Battlefield Earth Part 136

Still continuing with her medical training, she founded the MacLeod Intergalactic Health Organization. Jonnie funded it and it became a standard stop-point on and off all firing platforms throughout the galaxies. It also provided instant medical service.

Two other events had occurred. Jonnie and Chrissie had a boy born to them, Timmie Brave Tyler, an absolute carbon copy of Jonnie as everybody swore. And two years later they had a girl, Missie, that everyone affirmed was a mirror-image of Chrissie.

When Timmie was six, Jonnie blew up. Their boy was not getting properly educated. He had "uncles" by the absolute score. "Uncle" Colonel Ivan, "Uncle" Sir Robert, "Uncle" Dunneldeen. And every Scot who had mined or served with Jonnie was an "uncle." They spoiled the child rotten. They brought him things from all over the world. But were they seeing to it that Timmie was properly educated? No! He did speak several languages after a fashion- Russian, Chinese, Chatovarian, Psychlo, and English. He could do sums in his head when it suited him. And he could drive a teleportation go-cart Angus and Tom Smiley had made for him. But Jonnie was faced with the specter of a son who would grow up totally ignorant of the vital things in life.

Jonnie had made up his mind. Affairs were running fine- handled mostly by others anyway. So he took a few bare necessities, bundled Timmie and Chrissie and Missie and four horses into an old marine attack plane, and flew to southern Colorado. He disconnected the plane's phone and radio and hid the ship in a clump of trees and made camp.

For the whole of the next year, rain or shine, Jonnie worked on Timmie. Missie was fine and she helped her mother very well and learned all about real tanning and cooking and things like that. But it was Timmie who got the attention.

At first Jonnie had it a little rough for the boy obviously was getting a delayed start. But after a few months he saw he was making real progress. The boy learned to track, to spot different animals and their immediate intentions. He learned to round up wild horses and train them and he didn't need a sissy thing like a saddle. He came right along and was quite cheerful about it. Jonnie got him to throw kill-clubs with considerable accuracy and he even nailed a coyote with one. Jonnie was just beginning to feel some security about the boy's future and was about to post-graduate him into stalking wolves and then pumas. But on the very first day of this, he heard a plane in the afternoon sky. It wasn't a drone. It was a plane. Heading for the plume of smoke that marked their current camp.

Jonnie and the boy trotted back, Jonnie with uneasy forebodings.

It was Dunneldeen and Sir Robert.

Timmie sprang at them like a small windstorm, shrieking glad shrieks of welcome. "Uncle Dunneldeen! Uncle Wobert!"

Jonnie's manners let Chrissie fix them some supper. They didn't seem to be in any hurry to get on with their business. Evening came and the two of them and the family sat around the bonfire singing Scottish songs. Then Timmie showed them he hadn't forgotten the Highland fling and danced it for them like Thor had taught him.

Finally, when the children and Chrissie had gone to bed, Dunneldeen made the wholly unnecessary statement, "I suppose you're wondering why we're here."

"What's the bad news?" said Jonnie.

"It isn't any bad news," grumped Sir Robert. "We've been holding sixteen universes together like glue. Why should there be any bad news?"

It's been a year," said Dunneldeen.

"You came for something," said Jonnie suspiciously.

"Well," said Dunneldeen, "as a matter of fact, come to think of it, we did. A couple of years ago you made a tour of all the Earth tribes. It 's been proposed that you make a tour of the major civilizations of the galaxies. A lot of governments want to bestow honors and estates and medals and things on you because galactic conditions are so prosperous."

It made Jonnie very cross. "I told you I was taking a year off! Don't you realize I have family responsibilities?

What kind of father would I be to let my son grow up like an educated savage!" He really let them have it.

Dunneldeen heard him out and then laughed. "We thought you'd say that, so we sent Thor instead."

Jonnie studied that over. Then he said, "So if you handled it, why have you come?"

Sir Robert looked at him. "Your year is up, laddie. Doesn't it ever occur to you that your friends miss you?"

So Jonnie went back home, and while Timmie learned to speak fifteen languages and do five kinds of math, while he learned to drive a ground car like Ker and drive and fly anything the company made, on any planet, including Dries Gloton's new yacht, his education was never finished. It was probably the one failure in Jonnie Goodboy Tyler's life.

Doctor MacDermott, the historian who considered himself expendable, lived on and on.

He wrote a book: The Jonnie Goodboy Tyler I Knew, or The Conqueror of Psychio, Prine of the Scottish Nation. It was not as good as this book, for it was intended for semiliterate people. But it had three-dimensional pictures that moved in full color- he had access to several archives- and it sold two hundred fifty billion copies in its first printing. It was translated into ninety-eight thousand different galactic languages and went into many editions.

Doctor MacDermott received royalties so far in excess of anything his simple life needed that he endowed the Tyler Museum. It is the first building you see, the one with the golden dome, when you leave the MacLeod Intergalactic Health Organization exit at the Denver terminal.

Not too long after his return from America, Jonnie disappeared. His family and his friends were very concerned. But they knew that he disliked adulation and being unable to move about without attracting crowds. He had remarked that he was not needed now and that he had done his work. A pouch, two kill-clubs, and a knife were also missing. The dragon helmet and bright-b.u.t.toned tunic were still there on a peg where he had last hung them.

But people in the galaxies do not know that he is gone. If you ask almost anyone on a civilized planet where he is, you are likely to be told that he is there, just over that hill, waiting in case the lords or the Psychlos come back. Try it. You'll see. They will even point.

- The End -

FOOTNOTES.

[1] Time, distance and weight have been translated in all cases throughout this book to old Earth time, distance, and weight systems for the sake of uniformity and to prevent confusion in the various systems employed by the Psychlos.-Translator. Time, distance and weight have been translated in all cases throughout this book to old Earth time, distance, and weight systems for the sake of uniformity and to prevent confusion in the various systems employed by the Psychlos.-Translator.

[2] There was a curious aftermath to this treaty. Lord Schleim, arrived back in Tolnep, used the owners of the Creeth newspaper, the leading Tolnep journal "Midnight Fang," who were incensed at the loss of their ace reporter, a.r.s.ebogger, to conduct a smear campaign on Captain RoG.o.deter Snowl, blaming him for the entire disaster, Schleim claiming it was Snowl's "false testimony" which had brought about Schleim's and Tolnep's disgrace. RoG.o.deter Snowl was set upon in the streets of Creeth by a mob which bit him to death. A relative of the slain officer, Agitor Snowl, in his turn blamed Lord Schleim for the attack and murder. He and a group of fleet officers waited until Lord Schleim next addressed the government and then blew up Schleim and the entire a.s.sembled House of Plunder in an incident which became known as "The Great Schleim Plot." Soon there after, its fleet gone and no longer able to engage in the slave trading which had formed the basis of its economy, Tolnep was unable to meet its indemnity payments. It s income tax department, always corrupt, fell behind in its bribe quotas to higher officials and, one by one, seized Tolnep citizens for tax delinquency, had their fangs drawn, sterilized them, and sold them into slavery. The Hawvins eventually bought the planet and completed the extermination and the Tolneps became extinct.- (Excerpted from Galactic Bank, Customer Service Summaries, vol. 43562789A.). There was a curious aftermath to this treaty. Lord Schleim, arrived back in Tolnep, used the owners of the Creeth newspaper, the leading Tolnep journal "Midnight Fang," who were incensed at the loss of their ace reporter, a.r.s.ebogger, to conduct a smear campaign on Captain RoG.o.deter Snowl, blaming him for the entire disaster, Schleim claiming it was Snowl's "false testimony" which had brought about Schleim's and Tolnep's disgrace. RoG.o.deter Snowl was set upon in the streets of Creeth by a mob which bit him to death. A relative of the slain officer, Agitor Snowl, in his turn blamed Lord Schleim for the attack and murder. He and a group of fleet officers waited until Lord Schleim next addressed the government and then blew up Schleim and the entire a.s.sembled House of Plunder in an incident which became known as "The Great Schleim Plot." Soon there after, its fleet gone and no longer able to engage in the slave trading which had formed the basis of its economy, Tolnep was unable to meet its indemnity payments. It s income tax department, always corrupt, fell behind in its bribe quotas to higher officials and, one by one, seized Tolnep citizens for tax delinquency, had their fangs drawn, sterilized them, and sold them into slavery. The Hawvins eventually bought the planet and completed the extermination and the Tolneps became extinct.- (Excerpted from Galactic Bank, Customer Service Summaries, vol. 43562789A.).

[3] For the Earth and several other editions of this book, translation liberties have been taken throughout, but especially with the explanation that follows, due mainly to the temporary unavailability of print fonts which include Psychlo numbers and letters.- Translator. For the Earth and several other editions of this book, translation liberties have been taken throughout, but especially with the explanation that follows, due mainly to the temporary unavailability of print fonts which include Psychlo numbers and letters.- Translator.