Battlefield Earth

Back and forth, back and forth across the meadow. A flash, a handful of ashes, a raised hand, the echo of Angus's yell and the thud of the flying hoofs.

He took a new horse, opened a new bottle, and was off again.

Villagers gazed dully on the scene. Jo

Two hours, four lathered horses, sixteen vials of breathe-gas, and a tired Jo

They had decided to leave the horses as a gift and would have to walk to the plane.

The parson was explaining to Jimson that people must stay well away from those ash marks, and Jimson respectfully said he would see to it even if Brown Limper was skeptical.

Aunt Ellen was looking frightened. “You're leaving again, Jo

“Would you like to come with me?” said Jo

Well no. This was their home, Jo

He promised to try to come back and then gave her some gifts he had saved until last: a great big stainless steel kettle and three knives and a fur robe with sleeves in it!

She pretended to like that very much, but she was crying when he turned back at the edge of the upper path and waved. She had a horrible feeling she would never see him again.

Chapter 6

It was an intense hum of intent men in the room of the old mining town near the lode. Several groups were hard at work.

It had amused the Scots very much to take over the offices of the “Empire Dauntless Mining Corporation.” The building had been almost intact and when cleaned up made an acceptable operations room.

Jo

They all lived in the “London Palace Elite Hotel,” which had labeled suites named after men who must have been famous in mining. Three of the old widows queened it over a coal-burning galley Angus had explained to them. It had ru

The “Empire Dauntless” offices contained what must have been working models of the mine, and they had found “history pamphlets” in it that talked about the good old wild days of a boom camp and “bad men.” Also curious little leaflets that said “Tour Schedules” and had a daily time and place scheduled for a “bank hold-up.” Paintings of prospectors and mine discoverers and “bad men” had been cleaned off and put back on the walls.

Robert the Fox and two pilots were studiously going over possible plans to hijack an ore freighter. They had no craft that could possibly fly to Scotland or Europe, for their mine equipment could only go a few hundred miles. They had been going around and around this problem ever since the night the demon had told them about “bomber drones.” They felt they had a responsibility to alert not only the Scots but other peoples they might find traces of. They dared not alert the Psychlos they were up to anything. To intercept in the air, leaving the Psychlos to believe the freighter had gone down over the sea, was the only thing they kept coming up with. But to silence the Psychlo pilot radio, to board a freighter plane to plane in midair, were some of the things they couldn't work out.

Another group– two of the leaders who were off shift, with Thor and Du

They had gotten down to the lode and were drifting along it inch by inch toward the cliff. The quartz they were taking out was pure and beautiful, but it had no gold in it. Jo

The historian, Doctor MacDermott, was off by himself, chair tilted against a wall, reading industriously from things his scout had lately brought in from a collapsed school library in a little mining town.

Jo

The positions of the live radiation points were in a line. At first Jo

“They are roughly one hundred feet apart,” said Jo

They were staring at the map, thinking, when Doctor MacDermott came over.

“It’s something fu

Jo

“But they called the Academy a primary defense base.”

“I know,” said Jo

“But there was a 'primary defense base,' " said the historian, shaking the book he held.

Jo

“Apparently,” said the historian, “the children were to be kept in school until the town mayor was flown out of the city...no...ah, here it is: 'and that all orders thereafter shall be issued from the primary defense base.' "

“But we don't know where that was,” said Jo

The old man scuttled back to his pile of books. “Yes, we do!” He came back with a volume concerning congressional hearings into cost overruns of military budgets. MacDermott opened the volume to where he had marked it. He read, " 'Question by Senator Aldrich: The Secretary of Defense then freely admits that the overrun of one point six billion dollars in the construction of the primary defense base in the Rocky Mountains was incurred without congressional authority. Is that correct, Mr. Secretary?' " MacDermott showed Jo

Jo

The iron doors, the dead troops on the stairs.

The tomb!

“Doctor Mac,” Jo

He showed him the sketch. “You told us a story once about a line of nuclear mines laid by the Queen's Own Highlanders from Dumbarton to Falkirk."

The historian nodded. He was looking at the sketch. “Did you find some wrecked remains of Psychlo tanks?” he said.