Battlefield Earth Part 50

Terl looked up. Rats, he thought. Always rats in these buildings.

He turned on the speed heaters of the cauldron and the wire gold and lumps began to settle down and shrink.

Bubbles began to form. One had to be careful not to overheat gold; it went into gaseous form and much could be lost in vapors. The roof beams of this old smelter must be saturated in gold gas that had recondensed. He watched the thermometers carefully.

The yellow-orange content of the cauldron went liquid and he turned the heaters to maintain.

The molds were all laid out. They were for coffin lids ordinarily used in manufacture, for coffins were a local product, made in the shops of the compound.

Terl held a huge ladle in mittened paws and began to transfer liquid gold into the first lid mold.

Two hundred pounds of gold per coffin. Ten coffin lids. He worked fast and expertly, taking care to spill none. The hiss of the molten metal striking the molds was pleasant to his earbones.

How easy all this was! The company insisted on lead coffins. Now and then an employee died in a radiation accident on some far planet, and after some messy experiences such as coffins falling apart in transs.h.i.+pment or creating minor accidents with radiation, the company, fifty or sixty thousand years ago, had laid down exact rules.

Lead was a glut on the market on Psychlo. They had lots of that. They also had plenty of iron and copper and chrome. What were scarce were gold, bauxite, molybdenum, and several other metals. And what was absent, thank the evil G.o.ds, was uranium and all its family of ores. So the coffins were always made of lead, stiffened up with an alloy or two such as bis.m.u.th.

He only had to make lids. There were stacks and stacks of coffins in the morgue. One of the reasons he had to be secretive was that it would look a bit silly for him to be making more coffins and bringing them in.

Presently he had nine lid molds full. It was a bit tricky on the tenth. The cauldron was down to the bottom and a residue of rock was mixed in the dregs.

He had to be speedy with all this for it had to be done before dawn. He speed-chilled the dregs and dumped in a demijohn of acid to dissolve the rock and sediment left. Then he speed-warmed it again. The clouds of boiling acid looked good to him. He was in a breathe-mask, so who cared. He spooned the dissolved dregs out and reheated the gold.

By sc.r.a.ping very carefully, he was able to get the last lid fairly full. He made up the weight with a bit of melted lead.

While the lid molds cooled, he cleaned up the cauldron and ladle and made sure there were no splatters on the floor.

The lids weren't cooling fast enough and he put a portable fan to them. He gingerly tapped one. Good!

With care he tapped the lids out of the molds and laid them on a bench. He got out a molecular spray and fed a lead-bis.m.u.th rod into it and began to paint the gold with a lead-bis.m.u.th covering. About seven lead-bis.m.u.th rods later he had ten leadlike coffin lids.

He took off his mittens and gathered up the marking equipment that usually stayed in the morgue. He pulled a list from his pocket.

With great neatness he marked ten names, company worker serial numbers, and dates of death on the lids.

It had taken some trouble getting ten bodies. There were the three sentries blown up by the exploding gun. There was Numph. There was Jayed, blast him. But a mine safety program being run over in medical had kept casualties down from normal, and there had been only three mine deaths since the last semiannual firing. This left Terl two bodies short.

One he had acquired by casually dropping a blasting cap into a shot hole before they tamped in the explosive. He had thought to get two or three with this but he only got the explosives expert.

The other one had been rather involved. He had loosened the steering bar of a tri-wheeler. The things were quite high-speed and ran around lots of obstacles. But he had had to wait three boring days until it finally spilled and killed the admin personnel riding it.

So he had his ten names.

He punched them into the soft metal of the lids with the marker. He inspected them. Two showed gold through and that would not do. He got out his molecular spray and sprayed lead- bis.m.u.th over them. Fine.

He made a test with a claw point. The covering didn't scratch. It would probably also stand up to the handling of fork trucks.

He then took a marker and made a small "X," hard to see unless you looked for it, on the lower left-hand corner of each lid.

Time was getting on. He rapidly scooped up his equipment and disengaged the speed heater from the cauldron. He looked around. He had everything.

He turned out the lights, pulled the truck in front of the door, and loaded two or three lids at a time. He dumped the equipment on it.

He went back in, took a bag of dust and scattered it around the room, flashed his lamp about one more time to make sure, closed the doors, and happily drove off.

In the smelter, the ventilator opened and the b.u.t.ton cameras were retrieved with a quick hand. The hole in the shutter was repaired.

Terl drove rapidly to the compound. It was now very late but he had, as of recent weeks, made a practice of driving about the compound as though doing rounds and the sound of the motor would alert no one.

It was very dark.

He stopped at the morgue. Without lights he carried the ten lids inside. Then he drove the truck to the nearby sc.r.a.p dump and dug the equipment into and under another pile of sc.r.a.p.

He walked back to the morgue, closed the door, and turned on the lights. He probed the place for bugs.

He did not notice a small hole drilled through the thick wall or the b.u.t.ton camera that appeared there right after his probe.

Terl lined up ten coffins from the stacks of empties. He took off their lids and dumped them back of the stack. He moved the ten around so they would be in position to be picked up by the forklifts on Day 92.

From the shelves he yanked down the ten bodies and dumped them with thuds into the coffins.

Jayed's was the last one. "Jayed, you silly crunch, what a c.r.a.p lousy I.B.I. agent you were. It ain't smart, Jayed, to come in here worrying your betters. And what did you get for it?"

Terl picked up the lid he'd made, checked the name. "A coffin and a grave burying you under the phony name of Snit."

The glazed eyes seemed to regard him reproachfully.

"No, Jayed," said Terl. "It will do no good to argue. None at all. Neither your murder, nor that of Numph, will ever be traced to me. Goodbye, Jayed!" He slammed the coffin lid down on Jayed.

He covered the rest of the coffins with his lids. He checked the small "Xs."

He took a tool that cold-bonded metal and sealed the lids down to the coffins. He put the tool on the shelf. He took the name- marking tool out of his pocket and put it where it belonged.

He looked around and stood straighter. So far all was perfect.

And he was all ready, a whole day early for the semiannual firing. He reached for the light.

He did not hear the whisper against stone as the b.u.t.ton camera was withdrawn from the hole or the squish of cement as the hole was blocked. Terl opened the door. It was getting dimly light.

He walked across the open s.p.a.ce, the firing platform, and up the hill to his quarters.

Behind him at the morgue, two caped figures slipped away into the ravine.

Four hours later on this Day 91, Jonnie, Robert the Fox, the council, and team members concerned went over and over the picto-recorder pictures. They must not miss the tiniest possibility or the largest option. They could not afford to miss. The fate, not just of themselves, but of galaxies depended upon making no mistakes.

- Part XII -

Chapter 1.

The recreation hall of the compound was ablaze with light and bursting with noise. It was jammed full of Psychlos and they were mostly drunk. It was a grand party on the evening of the semiannual firing. Char and two other executives were going home.

It was something to celebrate: the end of a duty tour on this accursed planet. Attendants rushed about with saucepans of kerbango held six or eight at a time in their paws. Female Psychlo clerks, released from the cowed decorum that was their normal lot, joked and got their bottoms smacked. A couple of fights had already started and ended without anyone discovering what the fight had been about. Games of chance and marksmans.h.i.+p were a tangle of disorganized confusion.

Jokes of a bawdy and discreditable nature were being buffeted at the departing executives. "Have a saucepan on me at the Claw in imperial City!" "Don't buy more wives than you can handle in one night!" "Tell them a thing or two at the home office about what it's like out here, the mangy slobs!"

The atmosphere was so convivial that even Ker was included, and the midget sat with pompous importance trying to judge a contest of how many bites a minute could be taken from a saucepan with the partic.i.p.ant's paws held behind him.

Five executives were chanting a school yell that went, "Psychlo, Psychlo, Psychlo, kill'm, kill'm, kill'm," over and over, tunelessly but loud.

Down back of the firing platform a train of pack horses, hoofs m.u.f.fled with furred hide, moved silently out of a ravine and through the dark toward the unlit morgue. The greenish compound glow reached toward them unrevealingly. A faint click of metal as Angus MacTavish unlocked the morgue door with a master key.

Char was very drunk, drunk and reeling. He walked unsteadily over to Terl-who looked drunk but was cold and tensely sober.

"That's a goo' idea," said Char. He was always a nasty drunk and the more he drank the nastier he got.

"What is?" said Terl through the uproar.

"Tell'm a thing or two at the home office," hiccuped Char. a thing or two at the home office," hiccuped Char.

Terl went very still. Char did not see his eyes narrow and flame. Then Terl said in a drunken slur, "I got a little present' for you, Char. C'm outside for a minute."

Char lifted his eyebones. "Ain't gotta mask."

"Thersh masks bes.h.i.+de the door port," said Terl.

Un.o.bserved by the rest, Terl steered him to the hall and they got into masks in a tangled fas.h.i.+on. Terl went through the atmosphere lock, dragging Char behind.

Terl led him down near the zoo cages.

There was no fire burning. It was too late. There was no bundle in front of the cage.

The spring chill of the exterior revived Char a trifle and he returned to being nasty. "Animals," he said. "You're a animal lover, Terl. I never did like you, Terl."

Terl was not listening to him. What was that down by the morgue? He peered more closely.

There were animals down there!

"You're awful clever, Terl. But you're not clever enough to fool me! me!"

Terl took a couple of steps toward the morgue, trying to see in the dark. He took out a pocket torch and flashed it in that direction. Brown hide? Hard to see.

Then he got a better view of it. A small herd of buffalo. They'd been drifting north for days now. Mixed in with some horses. He turned the torch off. The casually walking hoofs were distant, tiny thuds. Louder were the squeaks and crunches of the new spring gra.s.s being pulled up as the herd grazed its way along. An owl was hooting off somewhere. Usual nonsense of this accursed planet. He gave his attention back to Char.

Terl put his arm around Char's shoulder and guided him back to a point where the circles of the compound domes made a recess as they met. It was very dark here, hidden from all views.

"What didn't fool you, friend Char?" asked Terl.

The owl hooted again.

Terl looked around. There were no vantage points from which they could be seen.

Char was sneering. "The blast cap smoke," he said, putting his face mask very close to Terl's. He reeled and Terl held him up.

"What about it?" said Terl.

"Why, that wasn't no blast gun that went off in old Numph's office. That was a blasting cap. Y'think an old mine boss like me can't smell the difference between a blast gun and a blast cap! cap!"

Terl's paw was reaching for the small of his own back, under the jacket. He'd been trying to work out a way to furnish a reason for launching the gas drone day after tomorrow. He suddenly had it, and without stirring up any psychic powers either.

"Appointin' Ker, that miserable excuse, just hours before. Oh!" exclaimed the hostile Char. "You are clever enough for some people, but I see through you, Terl. I see through you."

"Why, what did you think?" said Terl.

"Think! I didn't have time to think! When I get home I can tell them a thing or two. You ain't so smart, Terl. Think I don't know one smoke for another? And people will agree with me when I get home!"

Terl shoved ten inches of stainless steel knife into Char's heart. It was the knife Jonnie had given Chrissie.

He lowered the sagging body down to the ground. He took a nearby sc.r.a.p of discarded tarpaulin and covered it.

Terl went back to the cage and looked in. The girls were sleeping.

The buffalo herd was still moving quietly past the morgue.

Terl went back inside. There was more to do tonight but just now the party must not realize he had been absent. He joined the Psychlos who were chanting. They were very drunk.

Down at the morgue men moved carefully so as not to disturb the buffalo they had drifted in on the place from the plain. The horses were unloaded and gone.

n.o.body had observed the murder of Char. It was not possible to get that close to the domes without being seen. Those in the morgue continued their work, unaware that a new factor had been entered into planning, one they did not know about and had not predicted.

The farewell party continued to racket noise out of the compound, unaware that their guest of honor was missing.

Chapter 2.