Battlefield Earth

Chapter 3

They were in a storeroom area now. Angus had found a huge ring of keys and was scampering ahead of Jonnie, opening doors. Robert the Fox was following more sedately; he had his worn old cape wrapped very tightly about him, for it was bitterly cold in this place—probably the temperature seldom rose much, even in summer. Robert’s radio crackled occasionally as some Scot elsewhere reported in—the radios worked well underground, designed for miner use.

Jonnie had not yet found all he wanted by a long shot. The planning of a battle against an enemy whose battle tactics were all but unknown was a chancy business. And he did not yet know exactly how the Psychlos had done it. So he had half an ear to Robert’s radio and was not paying all that much attention to Angus.

They were at a heavy door that said Arsenal and Angus was changing keys, about to open it. Some faint hope that it might contain nuclear weapons rose in Jonnie. The door opened.

ArsenalBoxes! Cases! Endless rows of them!

Jonnie played his lamp over the stencils. He did not know what all these letters meant: this military certainly loved to obscure things under letters and numbers.

Angus danced up with a book, fluttering the well-preserved pages. “‘Ordnance, Types and Models’!” he crooned. “All the numbers and letters will be here. Even pictures!”

“‘Ordnance, Types and Models’!”“Inventory that,” said Robert the Fox to a Scot beside him who was making lists.

“Bazooka!” said Angus. “There, up there! Those long boxes! ‘Antitank, armor-piercing missile projectiles.’”

‘Antitank, armor-piercing missile projectiles.’”“Nuclear?” asked Jonnie.

“Nonnuclear. Says so.”

“I think,” said Robert, “this is just their local arsenal for possible base use. They wouldn’t be supplying the whole army from this spot.”

“Lots of it,” said Angus.

“Enough for a few thousand men,” said Robert.

“Can I open a box?” asked Angus to Robert.

“One or two for now, just to ascertain condition,” said Robert and waved a couple of the following Scots forward to assist.

Angus was flipping through the catalog, miner’s lamp dancing on the pages. “Ah, here! ‘Thompson submachine g*n’ …” He stopped and looked up at the boxes. He shook his head and looked back at the page. “No wonder!”

‘Thompson submachine g*n’“No wonder what?” prompted Robert, a bit impatient. The recon drone must have passed overhead by this time, and they had had no lunch and needed a break to recharge their air bottles outside.

“That ammunition we found was very well preserved. Airtight. Well, it maybe had to be. This sub-Thompson was a century out of date when we found the truckload. They must have just been sending them to the cadets to practice with. They were relics!”

Jonnie was not about to try to fight Psychlos with sub-Thompsons. He started to pass on.

Boxes were being opened behind him. Angus raced up. His lamp was shining on an all-metal, lightweight hand rifle. It was block-solid covered with grease that ages ago had formed into a tight, hard cast.

“Mark 50 assault rifle!” said Angus. “The last thing they issued! I can clean these up so they purr!”

Jonnie nodded. It was a sleek weapon.

MAGAZINE said the door ahead of him. It was a doubly thick door. Meant ammunition. Maybe tactical nuclear weapons?

MAGAZINEAngus let another Scot open it for him. He was back there rummaging in cases.

A box right ahead, standing among vast tiers of boxes, said Ammunition, Mark 50 Assault. Jonnie took a jimmy out of his belt and pried open the top. It was not airtight. The cardboard dividers were decayed and stained. The brass was okay and the bullet clean, but the primer at the bottom told its tale. The ammunition was dud. He called Angus and showed him the cartridge.

Ammunition, Mark 50 Assault.They went on looking for nuclear weapons.

More storerooms and more storerooms.

And then pay dirt!

Jonnie found himself looking at literally thousands of outfits, neatly arranged on shelves, even with sizes, complete with shoes and faceplated helmets, packed in a kind of plastic that was airtight and nearly imperishable: COMBAT RADIATION PROTECTION UNIFORMS.

COMBAT RADIATION PROTECTION UNIFORMS.His excited hands ripped open a package. Lead-impregnated clothing. Lead-glass faceplates.

And in mountain camouflage: gray, tan and green.

Riches! The one thing that would let them handle radiation!

He showed Robert the Fox. Robert put it on the radio as real news but told the others to go on with their own searches and inventories.

They were on their way outside for food and air when another piece of news came through. It was Dunneldeen. Apparently he had relieved Thor, who had to go on shift at the mine. Dunneldeen wasn’t even supposed to be there.

“We got some great big huge security safes here,” Dunneldeen’s voice came over the radio. “No combination. One is marked ‘Top Secret Nuclear’ and ‘Classified Personnel Only. Manuals.’ We need an explosives team. End com.”

‘Top Secret Nuclear’‘Classified Personnel Only. Manuals.’He guided them to him. Robert the Fox looked at Angus and Angus shook his head. “No keys,” said Angus.

The explosives team rigged nonflame blasting cartridges to the hinges and everyone went into the next corridor while the explosives team trailed wire. They held their ears. The concussion was head-splitting. A moment later they heard the crash of a door hitting the floor. The fire member of the team raced in with an extinguisher but it was not needed.

Lamps beamed through the settling dust.

Presently they were holding in their hands operations manuals, maintenance manuals, repair manuals, hundreds and hundreds of separate manuals that gave every particular of every nuclear device that had been built, how to set it, fire it, fuse and defuse it, store it, handle it, and safeguard it.

“Now we’ve got everything but the nuclear devices,” said Robert the Fox.

“Yes,” said Jonnie. “You can’t shoot with papers!”