Battlefield Earth Part 123

Chief Chong-won was getting them organized. He told Jonnie, as he rushed by, that he was moving them all to the old minesite dome that had been cleaned up: it had rooms underground and the armor cable was working there now.

Well! Jonnie was free of the signing conference. Dunneldeen was available to take over.

In ops he asked Dunneldeen, "Any news from Edinburgh come in with this tribe?"

Dunneldeen shook his head.

Jonnie grabbed an air mask and flight jacket. "Then I'm off to find Stormalong!"

He got no further than the exit to the bowl. He collided head on with Stormalong himself.

"Where have you been?" cried Jonnie. "I have called and called and called!"

Stormalong pushed him into a bunker where they could not be overheard. "I have been fighting and flying my goggles off for days!" He looked it. He was gaunt and hollow of eye; his white scarf was dirty, his jacket stained with sweat and grease. He even had a gun burn in his shoulder.

"You're hurt," said Jonnie.

"No, no, it's nothing. A Drawkin officer wouldn't surrender. I had to chase him with a marine attack plane! Imagine it, him on foot running up the side of a mountain, Ben Lomond, and me having to stun him, not kill him, just stun him, mind you, with a blast cannon! And then when I landed and got out, he was just playing dead and he shot me and I had to stun him again with a handgun. Oh, laddie, it has been a wild time!"

"What have you been demanded Jonnie, making no sense of it.

"Catching prisoners! They left marines and pilots scattered around the Singapore site, some wounded, some not. They didn't bother to pick up their wounded in Russia. Dunneldeen must have shot down thirty enemy planes around Edinburgh and pilots that ejected are scattered to the west and in the Highlands. It takes some doing, let me tell you, to pick them up. They think they'll be tortured or sprinkled with virus or killed. And they don't surrender easily!"

"All by yourself?"

"Except for half-a-dozen bank guards. And they're French, Jonnie. They're not soldiers. They can maybe guard a vault or carry valuables-"

"Stormalong, I had radios in all those places! You must have had your set on. People must have seen you!" None of it made any sense to Jonnie.

"It's MacAdam, Jonnie. He wouldn't let me answer. And anybody we saw, he told them they mustn't put on the air they'd seen us. I told him you would be worried. But he said, no, no. Radio silence utterly and absolutely! I am sorry, Jonnie."

With careful patience, Jonnie said, "Begin at the beginning. Did you deliver the copies of the talk I had with the small gray men?"

Stormalong sank down on an ammunition box. He verified they were out of sight and hearing of everyone. "I got there about dawn and I went right to MacAdam's bedroom, and when he heard I was from you, he put the whole thing on a projector. Then he called the German and grabbed six bank guards and a whole basketload of Galactic bank notes, and he told a girl in his office not to give out any information at all and we got airborne. He just plain kidnapped me!

"We've been to every battleground looking for officers. He had a list of nationalities and he wanted several of each. Jonnie, those French bank guards are no help! I had to do all the flying and fighting. But I did get some rest. Every time we'd collect some officers...did you know both he and the German speak excellent Psychlo? I was surprised they'd been studying so hard...they'd interrogate them and I'd get a couple of hours of catnap. Then we'd load the prisoners aboard, all tied up...the bank guards could sit there with a gun on them...and off we'd go to another location."

"What was he asking them?"

"Oh, I don't know. He didn't use torture. Sometimes he handed out a fistful of Galactic bank notes. They talked."

Jonnie looked out the bunker entrance at the plane. There were the bank guards all right. They were dressed in gray uniforms. But they weren't pushing prisoners. They were unloading boxes and some Chinese were bringing up some mine carts and rushing loads into the bowl. "I don't see any prisoners," said Jonnie.

"Oh, well," said Stormalong, "we came back to Luxembourg and picked up some boxes and he got a couple more bank guards- Germans this time-and we flew down to the Victoria minesite. I got a pretty good rest there because he spent so much time talking to the captives we already had there. Then we dumped out prisoners and came on and here we are. And that's the whole thing."

It was a long way from the whole thing, Jonnie thought. He told Stormalong to go get some food and rest and went out to find the banker.

MacAdam, short and stocky, his black beard flecked with gray, was pointing this way and that and rushing people along. He stopped abruptly when he saw Jonnie and shook his hand vigorously. Then he turned and beckoned another man to come over.

"I don't believe you ever met Baron von Roth," said MacAdam, "the other member of the Earth Planetary Bank."

The German was a huge man, as tall as Jonnie and heavier. He was bluff and hearty, red of face. "Ach, but I am pleased!" he bellowed and promptly gave Jonnie a huge hug.

MacAdam had vanished into the bowl and the German picked up a heavy box and rushed after him.

Jonnie knew something of the German. Although he had made a fortune in dairy and other foodstuffs, he was descended from a family that was supposed to have controlled European banking for centuries before the Psychlo invasion. He looked like a very tough, capable man.

The last of the baggage from the marine attack plane was being wheeled into the entrance. Jonnie couldn't figure out what they were up to.

Inside, a crew of Chinese and some bank guards, under the direction of Chong-won, were hanging huge mine tarpaulins all around the paG.o.da eaves to completely hide the firing platform itself. Some more Chinese were stringing mine cables and hanging tarps on them to make a covered pa.s.sage from a bunker to the console. They were totally hiding the platform and all operation of it.

MacAdam was talking with Angus, and although they smiled at him when Jonnie came up, MacAdam was very rushed and he said, "Later, later."

All the baggage had vanished into the covered bunker. The Chinese children and dogs were all gone. Some Chinese were cleaning the bowl up. Some emissaries wandered out and watched what was happening with the tarpaulins and then, showing little curiosity, wandered off showing each other bits and points in the brochure.

Dunneldeen was on the job in the ops room and told Jonnie that he'd talked Stormalong into getting his beard trimmed like "Sir Francis Drake." No, nothing new from Edinburgh except that the North Chinese now working there were doing fine. Did Jonnie know they were much bigger men? Oh, yes, and Ker and two bank guards were holding blast rifles on fifty new prisoners at Victoria.

Jonnie glanced up at the sky. If worse came to worst, he had his own way to handle this: a way which might make a fatal future but which might have to be done.

He went to his room to get into less spectacular clothes. They had a few short days. But days had a habit of pa.s.sing awfully fast when you needed them.

The final confrontation, the last battle, was all too near.

Chapter 7.

The fateful moment of the bank meeting arrived.

Five days had pa.s.sed.

Jonnie sat alone in the small meeting room that had been prepared and waited for the others to arrive.

There was not the slightest doubt in his mind that this was going to be a battle bigger than he had ever fought before.

Being Jonnie, he had been unwilling to simply sit idly by while MacAdam and Baron von Roth prepared.

They had been busy enough. For five days and nights, the hum of the teleportation rig had resounded through the bowl. Things had come and things had gone on the platform behind the tarpaulins.

But they did no talking less they be overheard and the only words that sounded were, "Motors off!" "No planes approaching!" "Stand by!" and "Fire!" Whenever anyone, especially emissaries or the small gray men, had come near the tarpaulins or the curtained corridor to a bunker, stern bank guards had pushed them back peremptorily. All Jonnie got from MacAdam was, "Later. Later!" Not even Angus was talking.

He had gotten an estimate that it would be several days. Mr. Tsung had told Jonnie that the negotiations of finance and banking were very specialized things. He had added one phrase that had stuck in Jonnie's mind: "The power of money and gold over the souls of men pa.s.ses all wondering."

The predawn sky of the day after MacAdam's arrival had found Jonnie in the air. He had heard of a university outside the ruins of an old city named Salisbury about one hundred seventy-five miles southeast of Kariba. He had tried to get Sir Robert to come along but the old Scot was hanging on to the radio in the ops room, doing what he could for Edinburgh. Instead, Jonnie had taken a couple of Chinese soldiers to shoo off the lions and elephants when they threatened to interrupt his studies.

The university was a ruin but the library could be sorted out amid the dust and debris, the roof and walls having stood. Camped out in the wreckage, Jonnie had pried congealed packs of catalogue cards apart and had pretty well found what he was looking for. It had been a well-endowed library once. It included lots of economics texts, probably because the relatively new nation had had a dreadful economic struggle of it. The texts were in English and they covered the history of economics and banking pretty well.

Mr. Tsung had been absolutely right! It was a highly specialized subject. And when one went wrong, like some nut named Keynes they had all become mad at, it really messed things up. What Jonnie got out of it was that the state was for people. He had suspected that was the way it should be. And individuals worked and made things and exchanged them for other things. And it was easier to do it with money. But money itself could be manipulated. The c.h.i.n.kos had been great and patient teachers and Jonnie knew how to study. And with a mind like his, he got things as quickly as a traveling shot.

Four of those five days had been spent ears deep in books, nose full of dust, with Chinese guards warning off black mamba snakes and African buffalo.

Sitting there in the meeting room, waiting for the others, he had the satisfaction of knowing that, while he was no expert, he would at least have a grip on what this battle was all about.

Sir Robert came in, grumbling and cross, and took a seat over to the side with Jonnie. Even though the small gray men had indicated it was between Sir Robert and them, the War Chief of Scotland knew that claymores and lochaber axes weren't going to win this one and as far as he was concerned it was all up to the experts. Basically he was very concerned about Edinburgh. They had gotten food and water through into the various shelters with thin hoses but rock was still crumbling in on their tunnel efforts. They had been driving in huge, heavy pipe casings for days now and the only hope was that they were not crumbling this time.

Dries Gloton and Lord Voraz came in. A table for four had been set in the middle of the room and they took two of the places on one side of it. They were very neatly dressed in gray suits. They had their arms full of papers and attache cases and they put them down. They looked exactly like hungry sharks.

Neither Jonnie nor Sir Robert had acknowledged their arrival.

"You don't seem very pleased this morning," said Lord Voraz.

"We be men of the sword," said Sir Robert. "We ha' sma' truck wi' the money changers I' the temple."

Sir Robert's sudden use of English caused both small gray men to turn on their vocoders.

"I noticed," said Dries Gloton, "when I came in that there were half a hundred soldiers in white tunics and red pants all around in the rifle pits in the bowl."

"An honor guard," said Sir Robert.

"They had an a.s.sortment of weapons," said Dries. "And one huge fellow certainly looked more like a brigand than an officer in charge of an honor guard."

"I wouldn't let Colonel Ivan hear you say that," said Sir Robert.

"Do you realize," said Dries Gloton, "that if you killed the emissaries and us, you would become an outlaw nation? They know where we are. You would have a dozen fleets in here smashing you to bits."

"Better to fight fleets than be a' cut up with bits o' paper," said Sir Robert, gesturing at their piles of it. "There's na thrat i' the Roosians if you tell the truth and behave. We ken this be a battle o' wits and skullduggery. But it's a battle a' the same and a b.l.o.o.d.y one!"

Lord Voraz turned to Jonnie. "Why do you regard us in so hostile a fashion, Sir Lord Jonnie? I a.s.sure you we have only the friendliest feelings for you personally. We admire you greatly. You must believe that." He seemed and probably was sincere.

"But banking is banking," said Jonnie. "And business is business. Is that it?"

"Of course!" said Lord Voraz. "However, personal regard sometimes enters in. And in your case it most certainly does. I tried several times in the last few days to find you. It is unfortunate that we could not have had our talk before this meeting here. We are actually your personal friends."

"In what way?" asked Jonnie coolly.

A grizzly bear or an elephant would have backed off when Jonnie sounded like that. But not Lord Voraz. "Do you realize that when a planet is sold, all its people and all its technology are sold with it? Didn't you read the brochure? You and your immediate a.s.sociates are exempted in the sale and so is anything you may have developed."

"How generous," said Jonnie with cold sarcasm.

"Since we had no chance to talk and the others seem to be late," said Lord Voraz, "I can tell you now. We have worked out an offer. We will create a technical department in the Galactic Bank and make you the head of it. We will build a fine factory in Snautch-that's the capital of the system, you know- provide you with everything you need, and give you a lifetime contract. If the figure I already offered seems too low, we can negotiate it. You would not lack for money."

"And money is everything," said Jonnie bitingly.

Both bankers were shocked at his tone. "But it is! is!" cried Lord Voraz. "Everything has a price! Anything can be bought."

"Things like decency and loyalty can't be," said Jonnie.

"Young man," said Lord Voraz sternly, "you are very talented and have many other fine qualities, I am sure, but there have been some radical omissions in your upbringing!"

"I wouldn'a talk to him like that," warned Sir Robert.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Lord Voraz. "Forgive me. In my effort to help, I permitted myself to be carried away."

"That's better," growled Sir Robert and loosened his grip on his claymore.

"You see," said Lord Voraz, "a scientist is supposed to be hired by a company. What he develops belongs to the company. It 's quite disastrous for a scientist to try to go it alone and manage his own developments and affairs. All companies and all banks and certainly all governments agree on this totally. A scientist is supposed to quietly draw his salary, turn over his patents to the company, and go on working. It 's all been arranged that way. Why, if he tried to do anything any other way, he'd spend all his life in law courts. That is how it has been carefully arranged."

"So the shoes a cobbler makes belong to him," said Jonnie, "but the developments of a scientist belong to the company or the state. I see. Very plain."

Lord Voraz overlooked the sarcasm. Or didn't hear it.

"I am so glad you understand. Money is everything and all things and talent are for sale. And that's the heart and soul of banking, the very cornerstone of business. A first principle."

"I thought making a profit was," said Jonnie.

"Oh, that too, that too," said Lord Voraz. "So long as it is an honest profit. But believe me, the heart and soul-"

"I'm so glad to know," said Jonnie, "that banking and business have a heart and soul. I hadn't been able to detect one thus far."

"Oh, dear," said Lord Voraz. "You are being sarcastic."

"Anything that destroys decent people has no heart and soul," said Jonnie. "And by that I include banking, business, and government. These concerns can only exist if they are for people. If they serve the wants and needs of the ordinary being!"

Lord Voraz looked at him searchingly. He thought for a bit. There was something in what Sir Lord Jonnie was saying.... He gave it up. He was a banker.

"Indeed," said Lord Voraz, "you are a peculiar young man. Perhaps when you get old enough to understand the ways of the world-'

Sir Robert's tensing was halted by the arrival of MacAdam and Baron von Roth.

"Who's a peculiar young man?" said Baron von Roth. "Jonnie? Indeed he is. Thank gott! I see you two were early," he shot at Dries and Lord Voraz. "Never saw anybody so anxious to collect their pound of flesh! Shall we begin?"

- Part x.x.x -

Chapter 1.