Battlefield Earth (116 page)

     The fateful moment of the bank meeting arrived.

Five days had passed.

Jonnie sat alone in the small meeting room that had been prepared and waited for the others to arrive.

There was not the slightest doubt in his mind that this was going to be a battle bigger than he had ever fought before.

Being Jonnie, he had been unwilling to simply sit idly by while MacAdam and Baron von Roth prepared.

They had been busy enough. For five days and nights, the hum of the teleportation rig had resounded through the bowl. Things had come and things had gone on the platform behind the tarpaulins.

But they did no talking less they be overheard and the only words that sounded were, “Motors off!” “No planes approaching!” “Stand by!” and “Fire!” Whenever anyone, especially emissaries or the small gray men, had come near the tarpaulins or the curtained corridor to a bunker, stern bank guards had pushed them back peremptorily. All Jonnie got from MacAdam was, “Later. Later!” Not even Angus was talking.

He had gotten an estimate that it would be several days. Mr. Tsung had told Jonnie that the negotiations of finance and banking were very specialized things. He had added one phrase that had stuck in Jonnie’s mind: “The power of money and gold over the souls of men passes all wondering.”

The predawn sky of the day after MacAdam’s arrival had found Jonnie in the air. He had heard of a university outside the ruins of an old city named

Salisbury about one hundred seventy-five miles southeast of Kariba. He had tried to get Sir Robert to come along but the old Scot was hanging on to the radio in the ops room, doing what he could for Edinburgh. Instead, Jonnie had taken a couple of Chinese soldiers to shoo off the lions and elephants when they threatened to interrupt his studies.

The university was a ruin but the library could be sorted out amid the dust and debris, the roof and walls having stood. Camped out in the wreckage, Jonnie had pried congealed packs of catalogue cards apart and had pretty well found what he was looking for. It had been a well-endowed library once. It included lots of economics texts, probably because the relatively new nation had had a dreadful economic struggle of it. The texts were in English and they covered the history of economics and banking pretty well.

Mr. Tsung had been absolutely right! It was a highly specialized subject. And when one went wrong, like some nut named Keynes they had all become mad at, it really messed things up. What Jonnie got out of it was that the state was for people. He had suspected that was the way it should be. And individuals worked and made things and exchanged them for other things. And it was easier to do it with money. But money itself could be manipulated. The Chinkos had been great and patient teachers and Jonnie knew how to study. And with a mind like his, he got things as quickly as a traveling shot.

Four of those five days had been spent ears deep in books, nose full of dust, with Chinese guards warning off black mamba snakes and African buffalo.

Sitting there in the meeting room, waiting for the others, he had the satisfaction of knowing that, while he was no expert, he would at least have a grip on what this battle was all about.

Sir Robert came in, grumbling and cross, and took a seat over to the side with Jonnie. Even though the small gray men had indicated it was between Sir Robert and them, the War Chief of Scotland knew that claymores and lochaber axes weren’t going to win this one and as far as he was concerned it was all up to the experts. Basically he was very concerned about Edinburgh. They had gotten food and water through into the various shelters with thin hoses but rock was still crumbling in on their tunnel efforts. They had been driving in huge, heavy pipe casings for days now and the only hope was that they were not crumbling this time.

Dries Gloton and Lord Voraz came in. A table for four had been set in the middle of the room and they took two of the places on one side of it. They were very neatly dressed in gray suits. They had their arms full of papers and attache cases and they put them down. They looked exactly like hungry sharks.

Neither Jonnie nor Sir Robert had acknowledged their arrival.

“You don’t seem very pleased this morning,” said Lord Voraz.

“We be men of the sword,” said Sir Robert. “We ha’ sma’ truck wi’ the money changers I’ the temple.”

Sir Robert’s sudden use of English caused both small gray men to turn on their vocoders.

“I noticed,” said Dries Gloton, “when I came in that there were half a hundred soldiers in white tunics and red pants all around in the rifle pits in the bowl.”

“An honor guard,” said Sir Robert.

“They had an assortment of weapons,” said Dries. “And one huge fellow certainly looked more like a brigand than an officer in charge of an honor guard.”

“I wouldn’t let Colonel Ivan hear you say that,” said Sir Robert.

“Do you realize,” said Dries Gloton, “that if you killed the emissaries and us, you would become an outlaw nation? They know where we are. You would have a dozen fleets in here smashing you to bits.”

“Better to fight fleets than be a’ cut up with bits o’ paper,” said Sir Robert, gesturing at their piles of it. “There’s na thrat i’ the Roosians if you tell the truth and behave. We ken this be a battle o’ wits and skullduggery. But it’s a battle a’ the same and a bloody one!”

Lord Voraz turned to Jonnie. “Why do you regard us in so hostile a fashion, Sir Lord Jonnie? I assure you we have only the friendliest feelings for you personally. We admire you greatly. You must believe that.” He seemed and probably was sincere.

“But banking is banking,” said Jonnie. “And business is business. Is that it?”

“Of course!” said Lord Voraz. “However, personal regard sometimes enters in. And in your case it most certainly does. I tried several times in the last few days to find you. It is unfortunate that we could not have had our talk before this meeting here. We are actually your personal friends.”

“In what way?” asked Jonnie coolly.

A grizzly bear or an elephant would have backed off when Jonnie sounded like that. But not Lord Voraz. “Do you realize that when a planet is sold, all its people and all its technology are sold with it? Didn’t you read the brochure? You and your immediate associates are exempted in the sale and so is anything you may have developed.”

“How generous,” said Jonnie with cold sarcasm.

“Since we had no chance to talk and the others seem to be late,” said Lord

Voraz, “I can tell you now. We have worked out an offer. We will create a technical department in the Galactic Bank and make you the head of it. We will build a fine factory in Snautch-that’s the capital of the system, you know- provide you with everything you need, and give you a lifetime contract. If the figure I already offered seems too low, we can negotiate it. You would not lack for money.”

“And money is everything,” said Jonnie bitingly.

Both bankers were shocked at his tone. “But it is!” cried Lord Voraz. “Everything has a price! Anything can be bought.”

“Things like decency and loyalty can’t be,” said Jonnie.

“Young man,” said Lord Voraz sternly, “you are very talented and have many other fine qualities, I am sure, but there have been some radical omissions in your upbringing!”

“I wouldn’a talk to him like that,” warned Sir Robert.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Lord Voraz. “Forgive me. In my effort to help, I permitted myself to be carried away.”

“That’s better,” growled Sir Robert and loosened his grip on his claymore.

“You see,” said Lord Voraz, “a scientist is supposed to be hired by a company. What he develops belongs to the company. It ’s quite disastrous for a scientist to try to go it alone and manage his own developments and affairs. All companies and all banks and certainly all governments agree on this totally. A scientist is supposed to quietly draw his salary, turn over his patents to the company, and go on working. It ’s all been arranged that way. Why, if he tried to do anything any other way, he’d spend all his life in law courts. That is how it has been carefully arranged.”

“So the shoes a cobbler makes belong to him,” said Jonnie, “but the developments of a scientist belong to the company or the state. I see. Very plain.”

Lord Voraz overlooked the sarcasm. Or didn’t hear it.

“I am so glad you understand. Money is everything and all things and talent are for sale. And that’s the heart and soul of banking, the very cornerstone of business. A first principle.”

“I thought making a profit was,” said Jonnie.

“Oh, that too, that too,” said Lord Voraz. “So long as it is an honest profit. But believe me, the heart and soul-”

“I’m so glad to know,” said Jonnie, “that banking and business have a heart and soul. I hadn’t been able to detect one thus far.”

“Oh, dear,” said Lord Voraz. “You are being sarcastic.”

“Anything that destroys decent people has no heart and soul,” said Jonnie. “And by that I include banking, business, and government. These concerns can only exist if they are for

people. If they serve the wants and needs of the ordinary being!”

Lord Voraz looked at him searchingly. He thought for a bit. There was something in what Sir Lord Jonnie was saying…. He gave it up. He was a banker.

“Indeed,” said Lord Voraz, “you are a peculiar young man. Perhaps when you get old enough to understand the ways of the world-’

Sir Robert’s tensing was halted by the arrival of MacAdam and Baron von

Roth.

“Who’s a peculiar young man?” said Baron von Roth. “Jonnie? Indeed he is. Thank gott! I see you two were early,” he shot at Dries and Lord Voraz. “Never saw anybody so anxious to collect their pound of flesh! Shall we begin?”

- Part XXX -

     Andrew MacAdam and Baron von Roth put down piles of papers and attache cases on the floor on their side of the table, briefly shook hands with Dries Gloton and Lord Voraz, and sat down.

Jonnie blinked. MacAdam and the baron were wearing gray suits! They were expensive tweed and the individual fibers sparkled, but they were gray suits!

The four of them sat there at the table for a bit, just looking across it at one another. Jonnie was reminded of some gray wolves he had once seen, prowling back and forth, eyes alert, teeth ready, sizing each other up before they plunged into a snarling, slashing fight to the death.

And it was a fight to the death, for if MacAdam and the baron lost, that was the end of the people of this planet and all they held dear. He didn’t have the least idea what MacAdam and the baron had been doing, and it was with a sinking feeling that he heard MacAdam fire the first shot of the battle.

“Are you sure,” said MacAdam, “that you gentlemen couldn’t give us a little more time? Say another month?”

Dries showed his double row of teeth as his lips curled back. “Impossible! You have waited until the last moment.

There can be no extension.”

“Times are very bad,” said the baron. “There are economic upsets everywhere.”

“We know that,” said Lord Voraz. “It cannot be used as an excuse. If you were unable to pay your just debts and settle your obligations, you could have said so days ago and spared us this wait. I can’t imagine what you were doing.”

“I was interrogating abandoned crew members of the departed ships,” said MacAdam. “It was a bit difficult to find an officer of each race that attacked this planet.”

“And they told you there were economic upsets,” said Dries. “You might as well sign this quitclaim to the planet now and get it over with.” He pushed a form at Sir Robert, who didn’t get a chance to take it.

MacAdam pushed the form back to the table and let it drop. “I found that these crewmen did not want to go home. They had been conscripted, actually press-ganged into their services. Some felt that on return they might have to take part in revolutions or civil wars and did not want to fire on their own people. Some felt that if they went home they would just be discharged and have to join the mobs of unemployed that were starving and sometimes rioting in the streets of many capitals.”

“This is nothing new,” said Lord Voraz. “All this past year there has been unrest. That’s why these emissaries here are planning wars of foreign conquest- to take the peoples’ minds off all this. You could have asked me. I would have told you.”

“This changes nothing,” said Dries. “I advise you to surrender the planet tamely. For any of these emissaries would like nothing better than to buy this planet and mount a military expedition to wrest it from you. The ships that were up there were nothing compared to what could be sent against you. So if you will just-’

The baron fixed him with a bayonet stare. He said, “Having collected all the data available locally, we went to see for ourselves.”

Jonnie came alert. Ah, so that’s what all that firing was about. This pair had been traveling all over the place! He’d noticed faint air mask marks on their jaws. Had they been doing something else than just traveling?

“There is economic chaos!” said the baron. “When Intergalactic Mining Company ceased to deliver metals, the scarcity caused their prices to soar. Factories are closed. People are out of work and rioting. To distract them, the governments are planning wars that are not popular. To get metals to build weapons, they are even commandeering peoples’ cars and the pots and pans of housewives.”

Dries shrugged. “This is not news and it is totally off the subject of your unpaid balance. Does the Earth emissary sign this or do we resort-” He let the threat hang.

The air seemed charged with electricity for a moment.

The baron’s pale gray eyes bored into Dries Gloton. “You are in severe trouble, Your Excellency.”

The branch manager shrugged. “Internal concerns of the bank have no bearing on your paying up as you are obligated to do.”

Baron von Roth turned to Sir Robert. “His Excellency here committed his sector branch bank to some very unwise personal loans to the high executives on the Psychlo planets Torthut and Tun in the Batafor System and some even bigger personal loans to the Psychlo regent governors of sixteen Psychlo-owned planets in four nearby star systems. Those loans were secured by holdings in real estate on Psychlo itself.”

“How did you find that out?” snapped Dries. “It is confidential bank information!”

“A disgruntled employee you sacked,” said the baron. “The real estate on Psychlo went up in smoke and the debtors are dead. An unwise bank risk. Psychlos were renowned for bad faith.”

“The depositors could bring pressure on the bank,” said Voraz, defending his branch manager. “But that does not change your loan-’

“Indeed they could bring pressure,” said the baron. “The basic profit income of the Galactic Bank came from handling fund transfers for Psychlo planets. Not from loans, but from the high percent charged by the bank for handling their funds. And with those regency planet transfers shut off, Your Excellency, your regency banks had to dismiss their staffs and close their doors. The senior branch bank in Balor, your own personal office, fired nearly everyone.

“So that, Sir Robert,” continued the baron, “is why you are being pressured. Dries figured the only route he had out of going bankrupt was to repossess Earth. It ’s the only planet in any universe that Intergalactic Mining Company owed any money on. He thought if he could auction this planet off, if only for a little cash, he could prevent total insolvency.”

“Pointing to the mud on someone’s fins,” said Dries, “does not improve your own swimming! You had better sign over or you yourself will drown!” This rehearsal of the last year’s troubles was making him edgy. “Pay up and pay up now!” He picked up the form and rattled it in front of Sir Robert. It crackled like a machine gun.

MacAdam reached over and pushed Dries’ arm gently back down to the table. “We’ll come back to that later.”

The small gray man trembled. He could never remember being so upset before. It had been a very terrible year. What were these fellows up to? If they didn’t have the money, why were they delaying? He sat back. Never mind. The end would be the same. Let them ramble.

“Now let’s take up the main bank in the Gredides,” said the baron. “We went there, right to Universe One. The capital city Snautch was damaged by the transshipment recoil and so were the capitals of the other two Selachee planets. The whole top floors of the bank buildings were very badly damaged.”

“They can be rebuilt,” said Lord Voraz.

“The blasts knocked down the huge Galactic Bank signs, the ones you can see from all over the cities in each capital, and they’re still hanging there shattered. You can see what they said but that’s about all.”

“They can be hung up again,” said Lord Voraz smoothly.

“But for a whole year,” the baron bored in like a mine drill, “you haven’t done it! Now, all three Selachee planets depended upon banking. Those banks affected millions and millions of people. When you lost teleportation, you were thereafter unable to reach the other fifteen universes, space travel or no space travel. You have millions of Selachees stranded in branch banks all over those universes, banks as broke as His Excellency’s, that you can’t bring home. Families and relatives don’t think they’ll ever see their fathers or brothers or sons again. There are mobs rioting outside your bank doors. Rioting very loudly and howling for blood!”

Lord Voraz shrugged. “There are strong bank guards.”

“And how will you pay them?” said the baron. “Your bank income did not really come from loans but from Psychlo fund transfers. The instant Psychlo and Intergalactic Mining were blown up, there was no further fund flow. You started to go broke and you began to lay off employees. You know from Dries here that many of your branch banks have had to close their doors.”

“We have gone through economic difficulties before,” said Lord Voraz.

The baron leaned closer to him. “But not as bad as this one, Lord Voraz. The Psychlos were hated bitterly by peoples everywhere. When your Lord Loonger, whose face you carry on your bills, made a deal with the Psychlos a couple of hundred thousand years ago to handle all their finances, he refused to let any Psychlo sit on the bank’s board of directors.”

“It would have hurt the bank’s reputation,” said Lord Voraz. “A sensible move. People would have claimed it was a Psychlo bank.”

“Ah, yes,” said the baron. “But the Psychlos then insisted that forever thereafter the bank’s reserves would be kept in vaults on Psychlo. They’re gone!”

Lord Voraz dropped his heavy eyelids for a moment. He passed his hand across his face. Then he rallied. “It is true. This still does not alter the fact that you are a debtor.”

“It certainly does!” said the baron. “You’re insolvent. And if you don’t fine assets to back you fast, you will go under!”

     “All right!” said Lord Voraz. “But this just proves the fact that we must repossess this planet!”

“This one planet won’t save you,” said MacAdam.

“Why,” said the baron smoothly, “don’t you just grab some old Psychlo mining planets or regency planets. There are over two hundred thousand of them lying about.”

“Oh, here now!” said Lord Voraz, horrified. “It is quite one thing to run down our credit and expose our troubles. But it is an entirely different thing to suggest the bank would ever engage upon piratical seizures of things to which it has no title!”

“Goodness,” said Dries, shocked. “Those planets were all properly paid for! You simply can’t engage in theft!”

“Their titles would be in dispute!” said Lord Voraz. “It would open up the bank to wars and the bank is not a military organization! Anybody who touched those planets would wind up in court. No title to them! I must say, you know very little about intergalactic law governing nations!”

“Oh,” said MacAdam, “I think we do. Have you ever read the original Psychlo Imperial Royal Charter of the Intergalactic Mining Company?”

“Exhaustively!” said Lord Voraz. “You can’t do business with a company that doesn’t file its charter. It was granted three hundred two thousand, nine hundred sixty-one years ago by King Dith of Psychlo. Why, there’s a copy of it- or was- on the wall of every Intergalactic Mining central compound. Required by law. I have read-’

The baron threw a copy of it on the table. “You should read the fine print.” He turned the copy around so Voraz could read it, though Voraz didn’t bother to, knowing it almost by heart.

“Note this clause here,” said the baron, “Number 109: ‘In the absence of a director or directors, the head of a planet owned by the said Intergalactic Mining Company shall have the power to make resolutions and his resolutions shall be binding.’

Lord Voraz shrugged. “Of course. They had only one additional planet then and the head of it was a royal prince. The directors at that time couldn’t be bothered with business. I don’t see-’

“But it is a valid clause,” said the baron.

“Right, right,” said Voraz. “But you are just delaying-”

“Now take this next clause,” said the baron. “Number 110: ‘In time of emergency and/or threat to the company, and especially at a time of disaster, the head of a planet may dispose of company property.’ Note that it is not further limited nor qualified.”

“Why should it be?” demanded Voraz. “It was the same royal prince. He wouldn’t take the job away from home otherwise. He was afraid of communication cutoffs or palace revolutions. He could have been left out there holding a claw full of company bills. It was Prince Sco.”

“But you agree,” said the baron, “that these are valid clauses.”

“When do I get to repossess this planet?” said Dries wearily. “Nothing in that charter will permit you to wriggle out of paying forty trillion credits!”

Lord Voraz corrected him, “Forty trillion, nine hundred sixty billion, two hundred seventeen million, six hundred five thousand, two hundred sixteen Galactic credits.”

“So there’s nothing inaccurate in this royal charter,” persisted the baron.

“Of course not!” said Lord Voraz.

Baron von Roth and Andrew MacAdam looked at each other and laughed, startling the other two.

MacAdam reached down into the papers beside his chair and drew up a thick pack of documents. “This was fully signed and witnessed eleven months after the destruction of the planet Psychlo.” He threw down the stack and it landed like a cannon shot.

It was all embossed with seals and glaring with huge official red ribbons and scarlet and gold discs.

It was the Terl contract! It sold in full the entirety of

Intergalactic Mining Company, all its equipment, assets, planets, and accounts.

MacAdam plopped another document on top of it. “Here is the attest by the last Planet Head of the company that this is a true and valid contract and it adds his total conveyance of the company. It was signed just a few days ago.”