Battlefield Earth

The tip of the iron bar found one. He knelt and brushed away some snow, the particles flying away in the wind. He uncovered the tip of a breathe-gas mask and then the ornament of a cap. Yep, an executive!

He felt around under the monstrous shoulders to see where he had to insert the flat end of the crowbar to pry the monster loose from the adhesions of ice. One of these Psychlos weighed about a thousand pounds, more in all this snow and ice.

Jo

He tried again, this time giving it all the strength he had. With a creaking, low-pitched sound, the monster moved upward.

But the sound must have been close to that of clearing one's throat. The bank's singing button in his pocket gave out a ballad line with a baritone voice:

Ghost riders in the sky...

Pierre, already badly shaken, beheld a demon rising from out of the cloud. And not only that, it was singing in a sepulchral voice.

It was a lot too much. With a low moan, he fainted dead away.

Chapter 5

Jo

He spotted the man, lying in a shadow made by a balance motor. The snow was already blowing over him. A bit anxiously he checked to see if he was injured, puzzled by the presence of the jet backpack, wondering why he was lying there unconscious. Well, this was no place for even first aid.

Jo

But the wind, coming from the tail of the plane, was trying to bang the door closed. Jo

Pattie! She was still in the plane. They must have overlooked her in their scramble to get through the rain. She made so little sound and motion these days she easily went u

She must be freezing. Jo

All he could find to block the door open was the stick from a map roller and he tried to make it do by butting it against a floor equipment ring and pushing it against a hinge.

He got down and operated the forklift to boost the inert body of Pierre into the plane. He had almost made it when a powerful gust of wind banged the door shut. Once more he climbed into the plane to try to make the stick prop the door. But this time the frail wood splintered.

A soft voice sounded behind him. “I will hold it open for you.”

Pattie, gripping the blanket to her with one hand, put the other on the door and braced it open.

This was the first time he had seen her volunteer anything for months.

Jo

So, with Pattie to hold the door open, Jo

Shortly he parked the forklift, closed up the plane, and got into the cab out of the cutting wind. He phoned the compound to have a flatbed and forklift waiting and then, checking to see if Pattie was strapped in, shot the plane up into the sky.

He had been prepared to feel his way down through the overcast with half-blind screens and was very happy to see that the worst of the storm and all of its electrical interference had passed by.

It was no longer raining at the compound and they had every pole spotlight on. Quite a crowd had gathered around the waiting vehicles to see the plane come in. The last time Jo

A new plane was there with nobody around it and Jo

Ker was sitting on a forklift. “The copilot is in there. He is breathing but he must be injured or something,” said Jo

Jo

Ker promptly got busy with the forklift and, with an expertise only Ker could achieve with a machine, scooped all three bodies off the floor of the marine attack plane and swooshed them over to the flatbed.

The driver, a newly trained Jambitchow, looked on in wide-eyed shock as he saw two huge Psychlo bodies plump down on the truck with a small human body dropping on top of them.

The first impulse of the crowd, seeing Psychlos, was to retreat, and fast! All the snow and ice had melted off them and to all appearances they might be alive.

The driver was about to get off the truck and put distance between himself and anything that had to do with Psychlos that might suddenly come to life.

Ker withdrew the forks and realized he was in the middle of a commotion and was about to have no driver. “No, no,” he shouted. “They're dead!”

Timidly the Jambitchow got back on the flatbed seat. Cautiously the crowd crept forward to get a closer look. Eyes went questioningly to Ker.

“Didn't you hear what Jo

No, they hadn't. Too far away.

“Those Psychlos," said Ker, “have been hiding out in the jungle. They rushed out of cover and started to claw the copilot to bits. And it made Jo

Mouths were open and eyes were popped. The evidence was right there before them.

After a moment a Hawvin ex-officer said, “No wonder we lost this war.”

“Yes,” said Ker. “When you get to know Jo

He signaled the flatbed to follow and drove off in the forklift. He just couldn't resist doing what he'd done. But the hardest part was to keep from guffawing in their faces.