第40节

attack from the air.

Like Clearwater, Cadillac had seen the devastating effects of the fire

from the sky. If the cloud warriors returned there was little the Cubs

could do to stop them. He and Mr Snow had agreed that the clan's

efforts should be directed towards limiting the damage caused by the

fire. Neither had dwelt on the possibility that the cloud warriors

might not fly away immediately after dropping their eggs. Cadillac had

put the thought resolutely from his mind and had concentrated on

teaching the Cubs and SheWolves how to make long-handled flat brooms

from bunches of red-leafed twigs and young saplings with which to beat

out the flames. He did not appreciate that the carefully designed

adhesive qualities of napalm would render such precautions totally

ineffective.

The M'Call Cubs, their pack-leaders and the She-Wolves took up their

allotted stations; some around the edge of the cropfields; others at

strategic points within it. The very young children ran from group to

group, bringing more stones to add to the piles which lay ready to be

hurled at any attacker. The mood was one of defiant bravado mixed with

apprehension - not from any fear of the cloud warriors, but from the

worry about how they would acquit themselves.

Snake-Hips, a young She-Wolf, flung a pointing finger in the air and

called to Cadillac. 'Look! They come!" Cadillac turned and saw the

arrowheads circling over the mountains to the east; saw the sun flash

off their graceful wings as they dipped and swung round towards him.

Gripped by a tense feeling of excitement, Steve Brickman find Gus White

swooped down from the hills and banked low over the cropfields. Gus

dropped a smoke-canister to check the strength and direction of the

wind; Steve studied the layout of the fields, trying to determine the

best place to lay down the napalm to cause maximum damage. They were

met by a rising barrage of missiles. Most of the hand-delivered ones

fell short; some of the sling-shot projectiles bounced noisily off

their cockpit pods or drummed against the taut wing fabric without

causing any damage. One struck Gus White painfully in the side of the

neck.

'Little bastards,' he croaked to himself.

From his first low pass over the cropfields, Steve saw that the

hostiles were nothing more than a bunch of mainly unarmed kids who,

despite their show of defiance, posed no threat. On the other hand, if

they did not move from their present position among the orange

cornfields, they stood a good chance of being barbecued when he and Gus

dropped their loads of napalm.

Steve passed this observation to Gus over the radio and suggested that

maybe they ought to try and scare the kids out of the fields first.

Gus's reply was swift and caustic. 'They ain't kids, god buddy.

They's little-bitty hostiles that grow up into big mean mothers. We've

got to stop 'em now while we've got the chance. As my old guardee used

to say, "There ain't nothin' that smells better than Southern Fried

Mute".

Yeee-HAH!" Gus signed off with a rebel yell, did a fast wing-over and

fire-bombed the down-wind corner of the Mute cropfields.

Steve circled, stricken by a sudden reluctance to kill. He was

conscious of being assailed by inexplicable, conflicting emotions as he

watched the young children, some of them on fire, run from the

spreading flames. Others began falling with an untidy flurry of limbs

as Gus began picking them off with volleys from his air rifle.

Swallowing hard, Steve quickly regained his usual iron control and

headed back across the target area, dropping his own load of napalm in

an arc ahead of the fleeing children so as to cut off their escape.

'Look out!" yelled Gus over the radio. 'One of those lumps has a

crossbow! The sonofabitch just missed me by a whisker!" Steve rammed

the throttle wide open and went up in a climbing turn, searching the

terrain below for the marksman.

Cadillac cursed himself for having missed the cloud warrior. He cast