Battlefield Earth

Chapter 6

There was a lot of activity in the bowl. Chief Chong-won's tribe of Chinese had, for the most part, been replaced in Edinburgh by the North Chinese Jo

The returning people were smudged and singed. Some were in a state of obvious exhaustion that not even rest on the flight from Edinburgh had eased. They rushed gladly to their children, scooping them up, embracing them, throwing questions to the older children. The dogs were straining at their leashes and barking joyously. It was a scene of glad reunion.

Jo

Chief Chong-won was getting them organized. He told Jo

Well! Jo

In ops he asked Du

Du

Jo

He got no further than the exit to the bowl. He collided head on with Stormalong himself.

“Where have you been?” cried Jo

Stormalong pushed him into a bunker where they could not be overheard. “I have been fighting and flying my goggles off for days!” He looked it. He was gaunt and hollow of eye; his white scarf was dirty, his jacket stained with sweat and grease. He even had a gun burn in his shoulder.

“You're hurt,” said Jo

“No, no, it's nothing. A Drawkin officer wouldn't surrender. I had to chase him with a marine attack plane! Imagine it, him on foot ru

“What have you been demanded Jo

“Catching prisoners! They left marines and pilots scattered around the Singapore site, some wounded, some not. They didn't bother to pick up their wounded in Russia. Du

Highlands. It takes some doing, let me tell you, to pick them up. They think they'll be tortured or sprinkled with virus or killed. And they don't surrender easily!”

“All by yourself?”

“Except for half-a-dozen bank guards. And they're French, Jo

"Stormalong, I had radios in all those places! You must have had your set on. People must have seen you!” None of it made any sense to Jo

“It’s MacAdam, Jo

With careful patience, Jo

Stormalong sank down on an ammunition box. He verified they were out of sight and hearing of everyone. “I got there about dawn and I went right to MacAdam's bedroom, and when he heard I was from you, he put the whole thing on a projector. Then he called the German and grabbed six bank guards and a whole basketload of Galactic bank notes, and he told a girl in his office not to give out any information at all and we got airborne. He just plain kidnapped me!

“We've been to every battleground looking for officers. He had a list of nationalities and he wanted several of each. Jo

“What was he asking them?”

“Oh, I don't know. He didn't use torture. Sometimes he handed out a fistful of Galactic bank notes. They talked.”

Jo

“Oh, well,” said Stormalong, “we came back to Luxembourg and picked up some boxes and he got a couple more bank guards– Germans this time-and we flew down to the Victoria minesite. I got a pretty good rest there because he spent so much time talking to the captives we already had there. Then we dumped out prisoners and came on and here we are. And that's the whole thing.”

It was a long way from the whole thing, Jo

MacAdam, short and stocky, his black beard flecked with gray, was pointing this way and that and rushing people along. He stopped abruptly when he saw Jo

“I don't believe you ever met Baron von Roth,” said MacAdam, “the other member of the Earth Planetary Bank.”

The German was a huge man, as tall as Jo

MacAdam had vanished into the bowl and the German picked up a heavy box and rushed after him.

Jo

The last of the baggage from the marine attack plane was being wheeled into the entrance. Jo

Inside, a crew of Chinese and some bank guards, under the direction of Chong-won, were hanging huge mine tarpaulins all around the pagoda eaves to completely hide the firing platform itself. Some more Chinese were stringing mine cables and hanging tarps on them to make a covered passage from a bunker to the console. They were totally hiding the platform and all operation of it.

MacAdam was talking with Angus, and although they smiled at him when Jo

All the baggage had vanished into the covered bunker. The Chinese children and dogs were all gone. Some Chinese were cleaning the bowl up. Some emissaries wandered out and watched what was happening with the tarpaulins and then, showing little curiosity, wandered off showing each other bits and points in the brochure.