank and climbed in.

Colonel Halverson came over to stand below them. “Bout time, Jimmy,” he shouted up at them.

“Yes, sir.” Corporal Lewis waved to Harry and crawled back inside through the window.

“Thanks, Mr. Reddington,” Halverson shouted. “I need all my troopers. Good of you to fill in. I doubt you’ll be needed, but—”

“Yeah. No problem, Colonel.” Of course Carlotta’s goin’ nuts, wanting to go get that elephant. Maybe it’s safer up here!

“Thanks, then,” Halverson said. He walked briskly up the line to the lead tank and climbed in. He stood in the turret for a moment, then waved dramatically. “Wagons-hoooo!” he shouted.