Jonnie heard them singing and playing on strange string and wind instruments that evening so he recorded a lot of it and had them rig loudspeakers ready to play it when they activated the area– it would foul up any listening beams from upstairs. That plus the interference the armor cable posed would keep them ignorant of what was going on here.
When he returned to the African compound, it was Day 87. He found Stormalong there with more discs that showed the color codes of the cables and the pole wires. They could simply hack off the console's cables and reconnect them at Kariba. He gave the code to Angus.
Stormalong said this would be his last run so Jonnie briefed him carefully on the military situation. It was Jonnie's belief that the visitors would attack in force after any American firing. Stormalong had better be prepared to take control of air defenses on the planet. Jonnie would not let him go on the raid. Dunneldeen was handling air cover for them on that. Thor would be with them in the raiding party. Jonnie missed Robert the Fox who usually handled these briefings and actions.
Stormalong, like Angus, did not want Jonnie to go. He said America was stripped now. The Academy was empty. Jonnie would have only his own raiding party, and though he knew it had been drilled within an inch of the participants' lives, there were an awful lot of Brigantes over there. Just after they had pulled the recorders out of the three places at the Academy, Brigantes had begun to systematically loot the place. But with no Sir Robert to support his objections, Stormalong did not prevail.
Jonnie was going up to an upper level of the compound and he ran into Ker.
The Psychlo midget was all smiles. They swatted “paws.” He had been looking for Jonnie to show him the silly money they were now printing for America and in which he had been “paid.” Jonnie pulled him into a deserted office and shook his head over the hundred-credit note and the picture of Brown Limper Staffor.
“The stuff is worthless!” said Ker. “The Brigantes just throw it into the street!”
Ker was so happy to be out of that area. He told Jonnie all about it. “And he offered me seven hundred and fifty thousand Galactic credits that I’ll never see. He's one crazy Psychlo. Not sane like us half-humans!" Ker laughed over that.
Ker gave him the final layouts of the firing platform area. There was nothing new. Ker had dug and done exactly according to plan. It was the same plan on which his raiding team had been drilled and Ker assured him everything was in place.
But Ker hadn't realized Jonnie was going over there. When he heard that he got very serious. “This Terl is a very bad one. He's liable to have surprises. I don't like your going,
Jonnie."
Jonnie said he had to go.
“What if you get a Psychlo war party back on that platform in return?” said Ker.
“I don't think we will,” said Jonnie. “And we have a present for Psychlo.”
“I hope so,” said Ker. “It’s my furry neck if they ever turn up here again.
The I.B.I. would take days to kill me!”
“I don't think you have anything to worry about,” said Jonnie. “But you stay here among these defenses. There's quite a few enemy prisoners in the place and all the Psychlos that are left. Maybe you can teach them to play cards!”
Ker laughed. And then he said, “Did the one you call Sir Robert come back here?”
“Why?”
“Well, right in the middle of the Academy move to England, we didn't see him anymore. I wanted to check a couple of points with him and I couldn't find him. And Dunneldeen put in calls. He isn't in Edinburgh or Luxembourg or Russia. I thought he must be here. The reason I ask is he knows all your dispositions of forces and even some of your raid details.”
Jonnie was very concerned about Sir Robert. He threw off Ker's question with, “They could never make him talk.”
“The I.B.I. could make anybody talk,” said Ker.
“We don't know the enemy has him,” said Jonnie.
Shortly afterward he instituted his own queries. There was no sign of Sir
Robert in any area. A couple of ferry planes had gone down lately from enemy attack. They had been en route from America to Scotland. Had Sir Robert been on one of them?
Sir Robert had not handled many of the details of this raid. There was no reason to change planning this late.
Jonnie spent his last day at the Lake Victoria minesite neatening up what there was of his personal life. He was under no illusion that this raid was not dangerous.
He wrote a letter to Chrissie that he knew the parson would read for her and put it in plain sight on his desk, the envelope marked "To Chrissie in Case of Something Happening to Me.”
He had heard one wrote wills to leave personal possessions. He started one. All he had was his horses and some odds and ends of clothes. He couldn't think of anything else he owned. Then he thought maybe Chrissie had occupied the Edinburgh house in his name, so he put down any interest he had in that or its contents and left it to Chrissie. Then he remembered he had a few books so he left those to Pattie. For the life of him he couldn't recall anything else he owned. But maybe people would think he owned gifts like the chrome AK 47. They weren't very many. Still, they might be. So he added a clause, “And anything else I am found to own shall be equally divided among...” and he listed the names of those men who had been closest to him. He thought for a while and then added Ker.
He had also heard that you signed these things and got them witnessed so he did that. Then he put it in an envelope and put it alongside the letter to Chrissie.
Feeling he had made things very orderly, he spent that evening making sure all his weapons and gear worked, that his radiation suit had no holes in it, that his air mask tanks were full and that half a dozen kill-clubs were in throwing condition. He put copies of the latest sales contract Terl had signed into his pouch. He checked the beryllium bomb case for safe carrying. He tested the edge of a hatchet to cut console cables.
He felt he was ready and got a good sleep on his last night before the American raid. He had done everything he could. Now it was in the hands of the gods. Or a devil like Terl.
Part XXIV
Chapter 1
At the American minesite, Day 92 had dawned windy and cold. And then in midmorning, four hours before the firing time, it had begun to snow. It was not too late for snow but this snow was a heavy one. It came down in huge soft flakes that swirled here and there in the wind puffs.
Terl did not care. He was jubilant. This would be his last day on Earth.
So far things had gone smoothly. From sunup to the moment it started to snow he had been outside, checking the wiring and cables. Almost lovingly he had put a final polish on the firing points on the poles, the points which would change space and transport him once again to his homeland.
He had a wonderful story all made up. He would come in with the tale of a mutiny, of a sellout to an alien race. And how he, Terl, fighting hard, had saved the company technology and was forced, alas, to use the ultimate bomb to make certain the company was not further betrayed. They would believe him on Psychlo. They would of course fire a camera back and check but it would record a black smudge.
Then he would retire, saying that the strain of it all had been too much. And one fine night, he would go to a cemetery and do a bit of quiet digging and become richer by ten gold coffin lids and two billion credits that he would expose bit by bit, saying he had profited on the exchanges of the various universes.