Battlefield Earth (26 page)

The village sprawled on the shore of what they said was Loch Shin. It looked temporary, as though the inhabitants could easily pick up belongings and flee to a mountainside. A great many racks stood about with fish drying on them. A few children peeked, afraid, from behind fallen walls. No vast number of people came out to watch the group enter the village, but there was a feeling of eyes watching.

Here too the mist softened the land. The waters of the loch lay placid and extensive in the quiet day.

They put Jonnie in the front chamber of the only whole stone house apparent. It had an inner room, and the old man went in. There was considerable murmuring of voices from in there as Jonnie waited. A scrawny child peeked at him from behind a tattered cloth curtain, its blue eyes intense. He put out a hand toward it to beckon it closer, and it vanished in a flurry of curtain.

There was evidently a back door, and Jonnie heard it open and close several times. The murmuring in the inner room intensified; more people were coming into it from the back.

At length the old man came to Jonnie. “He’ll see you noo,” he said and pointed to the inner chamber.

Jonnie went in. About eight men had assembled and taken seats along the walls. They had spears and clubs beside them or in their hands.

Seated on a large chair against the back wall was a big black-haired, black-bearded power of a man. He had a short skirt that showed the bony knees of strong legs. He wore a pair of white crossbelts, pinned together at the center of the X with a large silver badge. A bonnet sat squarely on his head and he held a large, ancient sword across his knees. Jonnie knew he must be looking at Chief of the Clan, Fearghus.

Fearghus looked about at his council to see that they were all there and alert. He stared at the newcomer.

“A messenger,” said Fearghus, “from whom?”

“Have you had any trouble with the monsters?” said Jonnie.

A shock went through the group.

“I take it you mean the demons,” said Fearghus.

“Would you mind telling me any trouble you have had?” said Jonnie.

This threw them into an uproar. Fearghus held up an imperious hand.

Quiet fell.

“Young man,” said Fearghus, “since you give us no name, as you claim to be a messenger, although you have not said from whom- though I suppose you will tell us in good time-l will do you the courtesy of answering your question.” Jonnie was getting the notes of the accent and followed easily. The Chief talked in his throat and clipped off the words.

“Since the days of the myths,” said Fearghus, “we have had nothing but trouble with the demons. The myths tell us they raised a cloud across the land and all peoples died except a very few. I am sure you know these myths since they are religious and you appear to be a properly, politely, religious man.

“All to the south of us, no men dare live. There is a fortress of the demons five hundred miles to the south and west. And from time to time, they foray out and hunt men. They kill them without reason or compunction.

“At this moment you find us in the fishing village, for the fish are running. We sit here and work at risk. As soon as we have a little food, we will retire further into the Highlands. We have always been a proud people, we of the Clanfearghus. But no one can fight the demons. Now that I have answered you, please continue.”

“I am here,” said Jonnie, “to recruit fifty young, valiant men. They will be taught certain skills and will perform certain tasks. It will be dangerous. Many of them may die. But in the end, should God grant us fortune and we are true to our task, we may defeat the demons and drive them from this world.”

It caused an explosion. The council had withdrawn into themselves at their Chief’s recitation of ancient history and they had been made fearful. But the idea of someone combating the demons was so outrageous they exploded.

Jonnie sat quietly until the Chief thumped the chair arm with his sword hilt. The Chief looked at a council member. “You wished to speak, Angus?”

“Aye. There is another myth, that once long ago when Scots were thousands, a great crusade went south and they were crushed.”

“That was before the demons,” shouted another council member.

“Nobody has ever fought the demons!” yelled another.

A grizzled council member stood forward and the Chief recognized him as Robert the Fox. “I do not deny,” he said, “that it would be worthy cause. We starve in the Highlands. There is little grazing for sheep. We dare not plow and plant crops as our ancestors once did in these rocky glens, for the myths tell us demons fly through the air and have eyes, and some say that the strange metal cylinder that passes overhead on some days is itself a demon.

“But I also tell you,” he continued, “that this stranger, clothed in what I take to be buckskin, signifying a hunter, speaking a strangely accented speech, smiling and courteous and no Argyll, has voiced an idea that in all my long life, I have never heard before. His words cause the mind to flare with sudden vision. That he can propose such a vision of daring and boldness proves that in some way he must be a Scot! I recommend we listen.” He sat down.

Fearghus was musing. “We could not let all our young men go. Some would have to be from the Campbells, some from the Glencannons. But never mind. Stranger, you have not told us either your name or from whom you are a messenger.”

Jonnie braced himself. “I am Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. I am from America.”

There was chatter. Then Robert the Fox said, “Legends say it was a land of the ancients where many Scots went.”

“Then he is a Scot,” said another council member.

The Chief held up his hand to quiet them. “That doesn’t tell us from whom you are a messenger.”

Jonnie looked calm. He didn’t feel calm. “I am a messenger from mankind- before we become extinct forever.”

He saw a flicker of awe in some, a flicker of wonder in others.

The Chief leaned forward again. “But how did you get here?”

“I flew here.”

The Chief and the others digested this. The Chief frowned then. “In these times only the demons can fly. How did you get here from America?”

“I own a demon,” said Jonnie.

     He had to get to Terl before the monster took off and blasted the village. The sun was arcing up perilously close to the deadline: noon.

Jonnie ran uphill on the trail, his heart overworked. Bushes whipped by. Stones rolled under his pounding feet.

It had been a wild night and a hard-worked morning.

The clan Chief had sent runners and riders thundering across the Highlands to summon other Chiefs. They came from far glens and hidden caves of the mountains, bearded, kilted, cautious, and suspicious- enemies, many of them, one to another.

The Chiefs of the MacDougals, Glencannons, Campbells, and many others had come. Even the Chief of the Argylls. A subdued English lord from a group in the lower hills had come. The King of a tiny Norse colony on the east coast had strode in late. It was after midnight when Jonnie could talk to them all.

He leveled with them. He explained that Terl had personal plans of his own, independent of the company, and was using his power to further his own ambitions. He told them that Terl conceived himself to be using Jonnie, and through Jonnie, men, to carry out his project, and that quite possibly

Terl would slaughter the lot of them when he had finished with them.

Jonnie began to realize, as he spoke to the intent faces around the flickering council fire, that he must be dealing with some Scot love of guile. For when he told them he had an outside chance of turning the tables and using Terl, only then did the Chiefs begin to nod and smile and hope.

But when he told them about Chrissie, held as a hostage against his good behavior, and that part of his own plan was to rescue her, he had them. A streak of romanticism, which had survived all their defeats and humblings, welled up in them. While they could agree to a long-shot objective with their minds, they rose to the rescue of Chrissie with their hearts. What does she look like? Black eyes and corn-silk hair. How was she formed? Beautiful and comely. How did she feel? Crushed with despair, hardly daring to hope for rescue. They were angered by the collar, disgusted with the leash, violent about the cage. They shook their chiefly weapons in the flashing firelight and made speeches and quoted legends.

Beacon fires had been set flaming in the hills, their Chiefs signaling a gathering of the clans. They sent their warlike messages until the dawn.

A meadow was the assigned meeting place, and by noon the clans would be there.

Questions and introductions and ceremony had detained Jonnie until after eleven of the morning, and he looked up with a shock to see that he had very little time indeed to get to the plane and stop Terl from committing a folly that would ruin the future.

With a sharp pain in his side from exertion, Jonnie pounded up the steep, twisting trail, swift feet spurning the ground. He hardly dared take time to check the sun. He could not be sure whether Terl was keeping the appointment by a clock or by the heavens. He dreaded any moment to hear ahead of him the roar of the plane taking off for a lethal pass over the village.

More than five miles and all uphill! And over a very bad trail.

Jonnie heard the beginnings of a start-up ahead of him. He was almost there. He burst through the brush at the edge of the plateau. The plane was already beginning to rise.

He yelled, waving his arms, racing forward. If he missed, all his work would be undone.

The plane hovered, feet off the ground, turning toward the village.

Jonnie threw his kill-club the last thirty feet to strike the fuselage and attract attention.

The plane settled back. Jonnie collapsed on the ground, drawing air in loud, hoarse breaths. The roar of the plane turned off and Terl opened the door.

“Did they chase you out?” said Terl into his face mask. “Well, get in, animal, and we’ll go down and carry out a proper plan.”

“No,” said Jonnie as he crawled up into the seat, still panting. His feet were bruised from stones and he inspected them. “It’s all set.”

Terl was derisive. “All night I saw fires burning on the tops of the hills. I was sure they were roasting you for a feast!”

“No,” said Jonnie. “They lit fires to call in candidates for the work group.”

Terl plainly did not see how this could be.

“We have to be very careful,” said Jonnie.

Terl could agree with that.

“They’re going to meet in a meadow about three miles from here.”

“Ah, you got them to get together so we could blast them better.”

“Look, Terl, we can succeed only if we do this exactly right.”

“You sure are wheezing. Tell me the truth, are they chasing you?”

Jonnie threw down a moccasin and it made a loud snap. “Blast it! It ’s all arranged! Only we have to finish it. There will be hundreds in that meadow. I want you to land at the upper edge of it. I’ll show you where. And then you must sit in the door of the plane and do absolutely nothing. Just sit there. I will choose from the candidates. We will get them aboard and leave by tomorrow morning.”

“You’re giving me orders?” shouted Terl.

“That’s how it was arranged.” He was putting his moccasins back on. “You must just sit there in the plane door so you can watch and make sure it all goes well.”

“I understand,” said Terl with a sudden grin. “You have to have me there to frighten them into submission!”

“Exactly,” said Jonnie. “Can we go down there now?”

     There had never been so many together within memory, Robert the Fox said.

Over a thousand Scots, with a few English and some Norsemen, crowded the broad meadow. They had brought some food and drink. They had brought arms- just in case. And they had brought their pipers. The panorama was of colored kilts, ponies, shifting groups of men, and smoke from fires, and over all lay the skirling whine and shriek of bagpipes.

There was a momentary surge back when the plane landed on the little knoll overlooking the meadow. But on Jonnie’s instructions the Chiefs had briefed their people well. And when the huge Terl took his position within the open plane door, there was no unseemly panic. The men left a wide distance between the plane and themselves, however. The obvious fear Terl saw on some of the faces confirmed for him that the animal had been right: he was needed there to overawe them.

Jonnie kept one eye on Terl. He could not be sure that Terl’s sadism would not cause some sort of incident.

Over five hundred young men were part of the throng. Their Chiefs had already talked to them and they gathered now in a central group below Jonnie.

Jonnie sat on a horse lent him by Chief Glencannon so he could be seen by all. He sat the mount easily even though it had a saddle and bridle, things Jonnie had never seen before and that he considered effete for one who never had trouble with horses.

The Chiefs and heads of groups stood with their young men. Outside these groups and at the edge of the crowd stood pipers. A few women, some young, some old, and older men sat on the grass where a knoll side overlooked the scene. A few children raced about, running into legs.

Jonnie began. He already knew they had been briefed. His job was made much easier by a high literacy level among these people. They had not lost the art of reading and writing and they knew a lot of history, mainly their own myths and legends.

“You all know why I am here. I want fifty young men who are able, courageous, and strong, to go on a crusade to rid the world of the demon up there who does not speak or understand our language. When I ask you to look at him and shrink back in fear, please do so.”

“I amna afeered ofnaething!” said one young man.

“Just act so when I ask you to. I will not for a moment believe, and neither will your friends, that you are afraid. All right?”

The young man said it was.

“I feel it is necessary to tell you the character of this demon so you can help me. He is treacherous, vicious, sadistic, and devious. He lies from choice even when the truth will serve. When I point now, cower back and look terrified.”

Jonnie pointed. The crowd, on cue, looked up at Terl in the plane door and cowered back.

Terl grinned behind his face mask. This was more like it.

“The mining company that conquered this planet in ages past has equipment and technology beyond those of man. Planes in the air, machines to drill the earth, gases and guns that can slaughter whole cities. Man has been deprived of his planet by these creatures. The men who volunteer to come with me will learn to use those tools, fly those planes, man those guns!

“Our chances are not in our favor. Many of us may die before this is through.

“Our race is growing fewer in numbers. In coming years we may be gone forever. But even though the odds are against us, at least let it be said that we took this small last chance and tried.”

The crowd went into a raving, excited roar of enthusiasm. The pipes took it up and screamed. Drums pounded.

In to the din, Jonnie shouted, “I want fifty volunteers!”

All volunteered instantly. Not just the five hundred young men but the whole thousand in the meadow.

When he could again be heard above the shrilling pipes and shouting voices, Jonnie announced a series of tests he would give during the afternoon. The Chiefs turned to their people to organize it and Jonnie dropped down from the horse.

“Mon, MacTyler,” cried the grizzled old man who had first captured Jonnie, “ye are a true Scot!”

And Jonnie found, as he assisted in straightening out the turmoil for the tests, that his name had indeed changed to MacTyler. There were even some arguments as to which clan his people had originally belonged to, but it was at length decided that the MacTylers had been distributed evenly among all the clans before they went to America.

The only problem with the tests was in trying to disqualify someone. Jonnie had the young men, one after another, walk a straight line with closed eyes to make sure their sense of balance was good; he made them run a distance to be certain their wind was excellent; he made them look at letters at a distance to make sure their sight was passing. Only a couple of the Norsemen were as tall as Jonnie, but the scattering of black beards and blond beards was about equal. Jonnie assumed that refugees from Scandinavia or the lower countries and even from Ireland had changed their blood over the centuries, but it certainly had not changed the hard-core ethnology of the Highlands, which had held out now against all corners and defeats for thousands of years.

The men got tired of just being examined. Some fights broke out from complaints of losers. And the

Chiefs organized competitions to settle things.

The selections went well into darkness and were finally completed by firelight.

But Jonnie did not wind up with fifty. He finished with eighty-three. For diplomacy, Jonnie requested the Chiefs to select an older man as their representative, one in whom they felt confidence; they chose Robert the

Fox as a veteran of many raids and very learned. So that made fifty-one.

Apparently it would be unseemly not to have pipers, so two of those were chosen, and these claimed they needed a drummer so one of those was selected. This made fifty-four.

Then some old women elbowed themselves to the front and demanded to know who was going to mend torn kilts, scrape hides, dry fish, care for wounded, and cook? and Jonnie found himself with new arguments and elections and five old widows of indeterminate age but universally attested skills. This made fifty-nine.

Since the Chiefs had been told there was a lot of study involved, Jonnie found himself confronting a small but determined schoolmaster who claimed it took an iron rod to make young men, who had appetites only for hunting and women, study. And the Chiefs said he must go too: number sixty.

But the question of death had stirred up a row from three parsons. Who would care for the souls of these young men? And also keep them respectful? There was a further quarrel as to which of the three it would be, and the lucky one drew the long straw. This made sixty-one.

Jonnie had his own plan to take care of. All of those chosen were bright. But he had to have three very bright ones who also came somewhere near his height and build, who could learn Psychlo quickly, and who could at a distance or over poor radio connections look and sound vaguely like him. He found about a dozen and asked the Chiefs, schoolmaster, and parson which of these were quick studies. They named the three. And that made sixty-four.

A scholarly old fellow showed up who lamented the fact that no one would be writing the history that would become legend. It turned out he was the dean of literature of a sort of underground university that had been eking along for centuries, and on the argument that he had two capable replacements for himself in the school and- due to his age and poor health-was expendable anyway, he could not be left behind by the MacTyler. Robert the Fox thought that very necessary, so that made sixty-five.

Eighteen outright, uncontestable ties had shown up in the contests the Chiefs had arranged, and when it looked like blood would be spilled over it, Jonnie gave in. And that made eighty-three.

He woke up Terl, who had been hitting the kerbango pretty heavily since sunset and was lying like a mountain across the plane seats.

“We have eighty-three,” said Jonnie. “The plane takes fifty Psychlos, and eighty-three humans won’t occupy that space or make up that weight. I want to make sure you do not object to eighty-three.”

Terl was foggy and sleepy. “The casualty rate of such a project is high. We have to make it appear that they are just training all winter when they are operating, so the extra numbers are fine. Why’d you wake me up for a silly question like that, animal?” And he went back to sleep. Jonnie had culled another piece of Terl’s project from this. Up to now he hadn’t any real hard data on Terl’s plans. Praise all for kerbango, thought Jonnie as he went off.

He had the historian draw up a roster of the Anguses and Duncans and all their parade of names, and sent them off in the night to hasten pell-mell to their homes and get heavy and light clothing and sleeping blankets, personal gear, and a few days’ worth of food to tide them over until he could round up cattle. They must be back at dawn, and those who didn’t have them borrowed horses, for in some cases it was a long ride both ways.

Jonnie had a final meeting with the Chiefs. “We have caused quite a row up here in the Highlands, and although the local minesite is five hundred miles away, it would be a good thing now for your people to be quiet and undemonstrative for the coming year.”

The English lord thought that was a very good idea. The Chiefs agreed to it.

“There is a distinct possibility,” said Jonnie, “that we will fail. And that I will never see you again and the group will be killed.”

They brushed this off. Brave men always risked death, didn’t they? And they’d not blame MacTyler. The bad thing would be not to try. That would be what couldn’t be forgiven.

In the midnight chill, Jonnie talked to those who had not been chosen, thinking he would leave disappointment there. But he found the Chiefs had already told them that when the mission succeeded they would be a recovery corps in charge of policing and reorganizing England, Scandinavia, Russia, Africa, and China, and they were already scheduling study, training, and organizing to do that at the end of a year. And the non-chosens were wild with enthusiasm.

Fearghus was spokesman as he calmly outlined it to Jonnie. It worked on a clan system, of course.

My god, gaped Jonnie, these Scots thought big!

“Don’t fret, MacTyler. We’re behind ye.”

Jonnie, exhausted, stretched out under the fuselage of the freighter, wrapped in a woolen blanket handwoven in the tartan of Clanfearghus, and fell into a hopeful sleep. For the first time since the death of his father, he did not feel alone.

- Part VII -