The Guardians Read online

  Before long Mullon discovered a wide clearance northwest of his position. As far as he could see it was the only opening in the dense roof of the jungle other than the one where he and his companions had waited. Undoubtedly the helicopter had landed at the place which was about three kilometers from him.

  Mullon asked the dwarfs to put him down and he began to wait again.

  • • •

  Hollander instructed the pilot to set the machine down near the southern rim of the clearance.

  He estimated that at the slow speed with which the dwarfs advanced it would take them at least half an hour or perhaps 45 minutes before they reached the clearance. Thus he had plenty of time to station his two men at a spot where they could overlook the entire open space. He hid himself with the mungo in a bush which he believed to be located directly in the path of the approaching dwarfs.

  Time dragged on.

  Hollander perked up when the mungo he had in his arm became restless. Until now he had hardly given a sign of life but he suddenly was alert and stared at the wall of the jungle bordering the clearance in the east. "Khek..." he whimpered softly.

  Hollander knew the meaning of the word and he listened intently. The monkey grew more agitated. He uttered his warning sound in quick succession and pointed his arm in the direction where the threat came from. Hollander didn't quite know what to make of it. He was unable to hear any suspicious noise although the monkey behaved as if an entire army of enemies was on the march.

  Hollander worried about Milligan. Had Milligan returned to the jungle after questioning Suttney and learning what had happened in Greenwich? Could Milligan have succeeded in enlisting the help of the dwarfs and were they on the way to capture him?

  It began to dawn on him that he might have exposed himself to a greater danger than he could cope with alone. Yet he hesitated. It was not his custom to run away from a danger whose existence could not even be proved.

  The anxiety of the mungo increased more and more. He kept pointing to the east while chattering continuously. Hollander called his companions back and told them to hide near the helicopter. He stayed with the mungo near the stepladder leading to the cockpit and hid in the high grass. If Milligan really was with the dwarfs, he could wait to see what he would do when he saw the helicopter.

  The mungo could hardly be kept under control any longer. He had given up his chattering and uttered a fearful wailing as he stared across the clearance and sometimes looked back south where the dark wall of the jungle rose behind the helicopter.

  Hollander no longer paid attention to the monkey. He had sounded an alarm and this was all he needed him for.

  Milligan wished he had a little walkie-talkie to consult with Mullon when to begin the attack. Since he didn't have a radio, he had to depend on his watch. Mullon had tried to estimate how long it would take him to get in back of Hollander and had stressed that Milligan was not to jump the gun prematurely.

  Milligan, Chellish and Freddy waited with the group of dwarfs who had brought them in about 200 meters east of the clearance where Hollander's helicopter had landed. They had to wait 20 more minutes to the set time.

  Milligan had his team advance slowly. The dwarfs assisted the clumsy movements of the Terranians,

  lifted them over the hanging roots and made them circumvent the treacherous swampy puddles. They were at the eastern edge of the clearance 10 minutes before the arranged time. Nothing could be seen of Hollander and his men but the helicopter was in plain view at the end of the jungle.

  • • •

  Mullon caught sight of the helicopter at about the same time and then he also discovered two men at both sides of it. They crouched in the bushes and anxiously peered at the eastern border of the clearance.

  Mullon followed their eyes. Had Milligan been careless?

  No, all was calm and he couldn't catch a glimpse of Milligan and his dwarfs. Finally Mullon detected something else: next to the helicopter's access ladder a man lay stretched out in the grass, holding a wiggly grey-white animal that was trying to free itself while squealing pitifully.

  Hollander! Mullon watched him for awhile. He was observing the other side of the clearance just like his comrades.

  His plan had worked and Hollander had fallen into the trap. The mungo had sensed the danger coming from the east and had drawn Hollander's attention to it. There were three men approaching from that direction and they had been near the clearance for some time whereas only one man had sneaked in from the south at the last moment.

  Although the mungo must have noticed that something was dangerously wrong at their back, Hollander disregarded him now that he concentrated himself on the threat which originated in the east.

  Mullon crawled closer, trying to avoid the slightest noise. He had only four minutes left to spring into action.

  • • •

  Milligan gave the dwarfs a sign. They eagerly swarmed out from behind the trees onto the clearance, dancing and fluttering as if they had been moving in this fashion all along.

  • • •

  "Look out, here they come!" Hollander cried. "Hold it!"

  The two men obeyed. Hollander looked over the grass and watched how the blue dwarfs glittered and flitted across the clearance and moved into the shadow on the other side of the jungle.

  It all appeared to be completely harmless so that Hollander began to doubt his own suspicions. Had

  Milligan really joined the dwarfs? Why didn't he show up with them? Hollander had to make a quick decision. If he waited any longer the dwarfs would be gone again. "Go ahead!" he ordered. "Block their way and if they don't stop, show 'em what a thermo-beamer can do."

  The men jumped up from behind their cover and run across the clearance.

  This was the moment Mullon had waited for. Three men would have been too much for him to tackle but now Hollander was alone. Mullon got up. Hollander's attention was so taken up with what his companions were doing that he failed to hear the noise in his back. "The jig is up!" Mullon said in a sharp tone. "Drop your weapon and get up!" Hollander twitched violently. He lost his grip on the snarling monkey. Hollander rose without putting down his weapon but Mullon was ready for him. He jumped forward, fast as lightning, and struck Hollander's wrist so hard that the small disintegrator whirled through the air in a high arc.

  Hollander screamed in pain. Then he got back on his legs and turned around Mullon had never seen such a horrified face. Hollander stared at him with bulging eyes. He stretched his arms out as if in a trance and tried to touch Mullon. "Mullon... you...?" he moaned.

  Mullon took one step back and nodded. "Yes, it's not my ghost."

  Hollander's arms sank down. "It's all over," he murmured.

  "Yes, Hollander. It's over for good."

  Hollander turned around as if he expected to be saved by his comrades. But these men had caused Milligan, Chellish and Freddy very little trouble. As they blocked the way of the dwarfs to determine how they would react to their challenge, Milligan and his companions had sneaked up behind them. Hollander's men were scared to death and offered no resistance.

  "You won't get any help from them," Mullon said. He waited patiently till Milligan had tied up his two prisoners so that they couldn't escape. Then Chellish and Freddy came over and brought him a rope which he used to tie up Hollander, who kept his eyes closed and didn't utter a word.

  "We ought to shoot him on the spot," Chellish growled. "If he gets away again, he'll start his funny business all over."

  Mullon objected. "We better leave this to the People's Assembly. It's up to them."

  Chellish quickly agreed. "Of course. I only said it because I'm so terribly mad." Actually he was a little apprehensive because he had told Mullon when he met him at the river that he had been one of Hollander's collaborators and he feared that a wrong word might reveal that he had lied at the time.

  2/ THE SIEGE OF GREENWICH

  The rest was simpler than Mullon had supposed. Of course he didn't try immediately to take prisoner the 40 men under Pashen's command who had occupied the mound of dwellings.

  Instead he loaded Hollander in the helicopter and flew with Chellish, Milligan and Freddy to Greenwich. They landed near the wreck of the spaceship and freed O'Bannon, Wolley and a number of other prisoners before anyone in the town noticed that something was awry.

  Then Mullon sent Chellish in as negotiator and declared that Hollander would be summarily shot unless the entire so-called Defense Troop would put down their arms and surrender outside the town in 30 minutes.

  Chellish returned after a suspenseful wait and reported that Mullon's conditions had been accepted.

  Half an hour later Greenwich was liberated. The last of the Defense Troopers who had left the town with their guns to give themselves up as ordered were driven out by the unarmed townspeople without regard to their own safety.

  The following day Pashen and his men, who were already perturbed and vexed by Hollander's prolonged absence, were also taken prisoners. Pashen was the only one who put up a defense and he was wounded in the process.

  Mullon had captured their position on the hill with only 10 men. Most of the work was done by the dwarfs who had returned to the foot of the hill and caused the weapons of the defenders to levitate and float away at the decisive moment so that they were almost helpless.

  The prisoners were transported in batches to Greenwich by helicopter.

  On his last flight Mullon brought back the mungo who had been frightened away when Hollander was apprehended. Hours later he finally returned.

  Meanwhile the People's Assembly had been convened and debated the punishment of the conspirators.

  At the trial the opinions clashed sharply on the question of what to do with Hollander. Nobody had any desire to ease
his lot but a considerable number of the jury's members were opposed to the death penalty which had been abolished on Earth a long time ago. Now they rejected it as a barbaric regression.

  However O'Bannon raised some grave arguments. "Why," he asked heatedly, "did they abolish the death penalty on Terra? Because from the beginning of civilization capital punishment only served to protect society against criminals. Such protection has been accomplished on Earth long ago by other means. Criminals are now banished to keep them from harming the citizens and convicts can be kept for life in modern penitentiaries behind bars without taking the slightest risk. But what are we to do here? I ask you. We can't banish him nor do we have a prison which is secure enough to hold him forever. For us the old argument is valid again. Those who are bent on destroying our society by heinous crimes must be punished by death unless we know a way of detaining them indefinitely. I'm in favor of putting Hollander to death for his evil deeds."

  After O'Bannon's short and simple appeal a vote was taken and2 /3rds of the jurors supported his demand. Hollander was given the opportunity to defend himself but he didn't make use of his rights. He remained silent and so the sentence was executed.

  The number of his followers was too large to lock them all up in the wreck of the Adventurous. The loss of so much manpower had to be weighed against the gain in safety. Therefore it was decided to form a labor gang where Hollander's misguided accomplices were put to work under the supervision of armed guards for two years.

  By this method they had disposed of 'Case Hollander.' It was an important episode in the history of the Grautier colony. It had brought home the fact that collective banishment was not sufficient to make decent citizens of all people. Freedom was something which had to be carefully nourished or it would get lost.

  • • •

  During the following weeks the People's Assembly discussed the relations of the colonists to the blue dwarfs and the mungos.

  Mullon proposed an expression of gratitude for the effective support they had received from the dwarfs and to reward the mungos for the harsh treatment they had suffered at the hands of Hollander. The Assembly resolved to present one of the extra generators of the Adventurous to the dwarfs to replace their old-fashioned induction machines for a more efficient production of electricity.

  The mungos were given a choice to pick anything they liked from a pile of colorful surplus stuff. Their enthusiasm over the offer was unmistakable. They descended on the spread of wares and grabbed what they could carry.

  The generator was loaded into the helicopter and flown by Mullon and Freddy to the den of the dwarfs. Mullon installed the machine and explained to the best of his ability the purpose and the operation of the generator. Thanks to the telepathic abilities of the dwarfs they mastered the task quickly and Mullon gained the impression that the dwarfs appreciated the gift.

  • • •

  After having taken care of all the diplomatic niceties Mullon began to work on the solution of several projects which he had pondered for some time.

  For instance there was the problem of calibrating time. Up to now everybody tried to keep his watch running since it had been set on Terra for the last time The hour hand went around the dial more than three times in a day on Grautier and sometimes the watches showed 12 o'clock when the sun rose. Nevertheless the days were counted consecutively as fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth of May although it was already August on Terra instead of May. Mullon was the only one who had kept an exact record of the passage of time.

  Mullon figured out that 200 years on Grautier corresponded to 172.33 years on Terra and that each Grautier year had 188.8 Grautier days. He rounded this figure off to 189 days and therefore had to eliminate a day every five years. A Grautier day was the equivalent of 39.67 hours on Earth and Mullon set it at exactly 40 hours so that a Grautier hour was approximately half a minute shorter than a Terra hour. The Grautier year was divided in 12 months as on Earth but nine months had 16 days and three months 15 Grautier days. Thus he could retain the same names for the months to which they were accustomed.

  Furthermore he retained the division of every hour into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds.

  The day the People's Assembly adopted his recommendation was called the first of January. The day was unusually hot and the only thing it had in common with the date on Earth, at least in the northern hemisphere, was its name. However the year was not changed so that it was the same as on Terra's calendar. Everybody was satisfied with the new system. In fact they were quite proud to have their own chronology.

  Mullon had many more projects on the fire. He wanted to study the habits of the gigantic grey-skinned animals they called giraffants. It wouldn't make much sense to build vast plantations in the vicinity of Greenwich if the town happened to be on the migrating trail of the huge beasts so that everything in their way was trampled down.

  There were a few people among the settlers who had studied biology and some others who had acquired considerable knowledge of the fauna in other ways. They convinced Mullon that the only way to study the giraffants properly was to stay close to them in their natural habitat. However it would be extremely dangerous to get too close to a herd of giraffants: these monstrous animals moved with great speed and their thick skins could not be penetrated by conventional weapons but only by modern thermo-beamers and disintegrators of which the pioneers had only a limited number. One possibility of carrying out Mullon's plan was by using the helicopter for an extended time. Mullon was willing to do it since it was only seldom needed in Greenwich. However the People's Assembly didn't consider his expedition important enough to put the valuable machine at his disposal for an indefinite time.

  Mullon was ready to go to bat for it in a good argument because he considered the rejection of his proposal shortsighted and had no intention of being responsible for such neglect for reasons of apathy or carelessness.

  Consequently he made the rounds in town to talk privately with those people who had opposed his plan most in an effort to convince them; and since his arguments were valid and those of his opponents none too sound, he felt after five days that he could bring up his proposal for another vote and be more successful.

  But he didn't get his chance. In the night between the 15th and 16th of January a new disaster struck the little colony.

  • • •

  Mullon was awakened by a noise at the door. Sleepily he raised himself up in bed and listened. Somebody knocked at the door rather violently.

  Freddy became alarmed. "What's the matter?" she cried.

  Mullon got up and opened the door. It was Milligan. Freddy turned on the light. They noticed that Milligan's face looked dazed and scared.

  "What's wrong?" Mullon asked.

  Milligan shrugged his shoulders. "I've heard some cries and then I saw a strange thin figure sneak through the street. I followed it but it suddenly disappeared. So I decided to run to you and tell you about it."

  Mullon began to put on his clothes. "Take the rifle out of the box," he instructed Milligan. "Freddy, lock the door after we leave."

  But Freddy, who meanwhile had gone into the adjacent room, called back: I can't do that because I'm going with you."

  Mullon didn't object. Ten minutes after Milligan had come in, they were ready to leave. Freddy had stuck a handy pistol under her waistband.

  "Do you have any notion what's going on?" Mullon inquired as he locked the door.

  "None at all," Milligan replied, "but something's unkosh (Off Kelter; Fishy)."

  The night was so dark that they couldn't see one step ahead. The sky was overcast. It was shortly before midnight, 39½ o'clock, the time when most of the people slept deeply.

  So far Mullon was not too much alarmed about Milligan's observation—a shadowy figure and some cries didn't necessarily amount to a peril—but as President of the People's Assembly he had the duty to look out for the security of the pioneers.

  "Perhaps we should check with the guards first," Milligan suggested. "Maybe they've noticed something."