“Why no!” said Ker. “Look, this money is no good to me now, Jonnie. Look!”
Jonnie propped himself more comfortably on the bureau edge and obediently looked.
Ker, with a glance at the door to make sure he had his back to it and that only Jonnie could see, dramatically threw aside his lapels and pulled the tattered tunic apart.
There was a brand on his chest.
“The three bars of denial,” said Ker. “The criminal scorch. I don’t think it’s any news to you I was a criminal. That’s one of the holds Terl had on me. That’s why he felt he could trust me to run around and teach you. If I was returned to Psychlo, having been found to hold false papers and employment, I’d be vaporized. If Psychlo recaptured this place they’d be sure those of us alive were renegades, and they’d examine us and find this. My papers are false. I won’t burden you with my real name: not knowing it you can’t be hit as an accessory. Got it?”
Jonnie didn’t have it at all, especially since the Psychlos would kill him on sight and not be troubled at all about “accessory.” He nodded. All this wasn’t getting anywhere. Where had Chrissie put the bandanas they’d found?
“And if in addition they found two billion Galactic credits on me, they’d do a slow vaporization!” said Ker.
“Two billion?”
Yes, well it seemed old Numph had been screwing the company for the whole thirty years of his duty tour here. Things not even Terl had dug up; things like commissions from the female administrators who charged; things like double prices on kerbango; maybe even selling ore to aliens who picked it up in space shifts . . . who knew? But Numph slept on four mattresses, and Ker thought it was funny they crinkled like that and he liked only one mattress, so he’d ripped open an end and there it was!
“Where?” said Jonnie.
“Out in the hall,” said Ker.
The midget Psychlo closed his coat and Jonnie beckoned at the guard in the small door window. Ker darted out through the door, loose chains dragging, alarming everyone out there, and came back lugging a big box which he dumped. Then he rushed out and got another box. Although a midget, only a bit taller than Jonnie, Ker was very strong. Before anybody stopped him and despite the flapping chains, Ker shortly had the room bulging with old kerbango boxes, and every one of them was overflowing with Galactic credits!
“There’s more in his numbered accounts on Psychlo,” said Ker, “but we can’t get that.” He stood there panting a big smile, very proud of himself. “Now you can pay the renegades like the Chamcos in cash!”
Captain MacDuff had been trying to tell Jonnie they’d checked the boxes while making sure there were no explosives and still ask what was this stuff? all the while wanting to know how Jonnie had sent a message to the compound without it being known to the sentries, and was it all right that they had let Ker bring it? He was flustered. He had a Pyschlo running around flapping chains and Jonnie was laughing.
“And you want—?” said Jonnie to Ker.
“I want out of that prison!” wailed Ker. “They hate me because I was over them. They hated me anyway, Jonnie. I know machines. Didn’t I teach you to run every machine there is? I heard they have a machine school over at what you call the Academy. They don’t know anything about those machines. Not like you and me do! Let me go help teach them like I did you!”
He stood there so pathetically, so pleadingly, he was so convinced he had done the right thing, that Jonnie laughed and laughed and shortly Ker’s mouthbones started to grin.
“I think it’s a great idea, Ker,” said Jonnie. At that moment he looked up and saw a frosty Robert the Fox in the door. Jonnie shifted to English. “Sir Robert, I think we have a new instructor for the schoolmaster. It’s true he’s a great machine operator and he knows them all.” He smiled at Ker and said in Psychlo, “Terms of employment, a quart of kerbango a day, full pay and bonuses, standard company contract omitting only burial on Psychlo. Right?” He knew very well Ker probably had buried a few hundred thousand credits on his own.
Ker started bobbing his head emphatically. He had held a few hundred thousand against a rainy day. He held out a paw to bash paws with Jonnie. That done, he was about to leave when he turned and came very close to Jonnie, speaking with the Psychlo equivalent of whispering.
“I got one more thing for you, Jonnie. They put Terl in a cage. You watch Terl, Jonnie. He’s up to something!”
When the midget Psychlo had left, Robert the Fox looked at these bales and bales of money.
“Job bribery,” said Jonnie, “comes high these days! Turn it over to the council.” He was laughing.
“This is Galactic money, isn’t it?” said Robert the Fox. “I’m going to contact a Scot named MacAdam at the university in the Highlands. He knows about money.”
But he was wondering at seeing Jonnie dressed. He was more than glad Jonnie had cheered up even though he thought the lad foolhardy for letting a Psychlo so close to him: one rake of a set of claws could cost one half his face. Then he realized Jonnie was hobbling forward, going out. He looked his question.
“I may not be able to hold the sky up,” said Jonnie, “but I don’t have to wait forever for it to fall either. I’m headed for the compound.”
He had to talk to the Chamco brothers. He had heard they were making absolutely no progress on repairing the transshipment stage and without that they never would find out about Psychlo.
3
It was a long way to the heliport, and especially long when you had only one working leg and a cane on the wrong side. The elevators weren’t working and probably never would again. Hobbling along, Jonnie had just begun to appreciate what a great job had been done cleaning up this place when he heard running feet behind him and a sharply barked order in Russian. Two men appeared, one on either side of him, who gripped each others’ arms in a chair lift, boosted him into it, and were running with him down the stairs to the heliport.
Somebody must have alerted the standby pilot there, for he was standing beside a mine passenger plane with the passenger door open.
“No!” yelled Jonnie and pointed with his good arm at the pilot side. What did they think he was, a busted-up invalid?
Of course, he was just that. But Colonel Ivan popped up at the pilot door and opened it. The two Russians literally threw Jonnie into the pilot’s seat.
A little confused, the standby pilot started to close the passenger door but was brushed aside by three Russians who, out of breath, had come tearing down the stairs. They leaped into the plane with a clatter of assault rifles.
Colonel Ivan was magically on the other side of the plane helping Robert the Fox and two kilted Scots into the ship and then got in himself.
The pilot was a Swede. He was getting into the copilot seat and saying something in a language Jonnie could not understand. Maybe a South African from the Mountains of the Moon? No, the pocket of whites there among the Bantu had been contacted too late for anyone to be fully trained yet. Then he realized the pilot was only there for local runs, really a cadet.
Jonnie wrapped himself up in the seat belt, pinning down his relatively useless right arm, and looked around at his passengers. The Russians were in baggy red pants and gray tunics and were finishing getting into their gear. As he turned, Colonel Ivan ripped the bandana off his head and clapped a round, flat fur cap on him. Jonnie took it off to get it on straight and saw it had a red star set in a gold disk on the front of it.
“We charge!” said Colonel Ivan. Evidently he had worked very hard at his English.
Jonnie grinned. They sure were an international contingent!
The wide doors had been left open and sunlight streamed in. He sailed the plane out into a beautiful summer day.
Ah, the mountains, the white mountains, majestic and calm against the dark blue sky! The ravines with their black shadows, the trees with their soft, dark green. And there was a bear. Cantering along a slope, bound on some important errand no doubt. And a whole herd of bighorn sheep, looking up a
t what must now be the ordinary sight of a plane on this route.
With his left hand romping on the console Jonnie dropped the ship over the last hills of the eastern slope and down toward the plains. Summer. And evidence of a recent rain, for there were flowers. Stretching out to an endless horizon in the east, an undulating landscape spotted with browsing herds, seemingly inexhaustible space in which men could live.
What a beautiful planet! What a lovely planet! Well worth saving.
The standby pilot was watching Jonnie in awe. He was flying with his left hand and left foot only, better than he himself had ever hoped to fly with five hands.
A rider? Jonnie darted down in a swoop to see who or what. Baggy pants? A flat, black-leather hat? A coiled rope in his hands? Gathering up a small herd.
“A llanero,” said Robert the Fox. “South America. They tend the herds now.”
Jonnie flipped his window down and waved and the llanero waved back.
What a beautiful day to be his first day out.
And there was the compound. What an awful lot of people! Must be thirty or forty of them looking toward the ship.
Jonnie set it down with a lightness that wouldn’t have cracked an eggshell. 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 cockpits. 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 transshipment 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 embarrassing, 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, assault rifles across their backs. A llanero 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 passenger 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, “Hello, 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 pushing 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 Chinko 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.
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 schoolmaster, 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 grass 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 s
tood 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 knobkerrie 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 assault rifle bolts being cocked, and four rifles were leveled at Terl in the cage. Some Scots sprinted to the roofs of the old Chinko quarters and the rush of running feet was replaced by the snicks of rifles being cocked and leveled on Terl.
Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 Page 54
