Chapter 5

Lord Schleim was making very sure that he was the last to leave the room. He wanted nobody left in here. He had noticed that the room had a door and that it had a lock. By leaving last he could quite naturally close the door and turn the lock. That would be one less door he would have to watch and he could be certain that nobody lurked in this nearly soundproof room to see what would go on and leap out to surprise him.

All the other emissaries filed out. As the one deepest in the room, it was natural that he be the last to leave. The devil had tagged after them and he was gone. The small gray men had departed.

But this confounded host! The elderly man in the fancy Chinese gown seemed to have accumulated some papers and they were on the floor beside the chair where he had sat. Guest lists, of course! And one must have fallen back of the chair for he was searching it out. He finally found it and then stood there going over it, evidently rehearsing some hard-to-pronounce names. So Schleim had to pretend that he had misplaced something and stood there going through his pockets and looking thoughtful. It was a bit of a strain waiting the host out. The man did not seem to notice him but just stood there, running a finger down a list and muttering. Fine time to rehearse, thought Schleim acidly. In another few moments his own delay would become noticeable. But he had to be sure this was an empty room. Too soundproof! And it might have screens in it– he looked about. There was a device in one upper corner. Could it be a viewing device? Hard to tell. Bad light. This projector might also be a viewer. No, he better wait in case somebody should look in here.

At last! The host moved with a sort of sailing walk up the aisle to the door, still muttering over his list. Schleim went along right behind him.

The Tolnep was almost to the door, was even reaching to close it, when the host stopped.

Lord Schleim, almost in the doorway now, eyes only for the door, was distracted by two technicians appearing. The same technicians who

had set up the projector. They were rushing in to move it.

The collision was sudden and violent. The scepter flew from Schleim's hand.

A technician caught a glimpse of fangs right in front of his face and raised his arm. Unable to check its forward crush, the technician's heavy sleeve banged into Schleim's mouth.

The reaction of a Tolnep was inevitable. He bit! He bit hard and repeatedly, hissing in rage as he struck!

With a yell the technician reeled back. He staggered away, holding his sleeve close to his body with the other hand, and vanished into another doorway.

The second technician was chattering horrified apologies in some tongue. Chinese? He reached down and picked up a gold object from the floor and shakingly handed it to Schleim.

Schleim gripped it. He felt the perforations at the top and the rings at the bottom. He straightened up his glasses and heaved a sigh of relief. At least the scepter was secure!

The host was brushing him off with heavy, frantic apologies. The host took a second to gesture impatiently at the second technician and only then did the hovering man go in and get the projector and wheel it out.

Managing to hang back and seem offended, Schleim at last got the room empty and, without the concerned host remarking it, closed and locked the door. Schleim even pretended to limp a bit. He told the host not to mind. And he went to join the others.

In the hospital, Dr. Allen and a nurse were getting the Chinese “technician” out of his jacket. They did it very delicately. Dr. Allen took the padded sleeve and, without touching it, cut it off the jacket and let it fall into a wide-mouthed jar. Drops of poison were visible on the cloth, oozing back up out of the padding.

Dr. Allen looked at the arm. In Psychlo, he said, “Not a scratch, but a good thing we put the leather lining in. That was a brave thing to do, Chong-won."

The chief ignored his compliment. He threw down a thin knife and a small blast gun. “He had the knife in the back of his neck and the gun in his boot. I thought we might as well have them, too.”

“Are you sure he might not have had something else?” said Dr. Allen. “I don't want to patch up any more holes in Jonnie than I have to.”

“Nothing else,” said Chong-won,

“unless he bats somebody over the head with that scepter.”

"I’m sure Jonnie can duck that if it comes to a fight,” said Dr. Allen. “This Lord Schleim is a very dangerous creature.” He gestured toward the jar which held the sleeve. “Nurse, add that to our collection so we can develop some antivenin for it.”

Chapter 6

Colonel Ivan lay in the dark, a flame thrower resting on the sandbags piled before him. He was at the first turning of the underground passages that labyrinthed down into the base. At every turn behind him lay more sandbagged abutments, every one of them manned.

His beard was singed off. His hands were covered with blisters.

In front of him, fifty feet away, the main entrance door, steel armored, had begun to glow from the pounding it was taking. Hot blast shots were hitting the outside every few seconds.

He had pulled his planes back in– when was that– yesterday? They were out of fuel and ammunition and of no further use in the air. Pilots were scattered below, behind the abutments.

His radio antennae had gone out. Was that yesterday too? It seemed like half a year ago.

Every mine they had planted out front had now been exploded. A thousand mines? And although the terrain out front was carpeted with strange, dismembered corpses, it had not stopped the attack.

The door was growing hotter now, gone from red to blue in some spots.

How long would it last? How long could he stand the searing heat of it?

He wondered what Marshal Jonnie was doing.

Chief of Clanfearghus lay on his unwounded side, looking along the face of the rock. There was no retreat. The tunnels had caved in behind him.

They had the last antiaircraft gun that would fire. They were not using it to shoot upward now. They had it trained on the spot the enemy would most likely attack to breach the last barricade to the rock.

The firestorm that had been Edinburgh roared ceaselessly above the din of small arms fire.

How long could old buildings burn? They had thought they had the enemy halted until just now. A new ship was high, high up there. It had just arrived and it was now sending down plane after plane of troops.

There was only Dunneldeen flying now. There he came from the direction of Cornwall where he had gone to refuel.

Why hadn't they listened to MacTyler and crowded everyone into the old Cornwall minesite? Sentiment for Edinburgh. Well, what would Edinburgh be now but ashes?

A wave of enemy troops was gathering now, getting ready for an assault upon that other entrance. He hoped Dunneldeen would live through this. The Scots, if any were left, would need him. The Chief of Clanfearghus did not think that he himself would. Too much blood was coming from his side.

He wondered what MacTyler was doing now.

“Fire low into that first wave,” he told the gunner. “And keep firing as long as you have ammunition left. At least we can gae oot i' a blaze o' glory!”

At Singapore, the Scottish officer turned to the blaze-blackened communicator and lowered his infrabeam binoculars. “I don't understand it.”

Tolnep marines had been using artillery to pound a hole under the atmosphere armor cable to the north. It had cost them very dearly. They had lost twelve tanks trying to do just that. But a running group of them had rushed up to that distant cable before they could be stopped and had blown a hole wide open beneath it at a cost of five marines.