Battlefield Earth (71 page)

     They got to the car without incident beyond a couple of sly cracks from passing cadets such as, “Had a crash, Stormy?” in reference to the bandage, and “Wipe one out, Stormalong? Or was it that lass in Inverness? Or her daddy?”

There was a big package in the car, making seating tight even in Psychlo seats. Ker swept the car out across the rolling plain with the effortless skill of one with years and tens of thousands of hours on a console behind him. Jonnie had not remembered how well Ker drove. Better than Terl on ground cars and machinery. “I told them,” he said, “that it was you two that had gone to fetch the housing needed from Cornwall. I was even seen to unload it from your plane.”

Nothing like having an experienced criminal along, Jonnie commented. It tickled Ker and he cranked up the ground car to a hundred fifty. On this rough plain? Angus had shut his eyes tight as the shrubs and rocks whooshed by.

“And there’s two air masks and bottles I brought,” said Ker. “We’ll claim breathe-gas is leaking in the pipes, not enough for me, too much for you. Put them on.”

They deferred it, however, until they were near the compound. Chinko air masks, cut down to fit a human, were a mite uncomfortable at any time.

Jonnie didn’t care about the speed. He took an instant to glory in the beautiful day. The plains were a bit brown and the snow a trifle less on the peaks at this season. But it was his country. He was tired of rain and humid heat. It was sort of good to be home.

He snapped out of it suddenly as they screeched to a slow in billowing dust on the plateau near the cage. Ker didn’t care where he went in a vehicle. Ker leaned out the window and yelled at the cage, “It came. I don’t think it’s the right housing but we’ll see!”

Terl! There he was, paws on the bars. They had the electricity off.

“Well, speed it up!” roared Terl. “I’m tired of being roasted in this sun. How many days yet, you crap brain?”

“Two, three, no more,” yelled Ker. He shot the vehicle into a perilous reverse and it spun up in the air about seven feet and came down diving toward the other side of the compound to enter the garage doors.

Ker shot in and spun the car down a ramp into a deserted sector and stopped.

“Now we go to his office,” he said.

“Not yet,” said Jonnie, hand on the blast gun inside his coat. “Remember that old closet where they first imprisoned Terl?”

“Yes,” said Ker, doubtfully. “Is it still rigged with breathe-gas?” said Jonnie.

“I guess so,” said Ker.

“First drive by the electronics storeroom and pick up a mineral analysis machine and then drive to that closet.”

Ker was a bit uneasy. “I thought we wanted into his office.”

“We do,” said Jonnie. “But we got a little business first. Don’t be alarmed. The last thing in the world I would want to do is hurt you. Relax. Do what I said.”

Ker revved up and shot the car through the mazes of ramps on its way to do as Jonnie said.

The place had not been much cleaned up since the battle, but hundreds of planes were still there, the thousands of vehicles and mining machines, the dozens of shops for various types of work and hundreds of storerooms-the bric-a-brac as well as the valuables of a thousand years of operation. Jonnie looked at them speculatively- they were wealth for this planet in the way they could be used to rebuild it. And every minesite had huge and similar stores of material. These things should be preserved and cared for- they were irreplaceable, since the factories that had made them were universes away. But plentiful as they were, they would run out and wear out eventually. Another reason to join the community of stellar systems. He doubted that much of this was made on Psychlo: the

Psychlos were exploiters of alien races and terrain; hadn’t they even borrowed their language and technology? Teleportation seemed to be the key to their power. Well, he was working on that.

They drew up before the old closet and Angus struggled in with the mineral analysis machine. Jonnie fiddled with the breathe-gas circulator. They checked their own air masks and shut the door. They told Ker to take his mask off.

Ker, a trifle apprehensive, yet had the presence of mind to pull out a wad of black waste and block the view port.

Jonnie and Angus went right to work. They persuaded Ker to put his head on the mineral analysis plate. He did but he kept rolling his amber eyes up at them sideways as though he thought they were a bit crazy. He recalled the machine’s use on Jonnie and he tried to tell them he had never been shot in the head much.

They worked. Angus had become very expert in adjusting these machines and he twiddled knobs for different depth settings and focuses. Ker was getting a crick in his back bending over and said so. They shushed him. They turned his head in every direction on the plate. At the end of a sweating thirty-five minutes they let him up.

Ker stood there rubbing his neck and trying to get his spine straight again.

Jonnie looked at him. “Tell us about your birth, Ker.”

Ker thought this was a bit mad. He opened his mouth to speak and then glanced at the door. He took a device out of his pocket and plunked it against the area beside the view port. It had a little light sphere on it and would tell them whether anyone was standing outside. Angus checked the intercom set into the panel and turned it off.

“Well,” said Ker, “I was born of wealthy parents-”

“Oh, come on, Ker,” said Jonnie. “Truth, we want the truth, not some fairy tale!”

Ker looked a little offended. He sighed in a martyred fashion. He took out a miniature box-flask of kerbango and chewed off a small piece. He needed that. He hunkered down against the wall and began all over again.

“I was born of wealthy parents on Psychlo,” said Ker. “The father was named Ka. It was a very proud family. His first female gave birth to a litter. Usually a Psychlo litter is four pups, sometimes five. In this case it was six. Well, it often happens that when there’s that many pups, one of them is a runt- not enough space in the female organs or something.

“So anyway, I was the sixth pup and a runt. Not wanting the family disgraced, they threw me out in the garbage, that being the usual treatment for such.

“A family slave, for his own reasons, fished me out and took me away. He was a member of an underground revolutionary organization. There are miles of abandoned mine shafts under the imperial City and slaves escape into them and nobody can keep them policed, so there I was. Maybe that’s why I’m at home in the mines. The slaves were of the Balfan race, blue-colored people. They aren’t exactly ordinary-looking-they can breathe breathe-gas, the Psychlo atmosphere, and don’t have to wear masks and so they can be seen easily in the streets. Maybe they had an idea they needed a Psychlo of their own to plant bombs or something. But anyway, they brought me up and trained me to steal things for them. I could slip in and out of small places, being so small.

“When I was about eight, which is pretty young for a Psychlo, an Imperial Bureau of Investigation agent named Jayed infiltrated the group with what they call agents provocateurs, to provoke them to commit big crimes so they could be arrested. The I.B.I. raided the underground after a while.

“Being small, I got out through an old ventilator shaft. I was hungry after that and just wandering in the streets. So I found a small window in back of a goo-food ship; it was too small to be barred for no normal Psychlo could get in. So I crawled through and tripped an alarm system- a fact that encouraged me later to learn all about such things.”

Ker paused and took another small chew of kerbango. Actually it was a welcome break for him: one can’t handle kerbango wearing a breathe-mask for you can’t spit out the small grainy residue. It was kind of a relief to him as well. He’d never told the story before.

“Anyway,” Ker continued, “they tried me and found me guilty and sentenced me to be branded with the three bars of denial and a century of service in the imperial pits. There I was, eight years old, at hard labor with hard criminals.

“I was too small to fit any of their shackles so they just let me run around and that’s why I haven’t any shackle marks on my ankles. I don’t have to be careful when I take off my boots.

“Because I was foot-loose (ha-ha), the older criminals could use me to carry illegal messages between the chain gangs and cells and they educated me pretty thoroughly in crime.

“When I was about fifteen, there was a plague hit the pits and a lot of guards died, and having no shackles I escaped.

“By this time I knew my business, even though fifteen is pretty young for a Psychlo. Being small, I could get in and out of windows and cubbyholes nobody thought to bar and I collected myself a lot of ready cash.

“I bought false identity papers, bribed an Intergalactic Mining Company personnel clerk, and got myself employed as a shaft man because I could get in and out of small places.

“I served in various systems for the company and have somehow gotten along for the last twenty-five years. I’m only forty-one and a Psychlo lives to be about one hundred ninety, so I got one hundred forty-nine years to go. The immediate problem is how I plan to spend it (ha-ha).”

“Thank you,” said Jonnie. “What leverage does Terl have on you?”

“That ape? None now. He did have, but not now. None. Praise the devils!”

“Were you ever trained in math?” asked Jonnie.

Ker laughed. “No, I’m dummy at it. All I am is a practical engineer- no education but experience…and crime of course.”

“Do you like cruelty, Ker?”

The midget Psychlo hung his head. He looked ashamed in the reflected light from the machine. “As long as I’m being honest, which is a novelty I can tell you, I have to pretend to like cruelty, to get my fun out of hurting things. Otherwise other Psychlos would consider me abnormal! But…no, I don’t like it, I’m sorry to say.” He roused himself. “Say, Jonnie, what’s all this about?”

Angus and Jonnie looked at each other. This Psychlo didn’t have any objects in his head. None at all!

But Jonnie was not going to let go of vital data. Ker didn’t know about such objects and probably very few

Psychlos did. “You’ve got a different skull structure from other Psychlos,” said Jonnie. “You are completely different.”

Ker jerked into alertness. “Is that a fact? Well, well. I often felt there was some difference.” He became pensive. “Psychlos don’t like me. And actually I don’t like them. I’m glad to have the reason.”

Jonnie and Angus were very relieved about their test. They didn’t want Ker attacking them and committing suicide when he realized they were seeking the answer to the riddle of teleportation.

They were just gathering up their gear when the telltale on the door flashed. Somebody was just outside.

     Ker got on his breathe-mask. He tiptoed over to the machine and picked it up, using only one arm. Then he tiptoed over to the door and suddenly swung it open as though walking out.

A wave of breathe-gas burst out of the room.

Lars was standing there, frozen in the act of attaching a listening device to the door. He wore no air mask.

The invisible puff of breathe-gas hit Lars full in the face.

He must have been in the act of taking a breath at that moment for he rose on his toes like someone being strangled.

He gagged. He reeled back. He fought for air. He started to turn blue. In another few seconds he would start into convulsions.

Jonnie and Angus grabbed him, one on each arm, and rushed him back to clearer air. Angus fanned him with a metal plate he’d found on the floor.

Gradually Lars came back to life. The blue tinge faded. But what he said was, “What were you doing in there?” and he said it angrily.

“Now, now, laddie,” said Angus soothingly. “Here we are saving of your life and ye’re making mean sounds. Tch. Tch.”

Lars was looking at Jonnie with a peculiar expression on his face. Jonnie went over to where Ker was rattling the housing around in the car as though he had just put it there.

“It’s all right now,” said Ker. “No cracks or metal faults in the housing. We better go see if it fits.”

They drove off and left Lars lying there, gazing after them with that peculiar look.

“Why’s he looking at me that way?” asked Jonnie.

“You better be careful,” said Ker. “He’s a crazy one. And he’s the Council’s long nose and pry. He’s got some idea that somebody named

Bitter or Hitter was the greatest military leader in your history, and if you stand still for ten seconds he’ll begin on you. It ’s some church. There’s nothing wrong with religion but plenty wrong with what he says. Terl wrecked his wits. But there wasn’t much there in the first place. Ha. Ha.”

“But why that peculiar look at me.” asked Jonnie.

“Natural suspicion,” said Ker. “Say, you know I feel a lot better since talking to you creatures! I sure am glad I’m different.”

They stopped and got out below the top compound level where Terl’s office was. They removed the housing from the car and struggled up the ramp with it.

Just before they went in, Angus stopped them. “Why couldn’t Terl fix this place up himself?”

Ker laughed. “When Jonnie left here he said to spread it that the place was booby-trapped. But that isn’t all of it.” He indicated the door to Terl’s office with a paw wave. “If the Psychlos got out from the dormitory section they could come here and kill anybody working here. Terl’s pretty sure they’d kill him if they got loose. They hate him.”

“Wait,” said Jonnie. “That means Terl will get them killed before he moves in here.” He put a hand on the door latch to the office. “You did debug this place and look for booby traps?”

“Ha. Ha!” said Ker. “I had been tearing this place to bits waiting for you!”

They went in and set the housing down. Indeed the place was a wreck. Wires pulled out, the old breathe-gas circulator scattered in bent pieces on the floor, desks and chairs askew, paper thrown about.

Jonnie looked it over. At once he saw that in Terl’s inner office the whole lower section of the wall to the right of Terl’s desk as he would sit at it was lined with large, locked compartments. “Been into those?” he said.

Ker shook his head. “No keys. A security chief loves his security.”

Jonnie sent Angus out to find a sentry. The cadets were still the guards in this

compound. Ker, with his blanket authority, repeated what Jonnie whispered to him and sent for Chirk.

They got to work sorting out wires and papers and trash and presently three cadet sentries showed up with

Chirk.

She was a long way from the smart-looking secretary of the old days. They had her on three chain links attached to a collar. Her fur was all the wrong way. There was no powder on her nosebone and no polish on her triple-jointed claws. She wore just a cloth thrown around her shoulders, no other clothes.

“Where’s the keys?” said Ker, as prompted.

Keys! Everybody wanted keys! Her voice was punctuated with fang clicks and snaps and hisses. It wasn’t enough Terl brought them all to this and sought to ruin her company record by saying she was disobedient and didn’t follow orders, but she had to be dragged all over- in chains!- just to say what keys now? That day of the battle Terl provoked, everybody had been after the keys, keys, keys. Her company duties-

Jonnie was quietly whispering in Ker’s ear. Ker whispered back, “You trying to start a riot?” But as Jonnie insisted, Ker said loudly to Chirk, “Shut up! Just

because Terl plans to murder all of you down there is no reason to take it out on us!”

Chirk went very still. Through the face mask glass her eyes got very round. The flutter valve of the mask started pumping rather quickly.

Jonnie whispered again and Ker said, “It might or might not make any difference, but when he moves in here and has free reign of this whole compound, he will be furious with you if the keys aren’t found!”

The muscles in the middle of her body where her heart was were twitching and leaping. The flutter valve stopped totally for half a minute. Then started again. “He’s moving in here?” she said so quietly it was hard to hear her though the mask.

“Why else are we fixing it up?” said Ker. Then menacingly, “Where’s the keys to those wall doors?”

Chirk shook her head. “He never let anybody have them. They’re maybe gone!” Was that a sob in her breath?

“Well, take her away,” said Ker gruffly to the guards.

They dragged her off.

“What’s going on here?” demanded Lars, popping up in the door.

“We’re trying to find the access panels to the wiring,” snapped Ker. “It’s all shorted out!”

There were breathe-gas vials scattered around. Jonnie reached behind his back and turned one on. Angus, Ker, and himself were wearing masks.

Ker was reaching in his pocket. He pulled out a handful of items and shoved them at Lars. “This is a dangerous job! I demand a higher bonus! These were in the first wiring recess!”

Lars looked at them. Three were dented bullets that looked like radiation ammunition but weren’t. Another was a bent time fuse of the kind set in small blast holes. The biggest was a wad of malleable explosive compound.

“Somebody has been getting into this office!” said Ker. “After this I want the door locked. I want nobody in or out of here but us and I want you miles away before you kill yourself and get me blamed for it. I know how you work!”

Lars was beginning to cough again from the new breathe-gas coming out of the vial.

“See?” said Ker. “These ducts are still loaded with breathe-gas and it leaks!”

Lars was backing out into the hall, still coughing. He lifted the objects that had been put in his hand. “Are these dangerous?”

“Take them and throw them at your betters and find out!” said Ker. “And if I see you around here again, I’ll tell them you are slowing down this job by issuing orders to take it easy. Get out, go away, stay out, and if I see your face again you will just have to find another expert! Got it? I’ll quit!”

Lars looked at Jonnie in a very peculiar way. But at that moment, from the direction of the distant dormitory three levels down, came some angry howls and snarls. Lars rushed off.

“Did you really find those items in here?” said Angus.

“Of course not,” said Ker. “Shut, lock, and bar those doors out there and let’s get to work. The last place Terl will want to be for now is in this compound. After we’re finished and he’s sent somebody else to see whether they get blown up is the first he’ll want to see of this place.” He listened to the distant howls and roars. “You sure started a riot, Jonnie. Terl will hear that clear out in the cage. That Chirk really told them!”

Jonnie barred and locked the outer doors and then gestured from Angus to the wall cabinet locks and Angus whipped out a small set of picks and went to work on them.

They were in business!

- Part XX -