Part 6

1

Leverage, leverage, Terl told himself as he went through company papers in his office.

He must solve this riddle of Numph. With enough on the Planetary Director, Terl could begin his own project in earnest. Wealth and power on home planet beckoned from the future. Only Numph could drop a mine bucket on him. And Terl was determined that once his project was completed, he was not going to spend ten more years on this cursed planet. With enough on Numph, all he had to do was finish the project, obliterate all evidence (including vaporizing the animals), get his employment terminated, and there he’d be, wallowing in luxury at home. But Numph was getting a little restive; in the last interview a couple of days ago Numph had complained of the noise of the recon drone in its daily pass-by, and veiling it as a sort of compliment, he noted that the “mutiny” was not showing up on his lines. There was something on Numph. Terl was fervidly certain of it.

He was thumbing through a company publication, Metal Markets of the Galaxies, which was issued several times a year. It was supposed to go to the sales department but there was none on this planet, since it sent its ore directly to home planet and had no sales except to the home company. Yet the publication was sent routinely to all minesites through the galaxies, and Terl had fished this latest copy out of the incoming dispatch box.

So many credits for this metal and so many credits for another. Such and such credits for unsmelted ore of what percent. It was very dull. But Terl laboriously went through it, hopeful of some clue.

From time to time he watched his live screens, keeping check on the animal. The button camera around its neck was working well, and in the vicinity of the cage and nearby plateau he had a broader view. It was a test to see whether the animal really was going to behave. The control box that monitored the cameras lay handy on Terl’s littered desk.

The animal so far had been very well behaved. Terl was struck by its orderly sense of priorities.

It had somehow managed to turn the wounded horse over and get the packs off it. It had gotten some pitch from a tree and sealed the wound. It must have been effective, for the horse was now standing on shaky legs, a bit dazed but munching at the tall grass.

The animal had then staked out the other three horses, using a plaited type of rope that had come from the packs. One particular horse tried to follow the man-thing around, nudging with its nose. It struck Terl very odd that the man-thing talked to it, that the man-thing had also talked to the wounded horse. Very peculiar. Terl couldn’t understand the language and listened intently to see whether the horses talked back. Maybe they did. Supersonic? They must say something, because the man-thing sometimes answered them. Was it a different tongue than the man-thing used to the two female creatures in the cage? Terl guessed there might be several such languages. Well, it was no matter and not important. He was no Chinko, he decided, with contempt for the old race.

Terl had next been distracted by the screen views of the animal when it mounted up on a horse and went down to the work area. From what he could see via the button camera the animal wore, the Psychlo workmen ignored him after a brief glance. The machines went right on tearing around as always.

The man-thing rode up to Ker. Terl got very interested and turned up the volume. Ker tried to edge away.

The animal said something peculiar: “It’s not your fault.”

Ker stopped backing up. He looked confused.

“I forgive you,” said the animal.

Ker just stood there staring. Terl couldn’t get a very good look at Ker due to the shadows of the dome Ker wore, but it seemed to Terl that Ker looked relieved. Terl took careful note of that as a sort of trick: it was not the kind of behavior he had ever thought about.

And then Terl really was startled. The animal borrowed a blade machine from Ker. Char came over and objected, and Ker waved him off. The animal tied the horse to trail after the machine and drove the vehicle back up to the plateau. Ker had looked positively threatening at Char. Had the animal started a fight between the two Psychlos? How had the animal managed that?

Well, Terl thought, he was just imagining things, and the screen views had been jumpy and the sound very flawed due to the roar of machinery. And Terl went back to the real puzzle of Numph.

The next time Terl remembered to check, he saw that the animal had used the blade machine to knock down a half-dozen trees and pile them up near the cage. It was using the blade controls to axe up the trees in lengths. Terl was pleased it could operate a machine like that. It would have need of such skill.

Terl got involved with bauxite quotations through the galaxies and didn’t pay any more attention until nearly nightfall.

The animal had returned the blade machine and was now almost finished with a fence. It had built a fence of sorts all around the cage! Terl was puzzled until he remembered the animal’s saying the horses might touch the bars. Of course! It was protecting the females from flash in case the horses short-circuited the bars.

After another hour of studying prices, Terl got his face mask and went down to the cage area.

He found that the animal had built itself a little hut from the tree branches and now had the instruction machine and table and packs in it and was kindling a fire in front of it. Terl hadn’t really recognized that man-things could create houses without dressed timber or stones.

The man-thing got a branch burning and, with some other things in its hand, went over to the cage. It had left a zigzag opening before the door—to bar the horses and still let a man-thing through.

Terl threw a switch and cut off the juice to the bars and let the animal in the cage. It handed the female the burning brand, put down some other things, came out again, and got some wood and took it in.

It was very uninteresting to Terl. He noted idly that the females had cleaned up the old robes, dismantled the meat-drying rack, and neatened the place up. He checked their collars and leashes and the firmness of the pin to which they were tied. They shrank from him as if he were a disease. It amused him.

After he had pushed the animal out and was locking the cage door, from nowhere an idea hit him. Terl hastily turned on the juice again and went tearing back to his office.

Throwing down his face mask, Terl yanked a huge calculator into the center of the desk. Talons rattled on the key buttons. Reports to home office concerning ore tonnage shipped flashed on the screen and went into the calculator.

Ripping through the sales price publication and battering its data into the machine, working with an intense fury, Terl calculated the home office values of Earth ore shipped.

He stared at the screen. He sat back, stunned.

The operational cost of Intergalactic on Earth and the current market value of the ore shipped told one incredible fact. Not only were Earth operations not losing money, but ore-sold values were five hundred times the operating cost. This planet was incredibly profitable.

Economy wave! By the crap nebula, for this planet could afford to pay five, ten or fifteen times the wages and bonuses.

Yet Numph had cut them.

It was quite one thing for the company to make an enormous profit. But it was quite another for Numph to lie about it.

Late into the night Terl worked. He went over every report Numph had sent to the home office in past months. They seemed very usual, very much in order. The pay columns, however, were a bit fishy. They listed the employee’s name and grade and then said simply, “Usual pay for grade” in a symbol form, and under bonuses they said, “As designated.” Very funny sort of accounting.

One could say, of course, that this mine area was not an administration center and was short of personnel and that the home office should finish the reports—after all, the home office accounting section was not only well staffed but also totally automated. Here they just handed out the credits across a pay table to the employees; a lot of them couldn’t write anyway, and there were no signed receipts. It was this omission that made it necessary to return bodies of workers killed.

Then, about midnight, Terl found something funny about the vehicle reports. Vehicles in use for each five-day work period were customarily reported by their serial numbers. The first oddity was that Numph was reporting vehicles in use. Hardly a function for the planetary head—but Terl knew Numph’s writing.

Suddenly Terl found a vehicle he knew was not in use. It was one of twenty battle planes he had had returned from other minesites: those twenty sat outside in a nearby field, there being no room left in the garage. Yet there it was: “Battle Plane 3-450-967 G.” Numph had noted it in use for the past period.

On report after report, Terl examined those in-use listings. He noticed that they varied in position from one to another; the sequence was different in every report.

Terl smelled code.

By dawning light he had it.

Using serial numbers of the countless vehicles on the planet, one could choose the last three digits and, by plain substitution of numbers for letters, write pretty much what one pleased.

With expanding joy he read the first message he had decoded. It said: “No complaints here. Bank difference as usual.”

Terl did another calculation.

He was exuberant. These reports went to Nipe, Numph’s nephew in home-office accounting. The total pay and bonuses of Earth should have been around one hundred sixty-seven million Galactic credits. Actually no bonuses were being paid and only half the salary.

It meant that Nipe, on home planet, was reporting full pay and bonuses and was banking to the personal account of himself and Numph close to one hundred million Galactic credits a year. Their own combined pay would not exceed seventy-five thousand Galactic credits. Their swindle was making them nearly one hundred million a year.

There was the evidence: the code, the incomplete accounts.

Terl’s office shook as he paced back and forth, hugging himself.

Then he paused. How about making Numph and Nipe cut him in? They would. They would have to.

But no. Good as he was as a security chief, Terl realized that if he could untangle the scheme so could somebody else. It was big money but dangerous money. Nipe and Numph stood a fair chance of failure, and if caught they would be vaporized out of hand. Terl wanted no part of that. So far he was not culpable. He could not be blamed for not catching on, for it was not part of his department to do accounting. No complaints had come his way. He had written orders from Numph to be alert for mutiny, but no orders from anyone to police home office.

No, Terl would be content with his own one hundred million, thank you. It was very smooth. He had it all worked out. It was not company ore. No company employees would be used. He could call it an experiment and even show he was ordered to do it. Nothing would go into company records. The last little part of it was risky—getting it to home planet—but he could even worm out of that if caught. And he wouldn’t be caught.

Let Numph and Nipe have their fortune—and their risk. He would preserve these records just long enough to convince Numph if he needed to, and then he would destroy them.

Oh, did he look forward to his next interview with Numph!

2

“I see you have acquired some more animals,” said Numph querulously the next afternoon.

A jolly Terl had gotten the interview with a bit of persuasion. He was not popular with Numph’s office staff. And he definitely didn’t seem very popular with Numph.

The Planetary Director sat there behind his upholstered desk. He was not looking at Terl but gazing with distaste upon the awesome mountain scenery in the distance.

“Just as you authorized,” said Terl.

“Humph,” said Numph. “You know, I really don’t see any traces of this mutiny of yours.”

Terl had put a cautionary paw across his own mouthbones. Numph noticed it and turned to face him.

The security chief had brought a lot of papers and some equipment with him. He now raised a warning talon to Numph and then reached down and picked up the equipment.

Numph watched while the security chief passed a probe all over the office, up along the curving canopy beams, beside the edges of the rug, over the desk, and even under the chair arms. Each time Numph sought to question, Terl put up a cautionary talon. Plainly the security chief was making sure there were no button cameras or picto-recorder diaphragms anywhere about.

Terl looked through the canopy and examined the outside carefully. No one was around. Finally he smiled in reassurance and sat down.

“I don’t like that recon drone crashing by every morning,” said Numph. “It gives me a headache.”

Terl made a notation. “I will change its course at once, Your Planetship.”

“And these animals,” said Numph. “You’re getting a positive zoo out there. Just this morning Char said you had added six more!”

“Well, actually,” said Terl, “the project requires more than fifty. Also some machines to train them and authorization—”

“Absolutely not!” said Numph.

“It will save the company a great deal of money and increase its profits—”

“Terl, I am going to issue an order to vaporize those things. If home office were to hear—”

“It’s confidential,” said Terl. “It’s a surprise. How grateful they will be when they see their payroll and bonuses shrink and their profits soar.”

Numph frowned, feeling himself on very sure ground. Terl knew the blunder he had made before. Numph, left to his own crooked course, would have enormously increased the number of personnel brought here from Psychlo. Every extra employee greatly padded Numph’s pocket.

“I have other ways of increasing ore shipments,” said Numph. “I am considering doubling our work force with employees from home planet. There are plenty out of work there.”

“But that will reduce profits,” said Terl innocently. “You told me yourself that profits were a battle just now.”

“More ore, more profits,” said Numph belligerently. “And they go on half-pay when they arrive. That’s final.”

“Now these authorizations I have here,” said Terl, undisturbed, “to train up a native, indigenous work force—”

“Did you hear me?” said Numph angrily.

“Oh, yes, I heard you,” smiled Terl. “My concern is for the company and the increase of its profits.”

“You imply mine is not?” challenged Numph.

Terl laid his work papers on the desk in front of Numph. At first the Planetary Director started to sweep them away with a paw. Then he sat suddenly still, frozen. His eyes stared. His paws began to tremble. He read the profit estimations. He read the circled absence of actual pay information. He read the vehicle numbers, and then he read the message, “No complaints here. Bank difference as usual.”

Numph looked up at Terl. Staring, frozen terror crept into his eyes.

“By company regulations,” said Terl, “I have the right to replace you.”

Numph was staring at the gun in Terl’s belt. His eyes were hypnotized with shock.

“But actually, I don’t care much for administration. I can see that someone in your position, faced with growing old and with no future, might find other ways to solve his problems. I am very understanding.”

Numph’s terror-filled eyes lifted to Terl’s chest, waiting.

“The crimes of someone on home planet are not in my duty sphere,” said Terl.

There was a flicker in Numph’s eyes. Incredulity.

“You have always been a good administrator,” continued Terl. “Mainly because you let other employees do exactly what they think best serves company interests.”

He swept up the evidence. “Out of regard for you, these will be put away where none can see them—unless something happens to me, of course. I will report nothing to home office. I know nothing about this. Even if you say I do, there will be no evidence and you won’t be believed. If you get vaporized because of it, it will be entirely because of mistakes you make on other lines. They will not include me.”

Terl got up, followed by Numph’s stricken eyes.

A huge sheaf of requisitions and order forms was laid on Numph’s desk. “For your signature!” said Terl.

They were blank. They were undated. They were forms from the Planetary Director’s own office.

Numph started to say, “But they’re blank. You could put anything on these. Personal money, machines, mines, change operations, even transfer yourself off the planet!” But his voice wouldn’t work. And then he realized that his brain wouldn’t function either.

The pen was pushed between his claws, and for the next fifteen minutes Numph signed his name over and over and over again, slowly, almost witlessly.

Terl picked up the sheaf of signed blanks. He would be very sure that none of these got loose while they were not filled in!

“All for the good of the company,” said Terl. He was smiling. He put the thick sheaf in a securely locked case, put the evidence in a big envelope, picked up his equipment. “To remove you would ruin the career of a valuable employee. As your friend I can only seek to minimize damage to the company. I am pleased to tell you that you are in no danger of any kind from me. You must believe that. I am a faithful company employee but I protect my friends.”

He gave a little bow and left.

Numph sat like a dumped sack of ore, nerveless, incapable of reaction.

Only one thought kept going round and round and round in his head. The security chief was an untouchable demon, a demon who, forever after, could do exactly as he wished. Numph never thought of even trying to stop him. He was and forever after would be in the complete power of Terl. He was too paralyzed to even think of warning Nipe. From here on out, Terl would be the real head of this planet, doing exactly as he pleased.

3

It had been a good hunt and Jonnie was going back to the compound.

That morning he had looked with sorrow at the dejected bearing of the two girls. What little they could do to clean up their squalid cage they had done. They had tried to put on bright faces when he talked to them through the two barricades. Pattie had come out of it a bit more, but she hadn’t laughed when he told her she would marry the king of the mountains—it was an old personal joke. She had suddenly burst into tears, and Chrissie, trying to comfort her, had begun to cry too.

Something had to cheer them up or at least keep them busy, Jonnie thought.

He got the horses and with Windsplitter stepping out had ridden away from the compound. Dancer and the third horse—named Old Pork after his habit of grunting—trailed behind. Blodgett was better, but it would be some time before the wounded horse could run.

Jonnie was looking for deer. With venison to smoke and a hide to tan and strip, the girls would get their minds off their worries.

Some of his own guilt and bitterness dimmed as he raced across the plain, Windsplitter eager, the other two pounding along behind. The wind had wiped some of his pessimism away. The illusion of freedom stimulated him. Perhaps there was hope.

He had done better than one deer. He had come hammering into an arroyo and found himself within feet of antelope. And shortly after, one cleaned antelope was on the back of Old Pork.

Not a half-hour later he had gotten his deer, a young buck.

With both pack horses laden and trailing behind him, he was looking for kinnikinnick, a wild plant that gave good flavor to venison. It was really too early for the berries to form, but the leaves were good.

His attention was drawn to a humming sound far behind him. He halted, examining the sky. There it was, a tiny dot getting bigger. It was heading either toward him or toward the compound.

The horses had gotten used to machinery sounds, and there was not much to choose at the moment between the buzz overhead and the mutter of noise in the compound not three miles ahead of them.

Jonnie’s curiosity turned to a feeling of unrest. Where was that object going? It was very low, not traveling very fast now.

Suddenly he knew it was heading for him.

There had been a row of planes in a field near the compound. Twenty of them that Terl had ferried in and left in the open. This was one of them.

It was about a hundred feet up, almost stopped. The roar was making the horses nervous.

Jonnie kicked Windsplitter ahead and started straight for the compound.

The plane drew off, turned, and then with a shattering burst of speed dove on him.

The earth before the horses erupted in explosions of dirt.

Windsplitter reared and tried to spin away. Clods battered the horses.

Jonnie’s ears ached with the explosions. He turned the horses in another direction, to the right.

The earth erupted in a long line in front of him.

Windsplitter began to plunge in terror. One of the pack horses broke loose.

Jonnie wheeled and began to race to the north.

In front of him the ground again erupted.

He tried to get his horse to go through the hanging curtain of dust. Windsplitter turned and tried to run away to the south.

This time the plane plunged down and settled across their path.

Terrified, Windsplitter reared. Jonnie got him under control.

Terl was sitting in the open door of the plane, laughing. He roared, moving back and forth, pounding his chest to get his breath.

With considerable trouble, Jonnie got the two pack horses together. He dismounted to straighten their packed meat.

“You looked so funny,” gasped Terl, straightening his face mask.

The horses were rolling their eyes, trembling. But Jonnie’s eyes were not rolling—had they been blast guns, Terl would have been dead.

“I just wanted to show you how easy it is to stop you if you ever got out of hand,” said Terl. “Just one of those gun blasts, aimed at you and not in front of you, would have made you a pale pink mist!”

Jonnie had tied the pack horse lead ropes to Windsplitter’s neck. He stood there, soothing Windsplitter with a stroking hand.

“I’m celebrating,” said Terl. “Send those horses back to the compound and get in.”

“I don’t have an air mask,” said Jonnie, “and that interior will be breathe-gas.”

“I brought your air mask,” said Terl, reaching inside and holding it up. “Get in.”

Jonnie had Windsplitter calm now. He took hold of the horse’s ear. “Go to Chrissie,” he said.

Windsplitter cast a glance at the plane and then, glad enough, started off toward the compound, pulling the pack horses with him.

Yes, Terl told himself. The animal did have a language with other animals.

Jonnie put on the air mask and pulled himself up into the plane.

4

Badly as it had started, Jonnie could not believe the sensation of flight.

He was lost in the huge copilot seat, and the belt that was supposed to keep him in would not contract enough to do so. But he braced himself with a grip on a handhold and watched the earth race away from him.

He felt awe. Was this how it was to be an eagle? Is that how the world looked from the sky?

The panorama of the mountains to the west began to open in relief. And in a few moments he realized they were now higher than Highpeak, seen whitely in the cold clear air.

For fifteen minutes he was enthralled. They were at a height of about four miles. He had never realized there was so much world! Or that one could feel so thrilled.

Then Terl said, “You can operate any of the mine machines, can’t you, animal? Now this is no different except that it goes in three dimensions, not just two. Those controls in front of you duplicate these. Fly it!”

Terl’s paws came off the controls.

The plane immediately flopped over. Jonnie was thrown against the door. The plane staggered and began a sickening dive.

Jonnie had not paid any attention to what Terl was doing with the controls before. They were a maze of levers and buttons. He gripped the security belt and got himself into position to reach things. He started pushing buttons.

The plane went crazy. It soared, it swooped. The ground rushed up and sped away.

Terl’s laughter cut above the roar. Jonnie began to realize the creature was a bit high on kerbango. Celebrating indeed.

With a steadying concentration, Jonnie looked at the controls. As on all Psychlo equipment, everything was marked. Some of the terms he didn’t know. But he spotted an additional button alongside every button familiar in mining machinery. He grasped that the third set was for the third dimension.

The main thing, he instinctively knew, was not to get too close to that ground! He found a button for altitude and punched it. Although the plane was staggering, the ground began to fall away.

This was too close to a win for Terl. “I’ll take over,” he said. “I got high honors as a pilot at the school. Watch me land on that cloud!”

A ragged top puff of cloud was ahead of them. Terl punched some buttons and stopped the plane on a flat place in the mist. “Trouble is, rat brain, you didn’t watch what I was doing. You were too busy gawking at the scenery. But I guess if rats had been meant to fly, they’d be birds!” He laughed at his own joke, reached behind his seat, and unstrapped a sealed container of kerbango. He took a chomp on it and put it back. “First lesson. Don’t ever leave anything adrift in a plane. It’ll fly around and bat your brains out. Not,” he added with more laughter, “that rats have brains!”

He took off and made Jonnie repeat the operation of landing and stopping. After the third attempt, Jonnie made it without being half down in the cloud.

Jonnie took off and started to fly toward the mountains. Terl instantly—and Jonnie thought a bit fearfully—batted his hands away from the copilot controls and with his own turned the plane back.

“Not while I’m with you,” growled Terl, his mood changed.

“Why not over the mountains?” asked Jonnie.

Terl scowled. “Whenever you fly over those mountains, just make very sure you got no breathe-gas loose anyplace. Understand?”

Jonnie understood. He suddenly understood a lot more than Terl thought he did.

“Why are you teaching me to fly?” asked Jonnie, more to distract Terl from his line of thinking than because he believed Terl would tell him. He was right.

“Any miner has to know how to fly,” said Terl. Jonnie knew that wasn’t true. Ker could fly, he was sure, since Ker had said so. But Ker had also said other miners were only interested in going underground, not above it.

It was midafternoon when they landed the battle plane at the end of the row. Jonnie had been right. It was the twentieth plane. Terl inched it into precise position. He put on his breathe-mask, opened the door, and gave Jonnie a shove to get out.

“Don’t get any ideas that you can start one of these things,” said Terl. “They require a special key to unlock the computers.” He dangled a key in front of Jonnie. “I keep the one to this plane right here beside the remote control box.” He took the box out and looked at it. “Yep, all switches still open.” He showed Jonnie the box. “And no dummy wires!” he laughed loudly. “That’s pretty good. No dummy wires!”

Jonnie went off to round up his horses. Windsplitter had gone to Chrissie and the three horses were standing outside the wooden barrier.

Pattie yelped to see him. He realized they had been worried by the horse showing up without him.

“Got an antelope and a deer!” Jonnie called into the cage. “I was a little delayed looking for kinnikinnick. I found some, not very much, but it will flavor the meat.”

Chrissie was very pleased. “We can strip and smoke the meat,” she called across the two barriers. “There’s plenty of ashes here and we can tan the hides.” Jonnie felt better.

Pattie called, “Jonnie, there’s a huge grizzly bear skin in here. Did you kill it, Jonnie?”

Yes, Jonnie had killed it. But he was not so sure that he hadn’t killed the wrong beast!

Later that evening when Terl came to let him, supervised, into the cage, he gave the girls the skinned meat and hides to handle. He touched them reassuringly, hiding his wince at the way the collars chafed their throats.

When he came out and Terl had locked up and turned the juice back on, Terl said, “I’m just an animal attendant. But I don’t wire dummy wires!”

He threw a stack of books at Jonnie before he rumbled away. “Get your rat brain around these, animal. Tonight. Ker will take up your instruction in the morning, so don’t go chasing off on a rat hunt.”

Jonnie looked at the books. He was dimly getting an idea of what Terl must want out of him.

The books were: Beginner’s Flight Manual and Teleportation in Relation to Manned and Drone Flight. The latter was clearly marked, Secret. Not for Alien Race Distribution. Could it be, thought Jonnie, that Terl was acting well outside the business of the company? If so, it was doubly certain he and the girls would be killed when they had served their purpose. Terl would not leave witnesses around.

5

Jonnie and Ker were engaged in ferrying mining machines and equipment to the “defense base.” The order to do so had come early that morning from Terl.

The machinery freighter plane was parked with doors agape and ramps let down in the open field near the battle planes.

A remarkably cowed Zzt checked off a drilling machine as it was run up the ramp by Ker. He raised the ramps and closed the doors.

Jonnie buckled himself into the copilot’s seat and Ker slid behind the controls. The freighter lifted abruptly and spun to the west. Ker flew low and kept the ship steady, for none of the machinery was lashed.

Jonnie did not even look at the ground flowing by—they had made this short trip several times. He was tired. For a week he had been practicing flying all day and studying all night, and it was beginning to show.

His headache, however, came from the text Teleportation in Relation to Manned and Drone Flight. The flight part of it was far less interesting than teleportation. He felt that if he could grasp that, he might be able to do something to avert the fate he knew would come someday.

The mathematics of the text were quite beyond him. They were Psychlo mathematics a long way in advance of what he had studied. The symbols made his head spin.

The history section at the start of the book was perfunctory. It simply stated that a hundred thousand years ago a Psychlo physicist named En had untangled the riddle. Prior to this, it was thought that teleportation consisted of converting energy and matter to space and then reconverting it in another place so it would assume its natural form. But this had never been proven. En had apparently found that space could exist entirely independent of time, energy, or mass and that all these things were actually separate items. Only when combined did they make up a universe.

Space was dependent only upon three coordinates. When one dictated a set of space coordinates one shifted space itself. Any energy or mass contained in that space thereupon shifted with that space shift.

In the matter of a motor such as this freighter had, it was just an enclosed housing in which space coordinates could be changed. As the coordinates changed, the housing was forced to go along, and this gave the motor power. That explained why these planes were run by a switchboard and not a thrust through the air. They didn’t have to have wings or controls. Much smaller housings in the tail and on each side had similar sets of coordinates fed into them to climb and bank. A series of coordinates were progressively fed to the main motor and it simply went forward or backward as the housed space occupied each set of coordinates in turn.

Teleportation over vast distances worked the same way. Matter and energy were pinned to the space, and when it was exchanged with another space, they simply changed too. Thus matter and energy would seem to disappear in one place and appear in another. They didn’t actually change. Only the space did.

Jonnie could see now how Earth had been attacked. Informed in some way of its existence, possibly from some Psychlo station in this universe, the Psychlos had only to fish in its coordinates.

They evidently used a recorder of some sort. They cast the recorder out to a test set of coordinates and then got it back and looked at the pictures. If the recorder vanished they knew they had sent it into the mass of the planet. Then they just had to adjust the coordinates for a new recorder cast.

In that way they had sent the killer gas. When it dissipated, they had followed it with Psychlos and weapons.

That was how Earth had been wiped out and conquered. But it didn’t tell Jonnie how to reverse the process. Any Psychlo station out there could teleport new gas or even an army to Earth at will. That was the point that was giving him a headache.

“You’re not very chatty,” said Ker, circling to land at the old defense base, going dead slow because of loose machinery. Jonnie came out of it. He pointed at the button camera that hung around his neck.

“Forget it,” said Ker to his astonishment. “They only have a range of about two miles.” He pointed at his work jacket pocket flap. A much smaller button camera with the symbol of the company on it was actually serving as a real button.

“Not five or more?” asked Jonnie.

“Crap, no,” said Ker. “The security measures of this company are a pain. There’s no recorder in this plane. I checked. What the splintered asteroid are we doing hauling this machinery over to this old defense base?” He looked down. “It doesn’t even look like a defense base anyway.”

And it didn’t. It was just some buildings, not even a landing field. No bunkers anyone could see. Some kind of a strange series of pointed things standing up at one end.

“Terl gives the orders,” said Jonnie, a bit resigned.

“Blast, no. These weren’t Terl’s orders. I saw them. They were signed by the head of the planet. Terl was even complaining. He said he wondered whether old Numph had gone off his computers.”

It gave Jonnie new data, but not what Ker thought. Terl was covering his tracks. This was Terl’s project. It made him uneasy.

“This stuff,” said Ker, with a backward jerk of his head, “is supposed to be practice equipment. But for who? It’s perfectly good mining equipment. Hold on, we’re going to land.” He punched the console buttons and the freighter crept down and landed easily and level.

Ker put on his face mask. “Another funny thing. There’s no supply of breathe-gas with any of this stuff. Just what was left in their tanks. You’re the only one I know that can operate these machines without breathe-gas in the canopies. You going to operate all these machines?” He laughed. “It’d sure run your butt off! Let’s unload.”

They spent the next hour lining the machines up in an open field near the largest building. There were drillers and flying platforms, cable reelers, ore netters, blade scrapers and a single transport truck. With the items brought in earlier loads there were over thirty machines now.

“Let’s prowl,” said Ker. “We been fast. What’s in this big building?”

It consisted only of rooms, rooms and rooms. Each with bunks and lockers. There were what may have been washrooms. Ker was prowling for loot. But broken windows and wind and snow had not left much. Dust and indistinguishable debris were thick.

“Already been prowled,” was Ker’s finding. “Let’s look elsewhere.”

Ker clumped through the entrance of another building. Jonnie saw that it had been a library, but without Chinko protection it was mainly litter. A thousand years of cockroaches had dined on paper.

A queer, broken structure that once had had seventeen points—Jonnie counted them—seemed to have been some kind of a monument. Ker entered a door that was no longer there. A cross was still hanging on a wall.

“What’s that thing?” said Ker.

Jonnie knew it was a church cross. He said so.

“Funny thing to have in a defense base,” said Ker. “You know, I don’t think this was a defense base. More like a school.”

Jonnie looked at Ker. The midget Psychlo might be thought dimwitted, but he was dead on the mark. Jonnie did not tell him there were signs all over the place that said United States Air Force Academy.

They wandered back to the freighter. “I bet we’re establishing a school,” said Ker. “I bet that’s what it is we’re doing. But who’s going to be taught? Not Psychlos with no breathe-gas, that’s for sure. Put up the ramps, Jonnie, and we’ll get out of here.”

Jonnie did, but he didn’t climb up to the cockpit. He looked around for water and firewood. He had an idea he’d be camping out here. Yes, there was a stream coming down from a nearby snow-capped peak. And there was plenty of firewood in the trees.

He walked out and looked at the trench where the last battle had been fought against the Psychlos. The grass was tall and waving in a lonesome-sounding wind.

He climbed to the freighter cockpit, deeply troubled.

6

At evening when he opened the cage, Terl sounded excited. “Tell your horses and females goodbye, animal. Tomorrow at dawn we’re going on a long trip.”

Jonnie stopped with his arms full of the firewood he had been taking in. “How long?”

“Five days, a week. It depends,” said Terl. “Why do you want to know?”

“I have to leave them food . . . a lot of things.”

“Oh,” said Terl indifferently. “Am I going to have to stand here and wait?” He made up his own mind. He locked up the cage again and turned on the juice. “I’ll come back later.” He rumbled off hurriedly.

Well, here it goes, Jonnie told himself. What devilry was going to take place now?

Fortunately, that day he had gotten a fat young bull. He swiftly went about his work. He quartered it and rolled up two quarters in the hide, putting it outside the door.

“Chrissie!” he called. “Put me together enough smoked meat for a week. Also think about what you’ll need for that time.”

“You’re leaving?” Was there a trace of panic in Chrissie’s voice?

“Just for a little while.”

Both girls looked apprehensive. They seemed so forlorn in there. Jonnie cursed to himself. “I’ll be sure to come back,” he said. “Get busy with the food.”

He inspected Blodgett’s wound. Blodgett could walk now, but torn muscles had ended her running days.

The grazing problem for the horses was a little rough. He did not want to turn them loose, but he couldn’t stake them to a week’s grazing all in one spot. He finally settled it by letting them loose but instructing Pattie to call them to the barrier a couple of times a day to talk to them. Pattie promised she would.

He prepared a belt pouch with flint and tinder, cutting glass, and a few odds and ends. He folded up a complete suit of buckskins. He made a pack of these and two kill-clubs.

When Terl came back later in the evening and opened the cage door, Jonnie rapidly moved in what Chrissie would need. She could smoke beef and work with hides. It would keep them busy. He took the packet she had prepared.

“You will be all right, Jonnie?” she asked.

He didn’t feel like smiling, but he smiled. “I’ll make it my first business in all cases,” he said. “Now don’t you worry. Put some of that tallow on Pattie’s neck and it will help the chafing.”

“Come on,” said Terl irritably, outside the cage.

“How do you like the glass to cut things with?” said Jonnie.

Chrissie said, “It is very good if you don’t cut yourself.”

“Well, be careful.”

“Hey,” said Terl.

Jonnie gave Pattie a kiss on the cheek. “Now you take good care of your sister, Pattie.”

He put his arms around Chrissie and hugged her. “Please don’t worry.”

“For crap, come out of that cage,” said Terl.

Chrissie’s hand trailed down Jonnie’s arm. He drew away until only their fingers were touching.

“Be careful, Jonnie.” Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

Terl yanked him out and banged the cage door behind him. While Jonnie closed the wood barrier, Terl turned on the juice.

“At dawn,” said Terl, “I want you down at the landing field ready to go. Personnel freighter ninety-one. Wear decent clothes and boots that won’t stink the ship up. Bring your air pump and plenty of bottles and an extra mask. Is that understood, animal?” He rumbled off, practically trotting. Terl was a busy fellow these days. The ground-shake died out.

Later Jonnie picked some wildflowers and berries in the dark and tried to throw them between the bars. But the electric current simply arced and sizzled them before they could get through. It made things seem even worse.

He went to bed at last, dispirited, certain that the future was going to be very rough, if not fatal.

7

They were aloft at last, flying just to the east of north, rising rapidly to an altitude of over ten miles. Terl loomed over the control panel, silent and withdrawn. Jonnie sat at the copilot console, the seat belt wrapped around him twice, air mask tending to mist. It was growing very cold in the flight cab.

They were late getting off because Terl had personally gone over every fitting and unit of the plane as though suspicious that someone might have sabotaged it. The actual ship number was eighteen digits long and only ended in ninety-one. It was an old ship, a castoff from some war on some other planet, and it showed its scars in dents and sears. It had a forward flight compartment like any freighter, but it was armored and fitted with batteries of air-to-air and air-to-ground blast guns.

The huge body of the plane, now empty, was fitted to carry not ore but fifty company attack troops—there were huge benches, bins for supplies, racks for their blast guns. There were many ports, all armored. The plane had not carried troops or even been flown for ages.

Seeing that breathe-gas compression would be off in the compartment, Jonnie had thought it might be better to ride there, but Terl put him in the copilot seat. Now he was glad. This altitude probably had little air in it, and the cold was seeping into the cab with icy fingers.

Below them the mountains and plains spread out, apparently not moving at any great speed even though the plane was well above hypersonic.

Soon Jonnie knew he was looking at the top of the world. Pale green misty sea and white vastnesses of ice were all across the northern horizon. They were not going to cross the North Pole, but nearly.

The chattering console computer was rolling itself out a tape of their successive positions. Jonnie looked at it. They were turning in a curve to head more easterly.

“Where are we going?” said Jonnie.

Terl didn’t answer for some time. Then he yanked an Intergalactic Mining chart of the planet from a seat pocket and threw it at Jonnie. “You’re looking at the world, animal. It’s round.”

Jonnie unfolded the chart. “I know it’s round. Where are we going?”

“Well, we’re not going up there,” said Terl, pointing a talon toward the north. “That’s all water in spite of its looking solid. Just ice. Don’t never land there. You’d freeze to death.”

Jonnie had a chart open. Terl had drawn a red, curving course line from the area of departure, up across a continent, then across a large island and then down to the top of another island. Typical of a mining map, it was all in numbers and without names. He translated rapidly in his head back to Chinko geography. Using ancient names, the course lay up over Canada, across the top of Greenland, past Iceland and down to the north tip of Scotland. On the mine map, Scotland was 89-72-13.

After punching in a new series of coordinates, Terl put the ship on automatic and reached back of his seat for a container of kerbango. He slurped some into his container cover and chewed it down.

“Animal,” said Terl above the roar of the ship, “I am about to recruit fifty man-things.”

“I thought we were almost gone.”

“No, rat brain. There are some groups in various inaccessible places on the planet.”

“And,” said Jonnie, “having gotten them, we are going to take them back to the ‘defense base.’”

Terl looked at him and nodded. “And you’re going to help.”

“If I’m going to help, maybe we better talk over how we are going to do this.”

Terl shrugged. “Simple. There’s a village up in the mountains where you see that red circle. This is a battle plane. We just dive in with stun blasts and then walk around and load the ones we want aboard.”

Jonnie looked at him. “No.”

Hostile, Terl said, “You promised—”

“I know what I promised. I’m saying ‘no’ because your plan won’t work.”

“These guns can be set to ‘stun.’ They don’t have to be put on a ‘kill’ setting.”

“Maybe you better tell me what these men are going to do,” said Jonnie.

“Why, you’re going to train them on machines. I thought you could figure that out yourself, rat brain. You’ve been ferrying the machines. So what’s wrong with this plan?”

“They won’t cooperate,” said Jonnie.

With a frown, Terl studied that. Leverage, leverage. It was true that he wouldn’t have leverage. “We’ll tell them that if they don’t cooperate we’ll shoot up their village for keeps.”

“Probably,” said Jonnie. He looked at Terl with disgust and laughed.

It stung Terl. Jonnie was sitting back now, looking at the map. Jonnie saw that they were avoiding a minesite located in the southwest of England. He wagered with himself that Terl would come down to wave top in the last run into Scotland.

“Why won’t it work?” demanded Terl.

“If I’ve got to train them, you better let me walk in and get them.”

Terl barked a laugh. “Animal, if you walked into that village they would drill you like a sieve. Suicide! What a rat brain!”

“If you want any help from me,” said Jonnie, offering the map, “you’ll land up here on this mountain and let me walk in the last five miles.”

“And then what will you do?”

Jonnie did not want to tell him. “I’ll get you fifty men.”

With a shake of his head, Terl said, “Too risky. I didn’t spend over a year training you just to have to start all over!” Then he realized he might have said too much. He looked suspiciously at Jonnie, thinking: the animal must not consider itself valuable.

“Crap!” said Terl. “All right, animal. You can go ahead and get yourself killed. What’s one animal more or less? Where’s the mountain?”

Well short of northern Scotland, Terl brought the personnel freighter down to wave top. They skimmed the gray green water, eventually roared up the side of a cliff, shot inland battering the scrub and trees, and came to a halt under the shoulder of a mountain.

Jonnie won his own bet. Terl had avoided the minesite in the south.

8

Jonnie stepped down into a different land.

The barren mountain and its scrub seemed to swim in a soft mist; everything was hazed and faintly blue. It seemed a very beautiful place, but it had dark gorges and inaccessible summits, and there was a secretness about it as though its softness concealed a harsh threat. He had not realized a land could be so different from the bold mountains of his home.

He had changed to buckskin. He hung a kill-club on his belt.

“It’s over there about five miles,” said Terl, pointing south. “Very rough terrain. Don’t get any ideas about vanishing. There’s a whole ocean and continent between you and your country. You’d never make it back.” He took out the control box and laid it on the seat behind him. He pointed at it.

“Could be,” said Jonnie, “that by tomorrow morning I’ll come back and get you to move into the village. So don’t move off.”

“Tomorrow noon,” said Terl, “I’ll come down and collect fifty men, my way. If you’re still alive, duck under something to avoid the stun guns. Damned fool.”

“See you tomorrow morning,” said Jonnie, moving off.

“Goodbye, rat brain,” said Terl.

Jonnie found a faint trail that went south and, alternately running and walking, wove his way through the gullies and brush and barren fields.

It was not a very promising land for food. He did not start any deer but he saw an old trace of one. There was not much grazing to be had. Far off on another mountain he thought he saw some sheep, just a few of them, more like a small cloud than animals.

He caught a glimpse of water through the scrub ahead and went up a gully, intending to get a better look. Yes, there was an inland body of water ahead. He trotted back to the trail.

Abruptly, three pointed stakes jabbed out of cover. He stopped. Very, very slowly he put up his hands, palms out to show they were empty of weapons.

A guttural, wheezing voice said, “Take his club. Be swift noo.”

One spear lowered, and a heavyset youth with a black beard stepped forward and a bit fearfully yanked the club from Jonnie’s belt. The youth retreated around behind him and pushed him. The other spears made way.

“Look saucy noo,” the wheezing voice said, “dinna let him run away.”

They came to a small clearing and Jonnie looked at them. There were four: two with black hair and dark eyes, a third with blond hair and blue eyes and taller than the rest, plus an old man who seemed to be in charge.

Their dress was partly woven cloth and partly hides. They wore patterned skirts of some rough fabric that fell to their knees. On their heads they had bonnets.

“It’s a thief from the Orkneys,” said one.

“Na, I ken Orkneymen,” said another.

“Could be he’s a Swede,” said the blonde one. “But no, no Swede dresses so.”

“Hush yer prattle,” said the old one. “Look in his pouch an’ mayhap ye’ll find the answer.”

Jonnie laughed. “I can give you the answer,” he said.

They recoiled on the defensive.

Then a black-haired one crept forward and looked closely into his face. “He’s a Sassenach! Hear the accent!”

The old man brushed the speaker aside with impatience. “Na, the Sassenachs be dead these mony centuries. Except for those already here.”

“Let’s go down to the village,” said Jonnie. “I’m a messenger.”

“Ah,” said a black-bearded one. “Clanargyll! They want to talk of peace.”

“Noo, noo, noo,” said the old man. “He wears no such plaid.” He squared himself off in front of Jonnie. “Messenger you be from whom?”

“You’ll fall over on your backside,” laughed Jonnie, “when I tell you. So let’s go down to the village. My message is for your parson or mayor.”

“Ah, it’s a parson we have. But you’ll be meaning Chief of the Clan, Fearghus! Git ahind him you boys and push him along.”

9

The village sprawled on the shore of what they said was Loch Shin. It looked temporary, as though the inhabitants could easily pick up belongings and flee to a mountainside. A great many racks stood about with fish drying on them. A few children peeked, afraid, from behind fallen walls. No vast number of people came out to watch the group enter the village, but there was a feeling of eyes watching.

Here, too, the mist softened the land. The waters of the loch lay placid and extensive in the quiet day.

They put Jonnie in the front chamber of the only whole stone house apparent. It had an inner room, and the old man went in. There was considerable murmuring of voices from in there as Jonnie waited. A scrawny child peeked at him from behind a tattered cloth curtain, its blue eyes intense. He put out a hand toward it to beckon it closer, and it vanished in a flurry of curtain.

There was evidently a back door, and Jonnie heard it open and close several times. The murmuring in the inner room intensified; more people were coming into it from the back.

At length the old man came to Jonnie. “He’ll see you noo,” he said and pointed to the inner chamber.

Jonnie went in. About eight men had assembled and taken seats along the walls. They had spears and clubs beside them or in their hands.

Seated on a large chair against the back wall was a big black-haired, black-bearded power of a man. He had a short skirt that showed the bony knees of strong legs. He wore a pair of white crossbelts, pinned together at the center of the X with a large silver badge. A bonnet sat squarely on his head and he held a large, ancient sword across his knees. Jonnie knew he must be looking at Chief of the Clan, Fearghus.

Fearghus looked about at his council to see that they were all there and alert. He stared at the newcomer.

“A messenger,” said Fearghus, “from whom?”

“Have you had any trouble with the monsters?” said Jonnie.

A shock went through the group.

“I take it you mean the demons,” said Fearghus.

“Would you mind telling me any trouble you have had?” said Jonnie.

This threw them into an uproar. Fearghus held up an imperious hand. Quiet fell.

“Young man,” said Fearghus, “since you give us no name, as you claim to be a messenger, although you have not said from whom—though I suppose you will tell us in good time—I will do you the courtesy of answering your question.” Jonnie was getting the notes of the accent and followed easily. The chief talked in his throat and clipped off the words.

“Since the days of the myths,” said Fearghus, “we have had nothing but trouble with the demons. The myths tell us they raised a cloud across the land and all peoples died except a very few. I am sure you know these myths since they are religious and you appear to be a properly, politely, religious man.

“All to the south of us, no men dare live. There is a fortress of the demons five hundred miles to the south and west. And from time to time, they foray out and hunt men. They kill them without reason or compunction.

“At this moment you find us in the fishing village, for the fish are running. We sit here and work at risk. As soon as we have a little food, we will retire further into the Highlands. We have always been a proud people, we of the Clanfearghus. But no one can fight the demons. Now that I have answered you, please continue.”

“I am here,” said Jonnie, “to recruit fifty young, valiant men. They will be taught certain skills and will perform certain tasks. It will be dangerous. Many of them may die. But in the end, should God grant us fortune and we are true to our task, we may defeat the demons and drive them from this world.”

It caused an explosion. The council had withdrawn into themselves at their chief’s recitation of ancient history and they had been made fearful. But the idea of someone combating the demons was so outrageous they exploded.

Jonnie sat quietly until the chief thumped the chair arm with his sword hilt. The chief looked at a council member. “You wished to speak, Angus?”

“Aye. There is another myth, that once long ago when Scots were thousands, a great crusade went south and they were crushed.”

“That was before the demons,” shouted another council member.

“Nobody has ever fought the demons!” yelled another.

A grizzled council member stood forward and the chief recognized him as Robert the Fox. “I do not deny,” he said, “that it would be worthy cause. We starve in the Highlands. There is little grazing for sheep. We dare not plow and plant crops as our ancestors once did in these rocky glens, for the myths tell us demons fly through the air and have eyes, and some say that the strange metal cylinder that passes overhead on some days is itself a demon.

“But I also tell you,” he continued, “that this stranger, clothed in what I take to be buckskin, signifying a hunter, speaking a strangely accented speech, smiling and courteous and no Argyll, has voiced an idea that in all my long life, I have never heard before. His words cause the mind to flare with sudden vision. That he can propose such a vision of daring and boldness proves that in some way he must be a Scot! I recommend we listen.” He sat down.

Fearghus was musing. “We could not let all our young men go. Some would have to be from the Campbells, some from the Glencannons. But never mind. Stranger, you have not told us either your name or from whom you are a messenger.”

Jonnie braced himself. “I am Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. I am from America.”

There was chatter. Then Robert the Fox said, “Legends say it was a land of the ancients where many Scots went.”

“Then he is a Scot,” said another council member.

The chief held up his hand to quiet them. “That doesn’t tell us from whom you are a messenger.”

Jonnie looked calm. He didn’t feel calm. “I am a messenger from mankind—before we become extinct forever.”

He saw a flicker of awe in some, a flicker of wonder in others.

The chief leaned forward again. “But how did you get here?”

“I flew here.”

The chief and the others digested this. The chief frowned then. “In these times only the demons can fly. How did you get here from America?”

“I own a demon,” said Jonnie.

10

He had to get to Terl before the monster took off and blasted the village. The sun was arcing up perilously close to the deadline: noon.

Jonnie ran uphill on the trail, his heart overworked. Bushes whipped by. Stones rolled under his pounding feet.

It had been a wild night and a hard-worked morning.

The clanchief had sent runners and riders thundering across the Highlands to summon other chiefs. They came from far glens and hidden caves of the mountains, bearded, kilted, cautious, and suspicious—enemies, many of them, one to another.

The chiefs of the MacDougals, Glencannons, Campbells and many others had come. Even the chief of the Argylls. A subdued English lord from a group in the lower hills had come. The king of a tiny Norse colony on the east coast had strode in late. It was after midnight when Jonnie could talk to them all.

He leveled with them. He explained that Terl had personal plans of his own, independent of the company, and was using his power to further his own ambitions. He told them that Terl conceived himself to be using Jonnie, and through Jonnie, men, to carry out his project, and that quite possibly Terl would slaughter the lot of them when he had finished with them.

Jonnie began to realize, as he spoke to the intent faces around the flickering council fire, that he must be dealing with some Scot love of guile. For when he told them he had an outside chance of turning the tables and using Terl, only then did the chiefs begin to nod and smile and hope.

But when he told them about Chrissie, held as a hostage against his good behavior, and that part of his own plan was to rescue her, he had them. A streak of romanticism, which had survived all their defeats and humblings, welled up in them. While they could agree to a long-shot objective with their minds, they rose to the rescue of Chrissie with their hearts. What does she look like? Black eyes and corn-silk hair. How was she formed? Beautiful and comely. How did she feel? Crushed with despair, hardly daring to hope for rescue. They were angered by the collar, disgusted with the leash, violent about the cage. They shook their chiefly weapons in the flashing firelight and made speeches and quoted legends.

Beacon fires had been set flaming in the hills, their chiefs signaling a gathering of the clans. They sent their warlike messages until the dawn.

A meadow was the assigned meeting place, and by noon the clans would be there.

Questions and introductions and ceremony had detained Jonnie until after eleven of the morning, and he looked up with a shock to see that he had very little time indeed to get to the plane and stop Terl from committing a folly that would ruin the future.

With a sharp pain in his side from exertion, Jonnie pounded up the steep, twisting trail, swift feet spurning the ground. He hardly dared take time to check the sun. He could not be sure whether Terl was keeping the appointment by a clock or by the heavens. He dreaded any moment to hear ahead of him the roar of the plane taking off for a lethal pass over the village.

More than five miles and all uphill! And over a very bad trail.

Jonnie heard the beginnings of a start-up ahead of him. He was almost there. He burst through the brush at the edge of the plateau. The plane was already beginning to rise.

He yelled, waving his arms, racing forward. If he missed, all his work would be undone.

The plane hovered, feet off the ground, turning toward the village.

Jonnie threw his kill-club the last thirty feet to strike the fuselage and attract attention.

The plane settled back. Jonnie collapsed on the ground, drawing air in loud, hoarse breaths. The roar of the plane turned off and Terl opened the door.

“Did they chase you out?” said Terl into his face mask. “Well, get in, animal, and we’ll go down and carry out a proper plan.”

“No,” said Jonnie as he crawled up into the seat, still panting. His feet were bruised from stones and he inspected them. “It’s all set.”

Terl was derisive. “All night I saw fires burning on the tops of the hills. I was sure they were roasting you for a feast!”

“No,” said Jonnie. “They lit fires to call in candidates for the work group.”

Terl plainly did not see how this could be.

“We have to be very careful,” said Jonnie.

Terl could agree with that.

“They’re going to meet in a meadow about three miles from here.”

“Ah, you got them to get together so we could blast them better.”

“Look, Terl, we can succeed only if we do this exactly right.”

“You sure are wheezing. Tell me the truth, are they chasing you?”

Jonnie threw down a moccasin and it made a loud snap. “Blast it! It’s all arranged! Only we have to finish it. There will be hundreds in that meadow. I want you to land at the upper edge of it. I’ll show you where. And then you must sit in the door of the plane and do absolutely nothing. Just sit there. I will choose from the candidates. We will get them aboard and leave by tomorrow morning.”

“You’re giving me orders?” shouted Terl.

“That’s how it was arranged.” He was putting his moccasins back on. “You must just sit there in the plane door so you can watch and make sure it all goes well.”

“I understand,” said Terl with a sudden grin. “You have to have me there to frighten them into submission!”

“Exactly,” said Jonnie. “Can we go down there now?”

11

There had never been so many together within memory, Robert the Fox said.

Over a thousand Scots, with a few English and some Norsemen, crowded the broad meadow. They had brought some food and drink. They had brought arms—just in case. And they had brought their pipers. The panorama was of colored kilts, ponies, shifting groups of men and smoke from fires, and over all lay the skirling whine and shriek of bagpipes.

There was a momentary surge back when the plane landed on the little knoll overlooking the meadow. But on Jonnie’s instructions the chiefs had briefed their people well. And when the huge Terl took his position within the open plane door, there was no unseemly panic. The men left a wide distance between the plane and themselves, however. The obvious fear Terl saw on some of the faces confirmed for him that the animal had been right: he was needed there to overawe them.

Jonnie kept one eye on Terl. He could not be sure that Terl’s sadism would not cause some sort of incident.

Over five hundred young men were part of the throng. Their chiefs had already talked to them and they gathered now in a central group below Jonnie.

Jonnie sat on a horse lent him by Chief Glencannon so he could be seen by all. He sat the mount easily even though it had a saddle and bridle, things Jonnie had never seen before and that he considered effete for one who never had trouble with horses.

The chiefs and heads of groups stood with their young men. Outside these groups and at the edge of the crowd stood pipers. A few women, some young, some old, and older men sat on the grass where a knoll side overlooked the scene. A few children raced about, running into legs.

Jonnie began. He already knew they had been briefed. His job was made much easier by a high literacy level among these people. They had not lost the art of reading and writing and they knew a lot of history, mainly their own myths and legends.

“You all know why I am here. I want fifty young men who are able, courageous and strong, to go on a crusade to rid the world of the demon up there who does not speak or understand our language. When I ask you to look at him and shrink back in fear, please do so.”

“I amna afeered of naething!” said one young man.

“Just act so when I ask you to. I will not for a moment believe, and neither will your friends, that you are afraid. All right?”

The young man said it was.

“I feel it is necessary to tell you the character of this demon so you can help me. He is treacherous, vicious, sadistic and devious. He lies from choice even when the truth will serve. When I point now, cower back and look terrified.”

Jonnie pointed. The crowd, on cue, looked up at Terl in the plane door and cowered back.

Terl grinned behind his face mask. This was more like it.

“The mining company that conquered this planet in ages past has equipment and technology beyond those of man. Planes in the air, machines to drill the earth, gases and guns that can slaughter whole cities. Man has been deprived of his planet by these creatures. The men who volunteer to come with me will learn to use those tools, fly those planes, man those guns!

“Our chances are not in our favor. Many of us may die before this is through.

“Our race is growing fewer in numbers. In coming years we may be gone forever. But even though the odds are against us, at least let it be said that we took this small last chance and tried.”

The crowd went into a raving, excited roar of enthusiasm. The pipes took it up and screamed. Drums pounded.

Into the din, Jonnie shouted, “I want fifty volunteers!”

All volunteered instantly. Not just the five hundred young men but the whole thousand in the meadow.

When he could again be heard above the shrilling pipes and shouting voices, Jonnie announced a series of tests he would give during the afternoon. The chiefs turned to their people to organize it and Jonnie dropped down from the horse.

“Mon, MacTyler,” cried the grizzled old man who had first captured Jonnie, “ye are a true Scot!”

And Jonnie found, as he assisted in straightening out the turmoil for the tests, that his name had indeed changed to MacTyler. There were even some arguments as to which clan his people had originally belonged to, but it was at length decided that the MacTylers had been distributed evenly among all the clans before they went to America.

The only problem with the tests was in trying to disqualify someone. Jonnie had the young men, one after another, walk a straight line with closed eyes to make sure their sense of balance was good; he made them run a distance to be certain their wind was excellent; he made them look at letters at a distance to make sure their sight was passing. Only a couple of the Norsemen were as tall as Jonnie, but the scattering of black beards and blond beards was about equal. Jonnie assumed that refugees from Scandinavia or the lower countries and even from Ireland had changed their blood over the centuries, but it certainly had not changed the hard-core ethnology of the Highlands, which had held out now against all comers and defeats for thousands of years.

The men got tired of just being examined. Some fights broke out from complaints of losers. And the chiefs organized competitions to settle things.

The selections went well into darkness and were finally completed by firelight.

But Jonnie did not wind up with fifty. He finished with eighty-three.

For diplomacy, Jonnie requested the chiefs to select an older man as their representative, one in whom they felt confidence; they chose Robert the Fox as a veteran of many raids and very learned. So that made fifty-one.

Apparently it would be unseemly not to have pipers, so two of those were chosen, and these claimed they needed a drummer so one of those was selected. This made fifty-four.

Then some old women elbowed themselves to the front and demanded to know who was going to mend torn kilts, scrape hides, dry fish, care for wounded and cook? And Jonnie found himself with new arguments and elections and five old widows of indeterminate age but universally attested skills. This made fifty-nine.

Since the chiefs had been told there was a lot of study involved, Jonnie found himself confronting a small but determined schoolmaster who claimed it took an iron rod to make young men, who had appetites only for hunting and women, study. And the chiefs said he must go too: number sixty.

But the question of death had stirred up a row from three parsons. Who would care for the souls of these young men? And also keep them respectful? There was a further quarrel as to which of the three it would be, and the lucky one drew the long straw. This made sixty-one.

Jonnie had his own plan to take care of. All of those chosen were bright. But he had to have three very bright ones who also came somewhere near his height and build, who could learn Psychlo quickly, and who could at a distance or over poor radio connections look and sound vaguely like him. He found about a dozen and asked the chiefs, schoolmaster and parson which of these were quick studies. They named the three. And that made sixty-four.

A scholarly old fellow showed up who lamented the fact that no one would be writing the history that would become legend. It turned out he was the dean of literature of a sort of underground university that had been eking along for centuries, and on the argument that he had two capable replacements for himself in the school and—due to his age and poor health—was expendable anyway, he could not be left behind by the MacTyler. Robert the Fox thought that very necessary, so that made sixty-five.

Eighteen outright, uncontestable ties had shown up in the contests the chiefs had arranged, and when it looked like blood would be spilled over it, Jonnie gave in. And that made eighty-three.

He woke up Terl, who had been hitting the kerbango pretty heavily since sunset and was lying like a mountain across the plane seats.

“We have eighty-three,” said Jonnie. “The plane takes fifty Psychlos, and eighty-three humans won’t occupy that space or make up that weight. I want to make sure you do not object to eighty-three.”

Terl was foggy and sleepy. “The casualty rate of such a project is high. We have to make it appear that they are just training all winter when they are operating, so the extra numbers are fine. Why’d you wake me up for a silly question like that, animal?” And he went back to sleep. Jonnie had culled another piece of Terl’s project from this. Up to now he hadn’t any real hard data on Terl’s plans. Praise all for kerbango, thought Jonnie as he went off.

He had the historian draw up a roster of the Anguses and Duncans and all their parade of names, and sent them off in the night to hasten pell-mell to their homes and get heavy and light clothing and sleeping blankets, personal gear and a few days’ worth of food to tide them over until he could round up cattle. They must be back at dawn, and those who didn’t have them borrowed horses, for in some cases it was a long ride both ways.

Jonnie had a final meeting with the chiefs. “We have caused quite a row up here in the Highlands, and although the local minesite is five hundred miles away, it would be a good thing now for your people to be quiet and undemonstrative for the coming year.”

The English lord thought that was a very good idea. The chiefs agreed to it.

“There is a distinct possibility,” said Jonnie, “that we will fail. And that I will never see you again and the group will be killed.”

They brushed this off. Brave men always risked death, didn’t they? And they’d not blame MacTyler. The bad thing would be not to try. That would be what couldn’t be forgiven.

In the midnight chill, Jonnie talked to those who had not been chosen, thinking he would leave disappointment there. But he found the chiefs had already told them that when the mission succeeded they would be a recovery corps in charge of policing and reorganizing England, Scandinavia, Russia, Africa and China, and they were already scheduling study, training and organizing to do that at the end of a year. And the non-chosens were wild with enthusiasm.

Fearghus was spokesman as he calmly outlined it to Jonnie. It worked on a clan system, of course.

My God, gaped Jonnie, these Scots thought big!

“Don’t fret, MacTyler. We’re behind ye.”

Jonnie, exhausted, stretched out under the fuselage of the freighter, wrapped in a woolen blanket handwoven in the tartan of Clanfearghus, and fell into a hopeful sleep. For the first time since the death of his father, he did not feel alone.