Battlefield Earth Part 79

Chapter 8.

Ker got on his breathe-mask. He tiptoed over to the machine and picked it up, using only one arm. Then he tiptoed over to the door and suddenly swung it open as though walking out.

A wave of breathe-gas burst out of the room.

Lars was standing there, frozen in the act of attaching a listening device to the door. He wore no air mask.

The invisible puff of breathe-gas. .h.i.t Lars full in the face.

He must have been in the act of taking a breath at that moment for he rose on his toes like someone being strangled.

He gagged. He reeled back. He fought for air. He started to turn blue. In another few seconds he would start into convulsions.

Jonnie and Angus grabbed him, one on each arm, and rushed him back to clearer air. Angus fanned him with a metal plate he'd found on the floor.

Gradually Lars came back to life. The blue tinge faded. But what he said was, "What were you doing in there?" and he said it angrily.

"Now, now, laddie," said Angus soothingly. "Here we are saving of your life and ye're making mean sounds. Tch. Tch."

Lars was looking at Jonnie with a peculiar expression on his face. Jonnie went over to where Ker was rattling the housing around in the car as though he had just put it there.

"It's all right now," said Ker. "No cracks or metal faults in the housing. We better go see if it fits."

They drove off and left Lars lying there, gazing after them with that peculiar look.

"Why's he looking at me that way?" asked Jonnie.

"You better be careful," said Ker. "He's a crazy one. And he's the Council's long nose and pry. He's got some idea that somebody named Bitter or Hitter was the greatest military leader in your history, and if you stand still for ten seconds he'll begin on you. It 's some church. There's nothing wrong with religion but plenty wrong with what he says. Terl wrecked his wits. But there wasn't much there in the first place. Ha. Ha."

"But why that peculiar look at me." asked Jonnie.

"Natural suspicion," said Ker. "Say, you know I feel a lot better since talking to you creatures! I sure am glad I'm different."

They stopped and got out below the top compound level where Terl's office was. They removed the housing from the car and struggled up the ramp with it.

Just before they went in, Angus stopped them. "Why couldn't Terl fix this place up himself?"

Ker laughed. "When Jonnie left here he said to spread it that the place was b.o.o.by-trapped. But that isn't all of it." He indicated the door to Terl's office with a paw wave. "If the Psychlos got out from the dormitory section they could come here and kill anybody working here. Terl's pretty sure they'd kill him if they got loose. They hate him."

"Wait," said Jonnie. "That means Terl will get them killed before he moves in here." He put a hand on the door latch to the office. "You did debug this place and look for b.o.o.by traps?"

"Ha. Ha!" said Ker. "I had been tearing this place to bits waiting for you!"

They went in and set the housing down. Indeed the place was a wreck. Wires pulled out, the old breathe-gas circulator scattered in bent pieces on the floor, desks and chairs askew, paper thrown about.

Jonnie looked it over. At once he saw that in Terl's inner office the whole lower section of the wall to the right of Terl's desk as he would sit at it was lined with large, locked compartments. "Been into those?" he said.

Ker shook his head. "No keys. A security chief loves his security."

Jonnie sent Angus out to find a sentry. The cadets were still the guards in this compound. Ker, with his blanket authority, repeated what Jonnie whispered to him and sent for Chirk.

They got to work sorting out wires and papers and trash and presently three cadet sentries showed up with Chirk.

She was a long way from the smart-looking secretary of the old days. They had her on three chain links attached to a collar. Her fur was all the wrong way. There was no powder on her nosebone and no polish on her triple-jointed claws. She wore just a cloth thrown around her shoulders, no other clothes.

"Where's the keys?" said Ker, as prompted.

Keys! Everybody wanted keys! Her voice was punctuated with fang clicks and snaps and hisses. It wasn't enough Terl brought them all to this and sought to ruin her company record by saying she was disobedient and didn't follow orders, but she had to be dragged all over- in chains!- just to say what keys now? That day of the battle Terl provoked, everybody had been after the keys, keys, keys. Her company duties- Jonnie was quietly whispering in Ker's ear. Ker whispered back, "You trying to start a riot?" But as Jonnie insisted, Ker said loudly to Chirk, "Shut up! Just because Terl plans to murder all of you down there is no reason to take it out on us!"

Chirk went very still. Through the face mask gla.s.s her eyes got very round. The flutter valve of the mask started pumping rather quickly.

Jonnie whispered again and Ker said, "It might or might not make any difference, but when he moves in here and has free reign of this whole compound, he will be furious with you if the keys aren't found!"

The muscles in the middle of her body where her heart was were twitching and leaping. The flutter valve stopped totally for half a minute. Then started again. "He's moving in here?" she said so quietly it was hard to hear her though the mask.

"Why else are we fixing it up?" said Ker. Then menacingly, "Where's the keys to those wall doors?"

Chirk shook her head. "He never let anybody have them. They're maybe gone!" Was that a sob in her breath?

"Well, take her away," said Ker gruffly to the guards.

They dragged her off.

"What's going on here?" demanded Lars, popping up in the door.

"We're trying to find the access panels to the wiring," snapped Ker. "It's all shorted out!"

There were breathe-gas vials scattered around. Jonnie reached behind his back and turned one on. Angus, Ker, and himself were wearing masks.

Ker was reaching in his pocket. He pulled out a handful of items and shoved them at Lars. "This is a dangerous job! I demand a higher bonus! These were in the first wiring recess!"

Lars looked at them. Three were dented bullets that looked like radiation ammunition but weren't. Another was a bent time fuse of the kind set in small blast holes. The biggest was a wad of malleable explosive compound.

"Somebody has been getting into this office!" said Ker. "After this I want the door locked. I want n.o.body in or out of here but us and I want you miles away before you kill yourself and get me blamed for it. I know how you work!"

Lars was beginning to cough again from the new breathe-gas coming out of the vial.

"See?" said Ker. "These ducts are still loaded with breathe-gas and it leaks!"

Lars was backing out into the hall, still coughing. He lifted the objects that had been put in his hand. "Are these dangerous?"

"Take them and throw them at your betters and find out!" said Ker. "And if I see you around here again, I'll tell them you are slowing down this job by issuing orders to take it easy. Get out, go away, stay out, and if I see your face again you will just have to find another expert! Got it? I'll quit!"

Lars looked at Jonnie in a very peculiar way. But at that moment, from the direction of the distant dormitory three levels down, came some angry howls and snarls. Lars rushed off.

"Did you really find those items in here?" said Angus.

"Of course not," said Ker. "Shut, lock, and bar those doors out there and let's get to work. The last place Terl will want to be for now is in this compound. After we're finished and he's sent somebody else to see whether they get blown up is the first he'll want to see of this place." He listened to the distant howls and roars. "You sure started a riot, Jonnie. Terl will hear that clear out in the cage. That Chirk really told them!"

Jonnie barred and locked the outer doors and then gestured from Angus to the wall cabinet locks and Angus whipped out a small set of picks and went to work on them.

They were in business!

- Part XX -

Chapter 1.

Their problem was really bugging the place more thoroughly than any place had ever been bugged while still preventing the bugs from being discovered by one who, although quite mad, was one of the sharpest security chiefs ever to walk out of the mine schools.

If they did this well, they would have a total record of the technology of teleportation and its mathematics. They would know what happened to Psychlo because they would be able to cast out picto-recorders. They would know the whereabouts and possibly the intentions of other races. They would be in communication with the stars and universes and could defend themselves on Earth.

Terl would have to work out and build from scratch a whole transshipment console, for the one out there near the old platform was a burned-out ruin.

They needed devices that could read over his shoulder every book he opened, every page of figures he made. They needed to fix up his workroom in his office and rig it so that every resistor he picked up, every wire he put in, would be recorded exactly.

It was certain that he would sweep the place with a probe before every work period and possibly after every day of toil. He would be meticulous in his bug detection.

If Terl had any inkling the technology would be observed he would not start. If he thought it had been taken away by an alien, he would commit suicide. For there was no doubt that Terl had in his skull both the devices they had found in the dead Psychlos.

Before they had left Africa, Dr. MacKendrick had been very pessimistic about being able to remove such brain devices from all that bone and still have a live, functioning Psychlo on his hands. That chance was not entirely gone. But it was nothing to be counted on.

Angus had lately begun to understand why Jonnie had kept Terl alive, why they didn't just get out some battle planes and wipe this new political mess out. It was a very delicate situation. It was a thin chance. It had to work. But with what risks! Angus had no doubt whatever that Jonnie was holding his own life at stake. A huge and dangerous risk. But what a prize! The Psychlo technology of teleportation. Earth depended upon it.

Jonnie was a cool one, Angus thought. He himself would never have that much patience or be able to retain that detached an overview of the entire scene without permitting personal considerations from entering in.

Angus looked up from the locks. He was in awe of Jonnie as he thought about what they were doing. These people or Terl would kill Jonnie in a flash if they found him or knew what he was up to. Robert the Fox had denounced it as folly and a hopeless, unwarranted risk. Angus didn't think so. It was a brand of courage he had never seen before.

He got the cabinets opened. They contained all the paraphernalia a security chief ever thought he would need. They contained papers and records Terl would consider vital.

Jonnie was looking for superconfidential notes on teleportation or its odd mathematics. On his inspection he did not find anything on those subjects beyond normal tests. But he did find an item of interest.

It was a record of all the mineral deposits left on Earth. The company had not made a mineral survey for itself for centuries, content with their originals. But Terl had.

Jonnie smiled. There were sixteen lodes of gold on the planet almost as good as the one they had mined! In the Andes and the Himalayas- they just weren't that close to home and it would have been more public to have mined them. Ah, yes. All these other lodes were also a.s.sociated with uranium.

There were thick records of Earth's existing mineral resources. Hundreds of years of security chiefs had continued to log the findings of the drones, which were used for security but were essentially mineral spotters.

The company, with its "semicore" methods of mining, could go down almost to the molten core, to the very bottom of the crust without breaking through. And they were content to mine what they had and conserve their a.s.sets of unmined wealth.

Terl had simply removed the records from company view for his own purposes.

Ores, metals! The planet was still wealthy in resources.

Jonnie recorded every page rapidly. This was not what he was here for, but it was nice to know their planet had not been bankrupted of minerals. They would need them.

Angus had found what they were really looking for just now-Terl's bug probe. It was an oblong box with an aerial sticking out of it and a disc cup on the tip of the aerial. It had on/off switches for various frequencies and light domes and buzzers.

Jonnie had done his apprenticeship well in the electronics shop. He knew that no wave this could detect would pa.s.s through lead or a lead alloy. Ordinarily this would not be a factor since any bug of any kind whatsoever would also not pa.s.s through lead. Therefore, why detect it since it wouldn't work as a bug or b.u.t.ton camera if it had lead over it?

The first job was to rig these switches.

Jonnie made a trip to electronics stores and got what he wanted. He came back to find that Ker had swept the area for bugs and found none.

They chose where Terl would do his shopwork: in Chirk's former reception office. It was big enough to work in and the size console it would be would go in and out of the door.

While Jonnie, at his desk, worked on the bug probe, the other two rigged a workbench out of a metal slab and welded it to the floor and then armor annealed the welds so it would be an awful lot of trouble to move. They even got a stool and put it in front of it. When they had finished, they had a very nice layout. Jonnie moved his work over to it.

He had made excellent progress. Using microb.u.t.ton transmitters employed normally in remote controls, he had rigged every switch in the probe so that when it was turned on it would send out an impulse from the remote relay. These relays took a microscope to see properly. They were fastened in with a small molecular spray. The worst part was getting them to stay where one wanted them while spraying them down. But the eye that could detect them unaided had never been made.

Using a scope set at a distance from the probe, he clicked each switch on in turn and the scope bounced in response.

The next part was hard because it involved the adaption of iris leaves taken from tubes of plane viewers. These were small devices that automatically adjusted the volume of a light path. They would close their concentric leaves from wide open to shut.

They had to take these delicate things apart and spray them, molecules thick, with lead and rea.s.semble them so they would not only work but would go on working, opening and closing. Angus was the best at this sort of work.

They then got some contraction rings and put them around these leaded irises and installed microb.u.t.tons in them to activate them.

When they had built about fifteen of these, they made a thorough and extensive test. When the probe was clicked on the iris instantly closed. When the probe was turned off the irises sprang open.

In other words, the leaded irises would be shut whenever the probe was on, thus putting a lead screen over any bug and making it undetectable and for the moment unable to "see" and "hear." But when the probe was off, the screen would be off and any bug or device could "see" and "hear."

So far so good. They now went on an extensive tour of storerooms- telling Lars, who showed up, that they were looking for "spindle-buffers"-and located not only every other bug probe in the compound but also every other key component it took to make a bug probe. They put these in a box and put the box in their car to be transported out of the country.

They now had a probe that wouldn't probe while obviously working and fifteen irises they could put in front of bug devices.

Lars popped up again, saying they sure were quiet, and they told him to get lost. But presently Ker took a disc recording of hammering and pounding and drilling and let it play.

They cleaned up traces of their work so far and hid their products.

Suddenly they realized it had been a long day. They hadn't eaten. They had a long way to go, but that, they agreed, was enough for now.

Jonnie and Angus, not wanting to tempt the fates by running into too many cadets at the Academy, elected to bed down in Char's old quarters. Ker was going to drive back to the Academy and get them something to eat and bring them some work clothes. Dunneldeen should be there now and Jonnie had a message for him about the Psychlos. Jonnie typed it out on Chirk's writing machine: All's well. In three days engineer the transportation of the thirty-three Ps now in compound jailhouse to stated destination Cornwall. Report them crashed at sea. Deliver to the doctor. Not before three days. You will have no trouble with them. They'll be screaming to leave. Eat this note.