Battlefield Earth

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 Jo

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 Jo

Jo

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....

Jo

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 Jo

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.

Jo

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.

Jo

“What?” exclaimed the Compound Commander in astonishment.

Jo

Robert the Fox looked at Terl, the cage, the Argyll, the crowd and the co

Hobbling, Jo

The cage sentry had not left his post in all this hubbub. He carried the door keys in his belt. Jo

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 fa

Scots sprinted to the roofs of the old Chinko quarters and the rush of ru

The crowd surged back away from the barriers.

Jo

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. Jo

Terl roared.

“Quit clowning, Terl,” said Jo

Terl promptly did and hunkered down against the back wall, his amber eyes evilly amused. “Well, hello, animal.”

The parson's voice rapped out from somewhere in the crowd: “He is not an animal!” Jo

“I see,” said Terl to Jo

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

“Oh, that Chinko 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 Chinko, why, forgive this ignorant intrusion of speech into your lordly earbones-'

He was going to go on with a string of the old Chinko abasements. Then he laughed viciously.

“Answer the questions, Terl."

“Why, I’m ," and he said a Psychlo word Jo

Jo