Battlefield Earth

"I’ve got no leverage on these animals,” snapped Terl. He looked over his shoulder to beyond the cab rear wall. “How,” he added with nasty sarcasm, “do you intend to keep them obedient? With little baby toys?”

“They've been obedient enough so far, haven't they?” said Jo

“You ruined this whole trip for me,” said Terl. He relapsed into moody silence. At length, he rubbed at his aching head and fumbled around for his kerbango. He brought up an empty container and threw it down. Jo

“Why,” asked Terl, at length, “were they cheering yesterday?”

“I told them the end of the project would see them highly paid,” said Jo

Terl thought that over. Then, “They were cheering because of pay?”

“More or less,” said Jo

“No, they don't know anything about gold. Their currency is horses and such things.”

“High pay, eh?” said Terl. He was suddenly very jovial. The kerbango was taking effect. He had just had a wonderful thought. High pay. He knew exactly the pay they would get. Exactly. At the muzzle end of a blast gun. He cheered up enormously.

“You fly this thing pretty good, rat brain, when you're not trying to kill everybody.” This struck Terl as very, very fu

Chapter 2

Forty-eight hours after their arrival at the “defense base,” Jo

Two of the young men, amid all the flurry of settling in, had yet found time to discover the remains of a weapons cargo. A truck, in the last days of man's civilization, had apparently run into a road cutbank and a cave-in had covered it. There it had remained for more than a thousand years until Scot hands uncovered it.

Jo

They had dug latrines. The parson had made the chapel useful. And the old women had found a place that could be protected from deer and cattle and, being near the water, was ideal for a vegetable garden; Jo

The Scots had proven remarkably ingenious with machinery; they seemed to know what some of these pipes and wires were all about, having heard of them and read of them in their books.

Thus Jo

“What is this thing?” said Jo

The youth showed him some stamped letters. The object was covered with what must have been a very thick grease that, down the ages, had become rock-hard but had preserved the object. The letters, which the youth had cleaned off, said “Thompson submachine gun....” It had a company name and serial number.

“There's case on case of them,” said Angus. “A whole truckload. And airtight boxes of ammunition. When the grease comes off these, they might be fired. The truck must have run off the road and gotten buried in the cave-in. May I clean it up and test it, MacTyler?"

Jo

He was not prepared for the deputation that came to him as he finished supper. A mess hall had been set up, and although the women were cooking outside, eating was being done inside– off broken tables with much eroded cutlery. Robert the Fox was sitting there with him.

Angus MacTavish held out the weapon to him. “It works. We cleaned it and figured out how to load and operate it, and the ammunition will fire.”

Jo

“There's lots of these and lots of ammunition,” said Angus MacTavish.

"If you climb the hill and look over to the east, off in the distance you can see the Psychlo minesite." He smiled. “A group could sneak over tonight and blow them to pieces!”

There was an instant cheer from the rest.

Young men from other tables stood up and crowded around.

Jo

Robert the Fox caught Jo

The old veteran was one of the few Scots who had ever seen a Psychlo up close before the freighter had arrived. Raiding for cattle down into the lowlands where cattle now wandered amid ruins, Robert the Fox had once encountered a party of Psychlo hunters from the minesite in Cornwall. The Psychlos had wiped out the other members of the party. But Robert, clinging to the belly of a horse, had been able to flee the carnage unobserved. He was well aware of the power of the Psychlo weaponry and the murderous character they exercised.

“This young man,” said Robert the Fox, pointing to Angus MacTavish who was standing there holding his man-machine gun, “has done very well. It is a credit to be resourceful and brave.”

The young man beamed. “But,” continued Robert the Fox, “it is one of the great wisdoms that one best succeeds at what one prepares totally. One minesite destroyed will not end the power of the Psychlos. Our war is against the entire Psychlo empire and for this we must work hard and prepare.” He became conspiratorial, “We must not wipe out just one base and alert them to our intent.”

That did it. The young men thought this was very wise and happily finished their di

“Thank you,” said Jo

A bit later, in the lingering twilight, Jo

He had begun to realize he had a sort of council. It consisted of Robert the Fox, the parson, the schoolmaster, and the historian.

Jo

Jo

They hardly needed to get the point. Such weapons had not stopped the Psychlos.

Then the historian– Doctor MacDermott– looked about curiously. “But where are the remains of the tank?”

“It defeated them,” said Jo

“Now that is very odd,” said the historian. “Not that they were defeated here, but that there's no rusting remains of any Psychlo battle equipment.”