Battlefield Earth

As Maz, according to a call to Victoria, was still going strong, Jo

Jo

Suddenly he remembered the Voraz letter. Hundreds of thousands of inventions and the formulas all in

Psychlo math. To really get the crashed arms companies converted over to consumer products, those hundreds of thousands of inventions-even though accumulated for mille

Chapter 4

Soth, Jo

The room wasn't too bad. The old Psychlo had cut down the original storage shelves and fabricated some bookcases and tables from them; the cases were utterly jammed with books and the tables covered with a litter of paper.

Soth was sitting on a high stool as Jo

He peered near-sightedly at Jo

“So you have come to ship me on,” said Soth. “I was wondering when someone would notice.”

“You seem to have a lot of books here,” said Jo

“I was fortunate,” said Soth. “When that attack first came on the compound, I was in my office and I heard the fire gongs going. I knew there'd be a lot of water so I ran down to my room and put everything I had into waterproof ore bags. Then when we were to leave for here, I asked a nice young human if I could go get them and bring them. And he permitted it.”

Jo

“They usually let me keep my books,” said Soth. "In cross-firing, they don't much care what weight or cubic space there is for there's nothing else going. Will you let me keep them when you cross-fire me this time?”

Jo

Then he realized they wouldn't really know that there were no other Psychlos alive; they might think there were other captives elsewhere.

"I’m not here to cross-fire you. We're sure there are no Psychlos on other planets now.”

Soth digested this. Then he let out a little snort. “Fu

Jo

Soth shrugged. “The way it always starts. Being impolite to a catrist. Isn't it in my record?” As Jo

Anyway, we had this young Psychlo in school and he got confused about his lessons and wanted a better explanation-”

“About mathematics?” said Jo

Soth looked at him for quite a while. “Why do you ask that?” he said finally. A sort of a cloud had passed over him and gone away. Then, as Jo

“It wasn't that she was caught or anything. But some of it must have rubbed off on me to make me do what I did. This catrist was standing there screaming at the class that they were all animals and they better remember they were animals. And he was making so much noise I must have gotten confused. I did want him to quiet down because I had a class to teach. And it just slipped out.”

He sat for a long time. “It’s sort of painful to talk about this. I never do. If word of this got back to the-' Then he let out a slight gasp. “I just realized. They're all dead. It 's all right if I talk about it!” Then he looked closely at Jo

“Sure,” said Jo

“You know,” said Soth, "I’ve come to believe I don't either, really. But because of what it did to my life, I pieced a lot of it together. There's lots of books on lots of planets. Two hundred fifty thousand years ago, Psychlos were really a different people. They didn't even have the name 'Psychlo.' I think sometime or other they must have gotten frightened of somebody invading them or something.

“As near as I could piece together, there was this group of carnival performers– you know, mountebanks, frauds. They were the original Psychlos. They used to hypnotize people on the stage and make them do fu

“When this panic came on, they went to the emperor and told him something or other because the next thing anyone knew, they were in charge of the schools and medical centers. The race before that had been called after the current emperor according to books on other planets. Well, right at that time, they began to be called Psychlos. That was the name of these carnival performers. So instead of being called after the ruler, the race was now called after the 'Psychlos.' It means 'brain,' according to some old dictionaries. Another form of the word also means 'property of.' Everyone became the property of the Psychlos.

“Anyway, members of this mob of cutthroats began to call themselves 'catrist.' That means 'mental doctor.' So the people became 'Psychlos' or 'brains' and the 'catrist' or 'mental doctor' was the real, hidden government. They taught all the children. They inspected every citizen. They suppressed religion. They told people how to think.

“Oh, I was stupid. There's no excuse for what I did.” He fell silent. “But this catrist was raising so much row! I should not blame my mother. I should never have blamed her.” He paused again and drew a long breath. “It just blurted out. I said, 'They are not animals!' "

He shuddered and after a while said, “So that began my exile. Now you know.”

What Jo

“Well,” said Soth, coming out of his despondency, “if that isn't why you're here, why are you? An old ruin like me has nothing to offer.”

Jo