Zone Yellow

Chapter 5

My assault force didn’t look prepossessing; just a roughly-aligned crowd of the younger, healthier men, and a few tough women, handling their issue revolvers gingerly, as if afraid they’d bite the hand that held them―but willing enough, even eager to go—

I took the pistols away from the two fellows directly behind me and my NCOIC, asked the others to try not to shoot me or Larsson in the back, and gave the order to commence firing and to forward march, hup, two, three, four. They held together pretty well and kept up a lively rate of fire. The Ylokk kept right on with what they were doing until a wild shot hit one of them in the arm. He squealed like a rusty spring and ran―not from us, but from his buddies, who had turned as one to eat him alive. As we got closer, he fell, and the still-healthy ones started to eat. Our fire was hitting targets now. The eaters became the eaten. It was pretty sickening. By the time we reached them, only the dead and dying were left.

“I told you, Colonel,” Larsson caroled, “nothing to it!”

“They didn’t run, Sarge,” I reminded him. “We can’t bluff them. And that’s hardly the end of it.” As I was saying that, a mob of enemy troops debouched from an alley-mouth between two warehouses and came on at a full run. My troops, who had stopped firing, just stood there and watched. Finally Larsson yelled, “Fire at will!”

They laid down an enthusiastic barrage that brought down half the front rank and the mailbox. The rest scattered.

Larsson got busy supervising a redistribution of ammunition, taking rounds from a few fellows who had a pocketful to give to a few complaining shooters who’d used theirs up.

“Need about a hundred M-16’s here,” the sergeant muttered. “But against yellow-bellies like these, I guess our poppers’ll do.”

“For a while,” I agreed. “We need to take a tour around to the other points of entry and give our boys some tips.” Larsson saluted and got busy shaping up his crowd of civilians, with the few soldiers as squad leaders. He called the latter “Lieutenant-sir” and saluted them, to give them the needed feeling of authority.

One of them was a kid who looked about sixteen, whom I’d seen before. He was as tall and blond as Swedes are supposed to be, and was a real officer, a First Lieutenant Helm, I found out. He came over to me and tried out a salute. I gave it back to him and took him aside.

“We have to do more than pick them off in small groups, sir,” he told me before I could tell him.

“Swell,” I agreed. “Let’s get to it.”

The area immediately outside the restored town wall was given over to small, rustic cottages and their kitchen gardens and outbuildings. Spring in southern Sweden had never been more delightful. There were no rats in sight here; it was hard to realize that strange, alien rat-like invaders were swarming the countryside, killing some people, and making prisoners of others. We saw a few rats skulking in the lee of a barn or stable, but no organized activity. Maybe Richtofen had managed to get things under control back in the capitol, and cut off the enemy reinforcements. I was feeling almost euphoric when I saw the first tank.

It was huge; at first I thought it was a small barn, but then it moved, swaying around to bring a cluster of oversized disruptor cannon to bear on us. I told Helm to take cover, and an instant later a detonation shook the stone walls beside me, and dirt, pebbles, and grit slammed into my back, knocking me down. I rolled to my feet in time to see the clods still falling, along with some bricks from the wall behind me, through a ten-foot gap in which I could see citizens running and others standing in groups, staring toward the hole in the wall. I went through it, yelled to them to run for cover, and went back out to check on the enemy.

The tank, of squat design with a long “front porch” and a railed platform all around, was coming on slowly, rearing up and then dipping its ugly snout as it trampled over stone walls and small buildings. A man ran out to shake a fist at it, and was ignored. The tank approached the wall, ignoring us as it had the other fellow, and stopped.

I called my bunch in and told them to scatter into the woods and find the Major’s command post. The hills on the east side of town were heavily wooded. They took off, all but Helm; he stood fast and said, “I guess you might need a little help, Colonel, big as that thing is.”

I acknowledged the possibility and wondered what I was going to do next. Just then the lieutenant asked me, “What’s your plan, sir?”

“Oh, yes, my plan,” I murmured.

My eye fell on a solid-looking fieldstone outhouse a few yards away, behind a modest cottage. The weed crop around it had been mowed short and neat. The enemy tank had stopped near it.

“Lieutenant,” I said, “cover me. I’m going to take a look at that mother.”

“Now, Colonel,” Helm objected. “Why don’t I do the snooping while you cover me?”

“ ‘R,’ ” I said, “ ‘H.I.P.’ ”

He shut up, and held his rifle at the ready. I walked over to the shed, and from its shelter, peeked at the tank, if tank it was; it looked like a battered packing case, but I could just see the caterpillar treads almost buried in the soft turf. There was no sign of life.

I decided to get a closer look. I eased out from the flimsy cover of the privy, feeling like a novice stripper doing her first turn under the baby spots, but keeping both eyes on the tank for signs of activity.

There was nothing until I was within ten feet of it, and could smell the rotten-orange stink of alien coming from it. Then the hatch opened and the pointy snout and narrow shoulders of a Ylokk poked out. He used his stubby arms to hold the cover open while he eased the rest of his overlong torso through. He had a red stripe down the back of his drab overcoat. There were deposits of crusty white stuff around his beady eyes, and foam at the corner of his undershot mouth. He climbed down, moving like an old, old rat, looking for a quiet place to die. He didn’t seem to notice me at first, then he did, and turned toward me. His mouth opened, twice; the third time he croaked.

“I call on you to help a fellow-being, slave!” That didn’t give me much to go on. He slipped then and fell heavily to the close-cropped turf, and lay, moving aimlessly. I went over, with my automatic in my hand, but I knew I wouldn’t need it. I squatted beside him; I could feel the fever from there. The rotten-orange odor was strong on him. He flopped on his back and tried to focus his small red eyes on me.

“Grgsdn was wrong,” he croaked. “We have made a dreadful mistake! You are people, like ourselves!”

“Not like yourselves, Rat-face,” I said. “Take it easy; I’ll see what I can do for you,” I added.

He seemed to want to protest, but just gargled and passed out. Helm came over and seemed to want to shoot my prisoner. I told him the fellow was sick and harmless, but he was clearly still itching to shoot the enemy officer anyway. I looked inside the outhouse, just in case he had a friend, and got back out in time to stop Helm. The Ylokk was crawling away from him, repeating “Jag har inte gjort!” (I didn’t do it!). I called the lieutenant off, and reminded him that our side didn’t murder helpless POWs.

“Helpless, hell, sir! Begging your pardon!” Helm burst out. “I’ve seen the rats swarming into town, eating folks alive!”

“Nevertheless, there’s a hospital here,” I told him. “And we’re going to take this fellow―a general officer, by the way”―I was guessing, but that red stripe meant something―”over there and see what they can do.”

I went back for another look at the abandoned tank. The stink almost got me, but we needed the intelligence. The layout inside was familiar, just like an early-model regulation traveler. That seemed odd. Even the instrument panel looked familiar: the big M-C field-strength meter on the left, the entropic gradient scale to the right, and the temporal matrix gauge dead center. Interesting: it was clearly a rip-off of our own early machines. I climbed down and went back to report what I’d discovered to Helm.

He nodded. “It figures. You wouldn’t expect a bunch of rats to develop a technology like that on their own.”

“What about their disruptors?” I mentioned. He brushed that off. “Probably stole it from someone else.”

We rigged up a stretcher from a ladder and a tarp we found clamped to the side of the tank and got the unconscious Ylokk on it. In the street, we passed a few bold citizens venturing out to see what was happening. They gave our burden a wide berth. At the hospital, we caused quite a stir. The place was packed with citizens, a few with minor injuries from falls and so on, but mostly just seeking reassurance. They reluctantly made way for us, and finally a young internist with “Dr. Smovia” on his nameplate came over and sniffed.

“Smelled that odor on several of these creatures,” he commented. “Dead ones. Some epidemic infection, apparently.” He cleared some space, called a nurse over to cut off his new patient’s garments, revealing a ratty gray pelt, and started his routine of poking and thumping.

“Running ten degrees of fever,” he remarked. “Amazing he’s still alive. But then, of course, he’s not human.” He called a colleague, took a blood specimen and sent it off to the lab, and gave the general a shot, which seemed to relax him.

“Got to get that fever down,” the doc muttered. It was just a technical situation now; he was as intent on his work as if it were the mayor he was working on. He took my protege away and asked, or rather told, us to wait.

It was half an hour before he came back, looking pleased.

“Virus,” he said contentedly. “Working up an anti-viral now. Standard vaccine ought to do it.”

Helm and I found a place to wash up, and started looking for some lunch. Smovia hurried off, eager to get back to work.

“No wonder these rats don’t show any fight, Colonel,” Helm said. “They’re sick.” He nodded, agreeing with himself.

“Times we saw ‘em in heaps,” he added. “It explains that. Say, Colonel,” he went on, “you s’pose it’s like in that book: they caught some kinda disease here they couldn’t handle?”

“Nope. I think they were sick when they got here. Maybe that’s why they left home. Epidemic.”

“Nothing we can catch, I hope,” Helm commented.

The hospital commissary was closed down, so we went back out in the street and found a hot-dog kiosk and had two each, med brod och senap (with bread and mustard). In Sweden you could look on hot dogs bare, if you preferred. Taking our hot dogs we returned to the hospital to find Dr. Smovia looking for me.

He showed me a corked test tube, looking as proud as a new papa. “I’ve isolated and cultured the virus,” he told me. “The contents of this vial,” he added, “could fatally infect thousands.” He looked uncomfortable. “But of course I shall guard it carefully so as to avoid such a disaster.”

“What about the cure?” I prompted.

“Simple enough,” he said contentedly. “We can inject the sick, and in a matter of hours they’ll be as well as ever.”

“We’re at war, remember?”

“Of course, Colonel, but to have the power to end an epidemic, and fail to use it…” He faded off; apparently he hadn’t considered the possibility that I might not be eager to cure the invaders.

“Colonel,” he began tentatively, “is there a possibility―If I could go to their home-world, in a matter of hours, the plague would be no more.”

“Have you got plenty of that viral culture?” I asked him.

“No, but there’s no difficulty in making up as much as needed, now that I know the virus. But why? My vaccine―

“You’re really eager to cure these rats, aren’t you Doctor?” I mused aloud.

“Humanitarian considerations,” he started. “Of course we’re at war, and must proceed with caution.”

“If I can get permission to go to the Ylokk locus,” I assured him, “I’ll see to it that you come along.”

His gratitude was effusive. I cut it off with a question: “You can make up more of the culture, eh? Then you won’t mind if I keep this.”

“Whatever for?” he responded. “But of course you want a souvenir. Take it and welcome. But do exercise care. It’s extremely virulent, though not to us, of course, and if it ever accidentally spilled among the Ylokk―”

“I understand,” I reassured him. He was so pleased, I didn’t have the heart to let him guess I planned to double-cross him. “If you should need me again, Doctor, I’ll be at HQ,” I added as I turned to leave.

There were dead Ylokk in the street, and the only live ones we saw were running, away from―not after―gangs of armed citizens.

Back at HQ, I used the radio Barbro had found to call GHQ in Stockholm. I got a scared-sounding Lieutenant Sjolund, who told me things were getting out of hand.

“There are just too darn many of them, Colonel! Their casualties are heavy, but they keep on coming! Headquarters is under siege, and so is the Palace and the Riksdag and just about the whole inner city. I don’t know how long we can continue resistance. Baron von Richtofen is talking about a counter-attack on their home line, but we really haven’t got the trained troops to mount a cross-Net invasion, sir! I’m worried―Hold, sir―”

That was all. Either my radio had packed in, or―I didn’t like to think about the “or.” If I’d had another few seconds I could have told Sjolund about the vaccine, and how we could use it.

“Too bad, Colonel,” Helm agreed. “We have to do something, fast!”

“We will, Lieutenant,” I told him. I called Dr. Smovia in, and when he arrived asked him if he was really willing to go on a trip, to help break the near-stalemate.

He was enthusiastic. “But how can we leave here, now?” he wanted to know. “Even if we could get clear of town and through enemy lines, we’d have a long walk to Stockholm.”

“We won’t be walking,” I told him. “Please bring along a field kit you can use to make up more of the viral culture.”

“Whatever for?” he wondered aloud. He went off, talking to himself.

“What are we going to do, Colonel?” the lieutenant asked me. “You figuring on trying to bust out of here in one of those school buses you brought in, or what?”

“ ‘What,’ ” I told him. “Now, you’d better get on the PA, Helm, and call in all our section leaders.” As soon as I heard the crackle of the speakers, I went out into the hall to head for Barbro’s office and almost ran into her.

“Just the girl I was looking for,” I said, and embraced her warmly, amazed again that this fabulous creature was my wife.

“Why, thank you, Colonel,” she replied mockingly. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“Not quite,” I reassured her. “I’m going to make a little trip, Major, and you’ll be in charge here. I want you to fort up here in Headquarters, such as it is: we’ll have to do a little ditch-digging and rampart-building, and I want all able-bodied men not assigned to a perimeter position to report here and be prepared for assault.”

She looked surprised, an expression as enchanting as all her others.

“Don’t worry, they’re not on the verge of attacking,” I reassured her. “It’s just in case. I’m going into the city. I’ve got information Manfred needs, and we need reinforcement. A relatively small, but organized war party from town can take the besiegers on all flanks at once and that’ll be that.”