Battlefield Earth by Hubbard, L. Ron Page B

He had cleaned up every scrap of paper in his baskets and had started no new “emergencies.” He had a “borrowed” shaft analysis picto-recorder that would take great pictures when put to other uses. And he was on his way!
        
    A break in the dull life of a security chief on a planet without insecurities. A planet that wasn’t likely to produce many opportunities for an ambitious security chief to get promotion and advancement.
        
    It had been a gut blow when they ordered him to Earth. He wondered at once what he had done, whom he had accidentally insulted, whose bad side he had gotten on, but they assured him that none of these was the case. He was young. A Psychlo had a life span of about 190 years, and Terl had been only 39 when he had been appointed. It was pointed out to him that few ever became security chiefs at such a tender age. It would show in his record that he had been one. And when he came back from the duty tour, they would see. Plums, like planets you could breathe on, went to older Psychlos.
        
    He had not been fooled, really. Nobody in security personnel pool, Planet 1, Galaxy 1 had wanted anything at all to do with this post. He could hear the future assignment interview now. “Last post?”
        
    “Earth.”
        
    “Where?”
        
    “Earth, rim star, third planet, secondary galaxy 16.”
        
    “Oh. What did you accomplish on that post?”
        
    It’s all in the record.”
        
    “Yes, but there’s nothing in the record.”
        
    “There must be something. Let me see it.”
        
    “No, no. Confidential company record.”
        
    And then the final horror: “Employee Terl, it just happens that we have an opening in another rim star system,
        
    Galaxy 32. It ’s a quiet place, no indigenous life and no atmosphere at all….”
        
    Or even worse: “Employee Terl, Intergalactic has been dropping for some time on the exchange and we have orders to economize. I’m afraid your record doesn’t recommend continued employment. Don’t call us. We’ll call you.”
        
    He already had a bit of scribble on the wall. A month ago he’d received word that his tour of duty had been extended and there was no mention of his relief. A little bit of horror had touched him, a vision of a 190-year-old Terl tottering around on this same planet, long forgotten by friends and family, ending his days in a dome-crazy stupor, lowered into a slit-trench grave, and ticked off the roster by a clerk who kept the records neat- but didn’t know a single face on them.
        
    Such questionable fates required action- big action.
        
    There were better daydreams: waiting in a big entrance hall, uniformed ushers at attention but one of them whispering to another, “Who’s that?” And the other, “Don’t you know? That’s Terl.” And the big doors opening-’The president of the company is waiting to thank you, sir. Please come this way….”
        
    According to the mine surveys there was an ancient highway to the north of here. Terl flipped the ground car onto auto and spread out a big map. There it was, running east and west. And west was where he wanted to go. It would be busted up and overgrown, maybe even hard to spot. But it would have no steep grades and it would run squarely up into the mountains. Terl had drawn a big circle around the target meadow.
        
    There was the “highway” ahead.
        
    He threw the controls to manual and fumbled a bit. He hadn’t driven one of these things since security school years ago, and his uncertain control made the car yaw.
        
    He zoomed up the side embankment of the road and yanked back the throttles and pawed the brakes. The car slammed to earth in a geysering puff of dust, square in the center of the highway. It was a pretty jolting stop but not bad, not bad. He’d get better at it.
        
    He picked up his face mask and tank and donned them. Then he