Chapter 5.
In Scotland, Jonnie delayed a meeting with the Chiefs as long as he could. He was expecting discs and further progress from America. But Glencannon had not arrived.
Finally Robert the Fox, who had come up for the meeting from Africa, told him the Chiefs were getting restless so Jonnie accompanied him.
The house Chrissie had found was just by Castle Rock and it was only a short walk. They didn"t talk en route, eyeing the overcast sky above them.
Two gillies armed with lochaber axes and blast rifles let them into the entrance of an underground pa.s.sage. The Chiefs had found the remains of powder magazines and air-raid shelters from some ancient wars and had suspended reconstruction of their parliament house and had refurbished the deep caverns instead. Mine lights burned in niches and cast the shadows of clan banners upon the domed roof.
The Chiefs were all there. They had been there for hours. But they gathered around and shook Jonnie"s hand and clapped him on the back. Finally the Chief of Clanfearghus brought the meeting to order.
Robert the Fox played them some discs of the radio telescope intercepts.
Aside from other items in them, the Chiefs were amazed at the dissimilarity of faces in the combined force. They were also very interested in a game these creatures were playing by viewscreen: one of Robert"s prisoners had identified it as "klepp." Each player had a board of six sides and six different sets of pieces, and when one of them made a move, the other players would make the same move on their boards. The pieces were little s.p.a.ceships and tanks and marines and soldiers, and they had different movements and were held down magnetically to a board of six-hundred-sixteen hexagons. It wasn"t the game that interested the Chiefs but the fact that the announced stakes were different items of loot from this planet. It sobered them.
Then Robert told them about infrabeams and that it would be unwise to discuss things out in the open. Sir Robert had gotten a full description of them from a Hockner prisoner. If you had to talk in the open you should turn on an "interference generator," but they didn"t have those.
The Chiefs tried to pa.s.s a motion to forbid talking in the open air or telling people things they would then discuss in the open. It was also proposed that they begin a campaign with the slogan "The Enemy Has Long Ears." But the Chief of the Argylls took the floor and informed them that they could not pa.s.s legislation affecting all tribes because they were not the government of all tribes- that was located over in America, even though they would be at war with it eventually. What they proposed was usurpation of the powers of state.
This was Jonnie"s cue. He got up and reminded them that the first government actions had been taken by them up in the Highlands, beside the lake and in the meadow, that they were the original legislative body. They must preserve the semblance of a government in America and not act as though that government didn"t exist for this would ruin his plans. But action must be taken to protect the people of the planet. This ruling body here controlled the World Federation for the Unification of the Human Race. He was sure that body would take their orders and ignore those from America. They could call their orders "Federation Orders" and they would be international in effect.
"Hear, hear!" said Sir Andrew MacNulty, head of the Federation.
Dunneldeen, continued Jonnie, was a t.i.tular prince of Scotland named, he thought, after this very Rock, Dunedin. He controlled the pilots or could control them- "Dunneldeen and you control the pilots," the Chief of the Campbells corrected him.
Jonnie told them that this legislative body controlled the pilots. And the War Chief of Scotland controlled all effective troops- omitting only the Brigantes. So in actual truth it was this body that controlled the planet. If his argument prevailed with them they should pa.s.s confidential resolutions to this effect and then make dispositions as they saw fit.
They discussed it a bit and then so resolved it. Sir Andrew MacNulty was to carry out their wishes with the tribes, Sir Robert was to execute their directives in the military sector. And due to the peculiarities of the situation, orders from the American governing body were to be ignored without creating suspicion. The American body had supported enemies of Scotland, enemies with whom Scotland had a blood feud. The present emergency required emergency actions.
It was what Jonnie wanted.
Sir Robert then got up and described the spread-out character of the few people remaining on the planet and put forth the principle that one must collect the population into a minimum number of strong points that could be defended. He had a plan that would do this.
They wanted a summary of the situation as the MacTyler saw it. Since the MacTyler was part of and a member of every clan and for innumerable other reasons, his estimate would be valued.
Jonnie privately had hoped to have further word from America before meeting such a question. So much depended on what Terl was doing, and there seemed to be a long blank period in which he had heard nothing.
He was not going to give some of the data he needed to this body anyway for he wanted no chance of leaks. But this body had quite a role to play.
He rose and told them (a) they did not know for certain what had happened to Psychlo and there was some possibility of a counterattack; (b) the visitors were a heavy threat-he did not know why they were holding off and it was worrisome, but they were buying time with it and must be ready and should work fast; and (c) the primary concern was the preservation of the people of Earth-they were not just endangered as a race; they could quite abruptly become extinct.
They thanked him and pa.s.sed Sir Robert"s plan. They were very sober.
There was other business.
They called in Dr. Allen who was deeply involved with Federation tribal movements. In his opinion it was a danger to combine tribes and bring them too close together, due to the fact that their immunities to various diseases might have diminished. The tribes had long been separated from one another and epidemics of smallpox or typhoid fever and other diseases could occur. He had several a.s.sistants. He had been flying about doing what he could. He had read all available man-texts on vaccination, innoculation, sanitation, insect control, and such matters and they had prepared serums. He wanted two measures: the first was compulsory isolation of every person who seemed to have signs of illness; the second was compulsory innoculation and vaccination. He was getting excellent cooperation from Coordinators and tribal chiefs but he wanted his program made official.
The Chiefs pa.s.sed it as a Federation Directive with their approval and the order was to be issued by Sir Andrew MacNulty.
Then MacAdam of the Planetary Bank was ushered in. He had requested an audience with the Chiefs for three reasons. Short and gray-haired and conservative, MacAdam was very courteous to them and very precise. He had a portfolio of papers and he put it down on the table.
To begin with, that government in America was throwing money around and creating local inflation which could then spread to other areas; the Brigante troops were being paid a hundred credits a day, each one; there were supposed to be about seven hundred sixty of them and this made seventy-six thousand credits a day which was about double the yearly budget of most other tribes; they didn"t value the money, threw it around in the streets; there was not much to buy in America now and no product to absorb the funds. He was not there without a solution: he wanted authority from somewhere to issue a special American bank note which could then devaluate against the currency of the rest of the world. He had reason to believe the government there would accept it, if the issue omitted the picture of Tyler and replaced it with one of Brown Limper Staffor for that issue. The caption would be "Brown Limper Staffor, Senior Mayor Planet Earth." In his opinion the omission of the Tyler picture would also cause the currency to further deflate in value but he didn"t think Tyler should be on a devalued issue. What did they think?
Tyler smiled. The Chiefs laughed and gave MacAdam their blessing.
MacAdam wanted more than that. He wanted a second charter, much like the first, but from this body. It wouldn"t be publicly displayed but he wanted it in his safe.
They read it and pa.s.sed it.
Then MacAdam objected to some private, preliminary discussions he had had with Sir Robert to the effect that he should move his bank from Zurich to Luxembourg. It was inconvenient and difficult. They would also have to move presses and find staff housing in Luxembourg.
The Chiefs called on Sir Robert. He told them that there was a Psychlo minesite at Luxembourg where the Psychlos had gotten their local planetary iron supplies. Close by it was a fortress from ancient times; in fact Luxembourg meant "little fortress"; it had been a crossroads of banking and trade for a couple of thousand years. It was a temporary measure. Luxembourg could be defended. Zurich could not be.
They told MacAdam he better move.
MacAdam resignedly said he would. But he had another matter and that was the expenses of war preparation. Certain costs were being incurred that were not covered by tribal budgets or guaranteed by tribal lands. He had a solution to it which was to make loans against something else.
Jonnie asked to speak. He said he knew of quite a few mineral deposits (he did not say how he knew), and once things were calm again, they could be mined. They were quite extensive. They knew his earlier connection with mining and should be able to take his word for it. These could serve as a loan guarantee if held as property of the chiefs and not of tribes.
MacAdam said did they know Brown Limper claimed to own the whole planet? The Chiefs said they knew of that. Also that he claimed to own the whole Earth branch of Intergalactic Mining?
The Chief of Clanfearghus said that valid or not, part of such deeds belonged to them, and they would pledge their share of these mineral deposits to guarantee the war expenses.
MacAdam had a quiet smile. He knew which way the wind blew. He accepted that. He would not violate their confidence.
The Chiefs pa.s.sed a resolution to that effect and gave Sir Robert the right to draw against this open account at his discretion as a "war chest."
Much later, it was a very sober group that broke up.
Gillies escorted Jonnie to his door.
Chrissie was up and waiting for him and served him some tea and what she said were "crumpets."
Legs stretched out, shirt thongs unlaced, feet in soft moccasins, Jonnie sat in the drawing room. He was worried about events in America but he forced his attention onto domestic things.
Chrissie was telling him that the parson and Aunt Ellen would be here for lunch tomorrow and she hoped he would be at home. Aunt Ellen was doing so well here in Scotland- her cheeks had filled out and she had lost a cough she had had. She was looking quite young, really.
Jonnie said you could say that about Chrissie. She looked very pretty with her long cornsilk hair piled up on top in a big puff, her eyes were brighter and blacker, her tunic cloth that had been made into a gown set off her figure even better than buckskin. The collar scars had almost vanished. Chrissie blushed over the compliments he gave her.
Pattie was better. She had gotten terribly thin. She was still in bed from her fever but it had subsided, leaving her weak. Jonnie should visit her in the morning. The only worry was that Pattie did not seem to take any interest in anything. Maybe Jonnie could tell her a story about something.
Jonnie asked whether the house had a bas.e.m.e.nt and she said yes, a strong deep one. Jonnie told her she had found some very nice furniture and if things got rough she should put the better pieces in the bas.e.m.e.nt, well protected. And did she have a safe place in the underground shelters at Castle Rock? Chrissie said she had thought of all that and he mustn"t worry about her. She had been around in the world now and had her share of experience. And wouldn"t he like some more of this tea? And another crumpet?
He found it all very pleasant. It was a lovely old house, so different from those decayed ruins in the old village. If they could just win through somehow and if his luck held, maybe someday the rather remarkably pleasant fact of sitting in this drawing room and talking about calm matters with Chrissie or friends would become routine.
Then the gong at the door was struck and Chrissie went to open it.
With a shout, Jonnie jumped up to greet Glencannon.
- Part XXIII -
Chapter 1.
d.a.m.n Terl!
At first, Jonnie had thought he had data on the point positions of the poles. He had no adequate viewing equipment in his house in Scotland; he had only taken a quick scan and a glance at a box Ker had sent that seemed to have just a piece of cable in it. It was months to Day 92 and so he was happy to stay for lunch and see Aunt Ellen and the parson again. And to try to cheer up Pattie.
He had flown back to the African minesite in good spirits. He had gotten up this morning all ready to really plow into it. And now this!
Glencannon had said the delay was occasioned by Terl"s spending most of his time outside measuring. Terl apparently didn"t like to stay outside very long: Glencannon hinted that a bit of air had been injected into breathe-gas vials when the office was set up in order to discourage Terl from developing too much of a fondness for wandering around. Also, Glencannon had told him, they had omitted something in their original planning- they didn"t have a picto-recorder to record what went on around the platform itself. But they had rigged one in a tree now and the Brigantes hadn"t noticed and they didn"t have to depend on drone overflys anymore.
Looking at them now, Jonnie saw how meticulous Terl had been in measuring distances to poles. He had almost used a micrometer. But he had not been measuring point positions for teleportation firing!
Here it was, the full layout and plan, complete with the exact dimensions: the firing platform, the new position for the console, and a squiggly line.
Jonnie knew now why Terl had spent so many days on force equations. He had been calculating exactly how close you could put the squiggly line to the firing platform without messing up the teleportation! There it was on his final plan: seven and eight-elevenths feet. All around the firing platform and the new console.
The box Ker had sent contained a little note, written with his wrong paw if Jonnie knew Ker.
To You know who.
Here is a chunk that got sawed off by accident- ha, ha. I am digging it up for them from beside that dam to the southwest where it ain"t used anymore. In case you don"t know it"s called "atmosphere-armor ionization cable." I won"t include the parts order number because you won"t be ordering any from Psychlo. Ha, ha. Also it is a fine of three months" pay to give away company property so if I"m caught, you owe me another three months" pay. You"re going to go broke at this rate. Ha, ha.
-You know who Added: They are paying me a fortune to dig this up. You get your split when we swap lunch boxes. Ha, ha, ha!
Jonnie inspected it. The cross-section was obviously the same as that around the dam and site in Kariba. But now he had a look at what it was composed of. It had to be put in right-side up and be pointed in the direction you wanted the screen to go. It itself was armored, and how Ker had cut it, he did not have any idea.
The way it worked seemed fairly obvious: the bottom insulation interior was really a reflector. Just above that went the main current source. Then above that there was another wire and above that a third and so on up. A stack of fifteen wires. Each apparently amplified the charge of the one just below it. Out at the end it must be fastened together with a box, not included here, which a.s.sisted amplification. The resulting fabulously boosted charge must be tuned to the fields of the core and ring particles of air atoms. Hit, the molecules of air realigned themselves into molecular cohesion. The final product was an invisible curtain wall ent.i.tled "atmosphere-armor ionization cable." They had proved it at Kariba. Not even a bullet would go through it.
It wasn"t a "force screen." Those were used in s.p.a.ce and the Hawvins employed them on major war vessels. It was air armor.
And Terl was going to put this seven and eight-elevenths feet all around the console and platform?
Jonnie"s tentative plan had been to let Terl build the console and set up the firing platform and then somehow seize it.
But this changed things.
How could one get through a solid curtain like that?
d.a.m.n Terl!
Dully, Jonnie made quite a few copies of the firing platform plan. He got out the Intergalactic Mining Company map of their one-time defenses and noted where Ker must be digging up cable for reinstallation at the platform.
The map was so old and creased that he hadn"t really noticed before that all minesites had these cables around their dams and along their lines. He saw now that this African minesite had a second underground power transmission line and that what had been known as the Owens Falls Dam back in man-days was protected. He called for Angus and told him to go down there and check, and if the cable was still there, to get the trees removed from above it, using a blade sc.r.a.per, and then if the switchboard at the dam still worked, to shift over to underground transmission and drill the sentries on turning it on and off so one could get in and out of the dam and in and out of the minesite.
Jonnie, trying to work his way through this new one, wandered around the compound. He saw Sir Robert had just arrived and showed him on the old map that all minesites had these and that he should probably use them.
Jonnie wandered on, troubled.
Teleportation! The secret of the Psychlos. With it they had controlled universes. Without it he didn"t see how he could defend this one planet.
He saw MacKendrick. Yes, the wounded Psychlos were all well now. Except Chirk who just lay there. No, he hadn"t figured any way to get those things out of a Psychlo"s head-disturbance at that bone structure would kill the monster. Yes, he realized that if they tried to consult Psychlos on technical matters they would attack and kill themselves, or, if female, probably go into a coma like Chirk.
What MacKendrick was really worried about was the diet of the prisoners. The Psychlos in their manuals didn"t consider it valuable information, being Psychlos; the prisoners themselves knew what they ate but didn"t know the names for it that applied to this planet, and if he didn"t solve it, they"d shortly have no prisoners.
Did Jonnie know they now had three Jamb.i.t.c.hows? It was last night. Evidently a scouting party had been sent down to investigate all the new activity that was going on at Kariba, and the Scot officer there, the moment he got word a small craft had detached itself from the Jamb.i.t.c.how cruiser up in orbit, had put into action something dreamed up by the Chinese. They called it a "tiger-net." They put a dummy dressed like a Chinese down near a pool away from the camp and the Jamb.i.t.c.hows went right in to grab the dummy and a big net had been tripped up in the trees and they"d been caught. Evil-looking brutes.
MacKendrick wanted to know whether he"d heard what they ate. No? Well, the old woman from the Mountains of the Moon was helping and maybe they could work it out.
Jonnie wandered on. d.a.m.n Terl! It was getting too chancy! Somewhere, somehow he should be able to get the information on some other channel.
Once before he had thought of exploring a teleportation motor to see whether he could get some sort of answer out of it. A motor wasn"t a transshipment rig, but it did work on s.p.a.ce-position change.
He had a motor and console to fool with: the ones from the wrecked tank in the battle of the pa.s.s. It had been carted in to the garage repair shop. Maybe if he just tore it apart...a thin hope, for he"d already looked at such rigs. But he got into some work clothes and went down to the repair level.
The Basher was sitting there, badly scarred and with a couple of plates sprung. He got into it, checked the fuel, and started the motor with a "right here" s.p.a.ce coordination punched in on the console. It ran! One thing you could say about the Psychlos, their stuff lasted forever.
He shut the motor off and took a screwdriver to the top screws of the console. He loosened them a half-turn, each one.
Jonnie was distracted by a sentry appearing at the tank port and handing him some ear pads, asking him to put them on. Jonnie stood up and looked out the turret port to find out what was going on.
It was Stormalong and the Tolnep, Double-Ensign Slitheter Pliss, surrounded by guards.
"What"s up?" called Jonnie.
They didn"t hear him. They all had ear pads on. Then Jonnie saw that the Tolnep patrolcraft had been dollied in here and he could guess the rest of it. Stormalong probably wanted to know how it flew so he could teach pilots how to handle Tolnep craft. Probably Angus wanted to know the cycles of vibration of that paralysis beam.
Slitheter Pliss seemed quite amiable. He had obviously written himself off as a Tolnep. He saw Jonnie and hissed a greeting.
But if they were going to let the Tolnep near that lethal sound vibrator, they were taking no chances that he would turn it on, paralyze the lot of them, and escape. Jonnie didn"t think so for the Tolnep had nowhere to go. But he put the ear pads on anyway.
The Tolnep seemed to find it a bit provoking that the acc.u.mulator terminals had been bent. They responded to his dumb-show signs and gave him some tools and he straightened them and rehooked the power cable. The craft promptly began to run and he shut it off. With more dumb-show he pointed the switches out to Stormalong, indicating what they connected to, and Stormalong seemed to find it quite elementary; he nodded to the Tolnep and signaled the guards to take him away.