Battlefield Earth

Her interest was immediate and then faded. "I’ve been here for some time, haven't l, Jo

“A while,” said Jo

She thought about it. Then she stiffened. “I’ve had lapsin! It 's incurable!” She let out a wail.

“It’s cured,” said Jo

She thought about it. Then another upset took her. “But why didn't they vaporize me? The catrists?"

“I think you'll get well,” said Jo

She thought she understood. “You're sitting there so they won't come in and vaporize me. Jo

Jo

Chirk sat up higher, shedding the dullness. "Oh, Jo

She swung her legs to get off the bed. “Where are my clothes? I better get to work or I’ll have another black mark on my record.” She tried to stand.

"I’d take it easy,” said Jo

She sank down on the bed, shaking with weakness and evidently dizzy.

“Oh, that's lucky. will it be all right if I come in tomorrow?”

Jo

from being vaporized and that if they harmed her he'd dock their pay and put black marks all over their records and they better go get her some goo-food and chew-root and help her take a bath. They did not misunderstand him. Whatever else he said, he had a palm resting on his belt blast gun. They understood that.

Part XXXII

Chapter 1

With all the weight hanging on the outcome of this project, Jo

In vain Jo

And Chirk did not instantly rebound. On the second day she was still in bed, too weak and dizzy to get up. It made Jo

Other things occurred. Pierre Solens had vanished and it took Jo

Pattie seemed to have undergone a change. Jo

"Jo

It startled Jo

“Then he could have been saved,” said Pattie, not accusing, just stating a fact.

Jo

“Jo

He waited. He couldn't talk.

“When the doctors leave here, I want to go with them,” said Pattie. “I will be very good. I will not bother them. I will go to a school and study real hard and I will learn everything I have to know to be a doctor. Will you help me, Jo

He couldn't talk. He put his arms around her. After a while he was able to say, “Of course I will, Pattie. You can stay with Aunt Ellen. I will speak to MacKendrick. I will see you have all the money you need.”

She stepped back, her eyes bright with determination. With dignity she said, “Thank you,” and went away.

After a little, he felt a sense of relief for her. He had thought she would never recover. But she had. There was a direction for her to go and she had found a path to travel on, a path that led out of despair and back to the world of the living.

On the following day he had been down in the electrical shop organizing equipment and needing a reference on molecular gun current values. He raced up to the library to get it.

And there was Chirk!

She was sitting at a desk, surrounded with books. "Jo

He looked at her. Inside her breathe-mask, her jaws were chomping away on chew-root. Her amber eyes seemed totally clear. She had already put on a bit of weight. “The company is very strict about orderly libraries,” she said. “You must remember that.” She went back to getting volumes in order. Her coordination seemed very exact as she stacked things with sure paw motions. The resulting piles were very even. Not even a tremble.

He was about to go tearing off to spread the news.

"Jo

Three minutes later an excited Jo

Chapter 2

They had taken time and worked it all out.

There was always a risk in handling Psychlos, even in just being around them. One rake of a paw's claws could tear one's face off. MacKendrick had actually started on Chirk because there was less danger of it. The worker he had tested earlier had been a risk: the Psychlo had surged up when half-anesthetized, and had it not been for straps, somebody would have gotten hurt. So putting a Psychlo under and operating when that Psychlo was apprehensive, believing perhaps he was about to be killed, was a thing to be avoided.

The younger doctor had been trained, as many general practitioners were, in rudimentary dentistry. He examined a couple of skulls, studying the fangs and back teeth. They were caked with a coating from goo-food which seemed to turn black in time. There were a couple of cavities evident.

Jo

The plan was to tell all the Psychlos that it was a new regulation that they have their teeth repaired and polished. They said it could be painful so it was being done under an anesthetic. The Psychlos, as a group, when being briefed, were a little dubious, mostly because the company had never had any concern for employee health. But new place, new ways.

The team set it up as an assembly line. The Psychlo would be brought in, put under, and have the capsule or capsules removed, and then would be pushed down to another table where the younger doctor, taking advantage of the anesthesia, would fix and polish up the fangs and back teeth.