Keith Laumer: Assignment in Nowhere

“the audacity of the blighters! Who’d have expected—”

“You should have,” I said shortly.

“Ah, well, what’s done is done.” Dzok rubbed his hands together with every appearance of relish. “Inasmuch as you’re not in a position to assist me, perhaps my chaps and I can still be of some help here. Better start by giving me a complete resume of the situation…”

After ten minutes’ talk, while the troops kept up a sporadic fire from the jail windows, Dzok and I had decided on a plan of action. It wasn’t a good one, but under the circumstances it was better than nothing. The first step was to find the S-suit. We wasted another ten minutes searching the place before I decided to try the vault. It was open, and the suit was laid out on a table.

“Right,” Dzok said with satisfaction. “I’ll need tools, Bayard, and a heat source and a magnifying glass…”

We rummaged, found a complete tool kit in a wall locker and a glass in the chief’s desk drawer. I made a hasty adaptation of a hot plate used for heating coffee, while Dzok opened up the control console set in the chest of the suit.

“We’re treading on dangerous ground, of course,” he said blandly, while he snipped hair-fine wires, teased them into new arrangements. “What I’m attempting is theoretically possible, but it’s never been tried—not with an S-suit.”

I watched admiring the dexterity of his long grayish fingers as he rearranged the internal components of the incredibly compact installation. For half an hour, while guns cracked intermittently, he made tests, muttered, tried again, studying the readings on the miniature scales set on the cuff of the suit. Then he straightened, gave me a wry look.

“It’s done, old chap. I can’t guarantee the results of my makeshift mods, but there’s at least an even chance that it will do what we want.”

I asked for an explanation of what he had done, followed closely as he pointed out the interplay of circuits that placed stresses on the M-C field in such a way as to distort its normal function along a line of geometric progression leading to infinity…

“It’s over my head, Dzok,” I told him. “I was never a really first-class M-C man, and when it comes to your Xonijeelian complexities—”

“Don’t trouble your head, Bayard. All you need to know is that adjusting this setting…” he pointed with a pin drill at a tiny knurled knob—”controls the angle of incidence of the pinch-field—”

“In plain English, if something goes wrong and I’m not dead, I can twiddle that and try again.”

“Very succinctly put. Now let’s be going. How far did you say it is to the city?”

“About twelve kilometers.”

“Right. We’ll have to commandeer a pair of light lorries. There are several parked in the court just outside. Some sort of crude steam-cars, I think—”

“Internal combustion. And not so crude; they’ll do a hundred kilometers an hour.”

“They’ll serve.” He went into the guard room, checked the scene from the windows.

“Quiet out there at the moment. No point in waiting about. Let’s sally at once.” I nodded, and Dzok gave his orders to the gaily costumed riflemen, five of whom quietly took up positions at the windows and door facing the courtyard, while the others formed up a cordon around Dzok and me.

“Hell, we may as well do our bit,” I suggested. There were carbines in the gun locker. I took one, tossed one to Dzok, buckled on a belt and stuffed it with ammo.

“Tell your lads to shoot low,” I said. “Don’t let anybody get in our way, but try not to kill anybody. They don’t know what’s going on out there—”

“And there’s no time to explain,” Dzok finished for me, looking at his men. “Shoot to wound, right, lads? Now, Sergeant, take three men and move out. Cover the first lorry and hold your fire until they start something. Mr. Bayard and I will come next, with ten men, while the rest of you lay down a covering fire. Those in the rear guard stand fast until number two lorry pulls up to the door, then pile in quickly and we’re off.”

“Very well, sor,”the sergeant said. He was working hard on a plug of tobacco he’d found in the police chief’s desk drawer. He turned and bawled instructions to his men, who nodded, grinning.

“These boys don’t behave like recruits,” I said. “They look like veterans to me.”

Dzok nodded, smiling his incredible smile. “Former members of the Welsh regiment of the Imperial Guard. They were eager for a change.”

“I wonder what you offered them?”

“The suggestion of action after a few months changing of the guard at Westminster was sufficient.”

The sergeant was at the door now, with two of his men. He said a quick word, and the three darted out, sprinted for the lorry, a high-sided dark blue panel truck lettered FLOTTSBRO POLIS. A scattering of shots rang out. Grass tips flew as bullet clipped the turf by the sergeant’s ankle. The man on his left stumbled, went down, rolled, came up limping, his thigh wet with a dark glisten against the scarlet cloth. He made it in two jumps to the shelter of the truck, hit the grass, leveled his musket and fired. A moment later, all three were in position, their guns crackling in a one-round-per-second rhythm. The opposing fire slackened.

“Now,” Dzok said. I brought the carbine up across my chest and dashed for the second truck. There was a white puff of smoke from a window overlooking the courtyard, a whine past my head. I ducked, pounded across the grass, leaped the chain at the edge of the pavement, skidded to a halt beside the lorry. Dzok was there ahead of me, wrenching at the door.

“Locked!” he called, and stepped back, fired a round into the keyhole, wrenched the door open. I caught a glimpse of his shuttle, a heavy passenger-carrying job, parked across a flowerbed. He followed my gaze.

“Just have to leave it. Too bad…” He was inside then, staring at the unfamiliar controls.

“Slide over!” I pushed in beside him, feeling the vehicle lurch as the men crowded in behind me, hearing the sprang ! as a shot hit the metal body. There were no keys in the ignition. I tried the starter; nothing.

“I’ll have to short the wiring,” I said, and slid to the ground, jumped to the hood, unlatched the wide side panel, lifted it. With one hand jerk, I twisted the ignition wires free, made hasty connections to the battery, then grabbed the starter lever and depressed it. The engine groaned, turned over twice, and caught with a roar. I slammed the hood down as a bullet cut a bright streak in it, jumped for the seat.

“Who’s driving the second truck?”

“I have a chap who’s a steam-car operator—

“No good. I’ll have to start it for him…” I was out again, running for the other lorry, parked twenty feet away. A worried-looking man with damp red hair plastered to a freckled forehead was fumbling with the dash lighter and headlight switch. There was a key in the switch of this one; I twisted it, jammed a foot against the starter. The engine caught, ran smoothly.

“You know how to shift gears?”

He nodded, smiling.

“This is the gas pedal. Push on it and you go faster. This is the brake…” He nodded eagerly. “If you stall out, push this floor button. The rest is just steering.”

He nodded again as glass smashed in front of him, throwing splinters in our faces. Blood ran from a cut across his cheek, but he brushed the chips away, gave me a wave. I ran for it, reached my truck, slammed it in gear, watched a moment to see that the redhead picked up the rear guard. Then I gunned for the closed iron gates, hit them with a crash at twenty miles an hour, slammed through, twisted the wheel hard left, and thundered away down the narrow street.