Battlefield Earth Part 118

Not as good, of course, as his Aunt Ellen's venison stew, but quite edible. The nurse had sent in word he was not to have any rice wine because of the sulfa but that was fine- Jonnie didn't much care for drinking anyway.

These small gray men were eating the entire banquet that had been planned for thirty people! Where did they put it all?

Jonnie took the time to study them.

Their skin was gray and kind of rough. Their eyes were a dull gray-blue, maybe like the sea, and had heavy lids. Their heads were round and hairless. Their noses took a sharp upturn just at the tip. The ears were a bit odd- reminded one more of gills than ears. They had four fingers and a thumb on each hand, though the nails were very pointed. They really looked quite like men. The main difference was their teeth: they had two rows of teeth, the second set just behind the first.

Watching them eat so voraciously and hugely, Jonnie tried to figure out what genetic lines such creatures might come from. They reminded him of something and he sought to place it. Then he recalled a fish that a pilot who was pa.s.sing through Victoria had shown them. The pilot had been downed by fuel failure in the Indian Ocean and had ejected with a life raft. While waiting to be picked up he was attacked by these fish. When he was rescued, they had shot one of the fish with a cannon and picto-recorded it. It had been pretty big. What had he called it? Jonnie tried to think. They had looked it up in a man-book. Ah, a shark! That had been the name! Yes. These small gray men had a similar skin, similar teeth. Maybe they were evolved from sharks that had become sentient.

It finally came down to tea. It wasn't that the small gray men couldn't eat any more. It was that Chief Chong-won had run out of food! The tea was served, and the first small gray man asked with just a trace of worry whether this was "yarb tea." He was rea.s.sured that it was just plain green tea, a fact that seemed to bring relief.

They sat back and smiled at Jonnie. They said that was the best dinner they had had in some time, maybe ever, and Chong-won slid out to tell and please the cook.

Under their gaze, Jonnie thought to himself that now they were finished with all the food in sight, they were going to try to eat him! But no, that was vaporing. They were quite pleasant, really. Now maybe he could find out what they were all about, what they really wanted.

"You know," said the original small gray man, "about these hostile forces- your trouble here was really your defenses. Cheap trash. But that's the Psychlos for you. They never put their money in good defenses. Personnel were cheap. They'd rather buy half-a-dozen new females or a ton or two of kerbango than proper armaments."

He looked at Jonnie as though about to apprise him of something utterly devastating. "You know how much those antiaircraft guns you use cost?

Less than five thousand credits. Cheap trash! They won't even shoot up to two hundred thousand feet. Bargain-bas.e.m.e.nt, rummage-sale armaments. They probably bought them from some war surplus, used. And some executive put the new price on the books and pocketed the difference."

"What should a proper antiaircraft gun cost?" said Jonnie to keep it going.

The newest small gray man thought a moment. Then he brought a small gray book out of his vest pocket and opened it. The page seemed to get bigger and he scanned down it with a little reader gla.s.s. "Ah, here's one. 'Surface/s.p.a.ce combination repulsion, multicomputer firing defense cannon: maximum range 599 miles, 15,000 shots a minute, simultaneous tracking of 130 vessels or 2,300 bombs, destruction potential A- 13 (that's capital ship penetration), cost before discounts, C 123,475 plus freight and installation.' Now batteries of those located around your strong points would have handled that entire combined force or kept them so high up they could not have launched atmosphere crafts."

The original small gray man agreed. "Yes, that was the main trouble. The Psychlos were both improvident and credit-pinching at the same time. I don't think they even kept up this planet's defenses."

Jonnie could agree with that. He felt he was going to find out something about these fellows now that they were talking. Keep them talking! "Well, just at a guess," said Jonnie, "what would you say proper defenses for this planet would cost?"

He had started something!

Both small gray men put their heads together. The original one started pulling all sorts of little things out of his pocket, looking into them and finding things. The newer arrival had a large ring on his left finger and at first Jonnie thought he was simply fiddling with it: not so; he was twisting and tapping it with sudden little jerks, and a long thread, so thin as to be nearly invisible, was coiling out of the ring.

They were very intense and their voices murmured and blended together. "...thirty s.p.a.ce probes...maintained carrier wave probe warning beams...fifteen s.p.a.ce drones, automatic firing at all nonsignal identified craft...cost of equipping terrestrial craft with identification beacons...2,000 atmosphere beacons...256 Mark 50 combat fighters...400 fly-away, antipersonnel tanks...7,000 antipersonnel road barricades...one hundred city cable defenses with rectractable gates...fifty heath/color search drones...fifty automatic target destroy surface drones...."

They were finished. The newer one snapped off the thread at the ring and tapped it at the end, and with a little pop! the thread expanded into a long sheet of paper like a tape. He gave it a small flick and it landed in front of the original small gray man. He picked it up, scanned the figures on it, and then looked at the end.

"With spare parts and freight," he said, "it comes to C500,962,878,431 at two parts in eleven annual interest rate, plus an estimated C285,000,006 annual military and maintenance personnel salaries, housing and equipage."

He tossed the long tape across the table to Jonnie and concluded, "There it is. An efficient and economical planetary defense system. All top-of-the-line merchandise. Good for a hundred years. That's the sort of thing you should have had! And you can still have it!"

That was C498,960,878,431 more than Earth had! It had made him realize how broke Earth was. Now was the time to find out more about these two. "I surely appreciate your information. If you will excuse me, what are you two gentlemen? Arms salesmen?"

He might as well have dropped a bomb on them, they looked so startled! Then they looked at each other and both of them laughed.

"Oh, I am so sorry," said the original small gray man. "It is so terribly impolite of us. You see, we are quite well known in our respective areas. And we know so much about you, in fact, know you so well, that it just never occurred to us that we never introduced ourselves!

"I am His Excellency Dries Gloton. And I am very pleased to meet you, Sir Lord Jonnie Tyler."

Jonnie shook his hand. It was a dry hand, quite rough.

"And this," said His Excellency, "is Lord Voraz. Lord Voraz, Sir Lord Jonnie Tyler."

Jonnie shook his dry, rough hand and said, "It is really just Jonnie Tyler, Your Lordship. I have no t.i.tles."

"We choose to doubt that," said Lord Voraz.

His Excellency said, "Lord Voraz is the Central Director, Chief Executive Officer, and Overlord of the Galactic Bank."

Jonnie blinked but bowed.

Lord Voraz said, "Dries here likes to call himself the chief collections executive but it is a sort of bank joke. He is actually the Branch Manager of the Galactic Bank for this sector. You might have noticed a time or two that I stepped on his toes accidentally. A Branch Manager has total authority for his sector and is a bit jealous of his prerogatives." He laughed, teasing his junior. "Your planet comes in his sector and dealings about it are entirely up to him. He's the one who has to show a profit for his area. Now I, I am simply here because the emissaries have met. These are very troubled-"

Dries Gloton cut him off sharply. "His Lordship can't be expected to know all the ins and outs of sector business. He does very well to keep up with universes."

Lord Voraz laughed again, "Oh, dear, I am really sorry we worried you. Why, we have been looking-"

Dries cut him off again, "We're just here to help, Sir Lord Jonnie. By the way, would you like to start an account? A personal account?" He was fishing in his pockets for the materials. "We can give you a very low number and absolute confidence a.s.sured."

Suddenly Jonnie realized that he had no money. Not just no money in his pockets. He didn't have and never had had any money at all. He'd even given the gold coin away. He thought maybe he got pilot pay that was given to Chrissie, but he had never seen it. He steered off apprehensive thoughts of Chrissie quickly. He had better keep his mind on this talk. But he was broke. Penniless.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Perhaps later if I ever get any money to deposit."

The two gave each other a quick look. But Dries said, "Well, just remember, we're not enemies of yours."

"I think you would be very bad to have as enemies," said Jonnie, still fishing. "That fleet wouldn't go away until you talked to Snowl."

"Oh, that!" said Dries Gloton. "The Galactic Bank has lots of services for its customers. What you saw there was just notarial services. They needed a radio notary code trace to attest and verify that it was a valid conference order. He wouldn't take their word, of course. They trust the bank."

"Was calling the emissaries here a bank service, too?" said Jonnie.

"Well, no," began Lord Voraz.

"You could call it so, if you like," said Dries. "For sometimes such a conference is arranged as a service. It 's in the interest of the Galactic Bank to have civilized planets do business together smoothly."

Jonnie was not at all satisfied but he put an easy face on it. "These emissaries do seem to obey you, though. They call you 'Your Excellency' and they call Lord Voraz 'His Worship.' What do you do if they don't obey you? You know, not come to the conference or do what you say."

The thought shocked Lord Voraz. Before Dries Gloton could stop him, he said, "Unthinkable! Why, the bank would call in their loans, shut off their credit. Their economies would shatter. They would go bankrupt. Their whole planet could be sold right out from under them. Oh, they would think several times before-"

Dries finally got his attention and shut him off. "Now, Your Worship," he said softly, "I know you feel strongly about these matters but we must remember that this is my sector and things that concern this planet are my worry. Forgive me. I think possibly Sir Lord Jonnie doesn't really know too much about the Galactic Bank. We haven't reprinted the information leaflets for ages. Would you like to know more about it, Sir Lord Jonnie?"

Jonnie definitely would. He privately had become very alert about "the whole planet could be sold right out from under them."

Chapter 4.

Chong-won poured more tea.

"You mustn't get the impression we are violent people," said Dries, taking a large swallow from a bowl.

Just powerful and deadly, Jonnie thought.

"Our race is called the 'Selachee,' continued Dries. "We are indigenous to the only three habitable planets of the Gredides System. The planets are mostly water- nine surface parts of water to only two parts of land on the average. And we have only banking as our industry."

He smiled and drank more tea. "We're ideal bankers. We can eat anything, drink anything, breathe almost any atmosphere, live on almost any gravity. By tribal mores, we worship total honesty and the righteousness of obligation."

Jonnie thought that was probably true, but he also thought they were not telling all they knew and especially what they intended to do. "Honesty" might not include the whole truth, and there might be some real clues here as to what was going on. He smiled politely and listened closely.

"We have about five billion inhabitants on each planet," continued Dries, "and It is quite a busy population. Although mostly devoted to banking, we have, of course, our engineers and specialists and, naturally, lots of mathematicians. Nearly five hundred thousand years ago we developed s.p.a.ce flight. That's about the right figure, isn't it, Your Worship?"

Lord Voraz was still a bit out of sorts at the idea of planets going back on obligations. But he put a good, professional banking face on it. "Four hundred ninety-seven thousand, four hundred thirty-two years this coming Sidereal day one hundred three for this universe," he said.

"Thank you," said Dries, having gotten His Worship back into the discourse.

"And three hundred two thousand years ago-'

"Three hundred two thousand three," said Lord Voraz.

"Thank you.... We ran into the Psychlos! Now, don't be alarmed. We were not conquered. We didn't even fight a war. In those days the Psychlos were not as bad as they became about a hundred thousand years later. In that time, they had not begun killing for the love of it-I'm sure I don't have to go on to you about Psychlos."

"No indeed!" said Jonnie. This was all going somewhere that was going to wind up as bad news. He could feel it despite their smiles.

"Precisely," said Dries. "Where was l? Any way- and this will amuse you-they were not interested in us really for we did not have any metals to amount to anything. Being mostly water, our planets would have presented formidable mining problems.

"We needed metals and the Psychlos needed some computer technology we had, and so we became a market. This was something brand-new in Psychlo experience. They had a lot to learn about finance and that sort of thing. So we taught them.

"internally, they were pretty bad off. They breed like...what's some fish of this planet you'd know...like herrings! They have always been terrified of founding actual Psychlo colonies for fear they'd rise and revolt against the home planet. They had mobs and unemployment. Heavy, heavy depressions. They were an economic mess.

"So we helped them build markets for metals. With their teleportation shipping arrangements, it was very easy for them to do this. They became prosperous and developed even more ways to mine and we saw to it they were economically stable.

"Then suddenly, from the Psychlo viewpoint, an awful thing happened. It terrified them. That was about two hundred thousand years ago."

"Two hundred nine thousand, four hundred sixty-two," corrected Lord Voraz.

"Thank you. Another race stole or invented teleportation!"

"The Boxnards, Universe Six," said Lord Voraz.

"It is unclear what happened then," said Dries. "We don't always have access to military files and we never had access to these, not ever. But I think the Boxnards tried to put teleportation to military use. The Psychlos got there first and the entire seven planets of the Boxnards and every single Boxnard were wiped out. It took the Psychlos years."

"Three years and sixteen days," said Lord Voraz.

"They even slaughtered people and races which had been a.s.sociated with or allied with the Boxnards, for we never afterwards found any trace of them.

"That war," said Dries, "also seemed to change the Psychlos. For nearly half a century they all but cut contact with other worlds. It was a bad time for us as well. Our economy was wrapped up in their concerns. They also must have engaged in some internal slaughter because the next records we have show their own population to have decreased by six elevenths.

"It took another century for the Psychlos to become busy again. But they were a very changed people."

Aha, thought Jonnie. I have the time they began to use those capsules in baby Psychlos' heads! And why. To protect their teleportation technology and mathematics.

"They had burned all their books," said Dries. "They had lost any aesthetic arts they had had. You can tell from their dictionaries that the language they had acc.u.mulated over the ages ceased to be in full use. They dropped words like 'compa.s.sion' or 'pity' and it even seemed they had dropped the term 'good sense.'

"Although we refer to them now as 'Psychlos,' that name didn't come into use until that time. Previously they called themselves after whatever king might chance to be on the imperial Throne.

"Anyway, not to bore you for I see you know something of this, the ensuing centuries were very, very bad for everyone, especially the Psychlos. They built a reputation of being the cruelest, most s.a.d.i.s.tic oppressors any universe had ever seen.

"But they were in internal trouble. Their population was bursting. They were in economic chaos. They were nine parts in eleven unemployed. The royal house was terrified of revolution and as a matter of fact, experienced, I think, four a.s.sa.s.sinations of princes-"

"Seven," said Lord Voraz. "And two queens."

"Thank you," continued Dries. "And in total desperation, they came to the Gredides and actually begged the Selachees for help. They wanted money to hire soldiers and buy arms. But our parliament, the Creditable Body, along with every other race in sixteen universes, wanted nothing to do with them and it looked like outright war. But somebody in the Creditable Body-'

"Lord Finister," said Lord Voraz.

"Thank you. Had the good sense to turn them over to us. We were as big a bank then. The current head of it-'

"Lord Loonger," said Lord Voraz.

"Thank you. Brought them to the bargaining table and really got them on the signature line! The bank would handle all all economic connections they had with other races, handle economic connections they had with other races, handle all all transfers of Psychlo funds, handle transfers of Psychlo funds, handle all all peace conferences. And in return every Selachee would be held inviolate, the Selachee planets and the Gredides System were totally hands off, and the Psychlos would furnish teleportation facilities throughout the universes for the bank. They signed, they got their money, they stabilized." peace conferences. And in return every Selachee would be held inviolate, the Selachee planets and the Gredides System were totally hands off, and the Psychlos would furnish teleportation facilities throughout the universes for the bank. They signed, they got their money, they stabilized."

Lord Voraz spoke up, "The only two times they ever sought to violate those agreements, they went into a nose-dive splash and they hastily reformed at once."

"So there," said Dries Gloton, "you have the whole background of the Galactic Bank. We call it 'Galactic,' you know, even though it should be 'Pan-Galactic,' covering sixteen universes as it does. But 'Galactic' makes customers look on it as their galaxy's bank. More neighborly, don't you think?"

What Jonnie thought was that he was dealing with an outfit more powerful than the Psychlos. With the galactic organization that could give orders to monsters and be obeyed. He was very alert. There was trouble here somewhere.

"Then possibly," said Jonnie, "you want to talk with the government here about teleportation service."

Dries and Lord Voraz looked at each other and then back at Jonnie.

"Not with the government," said Lord Voraz. "I doubt it owns any of that. Teleportation would be quite another subject and really we aren't engaged in having a talk to arrange a talk about it just now. You see, there is s.p.a.ce travel. It is slow and time-consuming but it does exist."

Jonnie felt he was not saying everything but he wouldn't push that. It evidently wasn't where the danger lay- for certainly it lay someplace! He could feel it. He sat easily and said, "Maybe it's about the payment of fees for this conference. They might be much larger than we had antic.i.p.ated."

"Oh, heavens, no!" scoffed Dries. And he went to work with a ring he wore. The fingers flew, a thread came out and popped into an expanded tape, and he looked at it. "Negligible. The fees vary for emissaries because their governments vary in size and even pay them differently. But they only add up to about C85,000-it could, of course, be more if they delay. But not much. The bank fee is standard: only C25,000. There is of course the matter of my yacht-'

"The bank," said Lord Voraz, "pays the s.p.a.ce yacht expenses when he uses it on bank business. I think it would be fair, Dries, for you to charge up all the months you searched-"

Dries cut him off sharply. "The yacht would only be charged from the Batafor planet of Balor- that's the Galactic Bank branch office for this sector," he added for Jonnie's benefit. "It's a Hawvin planet. They're not such bad people really. Honest enough individually. So call it C60,000. The total is only around C 170,000."

They had that much, thought Jonnie.