Battlefield Earth Part 66

Jonnie set it down with a lightness that wouldn't have cracked an eggsh.e.l.l. Thank heavens none of that huge mob of people had gotten onto the alert strip before he did, for now they were flooding over toward them, brown skins, black skins, silk jackets, ragged homespun, women, men...what an awful lot of people!

He opened the plane door and put the first and fourth fingers of his left hand in his mouth and blew a piercing whistle. Above the babble his trained ear heard what it wanted to hear: hoofs! And there came Windsplitter.

Jonnie got out of the security belts and before anyone could interfere slid to the ground- a trick seeing as these Psychlo planes had high c.o.c.kpits. His right arm got in the way and he shoved the hand in his belt.

Windsplitter was nickering and bouncing about, glad to see him, and almost knocked him down with a tossing nose.

"Let's see the leg," said Jonnie, kneeling and trying to get hold of the left front hock that had seemed injured in the run down the cliff. But Windsplitter thought he was trying to do a trick Jonnie had taught him- to shake hands- and almost reprovingly he hefted his right hoof and offered it, succeeding only in practically knocking Jonnie flat. Jonnie laughed.

"You're all right," and shook the offered hoof.

Jonnie had worked out how he could mount. If he sprang up belly down and threw his left leg over fast he would make it. He did. Success! He didn't need all this help.

Now to ride around and find the confounded Chamcos. And find out about the delay in this transs.h.i.+pment rig.

But people were pressing around his horse. Black faces, brown faces, tan faces, white faces. Hands touching his moccasins, hands trying to give him things. And all talking at once.

He felt a twinge of guilt. Smiling faces, welcoming faces. It put a trifle of a blot on his day. If these people only realized it, he might very well be a total failure. And those lovely skies up there might soon go gray with death.

His lips tightened. He had better get about his business. Adulation was, if anything, a little embarra.s.sing, particularly as he strongly felt he might not have earned it.

More hoofs. The voice of Colonel Ivan barking Russian at somebody. Leading six horses at a dead run, another Russian sprinted up. A barked command and Colonel Ivan and four Russians mounted up and Robert the Fox was mounting. There must have been a Russian and horses waiting at the compound.

The two kilted Scots pushed their way through the crowd to either side of Windsplitter's head and began to gently part the throng so Jonnie could get going. There must be fifty people there now!

Just as he thought he was going to get moving, a small boy in a kilt elbowed his barefoot way to Windsplitter's head and dropped a lead rope on it. His piping voice came out of the hubbub: "I am Bittie MacLeod. Dunneldeen said I could come and be your page and I am here, Sir Jonnie!" The accent was thick but the determination and confidence brooked no rebuke. The small boy started leading Windsplitter toward the compound.

Even though Windsplitter guided only with a heel and other signals, Jonnie didn't have the heart to say no.

Behind him came five Russians with long poles- lances?- in their stirrups, pennons on the poles, a.s.sault rifles across their backs. A Ilanero dashed up on a horse and took position with them. A squad of Swedish soldiers rushed into view from the compound and presented arms. Workers were coming out of the compound. A big pa.s.senger plane came into the landing area and thirty Tibetans on a pilgrimage to the compound spilled out and joined the mob. Two flatbeds roared up to the fringes and about forty people from the city just to the north tumbled off. Another flatbed tore up from the Academy.

Jonnie, his horse walking dead slow behind Bittie MacLeod, looked over this joyous mob. They were shouting and waving at him and cheering. He had never seen so many people since the gathering of Scotland. There must be three hundred here!

White hands, black hands with pink palms, yellow hands; blue jackets, orange dresses, gray coats; straight blonde hair, brown hair, fuzzy black hair; languages, languages, languages: all saying, "h.e.l.lo Jonnie!"

He looked up apprehensively at the bright blue sky. For an instant he was startled by a drone...no, it was a recon drone; they had a lot of them constantly patrolling, watchful for any invader.

The voices were a continuous roar. A woman was pus.h.i.+ng something into his hand- a bouquet of wildflowers-and she was shouting, "For Chrissie!" He nodded to thank her and didn't know what to do with them, so he put them in his belt.

The people of Earth, their hopes kindled, could rise and be alive again.

He felt more guilty than ever. They didn't know he might have failed. Aside from not enjoying adulation, he also felt he certainly didn't deserve it, not all this.

Robert the Fox had worked his horse up beside him. He saw that Jonnie was troubled. Robert didn't want the first day out spoiled. "Wave to them a bit, laddie. Just raise your left hand and nod."

Jonnie did and the crowd went wild.

They had been working their way up the hill toward the old c.h.i.n.ko quarters. There was the morgue over there. There was the dome behind which Terl used to have his quarters and where so often he had stood out the night....

Jonnie stared. There was Terl in a cage with a collar on. Terl was capering and leaping about. A vague unease took Jonnie and he persuaded the Scot boy to lead him over toward it.

Chapter 4.

There was plenty of time. His business with the Chamco brothers was important but a few minutes would make no difference. He had certainly better see whether he could find out what Terl was up to.

The size of the throng was growing. The bulk of the trainees at the Academy, when they heard Jonnie had appeared at the compound, demanded a few hours off instantly, and the school master, understanding but unable to do anything about it anyway, had let them off and here they were in a swarm. More people were in from New Denver. All work had stopped and machines were now deserted in the underground shops at the compound. Several Council members appeared on the outskirts of the crowd. They included Brown Limper Staffor, chief of this continent. More than six hundred people were now there. The din was nearly deafening.

Terl saw the animal coming toward the cage and capered more violently.

Jonnie saw the area was not much changed or damaged by the battle. The geysering water had cut a few furrows on the plateau in its runoff; a bar or two of the cage was nicked by bullets; water had tended to wash the cage clean rather than damage it. He looked up to the connector box on the pole and saw it had not been changed: the bars were electrically charged in the same way, by the same cables. Someone had put a barrier of mine fencing so people could not reach the bars. Yes, it was much the same cage except that green gra.s.s grew in tufts around the perimeter.

His attention came away from the crowd. How many months had he been inside looking out, and how many nights had he stood outside looking in. A lot of nightmare was mixed up in that.

He wanted to question Terl. He flinched from talking through those bars again. A normal voice volume could not reach anywhere in this hubbub and he was not about to sit here shouting. He caught the eye of a sentry and beckoned him over. But instead of the sentry coming, the Compound Commander pushed through to him.

Jonnie saw that the man was an Argyll by his kilt. He leaned over to him to be heard: "Would you please turn off the electricity up there and have a guard open the door of the cage?"

"What?" exclaimed the Compound Commander in astonishment.

Jonnie thought he might not have heard and repeated his request. Then he saw the man was refusing. There was always a little friction between the Argylls and the Clanfearghus-indeed it had often erupted in clan warfare, and he recalled that only his visit to Scotland had interrupted the last war. Jonnie was not going to argue with the man. And he wasn't going to yell at Terl through bars.

Robert the Fox looked at Terl, the cage, the Argyll, the crowd and the connector box on the pole. He reached out to check Jonnie. But Jonnie had already leaned forward and swung off his horse. Colonel Ivan breasted some people aside and thrust the k.n.o.bkerrie into Jonnie's hand.

Hobbling, Jonnie made his way to the exterior pole switch and pulled it open, having to balance against the pole to free his hand. It popped an electric spark as the bus bar opened. The crowd parted for him when they saw in which direction he was trying to walk. Suddenly they became very quiet, the silence starting from where Jonnie was and going out like a wave to the very outskirts.

The cage sentry had not left his post in all this hubbub. He carried the door keys in his belt. Jonnie pulled the keys out of the guard's belt.

There was a ripple of excited questioning from people and then tense silence.

Terl took the opportunity to roar ferociously.

The Compound Commander started to rush forward but found himself halted by the huge hand of Colonel Ivan who had simply leaned down from his horse. The colonel wanted no extra bodies in a field of fire. The other Cossacks fanned out abruptly: there was the sharp clatter of a.s.sault rifle bolts being c.o.c.ked, and four rifles were leveled at Terl in the cage. Some Scots sprinted to the roofs of the old c.h.i.n.ko quarters and the rush of running feet was replaced by the snicks of rifles being c.o.c.ked and leveled on Terl.

The crowd surged back away from the barriers.

Jonnie heard the rifle bolts. He turned, speaking in a normal voice for it was now quiet except for the roaring of Terl, "A bullet could ricochet off these bars and go into the crowd so please put your guns up." He loosened the blast pistol in the holster and then as an afterthought checked to see that it was c.o.c.ked and on "Stun" and "No Flame." But he was convinced he was in no danger. Terl had a collar on and was chained, and while it wouldn't be wise to get within physical reach of him, the only thing Terl would try would be some antic from the apparent mood he was in.

The door lock worked more easily than it used to. Someone must have oiled it. He opened it. There was an intake of breath from the crowd. Jonnie's attention was not for the crowd.

Terl roared.

"Quit clowning, Terl," said Jonnie.

Terl promptly did and hunkered down against the back wall, his amber eyes evilly amused. "Well, h.e.l.lo, animal."

The parson's voice rapped out from somewhere in the crowd: "He is not an animal!" Jonnie hadn't realized the parson spoke Psychlo.

"I see," said Terl to Jonnie, "that somebody clawed you up. Oh, well, it happens when one is stupid. How'd it happen, rat brain?"

"Be civil, Terl. What do you think you are doing in this cage?"

"Oh, that c.h.i.n.ko accent!" said Terl. "Try as I would, I could never make you into a polished, literate being. Very well, if it's courtesy you want and as you speak c.h.i.n.ko, why, forgive this ignorant intrusion of speech into your lordly earbones-'

He was going to go on with a string of the old c.h.i.n.ko abas.e.m.e.nts. Then he laughed viciously.

"Answer the questions, Terl."

"Why, I'm ," and he said a Psychlo word Jonnie had never heard before.

Jonnie had had another purpose in coming in here. He wanted to see what Terl may have set up that somebody else had missed. He hobbled around the cage, staying wide of Terl and keeping part of an eye on him. He looked at the inside walls below the bars, looked into the pool. Terl had a small pile of things wrapped in a tarpaulin. Jonnie motioned with his left hand for Terl to back up and went over to the loose package. He knelt and flipped it open.

There was a garment in there, no more than a wraparound- Terl was wearing another one now and was otherwise naked. There was a bent kerbango saucepan with a hole in it and no kerbango. And a Psychlo dictionary! What on earth would the very educated Terl-in Psychlo at least- be doing with a Psychlo dictionary?

Jonnie backed up out of the reach of the chain. What was the word Terl had just used? Ah, there it was: "Repenting: the action of being sorrowful or self-reproachful for what one has done or failed to do; a word adopted from the Hockner language and said to be actually experienced by some alien races."

"Repenting?" said Jonnie. "You?" It was his turn to laugh.

"Didn't I put you in a cage? Don't you realize that it could give one feelings of---?"

Jonnie looked that word up: "Guilt: the painful feeling of self-reproach resulting from a conviction one had done something wrong or immoral; adopted from the c.h.i.n.ko language and useful to political officers in degrading individuals of subject races; said by Professor Halz to factually exist as an emotion in some aliens." He popped the book shut.

"You must have some, too, animal. After all, I was like a father to you and you labored day and night to shatter my future. In fact, I clearly suspect that you just used me so you could betray me-'

"Like the exploding truck," said Jonnie.

"What exploding truck?"

"The delivery flatbed," said Jonnie patiently.

"Oh, I thought you meant that blade sc.r.a.per you got yourself trapped in, the one that blew up out there on the plateau. You animals are always hard on machinery!" He sighed.

"So here I am, the--- subject of your revenge."

Jonnie didn't bother to look up the word. He knew it would be another one no Psychlo would ever use. "I didn't order you in this cage or into that collar, you did. By rights I should ask them to put you back in the dormitory level. Capering around here, half-naked-'

"I don't think you will," said Terl evilly. "Why did you come down here today?"

It was better not to talk too much to Terl, but if he didn't he couldn't get him to leak data. "I came down to ask the Chamco brothers about the delay on the transs.h.i.+pment rig."

"I rather thought you must have," said Terl. He seemed indifferent. He heaved out a long sigh into his breathe-mask and stood up.

The crowd outside drew back with a frightened mutter. The monster was almost four feet taller than Jonnie. Claws, fangs visible through its mask...

"Animal," said Terl, "in spite of past difference, I think I should tell you one thing. You will be coming to me for help soon. And as I am and ," two more words Jonnie wouldn't bother to look up, "I probably will be stupid enough to help you. So just remember, animal. When it gets too difficult, come to see Terl. After all, weren't we always shaftmates?"

Jonnie let out a bark of laughter. This was simply too much! He threw the dictionary over on the tarpaulin, and leaning heavily on his k.n.o.bkerrie, back to Terl, he walked out of the cage.

The moment he had closed and locked the door, Terl let out a dreadful roar and began prancing about beating his chest.

Jonnie threw the keys to the guard and went over and turned the electricity back on. He was still laughing to himself as he hobbled toward Windsplitter. The crowd was way back, making sounds of relief.

Not everyone was way back. Brown Limper Staffor was between Jonnie and the horse. Jonnie recognized him and was about to greet him. Then Jonnie stopped. He had never before seen such naked, malevolent hatred on anyone's face.

"I see there are two cripples now!" said Brown Limper Staffor. He abruptly turned his back on Jonnie and limped off, his clubfoot dragging.

Chapter 5.

There were people there who would be telling their great-grandchildren that they personally had been present when the Jonnie had gone into that cage, and who would gain no small importance and notoriety because of it.

Jonnie was on Windsplitter again, walking the horse toward the small isolated dome erected to house the Chamco brothers.

"That was not well done," said Robert the Fox, close beside Jonnie. "Don't scare these people like that." He himself had been worried stiff.

"I didn't come over to see the people," said Jonnie. "I came over to see the Chamcos and I'm on my way right now."

"You have to think of your public presence," said Robert the Fox, gently. "That frightened them." This might be Jonnie's first day out and Robert might want it to be a good day for him, but that visit to Terl had been hair-raising. "You're a symbol now," he continued.

Jonnie turned toward him. He was very fond of Sir Robert. But he couldn't conceive of himself as a symbol. "I'm just Jonnie Goodboy Tyler." He suddenly laughed in a kindly way, "That is to say, MacTyler MacTyler!"

Any concern Sir Robert had felt melted. What could you do with this laddie? He was glad the day seemed a happy one again to Jonnie.

The crowd was much more subdued but it was following. Colonel Ivan had gotten over his fright and had his lance-carrying Cossacks in formation. Bittie MacLeod had successfully swallowed his heart and was leading in the direction Windsplitter seemed to be pointing him. The Argyll in command of the compound sneaked a quick and needed one from a flask and was handing it to his second in command.

Jonnie sized up the separate dome ahead. Well, they had done very well by the Chamco brothers. They had salvaged a dome canopy from some mine shafts not now working. It had been raised on a concrete circle. It s atmosphere lock was one of the better ones- a transparent revolving door to keep the breathe-gas in and the air out. There was a separate breathe-gas tank and pump. The transparent dome had shades and they were open now despite the sun's heat-Psychlos didn't seem to care much about heat and cold. Here the Chamcos were busy with plans and suggestions in return for pay- that could be paid now in cash thanks to Ker's discovery of Galactic credits.

Jonnie knew them from his training days around the minesite. They were top-grade design and planning engineers, graduates of all the accepted Psychlo and company schools. By report they were extremely cooperative and even polite- as polite as a Psychlo ever could be, which was not much. Their idea of politeness was a one-way flow- at them.

They could be seen in there now, working at two big upholstered desks, flanked by drawing boards. There was an intercom of the usual type so one could stand outside and talk to those inside without going through the lock. But Jonnie could not imagine trying to talk technical matters through one of those intercoms.

Colonel Ivan must have read his mind. He pushed forward and said in his limited English, "You go in there?"

Then he looked around wildly for a Coordinator who spoke Russian.