The trouble with radio as a means of communication is that anybody can listen. Grimes, in his later conversations with his ship, had employed a scrambler. He did not know whether or not Southerly Buster ran to a descrambling device. Apparently she did not. Dreebly appeared to be proceeding with his embarkation procedure as planned.
In an orderly march the two hundred young women streamed out of Oxford, a score of spearmen at the head of the column, another twenty male warriors bringing up the rear, behind the carts laden with small possessions. Kane's two men were in the lead. Grimes, remembering the general layout of the country, knew that once the van of the procession passed a low, tree-crowned hill it would be in the field of fire of Seeker's guns. With an effort he restrained himself from taking over the fire control from Saul. He knew that a direct hit from a nonlethal gas shell can kill just as surely—and messily—as one from a high explosive projectile. But Saul was on the spot, and he was not. All he could do was to watch the marchers proceeding slowly along the bank of the winding river.
He heard Saul say quietly, "Bearing one hundred and seventy-five true. Range three thousand. Shoot."
"Bearing one hundred and seventy-five. Range three thousand. Fire!"
Even over the radio the hammering of the heavy automatics was deafening. Watching the screen Grimes saw a neat seam of explosions stitched across the line of advance of the Morrowvian women, saw the billowing clouds of greenish vapor pouring from each bursting shell.
"Traverse, traverse! Now—ladder!"
Nice gunnery, thought Grimes. Saul was boxing his targets in with the gas shells.
A new voice came from the transceiver. It was Dreebly's. "Southerly Buster to Seeker. What the hell are you playing at?"
"Seeker to Southerly Buster. What the hell are you playing at?"
Grimes decided that he had better intervene; Mr. Saul was not in a diplomatic mood. He said quietly, "Commander Grimes to Southerly Buster. What is the nature of your complaint, please?"
Dreebly spluttered, then, "What is the nature of my complaint, you ask? Some butterfly-brained ape aboard your ship is firing off guns. There're shells whistling past our control room."
"Routine weekly practice shoot, Mr. Dreebly," said Grimes. "Don't worry; we never hit anything unless we want to."
"But you're firing toward Oxford!"
"Are we? But our range setting is well short of the town."
"I know what you're firing at, Commander Grimes. You've a boat up, spotting for you!"
"What am I firing at, Mr. Dreebly?"
"Pah! You make me sick!" Dreebly broke off the conversation. Grimes returned his attention to the screen. The gas was slowly thinning, and through its translucent veil he could see the untidily sprawling figures of the Morrowvians—and of Kane's two officers .
Maya demanded, "You haven't killed them? You haven't killed them?"
"Of course not!" Grimes told her. "They'll wake in a few hours' time, without even a headache. I've just put them to sleep, that's all . . . ."
Mean while Timmins had succeeded in tuning in to the conversation between Dreebly and Kane. Kane was saying, "Get them aboard, and then get off-planet! Yes, I know they can't walk—but you've ground cars, haven't you? And there are respirators in the stores. Pull your finger out, Dreebly, and get cracking! What do you think I pay you for?"
Saul was back on the air. "Sir, you heard all that. What do I do now?"
I could answer that question a lot more easily, thought Grimes, if I knew that Kane was breaking Federation law. But he seems to have the idea that he is not . . . .
"What do I do now?" repeated Saul.
"Mphm. Carry on with your practice shoot, Mr. Saul. Use H.E. Chew up the ground between Southerly Buster and the . . . er . . . intending emigrants."
"Emigrants! The slaves, you mean, Captain."
"They aren't slaves yet. Just make a mess of the terrain so that it's impassable to Kane's ground cars."
"But he's got boats, sir. He can use them."
"He has two boats—a pinnace, which is still at Ballarat, and one lifeboat. The lifeboat is just big enough for his crew. It will take it a long time to ferry two hundred people—especially as they will have to be lifted aboard it, and lifted off."
"I see, sir . . . . But what if Southerly Buster fires at us?"
"They won't dare, Mr. Saul. At least, I hope they won't. If they do—if they do—it is your duty to take every possible measure for the protection of Seeker."
No, he thought, Kane won't open fire, or order his mate to do so. Apart from anything else, he's the injured, innocent citizen and I'm the big, bad, gun-toting villain. I'm not happy about things at all, at all. But I must stop him.
Meanwhile, he wished that he were back aboard his ship. He liked guns. He knew that this was childish of him, and that it was high time that mankind outgrew its love for noisy pyrotechnics. He knew that a gun pleads to be pointed at something—and then begs to have its trigger pulled. He hoped that Saul would remain content merely to wreck havoc on the landscape.