Chapter Four
So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, 'Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink.' Three hundred men lapped with their hands to their mouths. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.
Judges, Chapter 7
“So whadda you want us to do again?” asked Monster.
They were back in their parking garage-like dormitory crouched around a map scratched in the concrete floor by a pen Gideon had kept in his work satchel. He had found the satchel which also contained his laptop and water bottle crammed into a compartment of his pod. He had had it with him when he went into Dr Benson’s office.
Gideon took a deep breath. Everything was being improvised. After the first incident, the Midis had set up a second catapult out of range of the ball throwing Androids and had managed to hit the side of the structure a couple of times. This bothered the witches more than the thumping from the battering ram had done, prompting an immediate meeting with their military advisor. By then the Midis had quit for the night but when Gideon pointed out that they would probably start again in the morning and he could see another catapult being built they became visibly upset. What could he do to stop these contraptions?
“We’re being lowered off the roof at the back of the structure by another of the lifting androids,” he told his little group. “There’s not many of the Midis out front. They knew they’d have to stay here a while to bust in, and there’s been no opposition until today, so they’ve got troops for the siege equipment and some muscle with spears and swords. That’s it. Even today all they saw was androids who chucked stuff. They haven’t bothered with outposts to keep an eye on the sides or rear of the structure, as far as I can see, and not even much of a guard at the camp. The last thing they will expect is an attack.”
“Attack by us, yeah right!” sneered Boothroyd. “What a fuck-up this is gonna be.”
“Once we’re all down we circle to the left,” said Gideon, ignoring Bothroyd, “That is left facing outwards away from the gorge, or to the East and then to the South for those who bother about compass directions. Fred and Sam will carry most of our stuff including some of the concrete balls and jars with the incendiary stuff in them, and we’ll have swords and knives.”
Each item in their tiny arsenal had required an exhausting palaver between Gideon and The Witches’ interface, which had been profoundly ignorant of anything that could blow up, cut, shoot or even hit. Finally, he had extracted knives and short swords for each of them plus two jars of flammable material which, Gideon suspected, was closely related to gasoline. Just as the concrete balls were not actually concrete, however, the swords and knives were not actually metal. They were still as hard as steel and had an edge so sharp that the humans were concerned about cutting themselves, but the implements were made of some sort of polymer. The Witches may not know anything about violence and warfare, but they were good chemists, Gideon decided.
Despite the weapons, Gideon had no intention of allowing his little band of supposed soldiers to use them unless they had to. The use of a sword was a skill which none of them had and would take many hours of hard training to acquire, if they had anyone to teach them. They had practised chopping with them – Boothroyd sneeringly distained to be involved. Gideon had ended the last session by pointing out that if they were ever trapped into using one then they should trust to what might be their greater weight and strength, as the Midis seem generally smaller, to batter their opponent’s guard down and run away before their opponents figured out the humans didn’t know what they were doing.
The knives were a different proposition and might be of use in disposing of sentries. In fact, both Gideon and Colin had been shown briefly how to use knives as part of their basic training, and Gideon tried to pass on what he could remember of this. Boothroyd’s eyes gleamed when he saw the knives. After the single training session, he hid his knife, claiming that he had lost it. As there was nowhere in their bare dormitory to lose a knife, and Boothroyd was obviously lying, this was tiresome. The two androids, under Gideon’s direction and with Monster making unhelpful comments, forced the man to give up the weapon.
The two Androids were in a different category as they were both very strong but were puzzled by the notion of fighting with swords or knives. Eventually Gideon had two polymer spears made for them and taught them to move and thrust on command. All they could do was thrust at waist height. Blocking or evading was not on the agenda, at least not in the few hours they had, but at least they could thrust hard and repeatedly without tiring. With any luck they would get to the catapults, set them on fire and return, without meeting any Midis.
“We turn left,” said Honey, looking doubtfully at the map, “and start walking?”
“Yep. Follow my lead. Keep low until we get to the tree line which is not far, then we circle round to the South, close to the Midi camp, keeping quiet. Then we find the two catapults, empty the jars full of whatever the witches have given us onto them, and set them alight. Then we circle back the way we came and get hauled back on the roof. If you get separated just race off into the trees and lay low until the excitement dies away. Then circle back, call out, and the droid will lift you up. Just don’t lose sight of the structure and remember the basic elements of the map - structure, tourist centre, road, gorge.”
“Whaddabout sentries?” asked Monster.
“Let’s get there and see exactly where the sentries are. With any luck, we can light up the catapults and leave without having to bother with the sentries, so let’s just get there first.”
Gideon knew he had to keep it very simple for his untrained group. Even moving to a set location in starlight – the planet’s two moons had the same phases as the earth’s moon and both were now waning crescents – despite obvious landmarks that would be difficult to lose sight of, might present problems for them. Gideon had received some training in movement by night, as had Colin, but the former field kitchen operative remembered far less if any of the skill, and his mind had become disordered by Honey. The two had hit if off straight away, although this did not seem to involve any talking on Colin’s part. In the few hours the humans had been given limited access to other parts of the structure besides their bleak dormitory, the couple had disappeared twice then returned with Honey beaming and Colin looking flustered but pleased.
Gideon had too much on his mind and was too exhausted by the need to organise his little band to give the matter much thought and their behaviour was certainly easier to bear than the blood feud between Monster and Boothroyd. This had something to do with a mix up in deliveries when they were both drivers for the HEO, as well as two men taking a rabid dislike to one another.
“Vipers are a pack of fucking goons,” said Boothroyd, apropos of not much.
“We wouldn’t have a shithead like you,” responded Monster. “We’ve got standards.”
A couple more insults and the two gentlemen started fighting. Gideon had to use Sam and Fred to drag them to separate corners of their bleak dormitory, where they fumed, occasionally throwing insults at one another.
They were a happy crew.
“Maybe it’s like that really old film where a bunch of criminals are turned into soldiers and sent on a mission?” said Honey in the downtime before their night raid. She had just returned from one of her assignations with Colin and was in a good mood.
“You mean the Dirty Dozen?” said Gideon. “We’re the Dirty Half Dozen? Yeah, right. Being a soldier is about teamwork and discipline. Criminals don’t like discipline and you can’t turn your back on them. The Nazis used criminals in one unit and their behaviour was so bad that even SS officers in Russia complained, and if the SS in Russia thought the unit was going too far it was in a whole new level of evil.”
Some time before midnight, the little band, including Sam and Fred and a third android, assembled on the Northern edge of the structure roof. The third android had been assigned specifically to the job of letting them down from the roof using a cable that had been produced from somewhere.
“We’ll hand out weapons once we’re all down,” said Gideon
“Right!” said Boothroyd.
“And this is what you get,” said Gideon, throwing a bag at Boothroyd’s feet.
“What’s this?”
“A few days-worth of that bread stuff The Witches have been giving us, with their compliments, plus a water bottle. The third android here will wait one hour after we’ve gone and then let you down, and you can go whichever way you want. My suggestion would be to follow the road thataway,” Gideon pointed West. “A couple of days out is a Summer camp. A lot of the kids and their teachers have gone there.”
“You’re turning me loose, shithead? You’ve got no right to turn me loose. Who put you in charge?”
“The Witches,” said Gideon. “They gave me this stuff to give to you, accepting what I told them that that you’ve been nothing but an abusive liability since we woke up. Beyond that they simply do not care. Humans are a closed book to them.”
“See ya around Boothfuck” sneered Monster.
“Monster, you go down first and keep watch, now,” snapped Gideon. The former biker wrapped the cable around him and, after pausing for a last sneer at Boothroyd, abseiled off as if he had been doing it his whole life. “Then Honey, Colin, Sam and Fred. New guy”, that was the name of the third android, “grab Boothroyd here.” Gideon gestured at his own upper arm, and the android’s three finger hand clamped over the former driver’s arm.
“Gimme a knife to defend myself with, fuck head,” said Boothroyd after struggling fruitlessly against the android.
“So, you can stab us in the back? No way. There are none of the big predators like tigers and lions in these parts. The only real danger out there is the Midis and if you have any sense you’ll head West – that is along the road away from the structure - and never meet them. You were never going to pay any attention to me. It was always ‘fuck me’. Alright, fuck me. I’m not saying you’re wrong to say that, but I am saying that if you think that way why not go somewhere else.”
“Then you’re just gonna be the Witches’ bitch? Whadda you owe them?”
“Nothing, but they’re way more fun than the guys at the HEO. Keep him here,” he told the New Guy android, “for one hour then lower him off the side. If he starts yelling, then throw him over without the cable.” These instructions had already been rehearsed with Sam acting as an interpreter, otherwise they would have been far too complicated.
Lowering Honey and Colin from the roof proved a saga, as the New Guy had only one hand free, but they managed. Fred and Sam lowered themselves hand over hand without any comment. That left Gideon who elected to abseil but with nothing like the skill of Monster.
“See you around, Boothroyd,” he said as he went over the edge.
“You haven’t heard the last of me.”
Gideon later thought that if he had ordered Boothroyd to be dropped over the side then and there, a lot of trouble would have been avoided.