Philip Dick - Vulcan's Hammer

"It's a losing battle," Daily muttered. "We're short on ammunition. There seem to be an endless number of the damn things."

Barris worked rapidly. He supplied his attack force with the best weapons available, supplies stored in the vaults below the Control Building. From the five Directors he se­lected Pegler and Chai, and a hundred of the best-trained troops.

I'm going along," Fields said. "If the attack fails I don't want to stay alive. If it succeeds I want to be part of it."

Barris carefully uncrated a manually operated fission bomb. "This is for him." He weighed the bomb in the palm of his hand; it was no larger than an onion. "My as­sumption is that they'll admit me and possibly Chai and Pegler. We can probably persuade them that we're coming over to rejoin Unity. At least we'll be able to get part of the distance in."

"Anyhow you hope so," Fields said curtly.

At sunset, Barris loaded the three cruisers with the men and equipment. The roof guns sent up a heavy barrage to cover their take-off. Hammers in action nearby at once be­gan following the ships as they rose into the sky.

"We'll have to shake them," Barris said. He gave quick orders. The three cruisers shot off in different directions, dividing up rapidly. A few hammers tagged them awhile and then gave up.

"I'm clear," Chai in the second cruiser reported.

"Clear," Pegler in the third said.

Barris glanced at the older man beside him. Behind them the ship was crowded with tense, silent soldiers, loaded down with weapons, squatting nervously in a mass as the ship raced through the darkness. "Here we go," Bar­ris said. He swung the ship in a wide arc. Into the com­munications speaker he ordered, "We'll re-form for the attack. I'll lead. You two come behind."

"Are we close?" Fields asked, a queer expression on his face.

"Very." Barris studied the ship's controls. "We should be over it in a moment. Get set."

Barris dived. Pegler's ship whipped through the dark­ness behind him, lashing toward the ground below; Chai's ship shot off to the right and headed directly over the fortress.

Hammers rose in vast swarms and moved toward Chai's ship, separating and engulfing it.

"Hang on," Barris gasped.

"The ground rose; landing brakes screamed. The ship hit, spinning and crashing among the trees and boulders.

"Out!" Barris ordered, pulling himself to his feet and throwing the hatch release. The hatches slid back and the men poured out, dragging their equipment into the cold night darkness.

Above them in the sky, Chai's shop fought with the hammers; it twisted and rolled, firing rapidly. More ham­mers rose from the fortress, great black clouds that swiftly gained altitude. Pegler's ship was landing. It roared over them and crashed against the side of a hill a few hundred yards from the other defense wall of the fortress.

The heavy guns of the fortress were beginning to open up. A vast fountain of white burst loose, showering rocks and debris on Barris and Fields as they climbed out of their ship.

"Hurry," Barris said. "Get the bores going."

The men were assembling two gopher bores. The first had already whined into action. More tactical atomic shells from the fortress struck near them; the night was lit up with explosions.

Barris crouched down. "How are you making out?" he shouted above the racket, his lips close to his helmet speaker.

"All right," Pegler's voice said weakly in his earphones. "We're down and getting out the big stuff."

"That'll hold off the hammers," Barris said to Fields. He peered up at the sky. "I hope Chai-"

Chai's ship rolled and spun, trying to evade the ring of hammers closing around it. Its jets smoked briefly. A di­rect hit. The ship wobbled and hesitated.

"Drop your men," Barris ordered into his phones. "You're right over the fortress."

From Chai's ship showered a cloud of white dots. Men in jump suits, drifting slowly toward the ground below.

Hammers screeched around them; the men fired back with pencil beams. The hammers retreated warily.

"Chai's men will take care of the direct attack," Barris explained. "Meanwhile, the bores are moving."

"Umbrella almost ready," a technician reported.

"Good. They're beginning to dive on us; their screen-probes must have spotted us."

The fleets of screaming hammers were descending, hurtling toward the ground. Their beams stabbed into the trees and ignited columns of flaming wood and branches. One of Pegler's cannon boomed. A group of hammers dis­appeared, but more took their places. An endless torrent of hammers, rising up from the fortress like black bats.

The umbrella flickered purple. Reluctantly, it came on and settled in place. Vaguely, beyond it, Barris could make out the hammers circling in confusion. A group of them entered the umbrella and were silently puffed out.

Barris relaxed. "Good. Now we don't have to worry about them."

"Gophers are halfway along," the leader of the bore team reported.

Two immense holes yawned, echoing and vibrating as the gopher bores crept into the earth. Technicians disap­peared after them. The first squad of armed troops fol­lowed them cautiously, swallowed up by the earth.

"We're on our way," Barris said to Fields.

Standing off by himself, Father Fields surveyed the trees, the line of hills in the distance. "No visible sign of the fortress," he murmured. "Nothing to give it away." He seemed deep in thought, as if barely aware of the battle in progress. "This forest... the perfect place. I would never have known." Turning, he walked toward Barris.

Seeing the look on the man's face, Barris felt deep un­easiness. "What is it?" he said.

Fields said, "I've been here before."

"Yes," Barris said.

"Thousands of times. I worked here most of my life."

The man's face was stark. "This is where Vulcan 2 used to be." His hands jerked aimlessly. "This was where I came to destroy Vulcan 2." Nodding his head at a massive moss-covered boulder, he said, "I walked by that. To the service ramp. They didn't even know the ramp still existed; it was declared obsolete years ago. Abandoned and shut off. But I knew about it." His voice rose wildly. "I can come and go any time I want; I have constant access to that place. I know a thousand ways to get down there."

Barris said, "But you didn't know that Vulcan 3 was down there, too. At the deepest level. They didn't acquaint your crew with-"

"I didn't know Jason Dill," Fields said. "I wasn't in a position to meet him as an equal. As you were."

"So now you know," Barris said.

"You gave me nothing," Fields said. "You had nothing to tell me that I didn't know already." Coming slowly to­ward Barris he said in a low voice, "I could have figured it out, in time. Once we had tried every other place-" In his hand a pencil beam appeared, gripped tightly.

Keeping himself calm, Barris said, "But you still won't get in, Father. They'll never let you in. They'll kill you long before you penetrate all the way to Vulcan 3. You'll have to depend on me." Pointing to his sleeve, he indicated his Director's stripe. "Once I get in there I can walk up and down those corridors; no one will stop me, because they're part of the same structure I'm part of. And I'm in a position of authority equal to any of them, Reynolds in­cluded."

Fields said, "Any of them-except for Vulcan 3."

Of to the right, Pegler's cannon thundered as the fleets of hammers turned their attention on them. The hammers dived and released bombs. An inferno of white pillars checkered across the countryside, moving toward Pegler's ship.

"Get your umbrella up!" Barris shouted into his helmet speaker.

Pegler's umbrella flickered, It hesitated-

A small atomic bomb cut across dead center. Pegler's ship vanished; clouds of particles burst into the air, metal and ash showering over the flaming ground. The heavy cannon ceased abruptly.