Battlefield Earth

"Where'd you get that?” “Saw it posted at the minesite."

Ker scratched his greasy neck fur. “You must have read wrong. It would be Day 92. That's a semia

“Something different about it?”

“Aw, you must have seen a couple when you were in the cage down there. You know, semia

Jo

“It’s a slow firing,” said Ker. “No ore. Perso

“Dead ones?”

“Yeah, we're shipping dead Psychlos home. They want them accounted for because of pay and they don't want them looked into by aliens, I guess. Nutty company rules. Lot of trouble. They put them in coffins and hold them down in the morgue and then...crap, Jo

“Better than working,” said Jo

Ker barked a laugh. “Yep, that's true. Anyway, a slow firing means a three-minute build-up and then zip. On a semia

“You know,” he continued, “you don't want to fool around on ordinary transshipments. I see you around on that horse sometimes. Ordinary firing is all right for dispatches and ore, but a live body would get ripped up in the transition. You'd come apart. On a slow firing the bodies come through great, live or dead. If you're trying to get to Psychlo, Jo

Jo

“Sure enough. Names, markers, and everything. It 's in the employee contract. Of course the cemetery is way out of town in an old slag heap, and nobody ever goes there. But it's in the contract. Silly, ain't it?”

Jo

Ker left in very good spirits. “Remember to tell me who you want killed.” And he went into howls of laughter and drove off in his old truck.

Jo

“Off,” said Robert the Fox, leaning out and looking down at Jo

“I think I know how Terl is going to ship the gold to Psychlo. In coffins!”

Robert the Fox nodded. “Aye, it all fits. He'll load them here, and then most likely when he goes home he will just dig them up some dark Psychlo night with nobody the wiser. What a ghoul!”

And so Jo

The incoming load had not arrived and Terl was rumbling around getting things organized. He had medical perso

The network of wires around the staging area was being checked out by technicians. A white light went on. Jo

A red light over the operations dome began to flash. A horn wailed. A bullhorn roared, “Stand clear!”

The wires started to hum. Jo

There was a building roar. Trees began to quiver from ground vibration. An electrical pulse beat in the air.

All employees had withdrawn from the platform. All machines and motors were off. There was nothing but that growing roar.

A huge purple light over the dome flashed on.

The platform area wavered like heat waves. Then three hundred Psychlos materialized on it.

They stood in a disorderly mass with their baggage. Breathe-gas helmets were on their heads. They staggered a trifle, looking around. One of them dropped to his knees. An intermittent white light began to pulse.

“Coordinates holding!” the bullhorn roared.

Minesite medical rushed in with a stretcher for the one who had collapsed. Baggage carriers converged on the platform. Administrative perso

Terl took a list from an incoming executive and began to pat down uniforms for weapons and contraband, working fast. A detector in his hand played on baggage. Terl occasionally extracted an item and tossed it to a growing pile of forbidden articles. He was working very fast, like a huge tank battering away at the line, dislodging odd bits from it.

Perso

To Jo

Then Jo

A few minutes later the newcomers were in compound barracks or sitting in waiting perso

The bullhorn roared, “Coordinates holding and linked in second stage.” The white light on the dome began to flash intermittently. The perso

Jo

That was why the Psychlos didn't locally teleport ore on the planet from one point to another but used freighters. A small motor was one thing, but teleportation of ore was reserved for transport between planets and universes.

Apparently if any motor were ru

Jo

It was the second one Jo

After a wait– he timed it and found it was one hour and thirteen minutes-the white light on the dome began a very rapid flashing. The bullhorn bawled, “Stand by for return firing to Psychlo!"

A semia

Sweepers rolled and whirred over the firing platform, cleaning it, getting rid of scraps the new perso

Jo