It gave Jonnie new data, but not what Ker thought. Terl was covering his tracks. This was Terl’s project. It made him uneasy.
“This stuff,” said Ker, with a backward jerk of his head, “is supposed to be practice equipment. But for who? It’s perfectly good mining equipment. Hold on, we’re going to land.” He punched the console buttons and the freighter crept down and landed easily and level.
Ker put on his face mask. “Another funny thing. There’s no supply of breathe-gas with any of this stuff. Just what was left in their tanks. You’re the only one I know that can operate these machines without breathe-gas in the canopies. You going to operate all these machines?” He laughed. “It’d sure run your butt off! Let’s unload.”
They spent the next hour lining the machines up in an open field near the largest building. There were drillers and flying platforms, cable reelers, ore netters, blade scrapers and a single transport truck. With the items brought in earlier loads there were over thirty machines now.
“Let’s prowl,” said Ker. “We been fast. What’s in this big building?”
It consisted only of rooms, rooms and rooms. Each with bunks and lockers. There were what may have been washrooms. Ker was prowling for loot. But broken windows and wind and snow had not left much. Dust and indistinguishable debris were thick.
“Already been prowled,” was Ker’s finding. “Let’s look elsewhere.”
Ker clumped through the entrance of another building. Jonnie saw that it had been a library, but without Chinko protection it was mainly litter. A thousand years of cockroaches had dined on paper.
A queer, broken structure that once had had seventeen points—Jonnie counted them—seemed to have been some kind of a monument. Ker entered a door that was no longer there. A cross was still hanging on a wall.
“What’s that thing?” said Ker.
Jonnie knew it was a church cross. He said so.
“Funny thing to have in a defense base,” said Ker. “You know, I don’t think this was a defense base. More like a school.”
Jonnie looked at Ker. The midget Psychlo might be thought dimwitted, but he was dead on the mark. Jonnie did not tell him there were signs all over the place that said United States Air Force Academy.
They wandered back to the freighter. “I bet we’re establishing a school,” said Ker. “I bet that’s what it is we’re doing. But who’s going to be taught? Not Psychlos with no breathe-gas, that’s for sure. Put up the ramps, Jonnie, and we’ll get out of here.”
Jonnie did, but he didn’t climb up to the cockpit. He looked around for water and firewood. He had an idea he’d be camping out here. Yes, there was a stream coming down from a nearby snow-capped peak. And there was plenty of firewood in the trees.
He walked out and looked at the trench where the last battle had been fought against the Psychlos. The grass was tall and waving in a lonesome-sounding wind.
He climbed to the freighter cockpit, deeply troubled.
6
At evening when he opened the cage, Terl sounded excited. “Tell your horses and females goodbye, animal. Tomorrow at dawn we’re going on a long trip.”
Jonnie stopped with his arms full of the firewood he had been taking in. “How long?”
“Five days, a week. It depends,” said Terl. “Why do you want to know?”
“I have to leave them food . . . a lot of things.”
“Oh,” said Terl indifferently. “Am I going to have to stand here and wait?” He made up his own mind. He locked up the cage again and turned on the juice. “I’ll come back later.” He rumbled off hurriedly.
Well, here it goes, Jonnie told himself. What devilry was going to take place now?
Fortunately, that day he had gotten a fat young bull. He swiftly went about his work. He quartered it and rolled up two quarters in the hide, putting it outside the door.
“Chrissie!” he called. “Put me together enough smoked meat for a week. Also think about what you’ll need for that time.”
“You’re leaving?” Was there a trace of panic in Chrissie’s voice?
“Just for a little while.”
Both girls looked apprehensive. They seemed so forlorn in there. Jonnie cursed to himself. “I’ll be sure to come back,” he said. “Get busy with the food.”
He inspected Blodgett’s wound. Blodgett could walk now, but torn muscles had ended her running days.
The grazing problem for the horses was a little rough. He did not want to turn them loose, but he couldn’t stake them to a week’s grazing all in one spot. He finally settled it by letting them loose but instructing Pattie to call them to the barrier a couple of times a day to talk to them. Pattie promised she would.
He prepared a belt pouch with flint and tinder, cutting glass, and a few odds and ends. He folded up a complete suit of buckskins. He made a pack of these and two kill-clubs.
When Terl came back later in the evening and opened the cage door, Jonnie rapidly moved in what Chrissie would need. She could smoke beef and work with hides. It would keep them busy. He took the packet she had prepared.
“You will be all right, Jonnie?” she asked.
He didn’t feel like smiling, but he smiled. “I’ll make it my first business in all cases,” he said. “Now don’t you worry. Put some of that tallow on Pattie’s neck and it will help the chafing.”
“Come on,” said Terl irritably, outside the cage.
“How do you like the glass to cut things with?” said Jonnie.
Chrissie said, “It is very good if you don’t cut yourself.”
“Well, be careful.”
“Hey,” said Terl.
Jonnie gave Pattie a kiss on the cheek. “Now you take good care of your sister, Pattie.”
He put his arms around Chrissie and hugged her. “Please don’t worry.”
“For crap, come out of that cage,” said Terl.
Chrissie’s hand trailed down Jonnie’s arm. He drew away until only their fingers were touching.
“Be careful, Jonnie.” Tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Terl yanked him out and banged the cage door behind him. While Jonnie closed the wood barrier, Terl turned on the juice.
“At dawn,” said Terl, “I want you down at the landing field ready to go. Personnel freighter ninety-one. Wear decent clothes and boots that won’t stink the ship up. Bring your air pump and plenty of bottles and an extra mask. Is that understood, animal?” He rumbled off, practically trotting. Terl was a busy fellow these days. The ground-shake died out.
Later Jonnie picked some wildflowers and berries in the dark and tried to throw them between the bars. But the electric current simply arced and sizzled them before they could get through. It made things seem even worse.
He went to bed at last, dispirited, certain that the future was going to be very rough, if not fatal.
7
They were aloft at last, flying just to the east of north, rising rapidly to an altitude of over ten miles. Terl loomed over the control panel, silent and withdrawn. Jonnie sat at the copilot console, the seat belt wrapped around him twice, air mask tending to mist. It was growing very cold in the flight cab.
They were late getting off because Terl had personally gone over every fitting and unit of the plane as though suspicious that someone might have sabotaged it. The actual ship number was eighteen digits long and only ended in ninety-one. It was an old ship, a castoff from some war on some other planet, and it showed its scars in dents and sears. It had a forward flight compartment like any freighter, but it was armored and fitted with batteries of air-to-air and air-to-ground blast guns.
The huge body of the plane, now empty, was fitted to carry not ore but fifty company attack troops—there were huge benches, bins for supplies, racks for their blast guns. There were many ports, all armored. The plane had not carried troops or even been flown for ages.
Seeing that breathe-gas compression would be off in the compartment, Jonnie had thought it might be better to ride there, but
Terl put him in the copilot seat. Now he was glad. This altitude probably had little air in it, and the cold was seeping into the cab with icy fingers.
Below them the mountains and plains spread out, apparently not moving at any great speed even though the plane was well above hypersonic.
Soon Jonnie knew he was looking at the top of the world. Pale green misty sea and white vastnesses of ice were all across the northern horizon. They were not going to cross the North Pole, but nearly.
The chattering console computer was rolling itself out a tape of their successive positions. Jonnie looked at it. They were turning in a curve to head more easterly.
“Where are we going?” said Jonnie.
Terl didn’t answer for some time. Then he yanked an Intergalactic Mining chart of the planet from a seat pocket and threw it at Jonnie. “You’re looking at the world, animal. It’s round.”
Jonnie unfolded the chart. “I know it’s round. Where are we going?”
“Well, we’re not going up there,” said Terl, pointing a talon toward the north. “That’s all water in spite of its looking solid. Just ice. Don’t never land there. You’d freeze to death.”
Jonnie had a chart open. Terl had drawn a red, curving course line from the area of departure, up across a continent, then across a large island and then down to the top of another island. Typical of a mining map, it was all in numbers and without names. He translated rapidly in his head back to Chinko geography. Using ancient names, the course lay up over Canada, across the top of Greenland, past Iceland and down to the north tip of Scotland. On the mine map, Scotland was 89-72-13.
After punching in a new series of coordinates, Terl put the ship on automatic and reached back of his seat for a container of kerbango. He slurped some into his container cover and chewed it down.
“Animal,” said Terl above the roar of the ship, “I am about to recruit fifty man-things.”
“I thought we were almost gone.”
“No, rat brain. There are some groups in various inaccessible places on the planet.”
“And,” said Jonnie, “having gotten them, we are going to take them back to the ‘defense base.’”
Terl looked at him and nodded. “And you’re going to help.”
“If I’m going to help, maybe we better talk over how we are going to do this.”
Terl shrugged. “Simple. There’s a village up in the mountains where you see that red circle. This is a battle plane. We just dive in with stun blasts and then walk around and load the ones we want aboard.”
Jonnie looked at him. “No.”
Hostile, Terl said, “You promised—”
“I know what I promised. I’m saying ‘no’ because your plan won’t work.”
“These guns can be set to ‘stun.’ They don’t have to be put on a ‘kill’ setting.”
“Maybe you better tell me what these men are going to do,” said Jonnie.
“Why, you’re going to train them on machines. I thought you could figure that out yourself, rat brain. You’ve been ferrying the machines. So what’s wrong with this plan?”
“They won’t cooperate,” said Jonnie.
With a frown, Terl studied that. Leverage, leverage. It was true that he wouldn’t have leverage. “We’ll tell them that if they don’t cooperate we’ll shoot up their village for keeps.”
“Probably,” said Jonnie. He looked at Terl with disgust and laughed.
It stung Terl. Jonnie was sitting back now, looking at the map. Jonnie saw that they were avoiding a minesite located in the southwest of England. He wagered with himself that Terl would come down to wave top in the last run into Scotland.
“Why won’t it work?” demanded Terl.
“If I’ve got to train them, you better let me walk in and get them.”
Terl barked a laugh. “Animal, if you walked into that village they would drill you like a sieve. Suicide! What a rat brain!”
“If you want any help from me,” said Jonnie, offering the map, “you’ll land up here on this mountain and let me walk in the last five miles.”
“And then what will you do?”
Jonnie did not want to tell him. “I’ll get you fifty men.”
With a shake of his head, Terl said, “Too risky. I didn’t spend over a year training you just to have to start all over!” Then he realized he might have said too much. He looked suspiciously at Jonnie, thinking: the animal must not consider itself valuable.
“Crap!” said Terl. “All right, animal. You can go ahead and get yourself killed. What’s one animal more or less? Where’s the mountain?”
Well short of northern Scotland, Terl brought the personnel freighter down to wave top. They skimmed the gray green water, eventually roared up the side of a cliff, shot inland battering the scrub and trees, and came to a halt under the shoulder of a mountain.
Jonnie won his own bet. Terl had avoided the minesite in the south.
8
Jonnie stepped down into a different land.
The barren mountain and its scrub seemed to swim in a soft mist; everything was hazed and faintly blue. It seemed a very beautiful place, but it had dark gorges and inaccessible summits, and there was a secretness about it as though its softness concealed a harsh threat. He had not realized a land could be so different from the bold mountains of his home.
He had changed to buckskin. He hung a kill-club on his belt.
“It’s over there about five miles,” said Terl, pointing south. “Very rough terrain. Don’t get any ideas about vanishing. There’s a whole ocean and continent between you and your country. You’d never make it back.” He took out the control box and laid it on the seat behind him. He pointed at it.
“Could be,” said Jonnie, “that by tomorrow morning I’ll come back and get you to move into the village. So don’t move off.”
“Tomorrow noon,” said Terl, “I’ll come down and collect fifty men, my way. If you’re still alive, duck under something to avoid the stun guns. Damned fool.”
“See you tomorrow morning,” said Jonnie, moving off.
“Goodbye, rat brain,” said Terl.
Jonnie found a faint trail that went south and, alternately running and walking, wove his way through the gullies and brush and barren fields.
It was not a very promising land for food. He did not start any deer but he saw an old trace of one. There was not much grazing to be had. Far off on another mountain he thought he saw some sheep, just a few of them, more like a small cloud than animals.
He caught a glimpse of water through the scrub ahead and went up a gully, intending to get a better look. Yes, there was an inland body of water ahead. He trotted back to the trail.
Abruptly, three pointed stakes jabbed out of cover. He stopped. Very, very slowly he put up his hands, palms out to show they were empty of weapons.
A guttural, wheezing voice said, “Take his club. Be swift noo.”
One spear lowered, and a heavyset youth with a black beard stepped forward and a bit fearfully yanked the club from Jonnie’s belt. The youth retreated around behind him and pushed him. The other spears made way.
“Look saucy noo,” the wheezing voice said, “dinna let him run away.”
They came to a small clearing and Jonnie looked at them. There were four: two with black hair and dark eyes, a third with blond hair and blue eyes and taller than the rest, plus an old man who seemed to be in charge.
Their dress was partly woven cloth and partly hides. They wore patterned skirts of some rough fabric that fell to their knees. On their heads they had bonnets.
“It’s a thief from the Orkneys,” said one.
“Na, I ken Orkneymen,” said another.
“Could be he’s a Swede,” said the blonde one. “But no, no Swede dresses so.”
“Hush yer prattle,” said the old one. “Look in his pouch an’ mayhap ye’ll find the answer.”
Jonnie laughed. “I can give you the answer,” he said.
They recoiled on the defensive.<
br />
Then a black-haired one crept forward and looked closely into his face. “He’s a Sassenach! Hear the accent!”
The old man brushed the speaker aside with impatience. “Na, the Sassenachs be dead these mony centuries. Except for those already here.”
“Let’s go down to the village,” said Jonnie. “I’m a messenger.”
“Ah,” said a black-bearded one. “Clanargyll! They want to talk of peace.”
“Noo, noo, noo,” said the old man. “He wears no such plaid.” He squared himself off in front of Jonnie. “Messenger you be from whom?”
“You’ll fall over on your backside,” laughed Jonnie, “when I tell you. So let’s go down to the village. My message is for your parson or mayor.”
“Ah, it’s a parson we have. But you’ll be meaning Chief of the Clan, Fearghus! Git ahind him you boys and push him along.”
9
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.
Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 Page 23