Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 by L. Ron Hubbard
“In what way?”
“That’s better, animal. I like to see gratitude.”
“In what way?” repeated Jonnie.
“The company has some projects that need doing. They are very confidential, of course. And you are standing there pledging your full cooperation. Right?”
Jonnie looked at him.
“And when they are all done,” said Terl, “why, I will stagger you with gifts, and you can return to the mountains.”
“With them,” said Jonnie, pointing at Chrissie and Pattie.
“Of course, and with your four-legged companions as well.”
Jonnie knew a false Terl when he saw one.
“Of course,” said Terl, “if you try to get away—which I think by now you have found impossible—or if you seek to mess me up or if you don’t succeed, why then, very easy, the little one loses its head. And if you repeat your mistake in any way, the bigger one loses its head. And if you go off the cable completely, the whole place blows up. Now do I have your promise of cooperation?”
“I can move around all I please?”
“Of course, animal. I’m tired of hunting rats for you. And I’m sure not going to hunt rats for those two in there!” Terl laughed, the soul of joviality.
“I can go into the cage?”
“When I’m standing outside with my little remote control box watching. Yes.”
“I can ride around the country?”
“As long as you wear this,” said Terl. He pulled out of his pocket a button camera with a loose neck band and dropped it over Jonnie’s head. “If it shuts off or gets beyond a five-mile range, why, I just push the first switch.”
“You’re not a monster. You’re a devil.”
But Terl saw clearly he had won. “So you promise?”
Jonnie dejectedly looked at the remote control box bulge in Terl’s pocket. He looked at the two girls who were now gazing at him trustingly.
“I promise to do the project,” said Jonnie. It was as far as he could be stretched.
But it was enough for Terl. He almost gaily tossed his tools into the back of the truck and drove off.
Jonnie walked over to the cage, careful not to touch the bars, and began a cautious low-key explanation of what was going on. He felt like a cheat as he did so. If ever he had seen treachery, it had been in Terl’s eyes.
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 c
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.
&n
“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.”