Battlefield Earth

Earth.

“I will make a request of one or another of you in times to come. Will you honor those requests?”

There was a massed stare. Did he think they would not? Then there was a concerted roar of assent. It took minutes for it to quiet.

Jo

Jo

The pilot whose ore carrier had been readied for the Russians was pointing it out to the Russian Coordinator.

They loaded Jo

The Russians took over the body of Dmitri Tomlov to take it home.

Jo

Before he closed the door, he looked down at the crowd and said, slowly and clearly, “It is not the time for revenge.” And then he added a bitter, grim "Yet!"

The crowd nodded. They understood. Later it would be an entirely different matter.

The huge plane rose and turned in the gray, storm-discolored sky. It dwindled and was gone.

Chapter 10

A much more serious crisis awaited him in Scotland, one that threatened to wreck all his plans.

Pilots on the ground talked the ore plane down through the dark swirling mists of autumn. The Scots had begun to rebuild Castle Rock in Edinburgh, cleaning up and trying to restore the ancient buildings that two thousand years before had been the seat of

Scottish nationalism and that was now being called its original Gaelic word: Dunedin, “the hill fort of edin." Jo

Swarms of people had been there to meet him and gillies had been hard pressed to clear space in the throng for the plane to land.

Unfortunately, the drone pictures of the compound fight had come in on the Cornwall minesite recorders, and they had been rushed by mine passenger plane to Scotland long before Jo

Bittie's mother and family were there and Jo

them to dress and prepare for a funeral. Pipers were wailing a lament, drums beating its slow and doleful cadence. Women in the crowd were openly crying and men were beating their fists together as they dwelt on what they conceived to be the necessity of war.

It was nearly dark. An honor guard of kilted Highlanders approached and its officer courteously told Jo

To the mournful cry of pipes, Jo

WAR!

Belatedly, Robert the Fox, just in from Africa, rushed to Jo

“Do you want war?” said Robert the Fox into Jo

“No, no,” said Jo

“Then why,” said Sir Robert, “didn't you change your clothes before this meeting? You might have known it would take place!”

Jo

At that very moment the Chief of the Campbells was speaking to the assembled Chiefs. “...and I say this is a blood feud that can only be settled in

There was a savage roar of agreement. “War!” “War!” Lochaber axes were flashing in the light of the leaping flames. The slither of swords coming from their sheaths was a deadly, martial declaration.

Jo

“We want no war,” said Jo

“By the very blood on his clothes,” shouted the Chief of the Argylls, “this cries out for war!”

“The murderer of the boy is dead!” said Jo

"What of Allison?" cried the Chief of the Camerons. “His vile murder has not been avenged! The chief of the Brigantes, he that brought it about, still lives! These are matters of blood feud!”

Jo

He looked for the face of Robert the Fox and found only this sea of enraged Chiefs and retainers. He did not dare tell them so openly and in public of his plans. Lars had shown there could be traitors.

He tried to tell them the planet was under a much greater threat, that they did not really know what had happened to Psychlo, that there were other races out in the stars, but not one single word he said was heard in the tumult.

Finally the big and lordly Chief of Clanfearghus leaped up beside him and bellowed at the throng: “Let the MacTyler speak!”

They quieted under that, tense, determined.

Jo

SUCCESSFUL war! If you will let me guide you, if you will each one contribute men and time to a daring enterprise, if you will but plan with me and work in preparation for the next few months, we will have war, we will have revenge, and we will have a chance of everlasting victory!”

They heard that. After a moment, while it sank in, they burst into a savage din of agreement. The lochaber axes were raised higher; claymores flashed back the light of flames. The pipes suddenly burst into the stirring tunes of war. They hailed Jo

“Count on you, laddie,” said Robert the Fox fondly as he led Jo

They buried Bittie MacLeod the next day in a crypt in the old Cathedral Saint Giles. The funeral procession was over a mile long.

To the Chief of Clanfearghus Jo

Placing a robe on the corpse, Fearghus, as titular King of Scotland-and now the entire British Isles-knighted Bittie with the tender touch of a sword.

A rock carver had worked straight through to complete a sarcophagus-a stone casket– and it was ready.