Jonnie had suggested a radio link, but Terl had become very cross and adamant. No radio. That was final. The animal could walk his feet off if he wanted to say anything to Terl. Terl knew there were plenty of receivers in the minesite, and radio might tip his paw and blow his security.
“I have a list,” said Jonnie. “I can see that,” said Terl.
“I want piping and Chinko cloth and the tools to cut and sew it together and some pumps and shovels-”
“Give it to Chirk. Sounds like you're rebuilding the whole defense base. Typical animal. Why don't you get busy with machine instruction?”
“I am,” said Jonnie. And it was very true. He had been spending ten hours a day with the youths and schoolmaster.
"I’ll send over Ker," said Terl.
Jonnie shrugged. Then he indicated the list. “There's a couple of items here that should be cleared with you. The first is the Chinko instruction machines. There are about six of them in the old Chinko quarters. The equipment controls are all in Psychlo and so are the manuals. I want to take those and all their discs and books.”
“So?” said Terl.
Jonnie nodded. “The other item is flying trucks.”
“You've got flying platforms.”
“I think we should have some flying personnel carriers and flying trucks. I’ve been to see Zzt and he has a whole garage floor full of them.”
To Terl's suspicious mind came the sudden feeling that the animal was looking through the desk top at the maps in the drawer. It was very true that there were no roads to that place. All carrying, he realized, would have to be by air– and it would be difficult flying at that. But a flying truck or a personnel carrier had the same controls as a battle plane and fewer guns. There was a hard rule that no alien race could be trained in battle. Then Terl thought of the inaccessible lode. Well, a mining truck was not a battle plane, that was for sure. Besides, he controlled the planet and he made the rules.
“How many you want?” said Terl, reaching for the list. “Hey! You've written twenty! And tri-wheel ground cars... three ground cars...”
“The order was to train them on equipment, and if I haven't got the equipment-”
“But twenty!”
Jonnie shrugged. “Maybe they're hard on equipment.”
Terl barked a sudden laugh as he remembered the animal nearly going over the cliff in the burning blade scraper. It tickled him.
He drew out one of the blanks Numph had signed and punched the animal's list in above the signature.
“How much time have I got?” asked Jonnie.
Terl was too secretive to come flat out with times. The times actually coincided with the semiannual firing of personnel and dead Psychlos. He calculated rapidly. Nine months total. Maybe three months for training to the next transshipment, and six months for mining to the second in the early spring of next year. Better give it an edge.
“Two months to get them all trained,” said Terl.
“That's awfully fast.”
Terl took the remote control box out of his pocket and tapped it and put it back. He laughed.
Jonnie frowned, his face mask obscuring the dangerous light that had leaped into his eyes.
He took a tight hold on his temper and voice. “I could use Ker to help ferry this stuff.”
“Tell Chirk.”
“Also,” said Jonnie, “I need some experience operating over those mountains. The updrafts and downdrafts are very strong and in winter they'll be worse. I don't want you getting ideas if I fly around up there.”
Terl put his paws protectively on the desk top as though to block a view into the drawer. Then he realized he was getting jumpy. Still, the longer he kept things in the dark, the less chance there was of the animal's talking to other personnel. He began to weave an elaborate fantasy to explain to others why animals were flying in the mountains.
“You seem to know an awful lot,” he said suddenly.
“Only what you've told me,” said Jonnie.
“When?”
“Different times. Over in Scotland.”
Terl stiffened. True, he had been unguarded. Very unguarded if this stupid rat brain had picked it up....
"If I hear just one leak of this real project– through Ker or anybody else-' he tapped the control box in his pocket, “the smaller female is going to have a collar explosion!”
“I know that,” said Jonnie.
“So get out,” said Terl. "I’m far too busy for all this chatter.”
Jonnie had Chirk copy the requisition on a duplicator and asked her to call Ker to help ferry the equipment. “Here you are, animal,” she said when she was through and handed him the copies.
“My name is Jonnie.”
“Mine is Chirk.” She batted her painted eyebones. “You animals are kind of funny and cute. How can you be so much fun to hunt like some of the employees say? You certainly don't look dangerous. And I don't think you are even edible. Crazy planet! No wonder poor Terl hates it so. We're going to have a huge house when we go home next year.”
“A huge house?” said Jonnie, looking up at this rattlebrain in wonder.
“Oh, yes. We'll be rich! Terl says so. Tah-tah, Jonnie. Bring me a sack of goodies when you want a favor next time.”
“Thank you, I will,” said Jonnie.
He went out with his warehouse-size list to get busy. He knew he had a new piece of the puzzle. Terl would not be here more than a year. Terl was going home and going home “rich.”
Chapter 4
“I am sorry, gentlemen,” said Jonnie to his council.
They were seated on some bashed-up chairs in what had become Jonnie's combined quarters and office– a spacious room that overlooked most of the area, chosen because it had whole windows.
Jonnie pointed to the stacks of books.
“I have searched through everything I can find and am unable to locate it.”
Robert the Fox, Doctor MacDermott, the parson, and the schoolmaster sat glumly looking at him. He never tried to fool them about anything. One thing about MacTyler-he was honest with them.
Things had been going well, too. Almost too well. The young men were progressing marvelously in their ability to handle equipment. There had been only one casualty with the flying trucks– two trainees had been attacking each other's trucks in the air in simulated combat and one of the young lads had punched a wrong button at the wrong time and hit the ground. He was lying in the infirmary now, leg properly set by the parson and attended by the clucking old widows; the flying truck, according to Ker who came over to fix it, was fit only to be cannibalized.
The three young men who looked like Jonnie had bruised hands from the schoolmaster's ruler; the schoolmaster kept them at the instruction machines from dawn to noon when they went off to study vehicles; they were learning Psychlo under heavy pressure and doing it very well.
Several young men had caught wild horses and broken them to ride, and they rounded up wild cattle and shot deer so there was no lack of food. Radishes and lettuce brightened their fare, proud trophies of the old women's garden.
In fact everyone was working like fury and the place looked like an ant hill all day.
“Perhaps,” said Doctor MacDermott, “we could help you look.” He gestured at the books. "If you'd tell us exactly what it is we're to be locating.”
“It’s uranium,” said Jonnie. “The key to this battle is uranium.”
“Ah, yes,” said Doctor MacDermott. “It isn't harmful to humans but is deadly to Psychlos."
“It is harmful to humans,” said Jonnie, pointing to a toxicology text. “Given too much exposure to it some humans die rather frightfully. But it apparently ignites the breathe-gas of Psychlos and makes it explode. It is uniformly fatal to them.