Battlefield Earth

A plane motor started up. Then another.

Three Scot pilots ran out of the ops room, getting into flight clothes and gripping maps.

And all the time Sir Robert was at the exit shouting, “Come on! Come on!”

From the open door of ops, Stormalong's voice was rising above the din. “Victoria? Victoria? Damn it man, keep your radios ma

Pali.

“Come on!” Sir Robert was shouting at the delaying few. “Damn it, Edinburgh is burning!”

A plane took off. Sir Robert was gone. Another plane. Another, another, another. From the whip of sound they were lancing up to hypersonic in seconds. Jo

Lord Dom came over to Jo

Jo

Jo

“Russia?” said Jo

“I sent the whole contingent at Singapore there over half an hour ago. They took everything they had. It 's just a flight over the Himalayas and they'll be there in another couple of hours. I don't know what they'll find– we haven't heard from Russia for a couple of days.”

“Edinburgh?” said Jo

“Did I hear you sending everyone at Victoria to Scotland?” said Jo

“Oh, they gave Ker a blast rifle.” He saw Jo

Lord Dom said, “I didn't wish to intrude but I couldn't help overhearing. Haven't you left this whole conference area, maybe this whole continent, maybe the planet, without air cover?”

Jo

This startled Lord Dom. He quivered a bit.

Stormalong laughed and said, “Why, that's twice as many as there used to be! Not long ago, there was just him!”

He pointed at Jo

Lord Dom blinked. He stared at Jo

Lord Dom went off and told his colleagues about this. They discussed it considerably among themselves.

They decided they had better keep a careful eye on Jo

Chapter 10

Jo

The older Chinese children had quieted the younger ones and gotten them to bed. The dogs were silent, exhausted from the excitement of a while ago. The emissaries had all gone off to their apartments or guard duty over Schleim. There were no sentries in sight. The place seemed deserted. Even though it was not late yet.

To one brought up in the silences of mountains, the calm was welcome.

It might be the sort of calm that is followed by blasting storm. But it was a moment's calm.

Too many situations were ru

That book he had read– that said you could handle things if you did one of them at a time: good advice.

Psychlo! He had been living in such a tornado that the question of Psychlo had become a sort of dull pain like a toothache. Was there any danger of counterattack? Or was that just a shadow?

Ha! This was a thing he had been waiting for. He had a transshipment rig. It was in fine working order. There were no planes in the air, no motors ru

He strode over to the console and almost fell over Angus. The Scot was sitting in a pool of light, working intensely with some rods and wheels. He didn't look up but he knew Jo

“While you were settling up with Schleim," said Angus, fingers flying around his work, “I parked a picto-recorder on a peak on Tolnep to watch that moon. Reaction motors don't mess up a firing– only teleportation motors do. So I just fired it. But that was the only gyrocage assembled. I’m putting together a spare.

“Angus,” said Jo

“Give me about half an hour,” said Angus.

Jo

En route to his room he looked in at the hospital. They had left a woman nurse, an elderly Scot, and she resented being left behind. She looked up from a patient as Jo

The two fractured-skull cases were lying in their beds. They seemed all right. But being Scots and left behind, they eyed him dully. The two burned antiaircraft gu

“Take off your jacket!” snapped the nurse. Then she took the bandage off his arm and looked at the arrow wound. “Hah!” she said, sounding disappointed, “it won't even leave a scar!”

She made him take sulfa powder and wash it down with water. She jabbed an inch of needle into his good arm and squirted B Complex stingingly with a savage turn. She took his temperature and counted his pulse. “You're perfectly well!” It sounded like an indictment.

Jo

After a moment of amazement, they all came alive. They said he could count on them! And when he left they were all chattering about what they could do and smiling– even the nurse.

With the exodus of the adult Chinese, he hadn't really expected to find Mr.

Tsung. But there he was. He had laid out a blue jacket on the bed along with some other items for change. But he was bowing and beaming. With his hands tucked in his sleeves, he was going up and down like a pump.

He was trying to say something but his English wasn't up to it and suddenly he bolted and came back with Chief Chong-won.

“Well, at least you're here,” said

Jo

“Oh, no,” said the chief. “The Coordinators are all gone. But we have guests, you know. The emissaries. So I’m here and the cook; there's an electrician and two antiaircraft gu