Battlefield Earth (70 page)

     It’s a trap!” said Robert the Fox.

     Jonnie had returned. He rapidly told them what Ker had said. He had given orders for the immediate refueling, check-over, and cleaning of Stormalong’s plane to be ready within the hour. He had the copilot who had come with Stormalong in front of him now with Angus standing nearby, and he was comparing the two.

“Can you trust Ker?” demanded Sir Robert.

Jonnie didn’t answer. He was satisfied Angus could be mistaken for the copilot if he darkened his beard, put on a bit of walnut stain, and changed clothes.

“Answer me! I canna think ye’ve got all yer wits!” Robert was so agitated he was pacing back and forth in the underground room Jonnie had been using. He was even lapsing into his colloquial Scot dialect.

“I must go. Now and fast,” Jonnie shot at them.

“No!” said Dunneldeen. “No!” said Robert the Fox.

There was a flurry of translations with his Coordinator and then Colonel Ivan shouted, “Nyet!”

Jonnie had Angus changing clothes with the copilot. “You don’t have to go, Angus,” he said. “You said ‘yes’ too hastily.”

Angus said, “I’ll go. I’ll say my prayers and make my will but I’ll go with you, Jonnie.”

Stormalong was standing there and Jonnie pulled him over to a huge Psychlo mirror and stood beside him. Tropic sun had tanned Jonnie lately: their skin tone difference was not so great now. Stormalong’s beard was a little darker: some walnut stain would fix that. There was the new facial scar, well healed now, that Jonnie had gotten: nothing could be done about that, and he hoped people would think Stormalong had had an accident; yes, wait, he could put a bandage on it. Ah, the square cut of the bottom of the beard: that was what was making the difference. He reached for the tool kit Angus always carried, got out some sharp wire snips, and began to make his beard exactly the same as Stormalong’s. That done, he changed clothes with him. Now a little walnut stain in the beard…good. He looked at himself in the mirror. Ah, yes. The piece of bandage. He got that and put in on. Now? Good. He could pass for Stormalong. The huge, old- fashioned goggles, white scarf, and leather flying coat: yes, they did it. Unless he was looked at too closely or their slight difference in accent was heard….

He made Stormalong talk, then he talked. No Scot burr in Stormalong’s accent. Scot university? A little soft in pronunciation? He tried it. Yes, he could also sound like Stormalong.

The others were very agitated. The big Russian was cracking the knuckles of his huge hands. Bittie MacLeod was peering into the room. He came forward, his eyes bright with pleading.

“No,” said Jonnie. Pride or no pride, this mission had death in it. “You cannot come with me!” Then he softened. “Take good care of Colonel Ivan.”

Bittie swallowed and backed up.

Angus had finished and run out. The clang of cartridges being changed and the whir of a drill sounded from the hangar where they were readying the plane.

Jonnie beckoned to Colonel Ivan. He and his Coordinator came forward. “Get the American underground base closed, Colonel. Every door. So no one can enter but us. Close it so hard they’ll never get into it. Do the same thing with the tactical and nuclear weapons area thirty miles to the north. Seal it. Secure every assault rifle not in use by Scots. Have you got it?”

The colonel had a group there now.

Yes, he got it.

Jonnie beckoned to Dunneldeen and Sir Robert and they kept pace with him as he went toward their commissary. Jonnie, in terse, brief statements, told them exactly what to do to carry on, if he were killed. They were very sober, worried for him. The hairbreadth daring of his plan left an awful lot of room for slip- ups. But they got it. They said they would carry on.

“And Dunneldeen,” concluded Jonnie, “I want you over at the Academy in America in about twenty-four hours, coming in from Scotland to take over the pilot training duties of Stormalong who by then, with luck, will be on ‘other assignment.’

For once Dunneldeen just nodded assent.

The old woman who had come down from the Mountains of the Moon tribe- with her whole family- to run their commissary must have heard rumors in the wind. She had a food package gathered up for two, some gourds full of sweet water, and a big sandwich of roasted African buffalo meat and millet bread, and she stood right there in front of Jonnie until he began eating it.

Sir Robert picked up the food package and Dunneldeen the gourds and they walked past the old Psychlo operations office. There was hammering and drill whirring still coming from the plane area, where Angus was making sure it was all operational. Jonnie picked up a few yards of radio printer paper and glanced at current traffic, looking for any unusual weather in the pilot cross talk.

Well, well! One…two…yes, two mentions of the craft that got as big as the sky. Stories similar to the one Stormalong had told him. The small gray man mentioned in both, India and South America.

“The small gray man gets around,” murmured Jonnie. Dunneldeen and Sir Robert craned around to the printout to see what he was talking about. “Stormalong will tell you,” said Jonnie. Earth certainly was of interest to some other civilization in space. But the small gray man didn’t seem hostile. At least not yet. “Keep this or any other base you go to defended on a twenty-four-hour basis,” said Jonnie.

The whirring and hammering had stopped and they went to the plane. It was being dollied to just inside the open hangar door.

Stormalong was standing there with his copilot. “You stay here,” said Jonnie. “Both of you. You,” he jabbed a finger into Stormalong’s chest, “be me. Go on that same route every day in my clothes and throw rocks. And you,” he pointed a finger at the copilot, a Scot they called Darf, “be Angus!”

“I’m na good at a’ the things bonnie Angus kens!” wailed the copilot.

“You do them,” said Jonnie.

A Russian came running in from outside and told them it was all clear, no drones coming. Not on screens or eyeball. His new English had a colloquial Scotch accent.

Jonnie and Angus got in the plane; Sir Robert and Dunneldeen threw the food and water in. Then they both stood there looking up at Jonnie. They were trying to think of something to say but both of them were unable to talk.

Bittie stood back. He waved a timid hand.

Jonnie shut the plane door. Angus gave him a thumbs-up. Jonnie signaled the dolly crew to shove them out and pushed the heavy starter buttons with his fists. He looked back. The crews and people in the hangar door weren’t waving. Jonnie’s fingers shoved into the console buttons.

Stormalong watched breathlessly in the door. He had known Jonnie was a flier unequaled, but he had never seen a battle plane vault upward so fast and sharply and rush into hypersonic so quickly. The bottom of the broken sound barrier rocketed back at them as it echoed against the African peaks. Or was that the boom of the storm that engulfed the speeding ship?

A roll of thunder and a lightning flash.

The group in the hangar door still stood there, looking at the place where the ship had vanished into the cloud-boiling sky. Their Jonnie was on his way to America fast. They didn’t like it. Not any part of it.

     It was dark when they landed at the old Academy. They had flown close to the North Pole, rolling back the sun and arriving before dawn.

There were few lights. No one had lighted the field for it was not the operational field of the area, and they had slipped in on instruments and viewscreens.

The cadet duty officer was sound asleep and they woke him to get themselves logged in: “Stormalong Stam Stavenger, pilot, and Darf McNulty, copilot, returning from Europe, student battle plane

862905679 18. No troubles, no comments.” The cadet duty officer wrote it down. He didn’t bother to get them to sign it.

Jonnie didn’t know where Stormalong and Darf had been berthed. He had not remembered to find out. Stormalong probably in senior faculty berthing. Darf…? He thought fast. “Darf” was still carrying the overgenerous, heavy food bag and a tool kit. After all, Stormalong was their ace here.

Abruptly Jonnie grabbed the food bag and tool kit and shoved them at the cadet. “Please carry these up to my room for me.” The cadet looked at him oddly. Even Stormalong did his own fetching and carrying in this place. “We’ve been flying for days with no sleep,” said Jonnie, faking a reeling motion.

The cadet shrugged and took the bundles. Jonnie waited for him to lead off and he did.

They arrived at a separate bedroom and went in. Stormalong’s, all right. It had a Norwegian woven picture on one wall. Stormalong had made himself comfortable.

The cadet dropped the food bag and kit on the table and would have left. But although Angus was the one who had put this base together originally and knew it inside out, he wouldn’t have known where Darf was berthed. Hastily Jonnie grabbed half the food and the kit and put them back into the cadet’s arms. “Help Darf get to his room.”

The cadet looked like he was going to protest. “He hurt his arm playing skittles,” said Jonnie.

“Looks like you hurt your face, too, sir,” said the cadet. He was quite sullen at losing his sleep but they went off.

Fine beginning, thought Jonnie. About now Sir Robert definitely would be talking about planning raids right. You plan a raid, he would be saying. One as dangerous as this one might be certainly hadn’t wasted any planning time.

The cadet and Angus didn’t come back and he had to suppose it had been successful. He stripped off his clothes and rolled into Stormalong’s bunk. He forced himself to go to sleep. He would need it.

It seemed like only seconds later that he was alarmed awake with a shake of the shoulder. He sat up suddenly, hand going under the blanket to his blast gun. A face mask. A breathe-mask.

The “hand” was a paw.

“Did you deliver my letter?” whispered Ker.

It was broad daylight. A late-morning sun was streaming in through the discolored glass of the window.

Ker stepped back, looking at him oddly. Then the midget Psychlo catfooted over to the door to be sure it was closed, looked around the room for bugs or other surveillance devices, and came back to the bed where Jonnie had swung his legs down.

Ker guffawed!

“Is it that plain?” said Jonnie, a little cross and smoothing his hair out of his eyes.

“Not to an unobservant idiot,” said Ker. “But to one who had sweated on as many driver’s seats and in as many shafts with you as me, I know you, Jonnie!”

He swatted his paw into Jonnie’s palm. “Welcome to the deep pit, Jonnie…l mean Jonnie logged in as Stormalong! May the ore fly and the carts roll!”

Jonnie had to grin at him. Ker was always such a clown. And in a way he was fond of him. Ker stepped very close. He whispered, “You know you could get yourself squash killed around here. The word trickles out through the cracks in the bunkroom doors- top, high-level bunkrooms. You and me, too, if they trip the latch on us. Caution is the word. You ever have a criminal background? No? Well, you will have when they get through with you. Good thing you’re in the hands of a real criminal, me! Who came with you? Who’s Darf now?”

“Angus MacTavish,” said Jonnie.

“Oho! That’s the best news of the day next to your being here. Angus has a way with the nuts and bolts. I keep track of things. What’s first?”

“First,” said Jonnie, “I get dressed and eat some breakfast. I’m not showing my face in that dining room. Stormalong trained most of these flying cadets.”

“That he did, while I trained the machine operators. You know I’ve been doing a great job on that, Jonnie.” Jonnie was dressing but Ker the chatterbox rattled on.

“This Academy is the most fun I ever had, Jonnie. These cadets…l tell them stories about teaching you and things you did- mostly lies of course and made up to make them do better-and they love it. They know they’re lies. Nobody could blade-scrape thirty nine tons of ore an hour. But you understand. You know me. I love this job. You know, it’s the first time I’ve been really glad I’m a midget. I’m not much taller than they are and I got them- Jonnie, this will kill you unless somebody else does it first- I got them believing I’m half-human.” He had taken a seat on the bed, which sagged under his seven hundred pounds, and now it almost collapsed as he rolled around in laughter. “Ain’t that rich, Jonnie? Half-human, get it?

I tell them my mother was a female Psychlo that raped a Swede!”

Jonnie, in spite of the seriousness of their mission, had to smile. He was getting into Stormalong’s clothes.

Ker had stopped laughing now. He was just sitting there, looking pensive. “You know, Jonnie,” and he sighed so that his breathe-mask valve fluttered and popped, “I think this is the first time in my life I ever had friends.”

Eating a few bites of breakfast and chasing it down with some water, Jonnie said, “First thing you do is go down to the Academy Commandant and tell him you want Stormalong and Darf assigned at once to your special project. I’m sure they gave you authority from upstairs.”

“Oh, I got authority,” said Ker. “I got authority running out of my furry ears. And upstairs is all over me to finish that breathe-gas circulator. But

I told them I needed help and parts from the Cornwall minesite.”

“Good,” said Jonnie. “Tell them Dunneldeen will be over in a couple of days to replace Stormalong in the training schedule. Say you arranged that, too, to keep the school from disruption. Then you get a closed ground car out in front of this building, get ‘Darf’ in it, and come back here and knock on my door and we’re away.”

“Got it, got it, got it,” said Ker as he went rumbling off.

Jonnie checked his blast gun and put it inside his coat. He would know within an hour or two whether Ker was playing this straight. Until then…?