Battlefield Earth

He threw one out. It went arcing through the air, down off the bluff, and sent a small white geyser up in the lake, the “plunk” coming back to him a moment later.

Pretty good! If he did say it himself.

The storm out there was towering up a bit higher, grayish black, a bit ugly. He glanced toward the minesite and found the tri-wheeler had almost arrived. It stopped.

For a moment Jo

He was Jo

Stormalong had stayed at the Academy. A skilled pilot, he enjoyed teaching the new cadets to fly. He had found an ancient flying coat, a white scarf, and a huge pair of goggles from a bygone age and he affected these. They gave him a bit of dash.

They swatted each other on the back and gri

“They told me I’d find you down here throwing rocks at the crocs,” said Stormalong. “How's the arm?”

“You must have seen the last one I threw,” said Jo

Stormalong was seldom very talkative but right now he was full of news. It had taken some ferreting out, real badger digging, to find where Jo

Chrissie sent her love. He'd already given Pattie's to Bittie. The Chief of Clanfearghus had sent his respects, mind you, not his regards but his respects. His Aunt Ellen sent her love; she was married to the parson now and in Scotland.

He'd gotten on Jo

But that wasn't what he wanted to tell Jo

“You know,” said Stormalong, “how you said we could get invaded again here on Earth? Well, it does seem possible.”

He'd been coming over to Scotland on the North Great Circle, flying an ordinary battle plane, making good time, and just as he reached the northern tip of Scotland, right there on his viewscreen and visual as well he had seen the biggest, most enormous craft he ever hoped to see. For a moment he thought he was ru

“Not there?” asked Jo

Well, that was exactly it. He'd run into a solid object that wasn't there. Right in the sky, mind you. Big as all the sky but not there. Here, he had the screen pictures in this pack.

Jo

“The ship that wasn't there,” said Stormalong.

“Light,” said Jo

“Well, that just could be,” said Stormalong. “Because the old woman said it wasn't that big!”

The old woman?

Well, it's like this. When he had gotten over his scare, he had backtracked his screen recorders. He hadn't noticed it in approaching Scotland– you know how it is, you get groggy on a long flight, not alert, and he hadn't had much sleep lately, cadets being what they were, slow to graduate when desperately needed by the overloaded pilots.

The backtrack of the screens showed this little trace coming up from a farm west of Kinlochbervie. You know, on the northwest coast of Scotland-that little place? Well, he cranked down his speed and went in to that spot, expecting maybe the place had been raided or shot up.

But there was just a burned spot in the rocks– a farm raises mostly rocks around there– and he didn't see any other damage or hostile force so he landed near the house.

An old woman came out, all fluttery about two callers from the sky in one day when she didn't usually see anybody for months on end. And he was made to sit down and have some yarb tea and she showed him this new, shiny pocketknife.

“A pocketknife?” said Jo

Well, yes. They'd seen some in ruined cities, remember? They folded in on themselves. Only this one was shiny as could be. Yes, I am getting on with it.

So anyway, according to what the old woman told him, there she was combing her dog that often got burrs in him and it almost startled her witless. Standing right behind her was a small gray man. And right behind him was a big gray sphere with a ring around it parked right where the cow was usually staked out. Like to have frightened her silly daft, she said. There hadn't been a sound. Maybe only a bit of wind.

So she asked the small gray man in for a cup of yarb tea just like she asked me, except that I’d had the ma

But the small gray man was very pleasant. He looked a bit smaller than most men. His skin was gray, his hair was gray and his suit gray. The only thing odd about him was he had a box he wore on a strap around his neck and hung on his chest. He'd say something to this box and then, presently, the box would speak English. The small gray man's voice was quiet and had different tones and the box only had one tone, a monotone.

“A vocoder,” said Jo

Well, all right. But anyway this small gray man asked her whether she had any newspapers. And no, because of course she'd never seen a newspaper; few people have. And then he asked her whether she had any history books. And she was disappointed to have to tell him she had heard of a book but didn't have any.

Well, apparently he thought she didn't understand, so the small gray man made a lot of motions to indicate something printed on paper was what he wanted.

So she got very helpful. Seems like somebody had bought some wool from her and given her a couple of those new credits in exchange. And explained what they were.

“What credits?”

“Oh, you haven't seen them?” And Stormalong fished in his pockets and found one. “They pay us now. With these.” It was a one-credit note from the new Planetary Bank and Jo

So anyway, Stormalong went on, the old woman had accepted them because of the picture of you. And she had one of them on the wall. And she sold it to the small gray man for the pocketknife because she had another one she could put on the wall.