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wrap-scope. "The fracture's kinda nasty, because of the shattering, but it's
not completely separated- and none of your big vessels or nerves got clipped."
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He wiped down the wound with an antiseptic/anasthetic solution and sprayed the
entry and exit wounds with a fibrous aerosol that would make the blood cells
web together and stop the bleeding. He put a cuff around Jack's wrist and
stapled it to the front of his shirt. "Come on," he said, standing up and
helping Jack to his feet. "We'll get you over to the aid station and start to
work on you."
Jack stood, weaving slightly on his feet. "Wait a minute," he said. "Where's
m'rifle?"
Stagwell got to his feet and looked out to where Jack and himself had been
standing. "I see it, "he said. "Stand fast a minute." He walked out into the
open, puffing his pipe, and picked up Jack's 6-mm Sleeker. He blew the dust
away from the bolt as he returned and handed the weapon to Jack. "I'll be
around and see you in a while," he said. "Right now, I gotta mind the store."
The firing had died down to an occasional rattle of shots an hour later when
it started to rain.
The Marines had the mob pinned down among their vehicles . They made no
attempt to flush them out, sleep gas them, or mount any kind of attack.
Stagwell's orders were to render assistance-if requested by Commissioner
Holloway-make no offensive moves, use the minimum force necessary to protect
his own men and keep the mob from the hypership wreck and the cavern, and,
should the mob fail to disperse peaceably, keep it bottled up so no one got
away. He had a canopy of combat cars overhead to see to the latter point.
Occasionally, one of the mob's vehicles nervously attempted to lift off; it
was systematically disabled on the ground. Things were getting downright
quiet.
Stagwell looked up at the sky, letting the first big drops strike his face.
"Wouldn't you know it," he said. "The whole damned place is drying up and
blowing away for want of rainfall-but let us get into a little action and
right away somebody sends us some mud. I swear, mud follows Marines around
like fleas follow a dog."
The rain started coming down harder, steadily. Then, with his face still
upturned, Stagwell saw the spherical shape settling toward them. Well, it was
about time. He had begun to think the Navy had lost the bus schedule. That's
the way it was; the Marines get their work done while they're waiting for the
Navy. Stagwell turned his pipe upside down so it wouldn't get put out with a
wild raindrop.
They couldn't make headway against the Marines and they couldn't escape from
where they were. And now it was raining.
Thump. Thump. Thump. "Ingermann never told us about this part," Harris said as
he occupied himself with sticking his pocket knife into the wooden deck of the
work scow- over and over again.
"I wish to Nif flheim they 'd just do something," Joey said. Joey was Harris'
partner. "This waitin' is gettin' on my nerves something awful."
"Well, stick your head out and see if it's still raining," Harris said.
'That'll give you somethin' to do."
Joey heaved a big, moist sigh and opened the side hatch of the scow.
Miraculously, the rain seemed to have stopped. "Hey, Harris," he said, "it
ain't rainin' no more, but I can't see any stars."
Harris came over to the hatch and stood beside him, looking upward. He held
out his hand. "You're right, Joey," he said. "It's stopped."
Suddenly, they were both blinded by an intense light.
A two-thousand-foot diameter light cruiser hovering at one hundred feet will
shed the rain from a rather large patch of ground, and that was exactly what
the San Pablo was doing. She kicked on all her bottom lights at once,
illuminating the scene as brightly as high noon on a sunny day. The loudhailer
sounded like the crack of doom as the click of the pickup switch was
transmitted over speakers powerful enough to carry sound for a mile.
"CEASE FIRING-OR WE'LL VAPORIZE ALL OF YOU WHERE YOU STAND!"
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In the claimjumpers' camp everyone was wet and nervous.
Chapter 44
"Vee-dahl, dammit! You're gettin'to be an old woman." Helton stood with his
feet apart and his arms folded across his chest.
Sergeant Beltran re-located his cigar in the exact mathematical center of his
mouth. "Now, you listen here, Gunnie. My boys just swabbed down the deck of
this mess tent, an' now that we got this wet weather, there's only two ways
anybody comes in here-with clean boots or in their sock feet; an' that goes
for you, the Colonel, the Captain, an' the corporal of the guard. So, you
either go over to the water-point, there, and clean 'em up with a stiff brush
or you peel 'em off and put 'em back on when you leave." He pointed to the
pile of muddy boots under the tent fly in front of the inflatable dining tent.
The rain was still drizzling on Hugo Ingermann. Mud and water had gotten
inside his shoes and it gooshed rhythmically through his socks as he trotted
into the deep woods. He was certain that he had contracted at least double
pneumonia, from the way his lungs wheezed each time he took a breath, but he
kept moving-because the only way to get away from the fiasco at Fuzzy Valley
was to take off on foot and hope for the best, whatever it might be.
He was momentarily frozen with fear when he saw the aircar hovering over him.
But then he realized that it had no police markings-and there was no way to
escape from it in any case. He stood there, dumbfounded, with his face turned
toward the sky and the rain falling on him as the vehicle settled down toward
him.
Rain beaded on all the surfaces of the aircar as it hovered a few inches off
the ground, so mat Hugo Ingermann could not see who was inside at the
controls, but the side hatch opened from the inside control and a friendly
voice said, "Come in, sir, and out of the rain."
Hugo Ingermann would have climbed into that aircar with the devil himself,
just to get in out of the rain-the rain that had been beating on his skull
ever since he left Fuzzy Valley. In the dim light he could not make out the
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