Battlefield Earth (9 page)

     Jonnie watched the monster.

Thirsty, hungry, and with no hope, he felt adrift in a sea of unknowns.

The thing had come into the cage, its footsteps shaking the earth, and had stood there for some time just looking at him, small glints of light in its amber eyes. Then it had begun to putter around.

Right now it was testing the bars, shaking them, apparently verifying that they were firm. Satisfied, it rumbled all around the perimeter inspecting the dirt.

It stood for a while looking at the sticks it had tried to make Jonnie eat. Jonnie had pushed them as far away as possible since they had a bad, pungent smell. The monster counted them. Aha! It could count.

It spent some time examining the collar and rope. And then it did a very strange thing. It unhooked the rope’s far end from the bar top. Jonnie held his breath. Maybe he could get to his packs.

But the monster now hooked the rope on a nearby bar. He dropped a loop over the bar indifferently and then moved off to the door.

It spent some time at the door, rewinding the wires that kept it closed, and did not seem to notice that when it turned its back on the door, one of the wires sprang free.

The monster rumbled off toward the compound and disappeared.

Lightheaded with thirst and hunger, Jonnie felt he was having delusions. He was afraid to hope. But there it was: the rope could be removed, and the gate fastening might be loose enough to open.

He made very sure the monster was really gone.

Then he acted.

With a flip of the rope he got the far end off the bar.

Hastily he wrapped the length around his body to get it out of his way and tucked the end into his belt.

He dove for his packs.

With shaking hands he ripped them open. Some of his hope died. The water bladder had burst, probably from the earlier impact, and there was only dampness there. The pork, wrapped in hide that retained the sun’s heat, was very spoiled, and he knew better than to eat it.

He looked at the door. He would try.

Grabbing a kill-club and rope from the pack and checking his belt pouch for flints, Jonnie crept to the door.

No sign of the monster.

The wires of the fastening were awfully big. But age had weakened them. Even so they tore and bruised his hands as he feverishly sought to open them.

Then they were open!

He pushed against the door.

In seconds he was sprinting through the shrubs and gullies to the northwest.

Keeping low, taking advantage of every bit of cover so as to remain hidden from the compound, he nevertheless went fast.

He had to find water. His tongue was swollen, his lips cracked.

He had to find food. He felt the lightheaded unreality that came with the beginnings of starvation.

Then he had to get back to the mountains. He had to stop Chrissie.

Jonnie went a mile. He examined his backtrail. Nothing. He listened. No sound of the insect, no feel of monster feet shaking the earth.

He ran two miles. He stopped and listened again. Still nothing. Hope flared within him.

Ahead he could see greenery, a patch jutting out of a gully, a sign of water.

His breath hoarse and rattling in his chest, he made the edge of the gully.

No scene could be more heartwarming. A speck of blue and white. The cheerful burble of a small brook running through the trees.

Jonnie lunged forward and a moment later plunged his head into the incalculably precious water.

He knew better than to drink too much. He just kept rinsing his mouth. For minutes he plunged his head and chest in and out of the stream, letting the water soak in.

Gone was the taste of that terrible gooey stick. The freshness and cleanness of the brook were almost as joyful as its wetness.

He drank a few cautious swallows and then sank back, catching his breath. The day looked brighter.

The backtrail was still quiet. The monster might not discover he was gone for hours. Hope surged again.

Far off to the northwest, just a little bit above the curve of the plain, were the mountains. Home.

Jonnie looked around him. There was an old rickety shack on the other side of the stream bed, the roof sunk down to its foundation.

Food was his concern now.

He took more swallows of water and stood up. He hefted his kill-club and walked through the stream toward the ancient shack.

While running, he had seen no game.

Perhaps it was cleared out in the vicinity of the compound. But he didn’t need big game. A rabbit would do. He had better take care of this fast and keep going.

Something moved in the shack. He crept forward, silent.

In a scurry several big rats raced out of the shack. Jonnie had started his throw and then stopped. Only in the dreariest of a starving winter would one eat rats.

But he had no time and he saw no rabbits.

He picked up a rock and threw it against the shack. Two more rats streamed out and he threw his kill-club straight and true.

A moment later he was holding a dead rat in his hand, a big one.

Did he dare light a fire? No, no time for that. Raw rat? Ugh.

He took a piece of the sharp, clear stuff from his pouch and stepped back to the stream. He cleaned and washed the rat.

Hunger or no hunger, it took some doing to bite into the raw rat meat. Almost gagging, he chewed and swallowed. Well, it was food.

He ate very slowly so that he wouldn’t get any sicker than he felt at eating raw rat.

Then he drank some more water.

He wrapped a last piece of the rat in a scrap of hide and put it in his pouch. He kicked some sand over the debris he had left.

He stood up straight and looked at the distant mountains. He took a deep breath, bracing himself to start again on his run.

There was a low whistle in the air and something fell over him.

He rolled.

It was a net.

He couldn’t get free.

The more he tried to get out of it, the more tangled up he became. He stared wildly around. Through an opening he saw the truth.

The monster, without haste, was moving forward out of the trees, taking in the slack of the rope to which the net was attached.

The thing exhibited no emotion. It moved as though it had all the time in the world.

It wrapped Jonnie up in the net and tucked the whole bundle under its arm and then began to rumble along back toward the compound.

Terl, fiddling with forms at his desk, felt very cheerful.

Things were working out fine, just fine. Security techniques were always best. Always. He now knew exactly what he had wanted to know: the thing drank water and drank it by plunging its head and shoulders into a stream or pond. And more importantly, it ate raw rat.

This made things very easy. If there was any animal available near the compound, it was rat.

He guessed he could teach the old Chinkos a thing or two. It was elementary to let the man-thing loose and elementary to keep him under surveillance with a flying scope. It was, of course, a little trying to be out in the open wearing a breathe-mask and yet make speed over the ground. That man-thing didn’t run very fast compared to a Psychlo, but it had been a bit of an exertion. It was hard to exert oneself while wearing a breathe-mask.

But he hadn’t lost his skill in casting nets, old-fashioned though it might be. He hadn’t wanted to use a stun gun again: the thing seemed frail and went into convulsions.

Well, he was learning.

He began to wonder how many raw rats a day the thing had to consume. But he could find that out easily.

He looked with boredom at the report before him. The lost tractor had been found along with its Psychlo driver at the bottom of a two-mile-deep mine shaft. They ate up a lot of personnel these days. There’d be a yowl from the main office about replacement costs. Then he cheered up. This fitted very well into his plans.

He checked around to make sure he had no more work to do and put his desk in order for the end of day.

Terl went over to a cabinet and took out the smallest blast gun he could find. He put a charge cartridge in it and set it to minimum power.

He took some rags and cleaned up his face mask and put a new cartridge in it.

Then he went outside.

Not a hundred yards north of the compound he saw his first rat. With the accuracy that had won him an honored place on his school shoot team, even though the thing was in streaking motion, he blew its head off.

Fifty feet farther, another rat leaped out of a culvert and he decapitated it in midair. He paced off the distance. Forty-two Psychlo paces. No, he hadn’t lost his touch. Silly things to be hunting, but it still took a master’s touch.

Two. That would be good enough to start with.

Terl looked around at the hateful day. Yellow, blue, and green. Well, he’d get quit of this.

Feeling very cheerful, he rumbled up the hill to the old zoo.

His mouthbones stretched in a grin. There was the man-thing crouched down at the far side of the cage, glaring at him. Glaring at him? Yes, it was true. It was the first time Terl had noticed it had emotions.

And what else had it been doing?

It had gotten to the packs- he remembered the thing clutching at them when he had returned it to the cage yesterday- and it was now sitting on them. It had been doing something else. It had been looking down at a couple of books. Books? Now where the crap nebula had it gotten books? Didn’t seem possible it could have gotten into the old Chinko quarters. The collar, the rope were all secure. He’d investigate that in due course. The thing was still here, which was what was important.

Terl advanced, smiling behind his mask. He held up the two dead rats and then tossed them to the man-thing.

It didn’t jump hungrily at them. It seemed to withdraw. Well, gratitude wasn’t something you found in animals. No matter. Terl wasn’t after gratitude from this thing.

Terl went over to the old cement bear pool. It didn’t seem to be cracked. He traced the piping. The piping seemed to be all right.

He went outside the cage and fumbled around in the undergrowth, looking for the valves, and finally found one. He turned it. Hard to do with a valve that old. He was afraid his great strength would just twist the top off.

From the nearby garage he got some penetrating oil and went back and worked the valve over. Finally he got it open. Nothing happened.

Terl traced the old water system to a tank the Chinkos had built. He shook his head over the crudity of it. It had a pump but the charge cartridge was long expended. He freed up the pump and put a new cartridge in it. Intergalactic was never one for innovations, thank the stars. The cartridges the pump needed were the same ones still in use.

He got the pump whirring but no water came. Finally he found the pond. The old pipe was simply not in the water, so with one stamp of his boot he put it back in.

Up at the tank the water began to run in. And down in the cage the pool began to fill swiftly. Terl grinned to himself. A mining man could always handle fluids. And here too he hadn’t lost his touch.

He went back into the cage. The big center pool was filling rapidly. It was muddy and swirling since it had been full of sand. But it was wet water!

The pool filled up to the top and slopped over, spilling across the floor of the cage.

The man-thing was hastily picking up its things and jamming them into the bars to escape the inundation.

Terl went back outside and shut off the valve. He let the tank on the hill fill and then shut that off.

The cage was practically awash. But the water was draining off through the bars. Good enough.

Terl slopped over to the man-thing. It was clinging to the bars to keep out of the water. It had the hides way up, jammed over the cross braces. To keep them dry?

It was holding on to the books with one hand.

Terl looked around. Everything was in order now. So he had better look into these books.

He started to take them out of its hand but it held on. With some impatience, Terl smashed at its wrist and caught the two books as they fell.

They were man-books.

Puzzled, Terl leafed through them. Now where could this thing have picked up man-books? He drew his eyebones together, thinking.

Ah, the Chinko guidebook! There had been a library in that town. Well, maybe this animal had lived in that town.

But books? This was better and better. Maybe, like the Chinkos had said, these animals could grasp meaning. Terl could not read the man-characters but they obviously were readable.

This first one here must be a child’s primer. The other one was some kind of child’s story. Beginner books.

The animal was looking stoically away in another direction. It was useless, of course, to try to talk to it-

Terl halted his thought in mid-blink. Better and better for his plans! It had been talking! He remembered now. What he had thought were growls and squawks like you get from any animal had been reminiscent of words!

And here were books!

He made the thing look at him by turning its head. Terl pointed to the book and then at the thing’s head.

It gave no sign of understanding.

Terl pushed the book up close to its face and pointed at its mouth. No sign of recognition occurred in the eyes.

It either wasn’t going to read or it couldn’t read.

He experimented some more. If these things could actually talk and read, then his plans were sure winners. He turned the pages in front of its face. No, no sign of recognition.

But it had books in its possession. It had books, but it couldn’t read. Maybe it had them for the pictures. Ah, success. Terl showed it a picture of a bee and there was a flicker of interest and recognition. He showed it the picture of the fox and again that flick of recognition. He took the other book with pages of solid print. No sign of recognition.

Got it. He put the small books in his breast pocket.

Terl knew what to do. He knew every piece of everything in the old Chinko quarters and that included man-language discs. They had never written up what man ate but they had gone to enormous trouble with man-language. Typically Chinko. Miss the essentials and soar off into the stratosphere.

He knew tomorrow’s program. Better and better.

Terl checked the collar, checked the rope, securely locked up the cage, and left.