Battlefield Earth (124 page)

     Unfortunately for Jonnie it proved to be a rather well-traveled passageway- or people found excuses to travel it just so they could see him there.

Chrissie found him. I m awfully sorry we overlooked Pattie. I thought you were coming right behind us and had her, and then when I saw she wasn’t there, I ran out again but you had taken off.” Pattie was standing behind her looking at Jonnie.

“But that isn’t what I must talk to you about,” said Chrissie. She produced from behind her an envelope and began to take things out of it. One glimpse of them told Jonnie that Dries had been up to something else. They were the proof sheets, all marked “Specimen, not valid for exchange,” of the new Galactic Bank money. There were four coins of different size and four bills of different size. The coins were different geometric shapes, well stamped. The paper and printing were excellent. Jonnie couldn’t imagine what was wrong with them.

“This eleventh-of-a-credit coin,” said Chrissie, “is not too bad. It ’s green and you can’t see it. The three-elevenths coin, this blue one, is not too awful because you can’t see it either. This red metal, five-elevenths coin is barely passing. The yellow, six-elevenths coin just won’t do.”

Hearing Chrissie expound upon money was novel. She had probably never used it in her whole life.

“But the smallest to the largest paper bank notes are what you should be concerned about. I told Dries I was very upset! This is the one-credit note. And this here is what they call the eleven-credit note but it says,

“Psychlo number system,” said Jonnie. “It’s based on eleven, not ten. ‘Ten’ means one unit of elevens plus zero units of ones which equals eleven. So an eleven-credit note would be written in numbers as ‘one-zero.’

.   ..

“I’ll take your word for it,” sighed Chrissie, “but that’s not what I’m mad about. Here, look at these. This one is…the…one-zero-zero credit note. It says ‘one hundred’ but it’s the same as a hundred twenty-one one-credit notes. Yes, yes, I know…Psychlo numbers.” She showed Jonnie one more. “And this one is the one-three-three-one credit note.”

Jonnie had been looking at them. The coins had larger and larger stamps on them. The bank notes looked startlingly glossy with their shimmer paper. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t see anything wrong with them.”

“It’s the face!” said Chrissie. “Look. On the coins they have your face in profile and you can’t see it on the smaller ones but you can on the yellow one because it’s big enough. The nose! Your nose isn’t turned up at the end!”

Jonnie took the coins. Yes, it sure was a turned-up nose.

“And these bills. I don’t care,” said Chrissie, “if it is hard to reproduce accurately like Dries said. They made your skin grayish. The eyes have too big a lid. And Jonnie, your ears aren’t like that! These look more like gills!”

Jonnie took the bills. Sure enough, they had changed the portraits! Then he barked a laugh. He still looked enough like himself for no real dispute to rise. But they had shifted it over so he slightly resembled a Selachee.

Great! Less chance of being pointed at in the hills. But Jonnie had learned a lot about diplomacy. “I’m sorry you don’t like them, Chrissie.”

“Oh, it’s not that! It just doesn’t look like you.”

“I’m afraid it would cost an awful lot and make a lot of trouble to change them now,” said Jonnie. “Maybe the next issue!”

That seemed to mollify her and she put them back in the envelope and walked off, noting from the way he seemed to have nailed himself down that he might have to be fed lunch there.

Pattie stayed behind and sat down on the floor. She still seemed very thoughtful but she was not as dull as she had been.

Ker came up the ramp, followed by about thirty assorted ex-marines-

Jambitchows, Drawkins, and a couple of Hockners. Ker went on by with a friendly hello. But when the others got abreast of Jonnie they suddenly realized who was sitting there. They recoiled so hard against the far side of the passage that they bounced. They instantly raced up to be in front of Ker.

Jonnie had not missed it. He called out,

“Ker!”

The midget Psychlo walked back to him, leaving his group standing up the passageway. “Ker,” said Jonnie, “what have you been telling those ex-soldiers?”

“Nothing,” said Ker, amber eyes glowing with innocence back of the faceplate. “They’re just kind of hard to handle sometimes.”

“Well,” said Jonnie, “whatever that ‘nothing’ was, you straighten it out.”

“Of course!” said Ker. He turned and yelled up at the group. “It’s all right! He isn’t mad at you right now!”

They all seemed so relieved, Jonnie gave Ker a very suspicious eye. The midget yelled at the Hockner ex-officer to take them to the garage and get busy washing down machines and then turned back to Jonnie. “You had me scared there for a moment,” he said. “I thought you’d really caught up with me.”

“Something else?” said Jonnie.

Ha. Ha. Well, it wasn’t true that he had been the only one here when everybody including the Mountains of the Moon people had taken off for Edinburgh to help. They’d left their old ones and their kids. And he’d gotten bored just sitting with a blast rifle in his lap up the corridor there and he’d found one of the old ones spoke a funny kind of Dutch- that’s an Earth language, or was. And Ker had found a vocoder in the Chinko bin that had had Dutch in it, so he’d amused himself by telling the old one stories to relay to the kids that were always hanging around.

The children had been pretty shy at first, thinking he was a monster and all, so he’d told them that he was really human. That he had a human mother and father. But his mother had been scared by a Psychlo and so when he was born, he looked this way.

But he’d be honest with Jonnie and level with him because he was a boyhood friend and Ker confessed he was only half-human.

“Not to change the subject,” said Ker, doing it, “but I heard you say something about handling a problem. I can’t wash vehicles forever. When are you going to get busy and nail Maz so I can get this mine going again?”

“I’m working on it right now!” said

Jonnie. He looked at his watch. Another hour and a half to go. And then he’d have an idea whether it would fully work or not.

  Perhaps because she had been so weak, it was five hours and Chirk had not stirred.

Jonnie had moved his chair in to the foot of the bed and sat there with an air mask on. Pattie had tried to come in but Jonnie had blocked her until he could find another mask. Breathe-gas could send one into convulsions. So Pattie now sat with her back to the wall, cross-legged on the floor, watching Chirk.

The Psychlo’s breathing seemed to be less shallow, or was he just being hopeful?

No, he wasn’t! Chirk had moved a paw. Very slight, but she had moved it.

After a long time, Chirk let out a fluttering sigh.

She opened her eyes and looked dully about her.

She finally focused on Jonnie. She simply looked at him for quite a while.

Then abruptly Chirk hitched herself up on her elbows and said with some authority, “Jonnie, did you send that library form in like I told you? The home office is going to be pretty cross if it finds you’ve got an incomplete set of books down here!”

Jonnie heaved a sigh of relief. Part of it was for the practical value of this. Part of it was for Chirk herself.

He was about to answer when she caught sight of her arms. Puzzled, she said, “What am I doing so thin?”

She hitched herself up a little higher. “Why am I so weak?”

“You’ll feel stronger when you’ve had something solid to eat. We have some very good goo-food now. And even some chew-roots.”

Her interest was immediate and then faded. “I’ve been here for some time, haven’t l, Jonnie?”

“A while,” said Jonnie.

She thought about it. Then she stiffened. “I’ve had lapsin! It ’s incurable!” She let out a wail.

“It’s cured,” said Jonnie.

She thought about it. Then another upset took her. “But why didn’t they vaporize me? The catrists?”

“I think you’ll get well,” said Jonnie. “In fact, I think you’ll be healthier than before.”

She thought she understood. “You’re sitting there so they won’t come in and vaporize me. Jonnie, that’s brave and I should thank you, but you can’t stop the catrists! They’re the law. They’re beyond any law! They can do anything they please, even to the emperor. Jonnie, you better get out of here before they come.”

Jonnie looked at her for a while. What a world of terror and cruelty these Psychlos had lived in. He said, “I’m sitting here to tell you the news, Chirk. I fired the catrists.” Well, it was true, wasn’t it? Even if he didn’t really know what a catrist was, if they’d been on Psychlo, they were fired. Radioactively.

Chirk sat up higher, shedding the dullness. “Oh, Jonnie, that was awfully nice of you!”

She swung her legs to get off the bed. “Where are my clothes? I better get to work or I’ll have another black mark on my record.” She tried to stand.

“I’d take it easy,” said Jonnie. Then, an inspiration. “It’s your day off.”

She sank down on the bed, shaking with weakness and evidently dizzy.

“Oh, that’s lucky. will it be all right if I come in tomorrow?”

Jonnie assured her that it was. He went out and found the two females, and perhaps because of his reassociation with Ker, he told them he had an order that exempted Chirk

from being vaporized and that if they harmed her he’d dock their pay and put black marks all over their records and they better go get her some goo-food and chew-root and help her take a bath. They did not misunderstand him. Whatever else he said, he had a palm resting on his belt blast gun. They understood that.

- Part XXXII -

     With all the weight hanging on the outcome of this project, Jonnie was in no frame of mind to be told that it would be three days before they could be sure they had succeeded with Chirk. MacKendrick said there were dangers of infection, of relapse. He had to observe the reactions before he could proceed.

In vain Jonnie told him that unless they solved Psychlo math, he might find himself back in a conference room with very angry emissaries whose economies had remained stagnant, that he might be pushed into a new demonstration of force. MacKendrick said it wouldn’t help to rush it.

And Chirk did not instantly rebound. On the second day she was still in bed, too weak and dizzy to get up. It made Jonnie wonder whether the removal would disturb their sense of balance, even their ability to think.

Other things occurred. Pierre Solens had vanished and it took Jonnie hours to find that he had been seen boarding a plane that had come through, sky-hiking his way back to Europe.

Pattie seemed to have undergone a change. Jonnie was sitting in the old library, impatiently thumbing through books, when he became aware of Pattie. She obviously had something to say. He sat quietly, giving her his attention.

“Jonnie, please tell me the truth. Did Bittie live very long?”

It startled Jonnie, hurled him back to that fatal day. A wave of grief choked him. He could only nod faintly.

“Then he could have been saved,” said Pattie, not accusing, just stating a fact.

Jonnie looked at her. He couldn’t talk. Dear God, no! The boy was blasted half in two; his spine was shattered. Nothing could have saved Bittie. Nothing. But he couldn’t say that to her.

“Jonnie, if I had known how to be a doctor and if I had been there, he wouldn’t have died.” She said it as fact, conviction.

He waited. He couldn’t talk.

“When the doctors leave here, I want to go with them,” said Pattie. “I will be very good. I will not bother them. I will go to a school and study real hard and I will learn everything I have to know to be a doctor. Will you help me, Jonnie?”

He couldn’t talk. He put his arms around her. After a while he was able to say, “Of course I will, Pattie. You can stay with Aunt Ellen. I will speak to MacKendrick. I will see you have all the money you need.”

She stepped back, her eyes bright with determination. With dignity she said, “Thank you,” and went away.

After a little, he felt a sense of relief for her. He had thought she would never recover. But she had. There was a direction for her to go and she had found a path to travel on, a path that led out of despair and back to the world of the living.

On the following day he had been down in the electrical shop organizing equipment and needing a reference on molecular gun current values. He raced up to the library to get it.

And there was Chirk!

She was sitting at a desk, surrounded with books. “Jonnie,” she said, a little severely, “you let this place get in an awful mess. You must learn to put things back when you pull them off the shelves!”

He looked at her. Inside her breathe-mask, her jaws were chomping away on chew-root. Her amber eyes seemed totally clear. She had already put on a bit of weight. “The company is very strict about orderly libraries,” she said. “You must remember that.” She went back to getting volumes in order. Her coordination seemed very exact as she stacked things with sure paw motions. The resulting piles were very even. Not even a tremble.

He was about to go tearing off to spread the news.

“Jonnie,” said Chirk, pensively, “I’ve been thinking about mathematics. If you still need me to help you, I’ll try to learn to add and subtract and all that sort of thing. But, Jonnie,” and she fixed him with a very questioning stare, “truthfully, why should any intelligent person want to do mathematics? I mean, what use are they, Jonnie?”

Three minutes later an excited Jonnie was telling MacKendrick they could roll.