Battlefield Earth Part 71

"Tup day's march ober dere!" said the Brigante captain, trying to point with tied hands and then making do frantically with his chin.

"How long ago did you put the captives over on that platform?" asked Jonnie.

"Pla'furm?" said the Brigante playing it dumb.

Jonnie turned to the Russian officer again.

"Yes'day afnoon!" said the Brigante swiftly.

The fate of the Scot was important, if he were alive. Jonnie cast around as to what he could do. He had a makeshift tail on the convoy. He had an ambush in front of it. There was no flanking in these woods: indeed, a ground car (much less a truck) would almost run into itself trying to get around these trees, or even be able to make headway over this soaking wet humus. No wonder the Psychlos had their own arrangements with the Brigantes. He decided he'd have to wait for the battle.

He told the Russian Coordinator the orders for the Russian officer. In a very gingerly, alert fashion they began to strip the Brigantes, going over their monkey skin uniforms for knives and concealed weapons, which abounded.

They were in the process of tying the descendants of the long-ago mercenaries when Captunk Arf Moiphy pleaded, "You min ufl attembt to my wounded?"

Jonnie let him go ahead. Moiphy jumped up, grabbed a heavy club, and pounced on the seven wounded before he could be stopped. With expert swings that landed crushing thuds on their skulls, he killed them.

Smiling and gratified he threw down the club and turned to a Russian so his hands could be retied.

"Thanunk you," he said.

- Part XVIII -

Chapter 1.

Bittie MacLeod, carrying a blast rifle as tall as himself, followed along behind Sir Jonnie into the main Brigante encampment.

Sir Jonnie had sent him back twice, but wasn't the proper place of a squire to follow his knight with his weapons into a place of danger?

And Bittie admitted to himself that it did look dangerous! There must be twenty-five hundred or three thousand of these people scattered around this clearing deep in the forest.

They had landed at the top edge of the open s.p.a.ce. The prisoners- ooh, how they had stunk up the ship!- had been held in a lump in the big marine attack plane, well separated from their weapons, and when they landed, the prisoners had been put on the ground first. Then Sir Robert had looked over the place and made some defense dispositions to cover their possible retreat as was proper for a War Chief.

Bittie had taken the opportunity of persuading Sir Jonnie into some dry clothes- all you had to do was touch him and the water splashed. The Russians had not been idle over at the dam, and seeing all this rain, they had cut up some camouflage cloth and made rain capes.

It had been hard to get Sir Jonnie to pay attention and take care of himself, to get some food down and change clothes. But Bittie had done it. He'd clasped up the rain cape with a badge with a red star on it and gotten Jonnie's dry shirt belted with his gold buckled belt and had found a helmet liner with a white star on it to keep the rain off him, and all in all, under these circ.u.mstances, Sir Jonnie looked pretty presentable even in this rain.

Sheets of water were marching across the wide clearing full of people. Somebody had cut down an awful lot of trees and burned them sometime past. The blackened stumps stood all about. A crop was half-grown but these people were running all about trampling it, a thing you shouldn't do to crops.

Bittie looked about him through the rain. These creatures did not fit into his sense of fitness of things. He had read quite a bit in his school- he liked the very old romances best- and he hadn't ever encountered anything like this!

There were no old men or old women. There were quite a few children in various bad, unhealthy conditions-potbellies, scabs on them, dirty. Shocking! Didn't anyone properly feed them or clean them up?

Men they pa.s.sed gave them a funny salute with a raised finger. Ugly, contemptuous faces. Faces of all colors and mixed colors. And all dirty. Their clothing was a kind of joke of a uniform, and not worn with any style, just sloppy.

They seemed to speak some strange kind of English like they had oatmeal in their mouths. He knew he didn't talk really good English, not like university men such as Sir Robert, nor as good as Sir Jonnie. But anybody could understand him when he talked and he was trying to improve so that Colonel Ivan's English, which he helped him with, would be good. But these people didn't seem to care if the words even got out of their stinky mouths. Bittie almost b.u.mped into Sir Jonnie, who had stopped in front of a middle-aged man. What language was Sir Jonnie using? Ah, Psychlo! Jonnie was asking something and the Brigante nodded and pointed over to the west and said something back in Psychlo. Bittie got it. Sir Jonnie didn't want to know anything, he just wanted to see whether the Brigante spoke Psychlo. Clever!

Where were they headed? Oh, toward that big lean-to that had a leopard-skin-sort-offlag on a pole in front of it. Bittie saw they had been following the prisoners who were still under guard, probably being taken to their chief.

This was a pretty awful kind of people. They simply halted wherever they were, right in the path, and relieved themselves. Awful. Over there a young man had thrown a girl down and they were...yes, they were! Fornicating right out in public.

Bittie turned his head away and tried to purify his thoughts. But the direction he turned showed him a man making a child do something unspeakable.

He began to feel a little ill and walked much closer to Sir Jonnie's heels. These creatures were worse than animals. Far worse.

Bittie followed Sir Jonnie into the lean-to. How the place stank! There was somebody sitting on a tree trunk they had built the lean-to over. The man was awfully fat and was yellowish with the yellow that Dr. MacKendrick said was malaria. The folds of the man's body made deep seams of dirt.

He had a funny cap on that must be made out of leather; it had a peak in front; there was something set on it-a woman's brooch? some kind of stone- a diamond?

The creature they had captured, Arf, was standing in front of the fat man. With a fist beat on his chest, Arf was making a report. What was he calling the fat man? General Snith? Wasn't "Snit" a Psychlo common name? Wasn't "Smith" the common English name? Terrible hard to tell with that oatmeal accent. The general was chewing on a haunch of something and didn't seem much impressed.

Finally the general spoke: "Didjer gitcher serplies? The sulphur?"

"Well, no," Arf said and tried to tell it all again.

"Didjer bring bock yer stiffs?" the general said. Stiffs? Stiffs? Oh, bodies!

This "captunk" Arf seemed to get a bit scared and back up.

The general hurled the haunch straight at him and hit him in the face with it! "Howjer oxpect ter eat, den!" screamed the general. Eat? Stiffs? Bodies? Eat? Their own dead?

Then Bittie looked down at the thrown "haunch" that had ricocheted toward him. It was a human arm!

Hurriedly Bittie got out of there and got back of the lean-to and was very sick at his stomach.

But Sir Jonnie found him in a moment and put an arm around his shoulders and wiped his mouth with a bandana. He tried to get a Russian to take Bittie back to the plane but Bittie wouldn't go. The place of a squire was with his knight, and Jonnie might need this blast rifle among these horrible creatures. So they let him continue to follow.

Sir Jonnie looked into the lean-to in the edge of the trees and seemed very interested, and Bittie looked and saw a very old, very battered instruction machine like the pilots used to learn Psychlo, and this seemed to mean something to Sir Jonnie.

Who were they looking for now? The rain was coming down and these people were racing around and the blast rifle was very heavy and getting heavier. Oh, the Coordinators!

They found them in another lean-to, a pair of young Scots...wasn't one of them a MacCandless from Inverness? Yes, he thought he recognized him. They sat there, soaking wet even under cover, their bonnets like mops. They looked pretty white of face.

Sir Jonnie was trying to find out how they got here and they were pointing to a pile of cable- dropped by a plane.

So Sir Jonnie told them they'd better leave with them and they were saying no, it was a Council order to bring these people back to the compound in America, and even though the transports were overdue they had supposed it was trouble for the Council to be finding enough pilots for the lift.

After a lot of argument about their duty- on their side- and their safety- on Sir Jonnie's side, they were persuaded to at least come to the plane where they could be given a food package and maybe some weapons. So they all pushed their way through this mob of people back to where the Russians held a defense perimeter and got into the plane.

Sir Robert was there. He sat the two Scot Coordinators down in one of the big Psychlo bucket seats.

"Was there a third one of you?" Sir Robert wanted to know.

"Well, yes," said MacCandless. "There was Allison. But a couple of days ago he fell in a river and some scaly beast got him."

"Did you see this?" said Sir Robert.

Well, no, they hadn't seen it. The general had told them and there were plenty of rivers and lots of scaly beasts.

Sir Jonnie was saying something now: "Did Allison talk Psychlo?"

"He was in pilot training," said MacCandless. "The Federation needs its own pilots sometimes. I suppose he did."

"Yes, he did," said the other Scot. "He could talk some Psychlo. They pulled him out of the cla.s.s to come here. The order to lift these people out came very suddenly from the Council and we were short-'

Sir Robert said, "Do you recall hearing him talk Psychlo to these ruffians around here?"

They thought for a while. The rain was drumming on the marine attack plane roof and it was awfully hot.

"Aye," said MacCandless finally. "I heard him talking to one of the officers that was finding it remarkable he talked Psychlo. They chattered away in it quite a while. I don't speak-'

"That's all we wanted to know," Sir Robert was saying. He looked up at Sir Jonnie meaningfully. "Interrogation! They wanted him for interrogation!"

And Sir Jonnie was nodding.

Then Sir Robert pulled out something Bittie didn't know he had. A tam-o'-shanter with blood on it. He handed it to the two Coordinators.

They found some thread initials in it. Yes, it was Allison's. Where'd Sir Robert get it?

Sir Robert blasted them very proper. He told them, and Bittie was shocked to learn that the Brigantes had sold Allison to the Psychlos! And the Psychlos must have wanted him for interrogation and G.o.d help Allison now. Sold Allison? A human being? To the monsters? Neither Bittie nor the Coordinators could get their wits around that.

There was a dreadful row then. Sir Robert ordered the two Coordinators to come along with them. The Coordinators said this was their duty: to lift these people out; it was a Council order! And Sir Robert thundered at them that he was the War Chief of Scotland and he d.a.m.ned well wasn't going to leave them here. The two Coordinators tried to leave and Sir Jonnie and Sir Robert, using the cargo lashings Bittie hastily found, simply tied them up. They put them on top of the supplies at the rear of the plane.

They withdrew their defense perimeter and took off, and Bittie was not surprised to hear one of the pilots ask permission to strafe these creatures from the air. Sir Robert said no, if they tried that the creatures would just run under the trees; they weren't equipped to handle them right now and they had other things to do; but if they'd done what they appeared to have done, they'd have a b.l.o.o.d.y feud on their filthy hands. Everybody was pretty upset about Allison.

When they had taken off and were flying back to the compound, Bittie got to pondering those people down there.

He leaned over to Sir Jonnie and said, "Sir Jonnie, how in all this rain can they be so dirty dirty"

Chapter 2.

The big marine attack plane landed in the night near the branch mine. It was still deserted. The rain still came down. But there were quarreling sounds of animals over where the skirmish had been fought. The snarls and spits of angry leopards, the shattering barks of some other beast, the eerie cackling laughter of yet another predator. They were fighting over the bodies of the dead.

The flatbed with the flying platform and blast mortar was where it had been prepared just inside the hangar door. There was no sign that the other flatbed had returned in retreat. It must still be following the convoy.

Jonnie looked through the deserted compound again. The lights were still on. The distant mine pumps still pounded away. Unless disturbed by some outside force, all such machinery would probably continue to run for decades.

The planetary traffic printer was still sitting there spewing out paper that recorded current traffic. Jonnie glanced through it. "MacIvor, can you please bring extra fuel to Moscow?" "This is the traffic controller at Johannesburg. Are there any planes en route this way? If not, I can close down for the night." "Isaac, please come in, Isaac. Listen, Isaac, were there any serviceable ore freighters left in the Grozny minesite? And can they be converted for pa.s.sengers? Please let me know by morning. We're a wee bit shy of carriers right now." "Lundy, we're cancelling you on the Tibet run. We need you and your copilot back here to help with an airlift. Please acknowledge, laddie." Most of it in the pilot jargon of Psychlo.

It struck Jonnie that this stream of messages would give an attacker a pretty good idea of what areas were actively operating. It was almost a catalogue of targets for Mark 32s.

If the convoy got through and these Psychlos mounted an overall attack, they could take back the planet.

He wondered whether he shouldn't put out a general call on this set and order a seventy-two-hour radio silence. But no, the damage was done. These same messages were probably reeling out of the Lake Victoria minesite printer too. And any transmission he made here might be picked up by the convoy, alerting it. Well, he would just have to succeed with the convoy, that was all.

He walked back through the empty, echoing levels. The Psychlos, he noticed, had mainly stripped the place of armament. They were leaving no blast guns or portable weapons behind to fall into Brigante hands. Lucky they'd overlooked the mortars in their haste.

The flatbed was out of the hangar now, waiting in the dark yard. Jonnie shut the doors of the compound- no use letting in the leopards and elephants and snakes.

He went back to the big plane and did a rapid review of the actions that were about to occur. He told them to fly in very low indeed- hugging ground- from way over to the east and come in behind the ambush point. He didn't want that plane on convoy tank screens. Then deploy along this ridge...this one here that flanked the road...and when the convoy was well into the ravine, give them a flanking fire. What if they turned around and started back? Well, he'd be back there with a mortar on the flying platform to keep them from retreating.

What? an incredulous Robert the Fox was saying. One mortar against tanks? That's impossible. The convoy would be able to get back into the forest and they'd never get them out. Oh. You want this plane to take off and help block that. Well, that's all right. It is a battle plane.

"Just try to roll the tanks and trucks over without exploding them," said Jonnie. "Use no radiation bullets. Just blast gun force. Keep your weapons on 'Broad Blast,' 'No Flame,' and 'Stun.'

We don't want to kill them. As soon as they're all strung out along this ravine, block the road from the ambush. I'll block it from the rear. The rest of you flank it from the ridge. This battle plane is to help if they get loose and head back toward the forest. Right?"

"Right, right, right." A Coordinator tried unsuccessfully to make up for the absence of the Russian Coordinator, who was now with Ivan, and then said, "I'll make sure the Russian Coordinator explains it when we get to the others.... Oh, I've got it straight. I can tell them then."

"Remember," said Jonnie, "there's a slim possibility that Allison is in that convoy, so keep your eye out for him and if he gets away in the fight, don't shoot him."

"Right, right, right." And they'd get it explained to these Russians here when they caught up with Ivan.

"Smooth," said Robert the Fox. "Oh, so very smooth. The bulk of our force can't be briefed because the translator is elsewhere. What stupendous planning and coordination! I wish us luck. We will need it."

Jonnie said, "But we've got the Psychlos outnumbered."

"What?" exclaimed Robert the Fox.

"There's more than a hundred of them and only fifty or so of us."

"That's what I mean," said Jonnie. "We've got them outnumbered one-half to one!"

They got it and some Russians more advanced in English than the rest explained the joke to the other Russians. They all laughed. The rain had been getting them down. They felt better.

Jonnie was getting down to the flatbed where a Scot and four Russians, one of them a driver, waited, when a scurry in the plane drew his attention. It was Bittie MacLeod, all set to go with him, draped around with equipment.

This was something Jonnie did not want. The coming battle was nothing to drag the boy into. But there was a problem- the boy's pride. Jonnie thought fast. This was almost harder to solve than the tactics!

Bittie's world was filled with the romances of two thousand years ago, when knighthood was in flower, with flame-breathing dragons and pure knights and rescued fair damsels. Nothing wrong with that. He was a sweet little boy and his greatest ambition was to grow up and become a man like Dunneldeen or himself. Nothing wrong with that either. But his dreams risked bruising against the brutal realities of this world in which they fought, a world with its own brand of dragons. He would never live to become like "Prince" Dunneldeen or "Sir" Jonnie if he were not protected. But there was his pride. And it was showing now when he saw Jonnie's pause, saw the search for an excuse to say no in Jonnie's ice-blue eyes.

Hurriedly, Jonnie grabbed a mine radio from a seat and thrust it into the boy's hands. Jonnie tapped the one in his own belt. He leaned very close to Bittie's ear and whispered, "I need a reliable contact on this plane who can tell me, after the battle is joined, if anything is going wrong. Don't use it until the first shot is fired. But if there's anything amiss after that, you tell me fast." He put a finger to his lips.