Battlefield Earth

Chapter 8

A very hungover Terl sat beside the drone receiver in his office, woodenly taking the lode scans out of the roller.

He had slept the sleep of the very drunk both last night and this morning, and he had not felt any earthquake, nor had anyone informed him of it since the compound was proof against such slight tremors, and it had been much more severe in the mountains.

What little pleasure he got in life these days was looking at the scan photos, even though they showed only a bit more waste ore around the shaft and a little activity.

He was no closer to solving the puzzle of Jayed than he had been when the fellow arrived. The endless searching and trying to figure out the reasons IBI might have an interest here had cost Terl weight, had sunken in and dulled his eyes, and had put a tremor in his talons when he lifted the all-too-frequent kerbango saucepans to his mouthbones. His hatred of this planet with its accursed blue skies and white mountains deepened day by day. This routine moment at the scanner, taken only after locking all doors and checking with a debug probe, was his only hopeful instant in the day.

Terl raised the scan picture to the light. It took him a moment or two to realize it was different today. Then he quivered with abrupt shock.

The face of the cliff had avalanched.

There was no lode there.

lodeHe didn’t have yesterday’s pictures. He always tore them up promptly. He tried to estimate how much of the face was gone. The incline of it was different. He couldn’t estimate how deep the shear-off had cut into the cliff.

There was a hole. That would be the drift. They had been drifting along the vein.

He was about to put the photo down to think about it when he noticed the mineral side scan trace. The primary purpose of a recon drone was not surveillance. It scanned ceaselessly for minerals and recorded them on a trace. This trace was different.

Indeed it was different. He knew the lode trace: the jagged spectrum of gold. He quickly ran the trace into the analyzing machine.

goldSulfur? There was no sulfur in that lode. That gold was not a sulfide gold compound. Carbon? Fluorine? What in the name of the crap nebula … none of these minerals were in that area!

He wondered whether he was looking at the six-common-mineral formula of what the Psychlos called “trigdite.” None of the explosives or fuels were imported from Psychlo. They were dangerous to transship and easy to make on this planet. The little factory stood about ten miles south of the compound, served by the power lines from the distant dam, and every now and then a crew went down to combine the elements into fuel cartridges and explosives. So all these elements were present on this planet.

He ran it through the scanner again to get the exact balance of the mix.

Trigdite!

Terl’s unbalanced wits instantly leaped to a wrong conclusion. Trigdite was the commonest trace one got around any Psychlo mine. It would almost be unusual not to find it as it hung in the rocks and air after blasting.

He leaped from his chair and ripped the scan photo to bits in savage paws. He threw down the fragments. He stamped on them. He pounded his fists against the wall.

The vicious rotten animals had blown the face of the cliff off! Just to spite him! Just to get even with him! They’d destroyed his lode!

He collapsed in the chair.

He heard a knocking at his door and Chirk’s worried voice, “Whatever is the matter, Terl?”

Suddenly he realized he must get control of himself. He must be very cold, very clever.

“The machine broke,” he shouted, a clever explanation.

She went away.

He felt cool, dispassionate, masterful. He knew exactly what he would do, knew it step by step. He would have to remove all possible threats to his life. He would have to cover all traces.

First he would commit the perfect crime. He had worked it all out.

Then he would release the drone and exterminate the animals.

His talons were still shaking a bit. He knew it would make him feel much better if he went out and killed the two females. He had that planned for Day 94. He would make a couple of explosive collars for the horses and then he would lead the horses up to the cage and show the females the red blob on the horses’ collars was the same as on theirs, and then he would hit a switch and explode a horse’s head off. The females would go into terror. Then he’d do it to the other horse. Then he’d pretend to let them loose but step back and blow the smaller female’s head off. The amount of terror he could generate would be delicious. He felt he needed such a boost now. Then he remembered the animal’s “psychic powers.” That animal up in the hills would know about it and might do something to avoid getting killed.

No, attractive and needful to his nerves as it might be, he must not indulge himself. He must be cool, masterful and clever.

He had better set the perfect crime in motion right this instant.

He got up with deliberate, calm determination and went about it.