
Kristin Bjornsen wondered if summer on the planet Barevi could possibly be the only season. There had been remarkably little variation in temperature in the nine months since she'd arrived there.
She'd been four months in what appeared to be the single, sprawling city of the planet during her enslavement and now had racked up five months of comparative freedom - albeit a parlous hand-to-mouth survival - in this jungle, after her escape from the city in the flitter she'd stolen.
Her sleeveless one-piece tunic was made of an indestructible material, but it wouldn't suit cold weather. The scooped neckline was indecently low and the skirt ended midway down her long thighs. It was closely modelled, in fact, after the miniskirted sheath she'd been wearing to class that spring morning when the Catteni ships had descended on Denver, one of fifty cities across the world that had been used as object lessons by the conquerors.
One moment she was on her way to the college campus; the next, she was one of thousands of astonished and terrified Denverites being driven by forcewhips up the ramp of a spaceship that made the Queen Elizabeth look like a tub toy. Once past the black maw of the ship, Kris, with all the others, swiftly succumbed to the odourless gas.
When she and her fellow prisoners had awakened, they were in the slave compounds of Barevi, waiting to be sold.
Kris aimed the avocado-sized pit of the gorupear she had just eaten at the central stalk of a nearby thicket of purple-branched thornbushes. The bush instantly rained tiny darts in all directions.
Kris laughed. She had bet it would take less than five minutes for the young bush to re-arm itself. And it had. The larger ones took longer to position new missiles. She'd had reason to find out.
Absently she reached above her head for another gorupear. Nothing from good old Terra rivalled them for taste. She bit appreciatively into the firm reddish flesh of the fruit and its succulent juices dribbled down her chin onto her tanned breasts. Tugging at the strap of her slip-tight tunic, she brushed the juice away. The outfit was great for tanning, but when winter comes? And should she concentrate on gathering nuts and drying gorupears on the rocks by the river for the cold season? She wrinkled her nose at the half-eaten pear. They were mighty tasty but a steady diet of them left her hungering for other basic dietary requirements. By watching the creatures of the jungle, she'd been able to guess what might be edible for her.
Remembering her survival course gave her the clue to superficial testing on her skin. She'd had two violent reactions to stuff that the ground animals seemed to devour in quantity, but the avians had guided her to other comestibles. Her tem in the food preparation unit of her "master' had given her other commodities to look for - though few of those grew wild in this jungle. Still, there were little yellow-scaled fish from the river that had provided her with both protein and exercise.
A low-pitched buzz attracted her attention. She got to her feet, balanced carefully on the high limb of the tree.
Parting the branches, she peered up at the cloudless sky.
Two of the umpteen moons that circled Barevi were visible in the west. Below them, dots that gave off sparkles of reflected sunlight were swooping and diving.
The boys have called another hunt, she mused to herself and, still smiling, leant against the tree trunk to take advantage of her grandstand seat. The jungle had quite a few really big, really savage creatures which she had managed to avoid, making like a jungle heroine and taking to the trees and vines. By dint of hard work and sweat, she had used the useful tools from the kit on the ffitter to tie vines to trees that led to and from her favourite food-browsing spots and to the river. Her escape routes were all aerial.
Before she had taken absence without leave from her situation', Kris had done her homework on more than what was edible on Barevi. She had picked up a good bit of the lingua Barevi, a polyglot language, made up from the words of six or seven of the languages spoken by the slaves and used by the "masters' to convey orders to their minions.
She had gleaned some information about those who had invaded Earth, the Catteni. They were not, for one thing, indigenous to this world but came from a much heavier planet nearer galactic centre. They were one of the mercenary-explorer races employed by a vast federation.
They had only recently colonized Barevi, using it as a clearing house for spoils acquired by looting unsuspecting non-federation planets, and a rest-and-relaxation centre for their great ships' crews.
After years of the free-fall of space and lighter-gravity planets, Catteni found it difficult to return to their heavy, depressing home world. During her brief enslavement, Kris had heard the Catteni boast of dying everywhere in the galaxy except Catten. The way they "played', Kris thought to herself, was rough enough to ensure that they died young as well as far from Catten.
Huge predators roamed the unspoiled plains and jungles of Barevi, and
the Catteni considered it great
sport to stand up to a rhinolike monster with only a single spear.
That is, Kris remembered with a grim smile, when they weren't brawling among themselves over imagined slurs and insults. Two slaves, friends of hers, had been crushed under the massive bodies of Catteni during a free-for-all.
Since she had come to the valley, she had witnessed half a dozen encounters between the rhinos and the Catteni.
Accustomed to a much heavier gravity than Barevi, the Catteni were able to execute incredible manoeuvres as they softened their prey for the kill. The poor creatures had less chance than Spanish bulls and, in all the hunts Kris had seen, only one man had been injured and that had been a slight graze.
As the flitters neared, she realized that they were not acting like a hunting party. For one thing, one dot was considerably ahead of the others. And by God, she saw the light flashes of the trailing ffitters' forward guns firing at the "leader' Hunted and hunters were at the foot of her valley now. Suddenly black smoke erupted from the rear of the pursued ffitter. It nosed upwards. It hovered reluctantly, then dived, slantingly, to strike the tumble of boulders along the river's edge, not far from her hiding place.
Kris gasped as she saw a figure, half-leaping, halfstaggering out of the badly smashed flitter. She could scarcely believe that even a Catteni could survive such a crash. Wideyed, she watched as he struggled to his feet, then reeled from boulder to boulder, to get away from the smouldering wreck.
With a stunningly brilliant flare, the craft exploded.
Fragments whistled into the underbrush as far up the slope as her retreat, and the idiotic thornbushes she had recently triggered sprayed out their poison-tipped little darts.
The smoke of the burnihg ffitter obscured her view now and Kris lost sight of the man. The other ffitters had reached the wreck and were hovering over it, like so many angry King Kongish bees, swooping, diving, trying to penetrate the smoke.
An afternoon breeze swirled the black clouds about and Kris caught glimpses of the man, lurching still farther from the crash site. She saw him stumble and fall, after which he made no move to rise. Above, the bees buzzed angrily, circling the smoke and probably wondering if their prey had gone up in the explosion.
Catteni didn't hunt each other as a rule, she told herself, surprised to find that she was halfway down from her perch. They fight like Irishmen, sure, but to chase a man so far from the city? What could he have done?
The crash had been too far away for Kris to distinguish the hunted man's features or build. He might just be an escaped slave, like herself. If not Terran, he might be from one of the halfdozen other subjugated races that lived on Barevi. Someone who had had the guts to steal a ffitter didn't deserve to die under Catteni forcewhips.
Kris made her way down the slope, careful to avoid the numerous thorn thickets that dominated these woods.
She had once amused herself with the whimsy that the thorn were the gorupear's protectors, for the two plants invariably grew close together.
At the top of the sheer precipice above the falls of the river, she grabbed the vine she had attached there for speedy descent. Once on the river bank she stuck to the dry flat rocks until she came to the stepping-stones that allowed her to cross the river below the wide pool made by the little falls. Down a gully, across another thornbush-filled clearing, and then she was directly above the spot where she had last seen the man.
Keeping close to the brown rocks so nearly the shade of her own tanned skin, she crossed the remaining distance.
She all but tripped over him as the wind puffed black smoke down among the rocks.
"Catteni!" she cried, furious as she bent to examine the unconscious man and recognized the grey and yellow uniform despite its tattered and black smeared condition.
With a disdainful foot under his shoulder, she tried to turn him over. And couldn't. The man might as well have been a boulder. She knelt and yanked his head around by the thick slate-grey hair which, in a Catteni, did not indicate age: they all had the same colour hair.
No such luck. He was breathing. A bruise mark on his temple showed one reason for his unconscious state.
For a Catteni, he was almost good-looking. Most of them tended to have brutish, coarse features but this one had a straight, almost patrician nose - even if there was a lot more of it than an elephant would want to claim - and a wide well-shaped mouth. The Catteni to whom she had been sold had had thick blubbery lips, and she'd known that Catteni were developing a sexual appetite for Terran women.
A sizzling crack jerked her head around in the direction of the wreck. The damned fools were shooting at the burning craft now. Kris looked down at the unconscious man, wondering what on earth he had done to provoke such vindictive thoroughness. They sure wanted him good and dead.
The barrage pulverized what was left of the ffitter, leaving the fire no fuel. The wind, laden with coarse dust, blew an acrid stench from the wreckage. The man stirred and vainly tried to raise himself, only to sink back to the ground with a groan. Kris saw the ffitters circling to land on the plateau below the wreck.
"Going to case the scene of the crime, huh?" It was completely illogical, Kris told herself, to help a Catteni simply because there were others of his race out to get him. Rut. . . She backtracked his route, just in case he had left any marks for them to follow. She went as far as she could on the bare rock. Where dirt began, ash had settled in a thick layer, obliterating any tracks he might have made.
After all, the Catteni might stumble on her if they did a thorough search, thinking their victim had escaped the crash.
He had got to his feet when she returned to him, dazed, heavy arms hanging by his sides as he tried to get his eyes to focus. She attempted to guide him but it was like trying to direct a mountain to move.
"Come on, Mahomet," she urged softly. "Just walk like a nice little boy to the river and I'll duck you in. Cold water should bring you round.
A sharp distant gabble of voices made her start nervously. God, those Catteni had got up that rockface in a hurry. She'd forgotten they could take prodigious leaps on this lightgravity planet.
"They're coming. Follow me," she said in lingua Barevi.
He groaned again, shaking his head to clear his senses. He turned towards her, his great yellow eyes still dazed with shock. She would never get used to such butter-coloured pupils with black irises.
"This way! Quickly!" She urgently tugged at him. If he didn't shake his tree-stump legs, she was going to leave him. Good Samaritans on Barevi had better not get caught by Catteni.
She pulled at his arm and he seemed to make a decision.
He lurched forward, one great hand grasping her shoulder in a vice-like grip. They reached the river bank, still ahead of the searchers. But Kris groaned as she realized that the barely conscious man would never be able to navigate the stepping-stones.
The shouts behind them indicated that the others were fanning out to search the rocks. Urgently she grabbed several fingers of his big hand, leading him to the base of the falls.
"If you can't float, it's just too damned bad," she said grimly.
She dropped his hand, stepped back and leaping forward again, shouldered him into the water.
She dived in, right beside him, and when he continued to sink, she grabbed and caught him by the thick hair.
Fortunately, the water made even a solid Catteni manageable.
Exerting all her strength and skill as a swimmer, she got his head above water and held it up with a chinlock.
By sheer good luck, they had surfaced in the space between the arc of the falls and the cliff, the curtain of water shielding them from view. As the Catteni began to struggle in her grasp, the five hunters leapt spectacularly into view in the clearing by the pool. Her "Mahomet' was instantly alert and, instead of struggling, began to tread water beside her.
The Catteni were arguing with each other now and each seemed to be issuing conflicting orders to the others.
Mahomet released himself from her chinhold, his yellow eyes never leaving the party on the bank. They watched, hands making as little movement as possible although the falls would conceal any ripples their motions made.
One Catteni, after a heated debate, crossed the wide pool in a fantastic - to Kris - standing leap. He and another began to move downstream, carefully examining both banks and casually surmounting upended barge-sized boulders with no effort. The other three went charging back the way they had come, still arguing.
Mter an endless interval, during which the icy water chilled Kris to the bone, the refugee touched her shoulder and nodded towards the shore. But when she realized that he was going to head back the way they had come, she shook her head emphatically, pointing to the other side.
"Safe! That way," she shouted at him over the noise of the falls.
He frowned. "I've a flitter to hide in." She jabbed her finger in the direction of her hidden vehicle.
Stunned as she suddenly realized what she had just said, she stared at him. "Oh, God!" He raised an eyebrow in surprise, and she hoped for one long moment that he had not understood what she had said.
But he had, and now his yellow eyes gleamed at her in the gloom with a different sort of interest.
He's like a great lion, Kris thought and almost choked on fear.
"You have aided a Catteni," he said in a deep rumbling voice in the lingua Barevi. "You shall not suffer for that!" Kris wasn't so sure when she tried to climb out of the river and found herself numb with cold, and strengthless.
He, on the other hand, strode easily out of the water He looked down at her ineffectual struggles, frowning irritably. Then, with no apparent effort, he curled the long fingers of one hand around her upper arm and simply withdrew her from the water, supporting her until she got her balance.
Shivering, she looked up at him. God, he was big: the tallest Catteni she had yet seen. She had inherited the height of her Swedish father and stood five-foot ten in her bare feet. She had topped most of the Catteni she had encountered by several inches, but his eyes tilted downwards to regard her. And his shoulders were as broad as the scoop of a JCB.
"Where is this flitter?" he demanded curtly.
She pointed, furious that she obeyed him so instantly and that she couldn't control the chattering of her teeth or the trembling of her body. He reached for her hand, relaxing his grip a little at her involuntary gasp of pain.
Replace "grubby paws' with "high-gravity paws', she told herself in an effort to keep up her spirits as she stepped out in front of him.
"I'll have to lead the way through the thorns," she said. "Or maybe thorns don't bother Catteni hides?" she added pertly.
To her surprise, he grinned at her.
"It is perhaps fortunate for you that they do.
As she turned, she realized that she had never seen a Catteni smile before. She noticed, too, that he was following carefully in her footsteps. It was good to know that he was no more anxious to disturb the thornbushes with their vicious little barbs than she was.
They were halfway to the hidden flitter when both heard, off to the right in the valley, the staccato volley of loud Catteni voices.
Mahomet paused, dropping to a half-crouch, instinctively angling his body so that he did not touch the close-growing vegetation. He listened, and although the words were too distorted for Kris to catch, he evidently understood them. A humourless smile touched his lips and his eyes gleamed with a light that frightened Kris.
"They have seen movement here. Hurry!" he said in a low voice.
Kris broke into a jog trot; the twisting path made a faster pace unwise. When they broke into the dell just before the extensive thicket, she paused.
"Where? Are you lost?" he asked.
"Through those bushes. Watch. And when I say move, move!" He frowned sceptically as she picked up a handful of small stones. With a practised ease and careful gauge, she threw in a broad cast to left and right, watching and counting the thorn sprays to be sure she had triggered every bush. To be on the safe side, she scooped up one more handful of pebbles and threw that in a wider arc.
No further thorns showered.
"Move!" His reaction time was so much faster than hers that he was hallway across the clearing before she got to the V. She dashed in front of him. "We have five minutes to cross before they re-arm." An expression that was almost respectful crossed his face. Impatiently, she tugged at him and then began to weave her way among the bushes, following her well memorized private route through this obstacle. When she made the last turn and he saw the flitter, its nose cushioned in the heavy cluster of thorn-thicket limbs, he gave what Kris assumed was a Catteni chuckle.
She waved open the flitter door and regally gestured for him to enter. He walked straight to the instrument panel, grunting as he activated the main switch.
"Half a tank of fuel," he muttered and cursorily checked the other readings. He glanced up at the transparent top, camouflaged by the intertwining leafy limbs, at the bed she had made herself on the deck, at the utensils she had fashioned from spare parts in the lockers.
"So it was you who stole the commander's personal car," he said, looking intently at her Kris jerked her chin up.
"At least I landed it in one piece," she said.
At that he gave one bark of laughter.
"Dropping it in a thicket like this?"
"On purpose!"
"You're one of the new species?"
"I'm a Terran," she said with haughty pride, her stance marred by a convulsive shiver.
"Thin-skinned species," he remarked. He looked at her chest, noticed the slight heave from her recent exertions that made her breasts strain against the all too inadequate covering and slowly started to stroke her shoulder with one finger. His touch was unexpectedly feather-light and more. "Soft to the touch," he said absently. "I haven't tried a Terran yet "And you're not going to start on this one," she said, jumping as far away from him as she could in the confines of the cabin.
His expression altered from bemusement to annoyance.
"I will if i so choose."
"I saved your life!"
"Which is why I intend to reward you suitably "By raping me?" She felt for and found a heavy metal tool. Not that such a comparative "toothpick' would do a Catteni much damage but she was determined to try.
A Catteni was not her idea of a candidate for the role of lover.
"Raping you?" His surprise was ludicrous.
"Did you think Terran women would faint with joy to he had by the likes of you?" she said, speaking in a low menacing voice and resetting her grip on the tool.
"None have complained - -" He broke off, ducking with incredible reflexes to a crouch as they both heard harsh cursing.
In the next instant, he had one large hand over her mouth and was pinning her body to his like a fly to sticky paper. The metal tool dangled uselessly in her hand. Neither of them had closed the flitter door and the vrrh vrrh as the thornbushes released their darts was plaluly audible. There were loud exclamations of disgust and further cursings. Screwing her eyes around, she could just see the Catteni's face and his left eye dancing with malicious amusement.
An authoritative voice uttered a rough command, and even Kris understood that it would probably translate "get the hell out of here.
Nothing came this way." Mahomet shifted her slightly, looking down at her face as he dropped his hand from her mouth, a gesture that was in part a challenge for her to scream. She glared back at him. He knew perfectly well that she stood to lose more if she did cry out.
They stayed like that until wildlife noises were again to be heard outside the flitter. Then he stood her back on her feet and glanced about him again.
"This car has been gone five months. Why have you stayed so long alone? Are there others of you near by?" He peered out of the one portion of the wraparound window that had a view of more than branches.
"Just me." She still had the metal tool in her hand and was wondering if she could hit him hard enough to knock him unconscious.
"Oh," and he shrugged negligently, "a tactical error. I was forced to kill their patrol leader. He had insulted a brother emassi," and now she caught the syllables of the strange word. "As I was without allies, I withdrew." "He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day?"
"The next day," he corrected her absently.
"Certainly. It is the Catteni Law that a quarrel may not be continued past the same hour of the following day. I have only to lie hidden," and he grinned at her, "until tomorrow at sun zenith and then I can return."
"They won't be waiting for you?" He shook his head violently. "Against the Law. Otherwise, we Catteni would quickly exterminate each other."
"You honestly mean to tell me that, if they can't find you before noon tomorrow, they have to give up?" He nodded.
"Even when you killed their patrol leader?" He looked surprised.
"It was a fair fight."
"I didn't know you Catteni fought fair."
"We do,' and he bridled at her accusation, then his face cleared of irritation and he grinned. "Oh, you think it wasn't fair of us to take over your planet?" j "Precisely." He straddled the pilot's chair and rested his heavily muscled forearms on the back of it, highly amused by her indignation.
"Your planet had no defences. It was pathetically easy to subjugate."
"You do that a lot, then?"
"A highly profitable business, I assure you . . . How have you fed yourself?" he asked and she heard the most incredible sound coming from him, and realized that Catteni stomachs could rumble with hunger just like humans'. Oddly enough that made him seem less menacing.
"There's a lot edible in this forest and I fish from the river."
"I come from an ingenious species," she said. "I've had no trouble at all keeping myself well led.
He inclined his head respectfully. "Have you any supplies in here?" Deciding that she did not care to come within grabbing distance, she nodded to the basket on the control panel behind him. "Gorupears and the roots of a white plant that I have found quite edible." As he turned, she caught him wrinkling his nose and heard him sigh. "No diet for a Catteni, I'm sure, accustomed as you are to the best viands in the galaxy but the simple fare will stop your stomach roaring. The noise of it could give our position away." He did not, as she had observed some Catteni do, cram the entire pear in his mouth. He also picked up one of the roots which had a sweetish taste, not unlike a carrot, and switched from one hand to the other, taking polite mouthfuls. Finishing the first pear, he turned to her and raised his eyebrows in a polite query.
"Thank you, no. I had just eaten when I saw the dogfight."
"Dogfight?" "A Terran tem, derived from the aerial combat of fighter planes." "Fighter planes?"
"We had achieved space flight, too," she added, wondering as pride made her speak out, if any of the SAC units had been launched when the Catteni had invaded Terran space.
"Ah, yes, so you had. Primitive defences but manned by brave fighters." Her heart sank. So often lately, the answers she discovered were not the ones she wanted to hear. One of the slaves in the compound from the Chicago area had said that surface to air missiles had been fired at the Catteni vessels. Terran national leaders had been slow to take a defensive position, not knowing who or what had penetrated so far into the atmosphere. They had dallied too long to make any difference. Bill had been wearing his Walkman and had heard the broadcasts up till the time he had been whipped into the Catteni ship. By talking amongst themselves, the captives had learnt that not all big cities had been attacked and looted: just sufficient so that the entire world recognized the superiority of the invaders. Not much consolation for those who had been abducted but enough to restore some pride.
"We disarmed most of them', Mahomet went on in a matter-of-fact voice, "and grounded the air ships. Clumsy but showing some signs of developments to come."
"Thanks." He raised his eyebrows queringly.
"Such praise for the primitive savages!" Then he threw back his head and indulged in a loud guffaw.
"Ssssh, they'll hear you. You bray like an ass!"
"And you talk like a Catteni female!"
"Do I take that as a compliment?"
"You may," and he inclined his head in her direction, his yellow eyes twinkling in a humorous response she had never seen in other Catteni.
"You're not at all like the others.
"Which others?"
"ALL the other Catteni I've met, and observed."
"Of course I'm not. I'm Emassi, he said with a quiet pride, splaying his great hand across his chest in what she could interpret as a proud gesture.
"Whatever that is."
"A high rank," he said. With a dismissive flick of fingers sticky with gorupear juice in the general direction of the city she had escaped from, he consigned the local Catteni to an inferior status. "I order. They obey," he added, making certain she understood the distinction.
"Their patrol leader's dying words," he said, with a negligent shrug and a grin, "to make me pay for his death." Then he frowned, looking down at the floor as if reconsidering their import. "Never mind. By noon tomorrow all will revert. Now," and as he began to rise from the chair, intent plain on his face, Kris no longer hesitated.
With a karate-style leap, she flung herself at him, both hands on the metal tool, and brought it down with all the strength in her body on the side of his head. With a groan he collapsed to the floor.
Had she killed him? Horrified at taking a life, even that of an arrogant Catteni, she knelt beside him, noting that red blood flowed from the creased skull, and felt his throat. If he had blood, he had veins: and since he was shaped like most humanoids, he ought to have a pulse in the neck to carry blood to the brain she had just tried to smash. He had! It wasn't even faint but a firm throb against her seeking fingers. Which quickly became sticky with the blood that pulsed from his head wound.
Oh, this would never do, she told herself. The little nasty stingers would smell blood and come searching for the source. The flitter would be unliveable. First she bound up the wound with the absorbent material she had found in the lockers. Then she carefully cleaned up the rest of the blood on his face and rubbed the exposed greyish skin with gorupear juice. That had neutralized the smell for stingers on other occasions: a handy survival tip she had serendipitously discovered on her own.
One of his massive legs had caught on the chair as he fell. It looked uncomfortable that way, and the fabric of his trousers was caught against his genitals, outlining the size of them in a way that made her acutely embarrassed for him. And affected her in the oddest way. Well, she told herself, she had no reason, really, to offend the dignity of another living being if she objected to indignities herself.
Kris had a strong sense of fair play. She might have conked him to protect her virtue, but that done, she felt obliged to make him as comfortable as possible. How long would the blow keep him unconscious?
And, once he regained his senses, what would he do to her? Well, she thought, she could always cite the Catteni rule about reprisals! Quite likely that rule did not apply to slaves or nonCatteni. She looked through the lockers to find something to tie him up with. There was a length of sturdy rope but no chains and that was the only sort of restraint that might prove effective against Catteni strength.
She sat down on the pilot's chair and rethought her circumstances.
It had been a tiring day. And nearly at its end. Well, what if she returned him whence he had come? With darkness falling, there'd be a fair amount of tralfic back into the city so this purloined flitter might not be recognized: not after five months. How long did Catteni keep up "wanted' notices? Twentyfour hours?
Perhaps for Catteni emassis but not for escaped slaves that is, if anyone had even noticed her disappearance. She switched on the controls, reassured that he had said the tank was half full. She couldn't remember how the gauge had stood when she absconded but he little aircraft was supposed to be economical, which was why there were so many in use.
She knew the coordinates of the city, a good two-hour flight from here, but surely there'd be enough fuel for her to get back. No matter. She had to dump Mahomet.
She'd get him to the outskirts where a limp body wouldn't be that uncommon. Well, maybe not the outskirts where the slaves and hangers-on lived in semi-squalor, but there were all those assembly areas where Catteni held drills and public meetings. She'd been to one or two with the cook who found such displays helpful in maintaining discipline. One view of a miscreant lashed to death with the forcewhips was enough for her. Enough to revive her desire to get as far away from such a discipline as possible.
Powered up, she reversed the flitter out of its concealing thicket. She really had been lucky in that landing which had by no means been as planned as she inferred to Mahomet. She hadn't been watching the altimeter the night of her escape or realized that the plains surrounding the city had altered to a hilly terrain. She'd felt the scrape of something on the belly of the flitter, panicked and the nose had dipped. She'd been in the middle of the thicket, and plastered with thorns from the angry bushes, before she could correct the error.
It had worked out. Kris had a great and abiding belief that things would work out - if you lived long enough to let them.
She headed the flitter southeast, but not before marking again the coordinates of her retreat. She'd have to come back in daylight or she'd miss the thicket.
The branches sprang back up again as soon as the flitter released them.
The lights of the city guided her more surely than the directional equipment. Only the altering position of the needle on one dial-face informed her that it was a compass. She supposed there was an auto-pilot but she hadn't figured which switch for that. She knew as much as she did about flying because she'd had to accompany the cook to the markets for fresh produce every day and had figured out the basics from watching him. Then, when she'd seen the commander's flitter, she couldn't resist the temptation it presented. So she hadn't. Like Oscar Wilde, she could resist anything except temptation.
Much good her English Literature was doing her now: it was all the extra-curricular stuff, like orienteering, that course in survival skills which her mother had laughed about, and her karate course that were invaluable. Like downing heavy-planet denizens. She glanced down at Mahomet but he hadn't so much as twitched a muscle.
The bleeding had apparently stopped.
The city looked rather nice lit up, she thought, with floodlights on some of the more unusual architectural styles: not that the huge looming Catteni Headquarters building smack dab in the centre of the hub layout of Barevi City would win any prizes. There seemed to be a lot of lights on in the city or maybe it was because she was seeing it on an overview, rather than being in the middle of it. There wasn't enough lighting in the outskirts as she approached them for her to find a good landing spot. Well, she'd go on until she found one of the assembly areas. They were ringed by the stumpy tree-forms that had been planted to supply some shade for onlookers of Catteni ceremonies.
Plenty of space for her to land the flitter. Strangely enough she didn't see many flitters coming into the city from her direction.
Well, she had come from open jungle lands. But there seemed to be a great number of the larger army type spreading out from the Catteni HQ.
Something was going on, she realized when she opened the door of the flitter. There was a lot of noise and it had a menacing sound to it. Of course such distant murmurs often sounded more threatening than they were. She'd just hurry and be out of here in next to no time and on her way back to her hideaway.
She got the rope she'd seen in the locker and tied it around Mahomet's feet. Then she looped that about a stumpy tree trunk. She'd winch his body out. She got his feet and most of his legs but his butt stuck at the lip of the door fratne. She was so busy tugging and pulling his posterior over the obstacle that she didn't notice how much closer all that sound was. And lights. Even the dark assembly area was brighter. Peering down the access lanes that led to the area, she could see lights? Torches? And the rumble was definitely intimidating. What was going on in Barevi City?
The sound made her redouble her efforts to haul Mahomet out of the flitter. The trunk of the man must weigh half a ton, for she could not budge it. The noise was very definitely heading in this direction and so was the aerial traffic. She stepped over his inert body and tried to lift his torso and shove him out the door. He'd only drop a foot and with his hard head, he was unlikely to hurt himself. Grunting, straining, propping her feet against the column of the pilot's chair, she tried every which way to move Mahomet.
Noise and light were erupting into the far side of the assembly area.
She'd better get him back in and leave!
She skipped over his body, undid the rope from his feet and was starting to angle his legs back inside the flitter when she heard the heavy rumble of big aircraft and felt the compression of air over her.
She was panting with her exertions and had no time to cover her nose and mouth as the first sweet, and all too familiar, reek filled the air about her. She collapsed over her victim's feet, wondering why she had been foolish enough to risk her freedom for a Catteni overlord!
The indescribable stench of many frightened bodies in close confinement and the unmistakable ssssslash of a forcewhip followed by a scream roused Kris to her recurrent nightmare. She was lodged between two warm and sweating bodies, her cheek against a cold hard surface, her knees up under her chin, in an awkward and uncomfortable position. She wondered that she'd remained unconscious for so long.
Maybe she just didn't want to recognize that she was in a Catteni holding cell.
Which was holding far too many right now. It was dark, though not as dark as the hold of the transport vessel had been. She didn't know if that was a blessing or not.
She moved carefully, because she seemed to ache all over, and she could feel bruises and scrapes on her uncovered legs, arms and face.
The cold of the wall felt good against a sore cheek.
But there was movement now her eyes were open and adjusted to the semi-gloom. It was a low-ceilinged chamber of crowd containment size: she could barely make out the perimeter. The place seethed with bodies, but then she saw that there were two openings and bodies were being pushed out into a brighter space beyond.
Catteni whips sssslashed out again, and those around her got quickly to their feet, following the example of those in the outer ranks. Rank was right, she thought, breathing shallowly so as not to taste the disgusting air she had to inhale.
She got to her feet by supporting herself against the wall. The person on her right groaned in pain. Kris found herself trying to help the woman, for it was a female, one of the Deski, so slight and spindly limbed that she was afraid even her helping hand would break a bone.
They must be a lot tougher than they look, she thought, or they'd never survive the usual callous treatment accorded all species by the Catteni.
The whip lash sang dangerously close to her and she ducked. One of the disadvantages of being tall, but she'd got the Deski to her feet and supported her swaying body. Having the reflexes of a good Samaritan was also a disadvantage, she thought. You can't help everyone. So help the ones you can. She put both hands on the Deski's stick-thin shoulders to keep the creature upright as they moved away from the wall in the general direction the Catteni wanted them to move - the doors.
So she - and Mahomet - had been caught up in the Catteni crowd control. Well, he was probably out of it, since they could scarcely think he was one of the mob that they had quelled with their gas sprays. Her timing was, as usual, faultless: she was right back where she'd started. Well, not quite, but near enough to make no never mind.
Still, if she'd escaped once, she could do it again. She had to cheer herself up.
They had moved close enough to the door now to see that the next room was full of spraying water. One of those mass showers the Catteni used to cleanse captives.
There were occasional short pauses, as the Catteni guard at the door stripped clothing off. She gritted her teeth.
The procedure had overtones she didn't like, but she'd been through this sort of line in the slave pens and had come out the other side alive - and breathing fresh air.
Anything was better than the stench behind her.
Disrobing her was simple. The Catteni simply ran the cutter down the front of her tunic, pulled at the back and shoved her forward, naked, into the hot spray. It felt good, battering her from below, above and all sides It smelt slightly better than the room she'd just left but the disinfectant was undoubtedly a wise and sensible addition.
She walked as quickly as she could, her eyes front and unfocused so she wouldn't see anything. The water was hot enough to cause a misting, so there wasn't that much to see but bodies, green, grey, and other shades of pale, moving through it. Then they were in the drying room and assailed by jets of air almost too hot on skin roughened by the disinfectant, but she was dry by the time she had traversed that chamber. A slight pause at the exit and she was handed a bundle and peremptorily gestured to move quickly forward. She found enough space in this dressing room and clambered into the coverall. How her size had been estimated, she didn't know, but the garment fitted.
The lumps that constituted Cattenistyle footwear folded around her feet and took the shape of them in the first few moments. Handy enough if masses of different sized and shaped feet had to be covered.
There was one of the thin thermal blankets, which she roiled up and tied over her left shoulder by the strings attached to the ends.
When she was clad she joined the line going through the next entrance, where she was given a cup and a package about a handspan square and about eight centimetres thick. As others did, she tucked the package behind the blanket. She was pushed along to where hairy brindle Rugarians were ladling a steaming liquid into cups and then she was allowed out, thank God, into fresher air and a huge force-field netted assembly area.
Catteni marched along a catwalk above it, sending their whips in random directions to remind the prisoners that they were there and watched. Having noticed that the perimeter walls were occupied by the early-corners, she worked her way deeper into the centre - the other area generally safe from forcewhip lengths - and started to sip the soup. It was hot and it was liquid, both which her belly appreciated, but it was the tasteless sort of fflling food that was definitely mass-produced prisoner issue. She noticed that some people had opened their packages, which contained the sort of ration bars that had been handed out in the slave quarters. The way the rations were being wolfed down, it was fairly obvious some folks hadn't eaten regularly.
And if the Catteni gave them rations in advance, she rather suspected she'd better hang on to hers. They did nothing out of charity: always expediency.
Metallic clangings echoed over the silent throng as the doors through which people had filed were shut. She wondered what was going to happen next, but getting clean and being fed was somehow encouraging. Talking was never encouraged in such gatherings and, while Kris had noted that there were representatives of all the common species she'd seen in Barevi City and that she was currently in a group of Terrans, no-one had spoken to her. And everyone was avoiding eye contact.
A second series of metallic clangings and once again the forcewhips slashed out over the assembled. This time they were driven towards eight apertures which, she saw when she reached the one nearest her, gave access to a ramp. She'd seen such a ramp once before and she started to tremble with apprehension. Where were they being driven this time?
A low terrified murmur arose from those already going up the ramp, and occasional cries of distress, but no-one could have backed out: the rampway was narrow and barred. Catteni appeared with the short force-sticks that ensured the prisoners would keep moving. The sticks hurt more than the forcewhips, but both could be lethal.
As she was pushed towards the ramp by the press of bodies behind her, her height gave her the clearance to see over heads and into a dark place. Closer, she could also smell the combined acrid odours of metal and fuel and realized they were being packed into a transport of some kind that was adjacent to the processing area. She had to give the credit to the Catteni mind-set that they sure knew how to get the unwilling to do what they wanted them to do and go where they wanted them to go. No Disney world this!
She was halted by a Catteni force-stick barring her way. She sucked in her guts so it wouldn't touch her. A hatch slid shut in front of her. The ramp which had been aimed at a lower level now purred softly and moved level with the walkway she stood on. A second hatch slid open, the force-stick was lifted and she ducked into the ship.
She, and those emerging from the seven other entrances, moved quickly across the low-ceilinged compartment to the far wall. As she sat down to claim her space, she had a chance to look at the others piling in. A gasp of astonishment escaped her as she saw the unmistakable figure of Mahomet ducking through the low door. She had very little time to be surprised, even less to get comfortable and tuck her food package inside her coverall for safer keeping. Suddenly she was having trouble keeping her eyes open and a strange lassitude spread to her arms and legs. Looking around her, she realized that others were obviously feeling the same way. So the soup had been dosed. Why did she not feel surprised? Some of the others sort of folded as they entered and had to be pushed out of the way of the rest of this consignment.
Some crawled a few feet to stretch out in a clear space.
Here we go again, was her last conscious thought.
Kris woke, feeling as if every muscle in her body had been wrenched out of alignment and every bit of soft tissue bruised. She had a headache, a very dry mouth, and her stomach was so empty she was nauseous. Once again she felt the press of warm bodies against her.
But the air around her was fresh, free of stench, and her lungs welcomed it. Her eyes felt glued together and she had to fight with her eyelashes to part her lids. What she saw made her close them quickly and speak sternly to herself to recover from the shock. She was lying in a field of bodies: bodies front, left, right and centre.
And she certainly wasn't anywhere on Barevi. Not with that lavenderish sky.
There was an argument going on somewhere to her right, at least, loud male voices and some odd snorts and grunts. There was also a lot of low moaning and groaning in the background. She wasn't the only one coming round after that damned soup.Forcing herself to move, she managed to raise herself on one elbow, ignoring the twinges of abused flesh and stiff muscles. Blinking to clear her eyes of grit, she carefully turned her head towards the sounds of dispute. A group of males was evidently contesting the possession of a line of crates.
Several were standing atop of them and sunlight flashed on knife blades. The ones on the ground were mainly aliens: the goblinesque, squatty Turs, never very pleasant to deal with and given more to grunts than words, some hairy Rugarians and the green-skinned Morphins.
Well, knives certainly hadn't been issued before this voyage. Why were they available at the destination? The early bird gets armed and can then defend against the late risers. That wasn't a likely supposition. Even for a Catteni procedure. Unless there weren't any Catteni around here.
She pushed herself to a sitting position, noting that others were conscious but evidently very unsure of how to proceed now. There were no Catteni anywhere in sight.
Not even Mahomet, though he'd have to be here, too, she thought, since he'd also been aboard the transport.
"You only got two hands," the shouted words drifted to her and were repeated in lingua Barevi. Unmistakable gestures emphasized the next word. "You've got three knives now. Go on. Get out of here.
Take off. Beat it.
Go away!" That last was said in English.
Americans! She grinned with a famous pride in her compatriot.
She watched until the knot of aliens finally moved off, up the hill and out of sight. That led her to another discovery. Not only was the sky the wrong colour, the trees lining this field were of unfamiliar shape.
They didn't have leaves, not that she could see, but sort of bottle brush tufts of a not-quite green shade.
The desiccated condition of her mouth and throat could no longer be denied, especially when her survey of the area included half a dozen people kneeling down at what must be a stream, for they were dipping their cups in and then drinking. That was when she became conscious that the fingers of her left hand were sore from the death grip she had on her cup, still bearing traces of the drugged soup.
She'd rinse it real good before she did any drinking. And she wouldn't drink too much at first go, she told herself, remembering her survival course again. Not one of those drinking seemed to be suffering any ill effects as she watched. And watching them drink became unbearable.
She had to moisten her mouth and throat and guts.
She struggled to her feet, still holding the cup and lurching against the person lying sideways to her. She saved herself from falling on her face by propping her free hand on a cocked, bony hip.
"Sorry," she said automatically but the body didn't so much as twitch.
It also felt cold and rigid through the coverall material.
Startled, she peered up at the gaunt, odd-cheeked face - a Deski at the open mouth and staring eyes, dead: another casualty to Catteni mass productions.
"You poor devil," she murmured, shaking spasmodically. She got up in the next try, as much to get away from the corpse as to get to the water. That was her first priority.
She started in a direct line to the stream, then she noticed what some people were doing in and around the water and veered uphill. As she neared the stream she saw that it bordered this field, coming from beyond the oddly formed tall vegetation and cascading almost in steps down past the field and beyond the trees on the lower edge. The sound of the water rippling spurred her stumbling steps into a firmer stride.
Only the severest self-control kept her from dropping to her belly and burying her face in the clear stream. The water was divinely clear, running over a rocky bottom. Such a stony bed would filter out most impurities. Besides, the Catteni had put them close to water, so they'd probably tested it. No-one further down the stream had yet showed ill effects, although the way in which they were contaminating the stream disgusted her. Still, the water before her was clear. She dropped to her haunches and rinsed the cup, doing a bit of polluting herself as a film of residue from the cup was carried away. She only allowed herself to scoop out enough to cover the bottom of the cup.
She sipped once to moisten dry lips. Sipped again and rinsed the cool sweet water around in her mouth, letting the parched tissues absorb the moisture. Her throat demanded its share.
She swallowed slowly, attempting to trickle the water down drop by drop. They landed coldly in the pit of her stomach and her system insisted on more of the same. By then her taste buds had revived enough to appreciate the taste of the water, better by far than any designer water she had ever drunk either at home in Philadelphia or in IColorado. Good, simon-pure, mountain spring water.
A loud altercation started among the people downstream of her.
Well, maybe not an unpleasant argument, for there seemed to be cupfuls of water thrown about.
A few people moved away, out of the range, content to watch as they drank from their cups. She watched and sipped. She was not about to get embroiled in any group, not until she had figured out a few details like: Where were they? What were they doing here? Were there any Catteni in discreet guard over them? What, besides knives, was in those crates and who had taken control of them? She intended to get at least one knife. Preferably two - one to hide in her boot. That once-derided survival course had included instructions on how to sharpen, use and throw a knife. And the guys on the top of the crates were humans.
Thirst eased somewhat, her stomach started growling.
She reached in her coverall and took out the package, carefully opening it. That was why they'd been given food ahead of time, then.
To eat at this destination.
Water laid on. As she'd also no idea how long she'd been without eating, or drinking, she broke off a third of the bar and carefully nibbled at that, interspersing it with more judicious sips of water.
By the time she'd finished her portion she felt considerably better.
She rose and looked around her with a keener interest.
More bodies were moving among those laid out like disaster victims, row after row. The field must be a couple of acres at least and it was covered. Here and there were empty places where people had roused. There were more empty spaces - she counted - than the number of upright people she could see. How many had been chased off by the guys on the crates?
She dipped her cup for one more draught of cold, pure Adam's ale and sipped as she hiked slowly around the bodies towards the crates.
When she could see both sides of the line of crates, she realized that there were quite a few people lounging on the far side: mostly Terrans and some of them female. That was reassuring.
"Whatcha guardin' there, fellas?" she asked when she got close enough, giving a friendly wave with her free hand.
Kris was accustomed to reactions to her tall lanky self.
It never hurt to be blonde and moderately attractive. Until the men got past the usual trite remarks and innuendoes, she kept her smile intact and kept sipping her water a few safety lengths from the nearest one.
"Anybody sussed out where we are or what they've done with us?" She directed that query to the men on top of the crates. She could see now that most of the containers had been broken open to discover the contents. She saw other items besides knife blades, of which there seemed to be a great many.
"Knives, hatchets," the man said. He was a heavyset man in his mid-to late thirties and had the unmistakable air of the military in his stance. He had two knives tucked in his belt, and one in each boot judging by the way his trousers bulged out at his ankles. His thermal blanket was stuffed with other items, for it bulged across his chest.
"Some medical kits with basic bandages and that orange stuff the Cats poured on anything that bleeds."
"You in charge, then?" He made a gesture with one hand and a second Terran jumped down, a knife on his open palm, the handle towards her. He was as well equipped with extras as the first speaker.
"Can I show you how to use it, beautiful?" the guy asked, leering at her.
"You mean - like this," she said, taking the knife from his hand, hefting it a moment to get its balance before ffickirg it into the nearest crate, which it penetrated enough to be held firm.
"Whoa!" The man jumped back, hands up in front to fend her off.
Above her she caught sight of a blade in the military man's hand.
"Didn't mean no offence, sister."
"No offence taken," she said airily and retrieved the blade, checking the point to be sure it hadn't been nicked.
"Good steel."
"It's not steel," the military man said, hunkering down so he was on a level with her. He held out a weaponless hand.
"Nice to see a woman who knows the value of a knife. Chuck Mitford."
"Army?" she asked.
"Marine," he replied firmly and correctingly, as marines generally did after such a question.
"Recently?" He spoke with considerable bitterness. "Or do you mean on good ol' Terra?"
"Both,' she said and went back to sipping what water hadn't spilled out of her cup when she'd shown off her knife skill.
"Some damned fools started a riot at one of the discipline assemblies,' he said in a growl and in the southernish drawl that had become military standard among American forces. The other man looked as if he was about to erupt. "OK, OK, some of the poor dumb heads they were whipping to death were Terrans, too, but damned stupid to attack Catteni even if there were a helluva lot more of us than them." He made a throaty noise of disgust.
"We've taken enough from them, Sarge," the other man said, his resentment boiling over.
Mitford acted like a sergeant, too, Kris thought and decided he'd be a good ally.
"And look where it got us," he barked back. "Arnie here's never been against a superior force. Thinks being brave is all there is to overcoming dictators." He ignored Arnie then. "I was on leave from my unit in Lubbock, Texas, when we got pearl-harbored. Haven't found a trace of my family." He shut his mouth tight then.
"DC." She hadn't encountered anyone from the Philadelphia area so maybe the rest of her family was still safely at home.
If that was a safe place to be with Catteni overlords.
"Could I have some of those medical supplies, if they're going begging?" "Sure," and Mitford walked along the top of the crates while she followed on the ground. Arnie stayed a discreet step behind her.
"I figured someone had better take charge of supplies like these," and he pointed down to yet another crate of knives. At the next one he stooped and came up with a hatchet which he handed to her. "Here.
Might as well have one of these, too. There isn't more ration bars so make the ones you got do until we can figure out what's edible on this effing plant."
"I'd planned to," she replied, tucking the hatchet in the belt at her back. She'd hack a piece off the thermal blanket to make sheaths for knives and hatchet. Mitford handed her a compact kit, already supplied with a broad shoulder strap.
"Hasn't got much medicine. Cats don't use it, seems like. Tough mothers!"
"Hey, Sarge," yelled a man, running full tilt towards them and pointing back over his shoulder. "There's a Catteni! He's waking up. Let's kill the bastard before he does." Roaring out an order for others to join him, Mitford jumped down, a knife already in his hand.
"Wait a minute," Kris said, holding up her hands. "If a Catteni's here with us, he's as much a prisoner as we are.
"Who cares? He's a Cat and Cats should die," Arnie said, moving around her Kris started after them, running to catch up with Mitford who was the leader.
"Sarge, I saw one Catteni in the same hold as I was.
And he's a good guy."
"There're no good Cats!" Mitford said in a snarl, chopping at the air with one flat, finger-braced hand.
"There are," she said just as fiercely. "And if it's the one I think, don't kill him."
"You're asking too much, girl.
"Not right away, at least. Use the sense God gave you, Mitford," she said. "If it's the Catteni I think it is, he'll know a lot we have to find out about this place. Unless there were some guide books in those crates." Mitford halted so abruptly that the three men right behind him bounced off his back. Narrowing his eyes, he glared at her.
"Because I watched him being hunted by other Catteni.
They blasted him out of the sky and then blew up the crashed plane and searched all around until they were damned sure he'd been blown up in it."
"Then how come he's alive and here?" Arnie wanted to know.
"Because I thought he was an escaped slave like me and hid him under the falls until the hunters left. Only then we got captured together," Kris said, which was true enough. "When I came to in the prison, I assumed he'd been released. Cattenis can't hold grudges more than twentyfour hours, you know." Mitford gave a curt nod of acknowledgement. "They must have hated him real bad to dump him in with us. Besides which, you'd only be doing the Cats' dirty work for them." Mitford scowled at her and she realized that she'd been clever to bring that up. "Hell's bells, man, they'd expect us to waste him, wouldn't they? So let's find out - first - what he knows. Then you can kill him." She said that cheerfully, hoping to God and little green apples that Mahomet would be able to show himself useful enough so that they wouldn't kill him. She found it odd in herself to think that way about the Catteni but he wasn't like the others "We sure could use some gen about this place,' Mitford agreed reluctantly, glancing around. He gave a convulsive twitch. "Place is too neat for an unsettled world and I'd rather know what we got to contend with now before we stumble into big kimchee with only knives and hatchets." He strode on then to the man who'd discovered the Catteni. He pointed in the proper direction and then followed them. It was Mahomet all right, and she bent down beside him, turning the heavy head to expose where t she'd belted him with the tool. A scar was there but it was well healed.
"Oho!" she said.
"Oho, what?" Mitford asked as the other men ranged themselves around Mahomet. Their expressions were unfriendly and most of them had knives in their hands.
She pointed to the scar. "I clobbered him there. And it's healed. We were a long time getting here."
"Kill him now before he wakes," Arnie said in a snarl, leaning over, knife-hand raised.
"NO!" Mitford's word snapped Arnie erect. "The girl's got something in keeping him alive and able to talk. Don't tell me he speaks English?" There was a little more respect for her in Mitford's eyes now and Kris realized that he'd been thinking she'd been Mahomet's toy.
"Enough lingua Barevi for us to understand him." She splashed the little water that was left in her cup over the Catteni's face and he reacted by lifting a hand to his face and moving stiffly from side to side. When his foot connected with someone's leg, she could see him tense. He drew his leg back and in one quick lithe movement was on his feet, arms held slightly out from his sides, alert and ready to defend himself despite the knife-carrying odds against him.
"Easy there," Kris said, stepping in front of him.
"Remember me?" He shot a quick glance at her but his eyes went right back to Mitford. Though the sergeant wasn't holding a knife, Mahomet had immediately taken him as the leader.
Kris gave him full marks for quick appraisals.
"Yes. You stole the commander's ffitter," he said in lingua Barevi.
"You did?" Arnie exclaimed. "You bitch !" And he shoved his face right
up at her. His breath was vile but she held her ground and glared down
at him, once again glad of the extra inches that had made her
adolescence a trial. "I
got force-whipped because of you!" He jerked his coverall off his shoulder so she could see the weals, still purple, on his skin. "So did fifty others at the discipline assembly they called because of you!
She's as bad as he is. No wonder she wasn't for killing him." Arnie glanced at the other hard faces, willing them to join him.
"Stuff it, Arnie," Mitford said, holding his right arm up in a karate chop position. "We can deal with her later, too, but let's first find out what this mother knows." Kris's mouth was dry all over again and she was scared cold. But she couldn't have let them just kill Mahomet out of hand. She owed him, if only because she'd put him in jeopardy before the twentyfour hour moratorium had passed. She was sure that was why he was stuck here with the rest of them. She'd inadvertently told the truth.
Cattenis had hated him enough to make sure he came to a dead end.
"Hey, Sarge," someone yelled across the field, and they looked over their shoulders. In the interval quite a few people had roused and were now homing in on the crates.
Reinforcements were needed.
"C'mon, you," Mitford said to Mahomet and jerked his head to indicate the Catteni should move with them. "And you," he added coldly to Kris.
Kris briefly considered a belated apology to Arnie and decided not to make the effort. Arnie didn't seem the forgiving type and she might even make matters worse.
Mahomet had not moved, and when two of the men swiped at him with their knives, he ignored them and gestured for Kris to precede him.
Quickly she fell in behind Mitford, hearing the surprise exclamations from the men.
"See how well he knows her," one of them said in a salacious tone of voice.
"Yeah, but before or after, Murph?" "Before, Murph," she answered for herself, making her voice as strident as she could. That wasn't too difficult Iconsidering how scared she was. The situation had turned very ugly. "And that goes for anyone with the same dirty ideas." Looking straight ahead, she strode as confidently as she could back to the crates.
Once there, Mitford signed two of the men to take her and Mahomet behind the crates until he was finished with the new arrivals. He jumped up to his vantage point and, arms cocked on his belt, began his spiel. "I'm here to see that these supplies get doled out properly.
So one at a time." He repeated the advice in lingua Barevi, speaking with a fluency that Kris hadn't expected.
Arnie was helping Mitford on the crates, but some of those who had been lounging on the ground behind the barricade got curious and wandered up to Kris and Mahomet.
"Mitford's going to question him," said the lankier of the two, a good head taller than Kris and nearly as tall as Mahomet.
"OK, Murph, give Arnie a hand with the supplies now," Mitford said, jumping down. "Now, Cat, tell me why we should keep you alive."
"What is needed to know?" Mahomet asked in Barevi, his voice even, his manner diplomatic.
Kris let relief flood through her. Thank God he had sense enough - for a Catteni - to know how dangerous his situation was.
"Where we are. Who lives here. Any bad animals.
What can we eat that won't kill us." Mitford tapped the blanket where his ration bars were stashed. "These won't last long." Mahomet let out a dry rasp, tried to clear his throat to form words. Kris knew he'd be as dry as anyone else but she didn't dare ask for the favour of water for him.
She mustn't be seen to favour, much less help, him.
"Here, give me that cup, Bass," Mitford said, snapping his fingers at one of the onlookers who had a cup in his hand.
"If that helps him tell us what we need to know. Give it. You've been guzzling water for the past hour."
"I like that!" But Bass handed over the cup. "I want it back." Mahomet held up his own cup and with a nod of his head towards Bass accepted the water Mitford doled out. He took a small sip, rinsing his mouth, and then a longer one.
"1 remember some details. This planet surveyed. I did not read all.
"What did you read then?" Mitford demanded.
"Longer day, mild climate, ..ù He frowned, trying to find the words, "species not other found. Three types deathly." He paused for another sip and then circled the cup to indicate the field. "Better go from here soon.
Open field dangerous."
"Then why was we put down here?" Arnie demanded from his vantage on the crates. "So we could all get killed?"
"No,' Mahomet shook his head, a rueful grin on his lips. "To live, to fight what is here. This how Catteni settle planets - the not easy ones." He finished the water then, knocking it back in his throat, tapping the cup on his teeth to be sure he had received the last drops.
Then he stood there, his eyes going slowly from one face to another and coming back to Mitford's.
"How'd you get sent off with all of us?" the sergeant asked.
Mahomet gave him a long look, a slight frown on his face. "Say again?"
He surprised them by asking in accented English.
"You are here, too, Kris said, rephrasing the question.
"Why?" He didn't look in her direction and shrugged. "I kill. I escape. I am - - - took. Day not over." He shrugged again.
"You killed another Catteni?" Mitford asked and when Mahomet nodded, "And they deported you for that?"
"Day not over."
"That rule you were talking about?" Mitford asked Kris and she nodded. "Why'd you kill a Catteni?" Mahomet gave a little snort, and the expression on his face suggested that they were not going to believe him.
"He insulted Emassi and he kill four strong slaves no reason."
"Slaves? Like we were?" Mitford turned his thumb against his chest.
Mahomet nodded.
"Guy's too clever," Arnie said in a growling tone. "Clever enough to lie his way out of being killed."
"I don't happen to think he's lying,' Mitford said slowly. "I heard something the day of that riot.
Some Cats'd been hunting another Cat captain who'd killed their patrol leader."
"Patrol leader," Mahomet repeated, recognizing the words and nodding his head. "I kill. Not wise "His lips twitched and then he added, "Cat." Suddenly everyone was aware of a weird noise.
"Down. All down, sffll!" Mahomet said as he dropped flat to the ground.
The urgency m his voice and his tone of command was compelling.
"You heard him," Mitford said and gestured furiously at those on the crate. "Get down, you fools. Lie still." The noise got louder and louder, piercing eardrums.
Some of those in the process of getting up lay back down, covering their ears. The two Deski who had been issued their knives moaned and cowered against the crates.
A shadow out of the west preceded the shape that overfiew the field while the weird sound became an ungodly whistling shriek.
Whatever it was was big and it swooped suddenly. Some unfortunate let out a terrified scream which trailed off as the flying monster departed with its prey. Kris saw brief struggles of ouffiung arms and legs and then all movement ceased. The weird noise cut off as abruptly.
"What the . . . was that?" Arnie cried.
"Deathly," Mahomet said. Then he pointed to the tree shapes at the upper edge of the field. "Watcher?" he both asked and suggested to Mitford. "Alert by call?"
"Many of them things around?" Mitford asked.
"Don't know. One is not enough?" Mahomet asked in a droll tone.
"Yeah, one's enough. Murph, you got a loud voice, you and Taglione, get up there and play sentry. Anyone see who it got?" he called up to those at the far end of the crates who would have had a better view.
"Didn't see. Looked like one of us."
"Would be. We got more meat on our bones than the Deskis," and Mitford looked over to the spindly creatures who were still cowering and moaning against the crates.
"Do you Deskis know what those are?" He asked one of them in lingua Barevi. They both shook their heads but lowered their hands from their ears.
"Sound hurt Deski ears," Mahomet said, rising to his feet and dusting himself off. "They hear faster. Send them watch."
"Good idea, Cat,' and Mitford issued the orders. The Deskis both tried to slink away until Mitford called Murph and Taglione to escort them.
Mahomet said one brief spate of sounds at them and they instantly obeyed.
"You speak Deski?" Mitford asked the Catteni.
"Deski, Morphinis, Turski, Rugash," Mahomet said.
"Ang-leesh not many verds," he added in English.
"Unnershtan better talk ssslow."
"Well, now we're cooking," Mitford said. He looked around at his allies, nodding especially at the recalcitrant and dissatisfied Arnie. "I don't think I got the message across to some of the aliens here."
Mahomet nodded. "Easy to say not unnershtan - - doan like order."
Mitford barked out a laugh.
"Damned well told, Cat.
I think we keep you alive a while longer."
"Thank you." And Mahomet briefly inclined his upper body towards Mitford.
"Name? Rank?" the sergeant asked the Catteni, ignoring the mutters of disapproval at that decision. When the mutter grew louder, he turned fiercely around. "Look, you sorry lot asked me to take command. Don't buck me when I make a command decision. Someone's got to. I say this mother is worth more to us alive - until he proves otherwise. Already saved somebody's neck from the flying thing. You don't like it, go it on your own.
Get me?" The human protest subsided and Kris felt her knees
wobbling with relief. She was also dry-mouthed again from stress.
"So," Mitford turned back expectantly to Mahomet.
"Name. Rank."
"Zainal, Emassi," he said, but Kris knew that wasn't the Catteni word for captain.
"Mitford, Sergeant. I outrank you, he added in such a bland-faced lie that Kris coughed to hide her guffaw.
"I'm going for some more water," she told Mitford and walked off without waiting for any permission.
"Water good," Mahomet Zainal remarked in an even tone.
"All right, but I've some more questions for you, Emassi Zainal." "Zainal, now." Kris grinned as she heard the correction, but Zainal kept right on walking to the stream.
"You shouldn't've let him go off like that," Arnie said in a whine of protest.
Now, let's get back on the job. Be glad I didn't ask you to go get water for him." He ignored Arnie's curses and continued. "Here come some more customers. Let's get this done before those flying things strafe us again."
"I dunno why you'd believe anything that Cat says -" Arnie said to Mitford. "And you let that bitch away with "Stow it, Arnie." Kris took two slow cupfuls of water before she started back to the crates. Zainal - an interesting name, she thought - was ahead of her, but at a tangent, aiming for Mitford, who was looking out over the field of bodies still lying motionless. He'd handled a very difficult situation deftly and got her off the hook at the same time. She saw him look out over the body-strewn field. He paused briefly to examine those nearest. Shamelessly she cocked her ears to hear what he said to Mitford, his rumbling bass carrying easily.
"There are dead.
"Do Catteni expect casualties?"
"Kaz-u-all-tees?"
"Dead ones."
"Long trip here," and Zainal's hand went to the scar on his head.
"Some too weak. They feel nothing."
"I guess they didn't."
"Unwise to stay here near dead," Zainal added. "Not only flying danger."
"Just how much do you know about this place?" Mitford asked, slightly suspicious.
Zainal gave a long sigh. Kris could see the regret in his expression:
at least he permitted his expressions to show - not many of the Catteni she'd encountered did.
Of course, that was one way to communicate when language failed.
"Not enough," he said with visible regret, "now I am here, too." Mitford gave a short bark of laughter. "Shoe's on the other foot, huh?"
"Say again?" Mitford waved his hand. "So we should leave the dead here I'd better get a head count, just in case. Most of the goblins have gone and I can't say I'm sorry about that. Those mothers were dangerous all on their own-i-o!
If the Deskis got good hearing, I'm for including them.
What else are they good for?" Kris noticed that Zainal had listened very intently to Mitford's words. He nodded once as if he had caught the gist.
Good for hardest works. Hate all but Turs."
"That's the truth," Mitford agreed sourly. "The Rugs at least try to get along," and he gestured to the Rugarians who had clustered together, drinking water and chewing away at their rations bars. "Don't mind the Morphis but they sure stink.
"Stink?" Mitford held his nose. "We got a mixed bag left. And kids." He pointed to the halfdozen youngsters huddled together behind the crates. Too intent on what was happening to Zainal, Kris only noticed them now. "A rough detail to get organized and moving. And where do we go? D'you know that?"
"Safer in hills," and Zainal pointed to what could be considered the north. The sun of this system had not yet reached its zenith.
"Is it? That flying thing came from there.
"Places in rock to stay best. Creatures in - . ." He reached down and tapped the ground. "Come in dark.
Very bad." He shook his head from side to side to emphasize that caution. "Don't see."
"True." He made the motions of a sinuous track upward with one hand and then pinched his fingers closed to indicate biting. "Day long enough to go.
Find rock place."
"Rock right kind," Zainal said, kicking at one that looked like limestone to Kris. "Will make me remember more." He shook his head as if to free up more information.
"I'd rather move into some sort of a defensible position anyhow,' Mitford said and jumped to the top of the crate.
"Listen up, you hairy lot," Mitford bellowed in a parade ground voice that made the Deskis clamp hands to their ears and cower to the ground. "This place won't be safe at night. We've got to move to the hills, find caves to shelter in."
"You're taking his word for this?" Arnie demanded, running up to Mitford and tugging at his trouser leg.
"I'll listen to anyone who talks sense and as the Cat's the only one knows anything about this planet, I'm not about to ignore any local info I can get, Arnie. No-one'll force you to do anything now you don't wanna. Hear me?" He raised his voice again. "First, you lot," and he pointed a thick finger at Bass and some of the others who'd been lounging behind the crates, "take a body count. Team up and cart any that are breathing and I mean any back here and we'll try to rouse em. I wouldn't even leave my mother-in-law to what walks at night. Now move it. You, too, Kris and take the Cat with you."
"If we had a canteen or something to carry water in," Kris started.
Zainal tapped one of the empty crates. They were fashioned out of some sort of plastic and were capacious enough. He tipped it over and shook out some packing debris.
"I carry," he said and nodding at Kris to follow started down to the stream.
"Good idea," Mitford said and got the two nearest Deskis to start emptying another half-full crate. "Useful."
"Sarge, what do we do with cups and blankets? Leave "em on the stiffs?"
Bass called.
"Strip "em," Mitford yelled back. "They won't need "em. We might." Remarkably, almost everyone, Deskis as well, fell to and by the time Zainal had brought back the filled crate - without so much as puffing from the trek uphill - the count was complete and only the dead remained behind in the field.
By the time the sun had reached its zenith, everyone living had been revived and informed of the current situation. There was one more flying attack, but Deski ears had heard the three creatures approaching long before they were seen, and everyone was able to play dead. The creatures, still whistfing their unbearable noise, caught nothing on that run.
By tearing strips from spare blankets, crude carrying straps were contrived to make crates easier to transport, for Mitford intended to leave nothing behind that might later come in handy. He even ordered the dead to be stripped of footwear and coveralls. He got some resistance to that decision, but in the end the unpleasant task was done and garments stored.
When the columns were ready to move off, Kris had acquired considerable respect for Mitford. She was equally glad she'd made the effort to spare Zainal, for he had more than talk to use to placate dissenters. The added benefit of his show of strength was that few would try to take him on even if, like Arnie, they hated his guts for being a Catteni. Some of the more-recently revived were weak, so Mitford assigned each a buddy and announced that he intended to take skin off anyone who might happen to "lose' his or her buddy as they moved out.
"How many bought it?" Mitford asked Bass who had kept a tally.
"Eighty-nine didn't make it," the lanky man said.
"Mostly Deski and some older humans and two kids.
That'd make about a ten percent loss if you figure a hundred bodies in each of the eight rows. Live head count's five hundred eighty-two: haven't sorted "em out by race yet.
"Forget race," Mitford said with a snort. "We're all in this together.
"Yeah, all the Turs fecked off and a lot of the Morphis but that's all right by me," Bass said with a sideways glance at Zainal.
Mitford walked to the top of the field and, fists on his hips, roared for attention.
"Listen up. We're moving out. You lot," and he pointed to a bunch of humans, "form up in a column, four abreast.
We got nine water carriers: distribute yourselves along the line of march. You with buddies, sing out if you got trouble but try to keep up. Don't be shy asking for help if you need it. Bass, you be rear guard. Take Cumber, Dowdall, Esker, Movi, Tesco and you three." He held up three fingers at the nearest group of Rugarians and gestured them over to Bass. "We're all in this together, remember! OK, now move it out." He motioned for Zainal to join him and trotted out to where people had begun to form up the column.
Kris was buddied with a fraillooking redheaded girl with the delicate complexion that often accompanied red hair.
Patti Sue had been one of the last to rouse. She did a lot of coughing but she didn't feel feverish, so Kris decided she must have had some kind of allergic reaction to the drug they'd been given in their soup. Patti Sue spent most of the time apologizing for being a burden. Such slf-effacement bothered the hell out of Kris who was naturally self-reliant and positive: she tried not to be curt with Patti Sue. The only other information the girl gave was that she'd been taken in Detroit. Every time Kris tried to open a conversation or asked a question, Patti Sue would have a coughing fit. The fifth time that happened Kris got the hint Patti Sue had been giving.
She wondered if Patti'd survive until they made it to shelter.
She inserted herself and Patti in column right behind one of the water containers, carried between two Rugarians.
There were Rugarians all around Patti and herself and, at first, Patti kept so close to Kris she almost stepped on Kris's feet a couple of times. Rugarians were sturdy, was Kris's reckoning, so if she did need help with Patti, she'd have it at hand. She'd also seen how some of the human males had looked at the redhead. Hope springs eternal, she thought with amusement, but she was reasonably sure Patti would have repelled any offers of male assistance.
She felt the pull uphill in the muscles of her calves and thighs, but when they reached the tree shapes she saw that the next bit of march would be downhill, along another field. The panorama bothered her but it wasn't until she was halfway down the slope that she realized exactly why. This new field was exactly the same size as the one they'd been dropped in. Tree shapes marched along the borders, and in adjacent fields of the same size. It was too even. Everything was laid out so neatly, far too neatly for a supposedly unoccupied planet.
Only Zainal had not said the planet was unoccupied, had he? He'd definitely said it had indigenous dangers and he couldn't remember what types, only that there were "deathly' creatures. At the bottom of this field was another stream. Brooks created on demand? And another field on the other side, identical to all the others in this area. On the entire planet? Where were the browsers? The ruminants for whom these fields were made? Were they some of the "deathly' creatures?
She looked ahead and saw distant foothills. God, they were a long way away. She looked over her shoulder and saw the four-wide crocodile stretching out behind her. Safety in numbers? It said much for Mitford's leadership ability that he had managed such cohesion from such a diverse group. Well, some of the obedience had originally been inculcated by Catteni forcewhips. A lot of people wouldn't have had time to recover from their enslavement and start thinking for themselves. Mitford was obviously counting on that. Whatever saved as many souls as possible, she thought to herself During that long march she found herself resenting Patti Sue's frailty. She'd've preferred being up front with Mitford and Zainal, able to see where she was going: scouting ahead even. She liked being first, not tamely following others. But she'd accepted the responsibility of buddying with Patti Sue and she'd see it through.
By the time the sun had reached a halfway point down the sky, she was supporting more of Patti Sue on the way up the hills. Downhill was easier except that Patti tended to stumble, always apologizing for the trouble she was making for Kris, and telling Kris how good she was to put up with her. Kris had to clench her teeth to keep from telling Patti Sue to shut up and just do her best.
Every hour they got five minutes to rest and get watered, or whatever, although how Mitford knew when an hour was up was beyond her.
Maybe his military training gave him a built-in watch or something.
Whatever, she welcomed the brief respite.
The Catteni sure had a good footwear design in those shapeless fold-abouts. Body heat had moulded hers so faithfully to her long narrow feet that, although her feet were tired, she hadn't raised a single blister or rub. Her leg muscles were complaining about abuse but, after an unknown period of time doing sweet fanny adams, what else could she expect? The spring had gone out of everyone's step, especially the water carriers although Mitford had seen to it that those were rotated every rest period.
Then the word was passed back that they'd take an hour's break to eat. And if anyone had eaten up all their bars, tough titty. They weren't breaking out any spares today.
Kris had had another third before the trek so she munched out on the last third and had half another one. She got Patti Sue to eat all of a bar by feeding it to her bit by bit. The girl's fatigue was not put on.
Her cheeks were gaunt and her breath was shallow. Kris thought she heard rales in her lungs but it may have been simply exertion after long idleness. There wasn't much more travel in Patti.
When the call went back to start again, they were on the edge of a fairly dense plantation. And "plantation' was the appropriate word because the vegetation - trees, whatever - had been set out in rows.
There were several different specimens, judging by what went for leaves on this world; different sizes, too, and a soft mulch underfoot that was a welcome relief from the harder surfaces of the fields, despite their grassoid ground cover. While she could approve of forestation, it was real queer to find it on a planet that wasn't supposed to be inhabited. Although Zainal hadn't exactly said it was uninhabited, had he? she reminded herself yet again.
Kris got Patti Sue to her feet. The girl was so tired she didn't even have the strength to apologize. Kris draped one lax thin arm about her waist, holding it to her with her right hand while she tucked her left under the girl as support. Kris gave a half-hip lurch and carried Patti forward, step by step.
At the next rest stop Kris herself was panting and sweaty. She'd draped Patti's blanket, cup and ration package across her own to free the girl of any burden.
Now she rearranged her accoutrements and when the order to move came she hoisted Patti pickaback as the easier way to deal with the problem. Kris had good strong shoulders and a strong back, and it was much easier, m some ways, to carry the girl than try to keep her on her own feet.
She was moving along at a better clip - they had fallen back from the water carriers some time before. She felt someone touch her shoulder and looked a human straight in his blue eyes. He had straight blond hair.
"Hey, there, ma'am, I'll take her. You shouldn't have to pack her.
"Why not? She ain't my brother but she ain't heavy," 6o Kris replied, moving right along but she smiled gratitude for the offer.
"Naw," the guy said, reaching out to take Patti. "You take my gear and I'll lug her." Patti felt his hands on her and whimpered fearfully, clinging with what strength she had left in her arms to Kris. Kris moved out of the column.
"Tell you what, you carry my gear and that'll make it easier. But I don't think Patti Sue wants any guy around her. You know what I mean." The guy looked shocked for a moment, resenting the implication that he might have an ulterior motive to his offer.
"She won't tell me more than her name and where she came from," Kris said, "and you must have heard how popular us Terran females were with the Cats."
"Oh, gawd. Didn't think of that." He flushed with embarrassment. "Jay Greene," he identified himself.
"Denver."
"I'm Kris Bjomsen and Denver's where I was also caught." She had eased Patti down to the ground.
Patti clung to her legs, still whimpering and mumbling unintelligible pleas. "It's OK, honey, it's OK. I'll carry you.
You're my buddy, aren't you?" She divested herself of the blanket rolls and her ration bars but kept the cups and Patti's food.
"Hi, Patti Sue," the man said, leaning down to her. "I'm Jay Greene, and I'm just going to lift you to Kris's back.
"Just do it, Jay," Kris said and was nearly strangled by Patti who almost sprang from Jay's hands to Kris's back.
"Wow!" Greene said softly. "Hard lines." Kris shifted the girl to a more comfortable position, feeling bones grind in the slender body.
"Let's get back in line. We'll be the tail that wags the dog pretty soon."
"Don't fret, ma'am. I won't leave your sight."
"Not while you have my rations, you won't." The last part of that heroic march was uphill, scrambling on a rock-strewn surface where Greene often had to grab Kris to keep her balanced. She was concentrating so hard on not falling that Kris didn't really see where they were going until they got there. A wide ridge with - when she had a moment to look - a fantastic view of the patchwork of fields and hedging that seemed to stretch out for miles and miles into the twilight. The column also stretched in front of her, and there weren't that many behind, they'd dropped back so far. All along the way marchers were sitting down where they stood, too tired to move much further or worry about the hardness of this night's accommodation.
"I don't think much of this as a campsite," Greene said, looking about him. He pushed a spot clear of rocks and pebbles and pointed it out to Kris. "This is as good as any." This time Patti was too exhausted to even whimper when Greene very gently lifted her off Kris's back. She gave a loud sigh of relief. Scuffed a second patch clear for herself and sat down with a "whoof' of relief. Greene handed her the blankets and the food as he swept a place clean.
"Gimme the cups and I'll get us all some water," he said and she handed them over, realizing that she was done.
When he came back they managed to prop Patti Sue to a sitting position while Kris fed her again and used some of the water to wash her face and then her own.
"Hey, we got a Prometheus in this ragtaggle gwup, Greene said, pointing towards the front of the column.
Kris cried out in surprise and relief. Somehow the torches bobbing along the ridge in their direction reassured her as nothing else could have. Tears came to her eyes and she bit her lip and averted her face from Greene.
She didn't want to spoil the impression that she was a survivor type.
It was a long time, and darkness had fallen, before the torch bearers made it to the rear where she was. Patti was asleep, her head pillowed on Kris's thighs. A few people seemed to have enough energy to talk, or complain: the Deskis were emitting their odd susurrahs from the tight little circle they had created. The Rugarians had curled up in hairy balls, blankets hauled over their faces. Kris was too tired to sleep, her back muscles aching from the day's strain and her neck taut. She rotated her shoulders and waggled her shoulder blades trying to ease things.
Then she felt Greene's hands begin a massage for which she was intensely grateful.
She was drowsing when light roused her to attention.
Mitford, Zainal, Taglione and two others she didn't know were checking on the column.
"You OK, Bjornsen?" Mitford asked, one hand lightly resting on her shoulder.
"She carried her buddy here half the afternoon," Greene spoke up.
"Shut up," Kris said in protest. "She doesn't weigh much."
"And she's your buddy," Mitford said, nodding. "Know this is a lousy campsite . . ." Beyond him, Zainal was talking to the Deski that had been awakened by the torch. It was a male, his eyes wide with an anxiety which abated when Zainal had finished speaking. "Best we can do. Zainal and a couple others are going to scout forward to see if there're any caves near enough. He thinks we'll be safe enough on the open ridge tonight. You're Jay Greene?"
"That's me."
"Can you hang awake a while?"
"Sure can." Greene got to his feet, stiffly, but made it upright.
"OK, you keep an eye open here. You'll wake Bass you know him?
Good, at second moon set," and now Mitford pointed to the moons just rising, one much larger and ahead of its smaller companion. "This planet has five.
Useful for lack of any other markers." He turned his head towards the lanky figure of Bass who was coming into the torchiight, the rest of the rear guard clustered behind him.
"You hear that? Greene here will relieve you. Cumber, Bass'll get you up and you'll be on until the fourth moon goes down, then you wake Movi. Don't cheat and mix up your moon sets, now hear me!"
"We hear and obey,' Bass said, according Mitford a fancy eastern salaam.
"I leave you the torch," Mitford said and handed the one he held to Jay Greene. "It won't last all night long "cos the nights here are long, but it should help."
"Gotcha." Mitford started to retrace his steps to the front. Zainal favoured Kris with a long look and then pivoted to follow the sergeant and the others.
Kris wrapped herself up well in the blanket, moving Patti until she got as comfortable as she could - after digging up a couple of rocks. The Catteni also did a good line in warm blankets. She finally got rested enough to fall asleep.
\* As Mitford, Zainal, Taglione and the others tiredly retraced their steps to the front of the column, the sergeant reflected on the wisdom of keeping the Cat alive. For starters, he liked the guy's style when he had to brave it out among folks who had no cause to like his species. Of course, Mitford knew that the psychological moment to waste Zainal had passed back in the field, when the Cat got to his feet. He was one big mother and no-one, not even Mitford, would have taken him on singlehanded. Guys like Arnie, who'd had too long a taste of Catteni whips, might just organize a lynch party at some auspicious moment. But there were ways of avoiding murder if you knew who victim and murderer were. Mitford had defused a couple of similar situations. Then, too, the big guy kept coming out with damned useful gen: like the five moons. Was he deliberately parcelling out these gems or was he putting on an elaborate act? Years in the Marines had taught Mitford how to spot liars and malingerers. Zainal was neither but he knew exactly what sort Arnie was.
For most of Mitford's life, in particular since he'd enlisted as an enthusiastic, lying sixteen year old, the sun had ruled Mitford's days: from boot camp to his one tour in "Nam, through his two jaunts to Kuwait, until he'd been nabbed, by aliens, in a hammock on his dad's verandah.
Idly his thoughts ranged to wondering if his old unit had seen any action against the Catteni on Earth but reports from the old world were few and far between.
All the more reason for making the one they were stuck on now better. And if keeping the Cat they had alive was one way of doing it, Chuck Mitford would see he lived.
He wondered exactly how that tall blonde Bjornsen had met the Cat.
She hadn't been lying, but she hadn't told all the facts. Whatever!
She'd been clever in handling the situation and keeping the Cat alive.
She had class, that one. And she was good people, the way she'd lugged that poor scared kid all day long.
Taglione stumbled again and this time didn't throw off the Cat's hand when it went out to steady him. Maybe they could integrate him, though Mitford doubted it.
Too much feeling against Catteni right now. He'd have to figure out some way of using the Cat without keeping him about all the time.
That was easy, he'd send Zainal out on reconnaissance: they'd need to know the terrain wherever they finally came to roost. Send Bjornsen with him, and keep two potential problems out of his hair.
He'd have enough. Not that he hadn't made a good start but oh, Lord, how did he get in this situation in the first place? Mitford, he told himself, don't you know the first rule of survival? Don't volunteer!
"You were telling me you work for the Eosi? The Catteni are not the overlords?" he asked Zainal in Barevi.
"No, Eosi. Emassi take orders. Eosi order the gy) That chain of command didn't seem to sit well with the Cat either, Mitford thought, reading the way the guy set his jaw as resistance, if not downright rebellion.
"Emassi is not the word I heard for captain," Mitford went on in a bland voice.
He caught the gleam of Zainal's eyes in the moonlight as the big Cat glanced down at him.
""Emassi" one word for a captain," and Zainal's lips curled up.
"Special captain. You have heard "tudo" more.
And "drassi"."
"Yeah, tudo for ground and drassi for space?
Right?" So, as Mitford had thought, this Catteni was a couple of cuts above the usual individual the sergeant had met. "So which was it set us down here? Tudo, drassi or emassi?"
"Drassi by order of Eosi," and that didn't sit well with the Catteni either.
"As I have told you," Zainal said quietly but with an edge to his words.
"Just checking." Zainal chuckled. "Know that Emassi have no reason to lie." The first moon was now well above the hills and shining hard into their faces, lighting the rocky track so that they didn't inadvertently step on sleeping bodies. For a big guy, Zainal was agile. "Course, he was used to a heavier gravity but that didn't keep some Cats from being damned clumsy, squashing bystanders in their brawls.
"That is the way"How soon before anyone checks in?" Zainal paused, walking in silence, then held up two fingers. "Depends. Drop more prisoners if we live. Then check in half a year, year. See how we do."
"You're part of "we"?" Mitford wasn't sure if he liked that suggestion of solidarity. The Cat hadn't been in the same boat as the humans: figuratively that is. Or maybe he was.
Zainal snorted. "I drop. I stay. I am not against you.
I am with you."
"Fine by me," Mitford said, waited a beat, "but you won't find everyone exactly welcoming." Zainal chuckled. "Emassi are also not welcome everywhere. I will survive." Somehow Mitford didn't doubt that a moment. And he intended to keep this Catteni alive. Mitford could think of several ways, easily, that this Zainal might be of use to him, especially if he was also discontented with these Eosi overlords who ordered everything. "Then if we can keep alive, they unload more rebels?"
"Rebels?"
"Yeah, rebels," Mitford said, "people like us who protest Catteni rule.
Zainal grinned. "Good word, rebels. I like it."
"You wouldn't be a bit of a rebel yourself, perhaps?"
"Perhaps." Mitford caught the edge on that mild rejoinder and wondered.
"We must talk about this at a later date," Zainal said. "You speak Barevi lingua well," he added in a louder voice.
"I'm a survivor, Emassi. And learning the local lingo fast is essential to survival. I got enough of five to six languages from Earth to get around the country: Barevi wasn't hard to pick up."
"No, it is not."
"A simple language for simple folk?" Now Zainal gave a soft chuckle. But that was the last either said because fatigue was getting the better of both as they neared the head of the sleeping column of rebels.
Yeah, Mitford thought again, I like that.
After checking that the sentries he had set were still awake, Mitford gratefully spread his blanket on the ground.
"If you think of anything more from that report, Zainal, lemme know,' Chuck said as he lay down.
"I will."
Morning was not fun! Once again Kris ached in many places and knew that pebbles had moved under her during the night to make tender spots where she didn't need them. Patti was still flaked out when Kris rearranged the girl so she could get up. She had to go. She made her way down the hill to a boulder that had already been used for this purpose, although someone had had the courtesy to sprinkle dirt on what they'd done. She did the same. Greene was waiting for her with full cups of water.
"Gawd, what I wouldn't give for a cuppa coffee," he said, grinning at her over the rim of his cup.
"Never said a truer word," and Kris rather liked his grin.
Why was it she had to be dropped on this godforsaken planet before she met any decent fellas? She could notice a few more details about him, too. He looked awfully thin, and his hands showed lots of healed cuts and nicks and the palms, when he gestured, were heavily calloused.
"Did you really steal the commander's flitter?" Kris groaned. "I did but I wouldn't have if I'd known the sort of reprisals the Catteni would take.
"Don't distress yourself over that, ma'am," he said, grinning more broadly. "The very idea that one of us could, did, and had, gave us all heart."
"Except the ones who had long interviews with forcewhips." She shuddered, her back muscles writhing in sympathetic reaction. The two times she'd felt that sort of nerve-paralysing lash had been quite enough.
"The Cats looked for any excuse to intimidate us Terrans," Greene said. "We were more than they expected, in case you hadn't heard. Did they recapture you or something?"
"No," Kris said, drawling the negative out to emphasize her chagrin. "My timing was bad. I'd snuck a trip into the city just when the cruisers started spreading gas to quell that riot. And what was that riot about?"
"Oh, we tried to break up another one of their little discipline sessions. One thing led to another and we ended up a mob. No sense, no reason, just rush about breaking up anything to hand!" She nodded, finishing the last of her bar and licking her fingers.
Word was passed down to get a move on.
Patti Sue managed the morning on her own feet and then collapsed again. She apologized to the point that Kris was grinding her teeth not to snap at her. It was a little difficult to avoid the apologies and selfdeprecations when the girl's lips were a few inches from her ear. Greene did what he could, chatting about this and that because his talking silenced Patti. His buddy was a Rugarian who said nothing, stopping and starting when Greene did, and was seemingly oblivious to every other stimulus.
"What were you back on good ol' Terra?" Kris asked, to while away the time.
"Aha, computer technician. So, of course, they had me digging, shovelling and sweeping on Barevi. At least they weren't prejudiced.
Anyone big got that duty." He made a muscle in his arm and pulled the coverall tight across it so she could admire the result. "Actually, it beats a sedentary life in front of a screen. I've never been this fit." And he cast a critical eye on Patti's frail body. "You're sure he began for the third time since lunch.
"I'm sure." Patti Sue had either fallen asleep or retreated into a comatose state. The only thing that reassured Kris was that her skin was cool, not hot with fever. She soldiered on. However, she told herself that next time buddies were assigned she was going to choose.
The afternoon became one long struggle to keep upright and put one foot in front of the other. They had to make three climbs up rockfaces . . . Kris did hope that Mitford had had accurate reports from his advance scouts, because she sure didn't want to come back down the last one. They'd had to rig a blanket sling to get the limp Patti Sue up it. Kris ended up with scraped shins and lost some fingertip skin.
The items that hadn't been in the Catteni survival crates were legion.
Decent gloves, pitons, rope, pickaxes, backpacks, a bar of chocolate were among those she dreamed of. Needles and thread!
Band Aids.
There were three falls, one broken leg. The Deskis, for all their fragile looks, had almost glided up the rockface.
That could be a useful skill, she thought, amazed that she could think of anything other than being able to continue walking.
When her courage was beginning to peter out into utter despair, the word was passed back that their destination had been reached by the first elements.
They'd had one? That amazed and heartened her.
When she got there, she didn't know it. One, she had stumbled and had to lean against the cliffside to steady herself. She'd had a terrifying, if brief, look at the drop she'd nearly plummeted down.
Two, she was too exhausted even to care that she would now be able to stop walking.
"I'll take her," a male voice said and the burden of Patti was lifted from her back.
Someone put a hand on her arm and led her from the cliff, pushing her head down so she wouldn't crack it on a low entryway. The darkness a few metres inside was suddenly alleviated by - of all things fires.
They didn't smell like fires should, but the rosy glow looked like the real thing. She later found out that Zainal had experimented with various types of wood, for lack of a proper description of the material he gathered from the vegetation, until he found a combustible substance.
He found other things, which included dried dung, to augment what "wood' could be gathered as they marched.
The dung smelt but it gave off heat and light which were essential.
Someone took her cup - she protested but before she could get violent about the matter, the cup was returned to her, full of water "Keep moving," she was told and a hand gently guided her in the direction she was supposed to go. . . a narrow path through outstretched legs and boots. She went left, then right, then left again as guided, and had her head pushed down to enter a smaller cave.
There was a small fire, one that didn't smell too badly, in a circle of glinting stones in the centre. Smoke went straight up and she tilted her head, nearly falling over backwards since her balance was as tired as the rest of her senses, but couldn't see the ceiling.
"Over here," and she was guided to one side of the fire where there weren't any legs or boots. "Sit." A gentle hand pressed down on her shoulder and, quite willing to obey, she sat.
When she felt someone fumbling with her blanket, she tried to push the hands away.
"Sleep in blanket." The odd phrasing caught her attention and she blinked to focus on the face in front of her. Zainal it was who was untying her blanket. No-one else was that big. That was all right then. She owed him. Or did he owe her?
"Lie down," he said, an order that she was only too happy to obey.
She worked her way down to a recumbent position and felt the blanket being tucked around her. What odd behaviour for a Cat . . .
no, she must not shorten the name. Catteni. Maybe "Teni' would be less egregious than "Cat'?
That was the last thing she remembered for a very long time.
Mitford woke suddenly, his well-developed internal clock rousing him after his customary six hours' sleep. It was as dark as the inside of a pocket and it took him a moment to establish where he was. He rose cautiously to one elbow, identifying the sleeping forms around him:
Taglione, Murphy, Dowdall, and yes, the dark mass of the big-shouldered Catteni.
Fit as Mitford tried to keep himself, apart from that enforced sleep on the prison ship, he felt some twinges from yesterday's exertions. Well, today would be another bitch and he'd better start it, what with all he had to do.
He berated himself once again for setting himself up in command of this chickenshit outflt but who the hell else in this mis-assorted herd of humanity, and aliens, would have organized anything? It had made his blood boil to see them quibbling over how many knives they should get and who'd have the blanket concession. Just chance that he'd known a couple of the looters from being in the same barracks with them on Barevi, so he'd been able to inveigle their support with a hint and a bit of verbal persuasion. No need for anyone to get greedy over the goodies. There looked to be more than enough to go round. He couldn't stand greed and he hated bullying.
Some might not believe that, but it was the truth. So he'd waded in and got the supply situation organized to his satisfaction and doled out the hardware in an orderly fashion. He should have known one thing would lead to another. But no-one had contested his authority. Or them that had had taken themselyes off.
And hell's bells, after twenty-seven years in the Marines, he knew how to get a motley crew to act as a unit. He'd trained up enough raw recruits into good fighting men. Even women. Then he had a couple of advantages, too. For starters, everyone here had been taking orders they couldn't buck, so he'd just continue the practice, gradually easing them back into a more democratic government when he had everything suitably organized and independence was feasible. Right now, they'd better stick together and keep the useful aliens handy. He was glad to be rid of the Turs, sullen argumentative bastards, and the Morphins had always been difficult to deal with in the barracks at Barevi.
They'd taken themselves off, most of them, and that was fine by him.
Humans he could handle any day of the week.
So, they were in a defensible position, even if he still didn't know what he might have to defend against. They had a good source of underground water in that cave lake his scouts had found. The Cat Mitford reproved himself - how he treated Zainal, the Catteni, would go a long way to establishing how most of the others would regard the alien. And if he wanted to make contact with the Catteni at a later date, he'd need someone in his ball park to hit the homers. Right now the only one available was Zainal. At any rate, Zainal had found time to hunt as he scouted ahead with Tag and Murph and had clubbed some local fauna. He proved it was edible by eating a hunk of it raw.
Mitford preferred his meat cooked but, to him, the gob which he had chewed and swallowed had tasted just like raw meat usually did. The critters just squatted on the rocks in droves or herds, didn't move when humans approached - which suggested to Mitford that they hadn't seen any humans to know to fear them - so they were dead easy to bring down.
So there was one source of protein to augment the ration bars.
Water, shelter, food. Not bad going for two days on a new world.
Mitford was optimistic, even though he rarely allowed himself that option.
He'd had a chance to talk to nearly a hundred or so men and women yesterday on the march and was much encouraged by the fact that quite a few had specialties that would be damned useful. Automatically his hands went to pockets where he usually kept pencil and pad.
Once again he cursed under his breath. A cup, a blanket, a knife and a hatchet were not much to work with. He'd had less when set loose on a survival course but he was accustomed to privations. This lot weren't. He missed paper and pencil. He was a visual man and conimitted facts to memory when he could first write them down.
Gerry Capstan had been a surveyor in the Colorado Park Service: he was sure they could find something to write with and he'd already seen slate along the rocky way Helluva way to write orders of the day, Mitford thought, but what the hell? The old granary foreman in Lubbock still used chalk and a slate as a notice-board for his drivers.
Murphy had been a machinist, knew welding, and he'd assured Mitford that all he needed was a decent hot fire to reshape some of those extra knives into a bevy of useful tools.
A woman near Murphy in the line of march perked up a bit when she heard the two men talking.
"I'm a potter . . . Sandy Areson. Yeah, I know what you're thinking," and she grinned at the dubious expression on Mitford's face, "arty-farty stuff you'd call what I used to produce but I know how to make up pitchers, mugs, plates and useful things. That is, if this planet has produced clay."
"We'll keep that in mind, Mitford said, knowing that something as simple as pitchers and plates could be a morale booster.
Now in the cool predawn, Mitford began to plan the day's activities. A good hot meal in everyone's belly would make them optimistic, too. So hunting was the first order of the day. A detailed search of the immediate area and the rest of the cave system was next. And torches were needed to light the corridors that had already been explored.
That herbal guy could see what he could find edible in the vegetable line. There might even be berries.
There were two miners and they could look for ore deposits.
He'd send out patrols, keep everyone busy, and Arnie could do latrines. That made him smile. And anyone who complained about anything would join Arnie in that duty. With so many people, proper hygiene was of prime necessity.
One of the few pluses was that they were all healthy: the ones who weren't had been left on the field.
He set about waking up men he had tagged the day before as those with some hunting experience back on Earth. He'd have them look out for any wood that could be made into bows, arrows and spears. And slingshots. Mitford grinned as he pulled on his boots.
He'd been a crack shot as a kid: could stun a jackrabbit at forty yards.
And what was the name of that paramedic? Ah, Matt Dargle. Damn, he'd be glad to have writing materials.
Mitford shook Taglione, Murphy and Zainal awake and started handing out the orders of the day.
It was the stink that woke her. She started coughing and couldn't stop.
She wasn't the only one coughing, either.
Everyone around her was. Then a whiff of cool, clean air wafted across her face and she tried to go back to sleep again. It was much too soon to wake up. It was still dark outside.
Outside of where? That question did it: she pushed herself to a sitting position to find out where she was.
Inside a cave. The fire in the centre was down to embers, although someone was trying to revive it by putting lumps smell-producing lumps - on it.
"I think I'd prefer the dark to the smell," she murmured, realizing that folks were still sleeping around her. In fact, she recognized Patti Sue's frail body next to her. Kris was chagrined.
She hadn't even made sure she still had her trek buddy when she'd gone to sleep. Zainal? Zainal. Hmmm.
She looked around but she couldn't find his body among those in here with her. She considered going back to sleep and then realized that first she'd better find the latrine.
"Where's the latrine?" she asked the figure feeding the fire.
"From here?" The man paused briefly. "Hmmm. Go left, take the third righthand opening."
"Oh yes." Although torches had been spaced out along the walls, she found the right cave as much by a certain smell as following the directions. She was amazed at what had been accomplished. Or, how long had she slept?
When she thought of those handy little pouches handed out by airlines if you went Business Class she wished she'd had one to hand: toothbrush, comb and nail-file, not to mention toothpaste, breath neutralizer and face cloth, would be very comforting right now. And something to eat. She passed by "her' cave on her return because she smelt something scrumptious - well, by comparison with what she'd lately had to eat.
She followed her nose, passing other side passages and peering into caves filled with sleeping bodies. She took a wrong turning and ended up in a cul-de-sac which smelled not at all appetizing, but nasty, old-mouldy, dead.
Her nose led her to the source, and the largest of the caves. It was a-bustle with activity; men, women and aliens - Kris was glad to see the resurgence of whimsy in herself - coming and going. Though what they were going to and coming from she wasn't sure until she saw a group of men, each triumphantly brandishing their spoils. They'd been hunting and, although the creatures resembled oversized rats without tails, if they were what was being grilled over the fires, she'd forget the resemblance.
She went over to the nearest griller and paused by the rock on which two cooked fragments had been laid.
"How do I get in line?" she asked the dark-skinned cook.
"I wouldn't stand on no ceremony was I you," he said with a grin.
"Don't mind what they look like: they taste good and that Cat said they wouldn't kill us."
"He did?" and Kris tried to act casual as she reached for the . meat? Food? It wasn't too hot to handle and she brought it to her lips, inconspicuously licking the part nearest her to get a taste. The taste confirmed the notion that her stomach needed this no matter what else happened. She took a good bite, inhaling air to cool the morsel, hot against her teeth. But she chewed it well she had to; the meat was tough. It chewed good and tasted great and fell into a grateful stomach.
"Only one a customer," the dark man said, carefully inserting his knife point to check the state of the portions on the spit.
"Understandable. I've got ration bars to fill in the spaces, but this hot " She paused not only to take another bite to follow the first one but also to give what she ate a proper designation.
"We're calling it meat," he said, grinning.
"Well, whatever it's called, it hits the spot. Thanks - and she left her voice on an upnote for him to supply his name.
"Bart," he said. "You're Kris."
"How'd you know that?"
"Cos you carried that girl fer two days and you know the Cat."
"Oh!" Such glory was unexpected. She looked around then, rather embarrassed. She saw neither Zainal nor Mitford. "Where's the Sarge and the Cat?" "Out.
Hunting, I think, and seeing if there're more caves." He wrinkled his nose. "This place isn't really big enough for us all. Good idea to spread out anyhow, iffen you asked me. Only nobody did." He spoke amiably.
"Better if we had running water' "Oh, we do, but the way down to it's no picnic"Oh?"
"Underground lake and river. Probably feeding some of the streams we passed." Kris licked the thick bone that had been covered with meat.
"Crack it open. Marrow makes good eating, too." Kris scrutinized the bone with reluctance to take his advice.
"Marrow's got a lot of good in it, Kris," Bart said solemnly.
"Crunch down quick to break it open and then suck." Rather than appear squeamish, she did so and the marrow was not at all unpleasant. She made sure she had cleaned both halves and then looked around her.
"In the fire," Bart said. "We burn everything we can find."
"So I'd . . . smdt," she said with a grin.
"Yeah, do get kinda rank, don't it." Depositing the bones on the fire and hearing them snap as the flame caught, she also got a whiff of the "burnt bone' smell. She licked her fingers so she'd remember better the way the meat had tasted. Then she untied her cup from its place on her belt. "Where's drinking water?"
"Over there," and Bart nodded his head towards the side where she could recognize the symmetry of the water crates, stored against the cave wall.
She had no sooner taken a drink when a woman, with her dark hair roughly chopped to a short length, tapped her on the arm. "You wouldn't know how to skin and clean a dead animal, would you?"
"Yup," she said with considerably more willingness than she actually had for the task. But she'd skinned squirrels and rabbits on her practical for the survival 8o qualification and now was a much better time to display her abilities.
"I'm Sandy and I got put in charge without knowing doodly squat.
I used to be "and she gave a droll grin, "a potter."
"I'm Kn' "Yeah, I know," and the woman grinned at her.
"You know the Cat and you carried your buddy for two days.
Did everyone know those two facts about her? Kris wondered as she followed Sandy outside the cave. She hadn't noticed that the hunters had brought their catch outside again. Half a dozen people were busy skinning and gutting, using large stones as worktops. Two men and two women appeared to be dissecting entrails at another and arguing about anatomy.
"Guts are guts and I don't see why we can't use these, said the woman, holding up a long stringy grey rope.
"Ought to be as tough as any cat's."
"Think so. They sure didn't have nylon." Kris was not squeamish but she didn't want to lose her breakfast. It had tasted so good going down, but coming up? She'd rather not find out.
Finding herself a space, she caught the beastie that Sandy tossed her. Limp, soft but firmly packed. The hide was unexpectedly pleasant to touch though the muted grey brown was an unearthly colour. It wasn't a furry hide, rather a suedey covering. Turning it around on her slab to examine it closely, she couldn't see what had killed it until she noticed that one half of the "head' had been mashed.
Too small to have been done by a club and certainly not a blow from the broad-edged hatchets they'd been issued.
It did have four legs, a chunky rounded body, and not much neck before the blunt end that was its head. She gave a sigh and, taking a quick glance round to see how others were tackling the job, she flipped it to its back and, tipping the head up, began the job of dressing it.
It had more meat on it than either rabbit or squirrel, having heavy haunches and well-developed shoulders.
Her knife, while large enough to be a shade unwieldy for precision surgery, was sharp. She made a bit of a hash of stripping the hide off the legs but hell, you didn't lose much below the "knee'. She had just finished when Sandy appeared with another one, and thus she spent her morning. There seemed to be endless quantities of that beastie and another, also suede covered with membranous wings that felt slimy. No meat on such wings, but she was told to save these, too.
"Did you get something to eat?" Sandy asked her at one point.
"Yes, something from one of the squatty things, I think."
"If we had a pot to stew in we could make everything go further," Sandy said with a rueful smile. "Bob the Herb," and she grinned back at Kris's startled expression, "well, he knew Terran herbs and he's found some root sorts of things that oughtn't to poison us. And some rather delicious sharp-tasting berries. At least, the Cat thought they'd be edible. He ate "em and didn't get the trots but Cats can eat a lot that'd give us the green apple two-step." Kris paused, another trick coming to mind. She sat back on her heels. "We got any natural holes anywhere?
"Well, they'd make a self-contained stew pot. Fill one with water, then drop in clean heated stones. That'd boil the water and whatever else you had in it." "It would?"
"I haven't done it, but the theory's sound. A pot's only something you can move around' "What heathen country did you get that from?" Kris laughed. "The old Irish used to do that. I saw the places in the south of Ireland, great tourist attractions. The guide swore that was what field workers used when they didn't want to trek all the way back to their homes."
"Well, I never," Sandy said and went off, cocking her head this way and that.
"Hey, gal, you made it up," a cheerful voice said and Kris looked up from the animal she had just eviscerated to see Jay Greene making his way to her. He had a brace of avians in each hand. From the angle of their heads, their necks had been broken.
"Hi, Jay. Say, just how are these things being caught, or killed?" "Snares work as well on this planet as any other," he said, looking pleased. "Probably better. Fortunately for me, these fowls are stupider'n turkeys and will eat anything edible, especially ration bar crumbs."
""Semper paratus", as the boy scouts used to say," he said modestly. "I worked one out and Mitford showed us how to use a slingshot. A crack shot, too." He was properly respectful. "Haven't got any elastic but, with a little practice and the right ffick of the wrist, you can aim pretty accurate. The rock-squatters haven't got sense enough to be scared so they sit there and die young! Hey, you're pretty good with that knife!"
"Yeah, I am," she said blithely. "Yours next?" She reached for his burden while she honed the tip of her knife on the rock of her table.
"Yes, ma'am," he said and, pretending extreme caution as she sharpened, deposited the bodies on the other side of her table.
The heat of the sun made her stop, mop her sweaty forehead on her sleeve and realize that she'd been working steadily for long enough to get a crick in her neck and more blood than she liked on her coverall.
Blood always attracted insects. At least on Earth and Barevi it had.
She finished the rock squat she was currently cleaning and stood up, taking the result to the next in the line of preparation.
"I want a wash, a drink and some time off," she told Sandy.
Sandy gave her directions to find the underground lake. More torches had been installed, so the way was lit well enough to keep Kris from stumbling down the uneven levels of the path. When she reached the end she saw the viny rope with knots in it to help you shinny up.
Peering over the edge, she saw that there was sand to cushion the shock of the jump which was roughly two metres down. The torch showed her the imperceptible movement of the water flowing past this point.
But she remembered that stillish waters could run deep. Sandy hadn't told her not to dunk herself in but she also hadn't said she could.
She bellied down to the edge of the water and took a quick sip: it had a soda-ish aftertaste but it wasn't bad. She buried her face in the water then, sucking in a longer drink. That was when the desire to be rid of the sweat and dirt of the past few days became irresistible.
Kris was prudent enough to see if the vine rope reached far enough into the water so she could hang on to it for her bath. It did. She sloughed off the wraparound boots and the coverall and, keeping the vine rope in one hand, eased herself into the water. It was cold, no doubt about that, but it felt so good. She gave herself as thorough a scrub as she could with one hand - and no soap - in probably the fastest bath she'd ever taken. Using her blanket, she dried herself as well as she could with the non-absorbent material and rinsed out the bloodied sleeves of her coverall and the front of it where blood had spattered. She was back in her clothes, despite the dampness, and putting on the boots when she heard voices nearing. She hauled herself up to the top and started back, much refreshed by the respite.
She kept close to the righthand wall as the group descending passed her.
"We gotta keep hold of that rope," one of the men was saying, "cos the current's fast according to the Cat."
"Sharpen your knife, buddy," someone else said with a laugh. "That's what pioneers did." When Kris found her way back to her sleeping place she saw that Patti Sue was the only one there, and still asleep. She dithered to herself about bringing some food back and making sure the girl ate, but maybe sleep was more important. The way the hunters had been bringing in game there'd be some for her when she did wake up.
Only how long would the game remain stupid enough to hang around and die? There were a lot of people to be fed.
That was when she heard a lot of noisy shouting and glad cries.
She made her way to the main cave again and tried to figure out what all the shouting was about.
Everyone seemed very pleased. Bart was grinning like he'd just won a lottery.
"They found food. A mountain of it." Then he recalled himself to his duties and turned the pieces cooking on his fire before they were reduced to char.
"Where? Things we can eat?" Kris found herself regarding the french-browned food hungrily.
"I guess so, or why roar so much?" he said with a shrug.
Kris took herself where she could hear what was being roared.
"Mountains of food!"
"Some kinda storage cave. Like a silo."
"And other doors we couldn't open . . . yet!"
"They'd have to be saving for centuries. ""No-one near, no footprints, just cracks in the stone, like something real big stood there." She worked her way through the excited people towards the front of the cave, hoping to see someone she could ask for specifics. The storage cave bit worried her. It suggested that Zainal's information had been incorrect.
You don't store things, especially food, where there's no bodies to eat it.
Scratch tests will give you a quick idea," an Asian was saying in a firm voice. "They worked on some of the game you guys caught, as well as the roots and berries."
"Can we use the same method for the Rugarians and the Deskis, Matt?" she heard Mitford's voice ask.
"Gee, I don't know, Sarge. I was paramedic for human types."
"Zainal, can you ask "em?" Mitford switched to Barevi.
"Yes. I will ask," and Kris saw a movement among those crowded around Mitford as Zainal left to make his enquiries.
"OK, listen up!" Mitford's voice assumed parade ground volume. "I need some volunteers - you, you, you and you. Roll up your sleeves.
We got samples we need to test.
Suddenly the press of bodies thinned out as many decided not to be "volunteered' for any other bright ideas Mitford had in mind.
"Was food all that was found?" Kris asked as she moved towards Mitford.
"Isn't that enough?" a woman asked in an irritable voice.
"It's a help, surely, but we need so many things to set up a habitable place .
"Habitable? That's a laugh," the woman said and moved away from Kris.
"All that food could be a laugh, too," Greene said, appearing at her side, "if we can't stomach it."
"Anyone got any idea why there are such stores?" Kris asked him. "And what will happen if the Three Bears find Goldilocks?" She gestured to indicate they were cast as Goldilocks.
"Nope. Zainal hadn't any idea either. He insisted that the Catteni survey said the planet was uninhabited "With sentient life-forms?" "Mmmm. Yes, he did make that distinction," Greene replied and then grinned. "Scared the hell outa even the sarge when they came across metal doors, fer God's sake, across the cave entrances."
"How'd they get in, then?" Kris asked.
Greene chuckled again. "We got guys in this outfit with some very interesting skills." Kris grinned back at him. "Where are these sesame caves?"
"A good half-day's trek from here, so don't worry. And no road in or out. How'd they get crops in there without something that makes big tracks is puzzling."
"Stray mechanical things are more nervous-making than some honest-to-god alien creatures," Kris said.
"If you say so. Only the sarge has sent a detail to scout about and see if they can figure out how and from where the silos got filled.
He's calling a meeting this evening, anyway, to explain everything.
We might even have more to eat then, too." Greene licked his lips and Kris found herself-doing the same thing as the tantalizing smells were wafted towards them on the breeze. "I could've eaten a whole one by myself."
"Hell no, and watch yours, will ya? As I said, we got guys, and gals, with taking ways as well as interesting skills."
"Oh, Lord, Patti Sue," Kris said and, ducking around Greene, started back to where the girl still slept.
She paused long enough to ask Bart if she could take Patti's share to her.
"I can count on you to give it to her and nobody else?" Bart said, fixing her with a stern eye.
"Yes, you can," Kris said solemnly, and found herself a rock on which to carry the hot meat.
Patti Sue was still asleep. Her food packet was gone.
Someone had rolled the girl over to get at it. Kris fumed and then decided that Patti Sue would just have to take some responsibility for herself. She leant over, careful not to tip the hot meat onto the dirty floor of the cave, and shook Patti Sue's shoulder. The girl's reaction - flailing about with hands and kicking out with her feet was so unexpected that Kris ended up juggling the hot meat from hand to hand, trying to keep it from dropping to the floor.
"Hey, Patti. Easy now, gal. Don't make me drop your food. It's hot,' she cried, trying to duck away from the girl's windmill of limbs.
"Kris?" Patti's voice broke and she stopped her battering.
"Ohhhh, you scared me."
"Didn't mean to. Sit up, will you.
This's hot! Use your sleeve Patti rolled down the overlong cuff and, using it as a pad, took the piece from Kris, who set about licking her fingers, as Patti regarded her portion suspiciously.
"Don't ask what it is "cos no-one's named the thing yet but it tastes pretty good and it is hot."
"I don't think I could eat anything - - -) Patti said and held it out to Kris.
"No way, gal. You eat it. Think of it as the fried chicken your mother
used to make - - -"
"No'm, I won't, "cos she couldn't cook worth doodly," Patti said in the only personal comment yet to pass her lips.
Eyes closed, she then pulled her lips from her teeth and took a tiny and tentative bite. "Oh! It isn't bad, is it?" And opened her eyes, eating with more relish. "Or maybe it's "cos I'm so famished."
"Patti, you didn't think to hide your bars, did you?" Kris asked gently.
No-one would . . ." and with one hand she felt anxiously beside her and under her blanket, her face falling into tragic lines as she realized that her packet was gone. She started moaning and nearly dropped the meat.
Kris propped her drooping hand back in the direction of her mouth.
"So eat that, and we'll share. It's not the end of the world because they've found a storage cave with food in it."
"Cave? Food?" Patti seemed to shrink in on herself with fear. "There are Catteni living on this world, too?"
"No, not according to our live Catteni expert Patti's eyes got wider
with her fright. "A Catteni - - "Eat!' Kris said urgently. "There was
one Catteni dropped along with us and he's not a bad guy. He won't
bother you -"
"Oh, oh, oh," and Patti moaned all the time she nibbled at the meat.
Kris had heard about dainty eaters but Patti took the prize.
Kris stayed with Patti Sue then, as much because the girl was so preternaturally frightened of every footstep in the corridor outside, every shadow that interrupted the torchlight into their cubby, as because she was also tired. Her hands and arm muscles ached from her stint at dressing meat and she had a couple of little nicks from kife cuts which were annoying. Then she remembered her first-aid kit and dabbed them with the yellow liquid It stung briefly but she knew that the Cat disinfectant would reduce any chance of infection.
She suggested a dip to Patti Sue but when she had to tell the girl how to get there and the primitive conditions, Patti just curled up, hugging her knees to her chest, and moaned.
"You're going to have to stop moaning, girl," Kris said, driven to it. "I don't mind, but there are others who will. We're all in the same condition - smelly, scared and suspicious. So you're not alone."
"But "Patti Sue began, her eyes wide and distressed, as she once again began to either apologize or explain.
She shut her mouth for a long moment. "You're right.
I am chicken livered. I always have been and I guess I always will be. And I won't say I'm sorry. I am what I am." 9' Kris began to regret her outburst. "Honey, we all are.
Scared, I mean."
"Are you still my buddy?" And the piteousness of her tone and the beseeching look in her eyes touched Kris the way the constant stream of apologies hadn't.
"You got raped, kid?" Kris asked, hunkering down beside her.
A convulsive shudder swept through Patti Sue's slender frame and she shot Kris an anguished look. "It shows, doesn't it?"
"Not like a birthmark or a scarlet letter," Kris said as kindly as she could. "The giveaway is how you fiinch whenever you hear a man's voice, or see a shadow or someone totally harmless, like Jay Greene, who only tries to help you. I won't say there aren't guys in this group who wouldn't like to well, you know because you're a very pretty and appealing person. But right now, hon, there isn't anyone with much extra energy.
They need it all to stay alive on this crazy world. So why don't you buck up a bit? I'll stick by my ol' trek buddy as much as I can but I think I'm going to be getting some work assignments "or go nutty looking after you. . . Kris added to herself, "that'll take me away from you, so let's introduce you to a couple of other people . . .
women who'll keep an eye on you when I'm not here." Patti Sue had become more and more agitated as Kris explained the situation and Kris could see that the girl visibly fought, and subdued, her immediate reaction to such news.
"Now, c'mon. . . and take your blanket with you. Not that we don't have others but it's wise to keep your things together here." With nervous hands, Patti managed to roll up her blanket and draped it over her shoulder as Kris had.
Still anxious, she followed Kris out of the cave, glancing nervously about when she heard voices issuing from other openings and almost treading on Kris's heels, she was so much her leader's follower.
She hesitated, gasping, when they entered the main cave, as she saw so many people moving about on errands, or squatting by fires to cook, chatting with those waiting for the hot meats. Others were making their way to the entrance.
Surprisingly, Kris saw that the exit looked out on a darkness broken by the ffickering light of torches and a fire. She was somewhat reassured that Mitford felt illumination was safe.
"We're safe here, Patti," she said, motioning to the opening.
"Outside's all lit up like Christmas. Let's go grab some fresh air and get a good seat for the meeting." The main cavern reeked not only of cooking odours but others which were not as savoury and certainly not appetizing.
"Oh . . ." Patti moaned, cringing.
"You might as well, honey, unless you plan on immuring yourself for ever in the stink."
"If you say so. . ." Patti Sue was not going to venture anywhere, even with Kris's assurance.
"C'mon, I think I know where we can sit," and Kris hoped that the darkness would be enough to conceal the evidence that part of the ledge had been an abattoir.
She walked, Patti so close behind her that she hoped the girl wouldn't lurch into her and knock them both off the ledge, to a point just above the fire: a fair-sized one, its flames reflecting off the faces seated around it.
"Hey, we'll have a balcony seat to the events," Kris said.
"Front and centre." Kris sat herself down while Patti Sue edged to Kris's right, with no-one beyond her. Yet.
Kris tried to identify the faces in the firelight: she spotted Zainal easily, sitting beside Mitford; Bass, Murphy, a Rugarian and two Deskis just beyond them, and then faces she vaguely recognized from the march but couldn't put names to.
Patti Sue's fearful gasp alerted her to an approach and the girl gripped her arm with surprisingly strong fingers.
"Easy," Kris muttered under her breath, for she recognized the newcomer. "It's only Jay Greene and he's decent. Hi, Jay. Don't know if you've met my buddy yet. Patti Sue, this is Jay Greene and he's a veritable Nimrod with boy scout snares. Join us. You can be our bodyguard." Kris regretted that ffippancy the moment it was out of her mouth for Patti Sue tried to get inside Kris's skin, she sat so close.
Kris sternly told herself that she might be as nervous if she'd been raped repeatedly, too.
After all, that imminent possibility had prompted her to dare to steal the ffitter and secrete herself in the forest, hadn't it?
Greene sat down a couple of good handspans from Kris. She took the moment to turn to Patti Sue.
"You're about choking the circulation off in my arm.
Relax!" she murmured and felt the clutching fingers ease their stranglehold. She could almost feel the effort it took Patti Sue to remove her hands from Kris's arm. "What's the scam, Jay? You heard anything?"
"Yeah," and the firelight glinted off his white teeth as he smiled. "I hear that we are not alone!" He spaced the words out so that they sounded like the voice-over of a video trailer.
Patti Sue's hands returned to crush Kris's upper arm.
"I knew that," Kris said and this time just peeled the fingers off, putting the girl's hands back in her lap and giving them a final pat to stay there.
"No, I mean, we're not the only flotsam that got planted on this planet," Greene said.
"Really? Hmm, makes sense, though," Kris said in her most nonchalant tone. Why had she been saddled with such a nerd like Patti Sue! "There were only - what - five, six hundred plonked down in our field. I wouldn't call that an efficient disposition of redundant personnel. That ship they herded us into could handle who knows how many more. I know there were two levels, if not more. Maybe they did a clean sweep of all the holding cells on Barevi.
That would make the journey here economically feasible.
"Well," and Greene shrugged, "I'm not sure anyone could tell." Patti Sue let out little whimpers.
"Look on the bright side, will you, Patti Sue?" Kris said. "You weren't one of them and you're safe with us.
"Safe as houses," he said in a warmly reassuring tone, for which Kris gave him a broad smile and a thumbs up with her left hand which Patti couldn't see. "In fact, the more the merrier.
So long as we can exchange information and band together to solve the problems this place poses."
"Did that scouting party Mitford sent out find what brings in the grain harvest?"
"No," Greene said, shaking his head. "They did find other storage caves, all hollowed out of solid rock. And more valleys of fields and stuff. That's where - - -" Kris gave him a quick flash of her hand to stop him saying anything that would set Patti Sue off again. ". . . Where they could see other heavy vehicles had been parked," he finished off.
They all heard the murmur of voices and saw that people were emptying out of the cave now and either making their way down to the bonfire level or finding spaces on the ledge.
"Do we start off with a national anthem, or a prayer?" Kris quipped to Jay.
"I doubt the good sergeant is religiously inclined," Greene remarked.
"For which I am deeply grateful." Kris felt Patti Sue's body stiffen with resentment at her fiippancy. "We need a realist."
"I second that!" Chuck Mitford had now stood up and raised his hands for quiet.
"This is Mitford speaking, in case any of you can't see me," he said in his gravelly paradeground voice that echoed slightly in the ravine. "We've had several teams out on recon - reconnaissance to those of you who don't know army slang.
"We've found storage caves with enough grains - which we humans at least can digest - to supply us for years. We don't know who - or what - stored the stuff but they're unlikely to notice what we have taken, and will take, once we get our commissary organized. We're lucky to have some botanists among us, who've figured out what we can and cannot eat of the local stuff-berries and roots As you've all found out, the water tastes pretty good.
"We're also looking for additional quarters so we won't be jammed in like sardines "Like those transport ships, maybe?" a man added with droll bitterness and got a laugh.
Mitford's grin was visible in the firelight as he held up his hand.
"We've also discovered that there were other parties . . .
landed here. We haven't made contact but if anyone does, send your buddy back here for assistance.
Don't lead anybody here. Not even other Terrans." He paused to let that warning sink in. "We'll be safe sticking together with folks we've already got to know on the trek here. We'll integrate anyone who wants to but I think they ought to be vetted first." There were murmurs of agreement there.
"No more aliens " a voice said.
"That's a no-go," Mitford said sternly, glaring in the direction of the comment. "I make that plain right here and now. I don't know where you were on Barevi, but I learned that some of the aliens got lust as many smarts as I do." He jerked his thumb against his chest.
"And some have skills I don't. We get to make a fresh start on this planet so let's leave that sort of crap behind us. Huh?" He had a wide murmur of support for that suggestion.
"For those of you who don't know, it was the Deskis who found the caves for us. I doubt we Terrans could have done it. They climb like the spiders they resemble only they're humanoid like us, and I don't want to hear them called spiders any more. Hear me? Well, hear me good. They were ripped away from their planet same as we were. So we treat them the same as we treat one of us - because they are one of us.
Have I made that point clear enough?" The response he got was vociferous from most, which reassured Kris. She tried to spot those who were reluctant to grasp that announcement.
"A Deski carried May Framble's kid on the trek and never made a single complaint. - The look on Mitford's face chided those who had bitched. "So remember, they're in this, too, and pulling their own weight what weight there is of them. The Rugarians are part of us, too, by the sample principle. They accounted for more of our catch than human hunters did." He grinned. "Crack slingshotters!
"Another thing we gotta get straight like right now!" He pointed downwards to emphasize the immediacy.
"Any nasty individual caught stealing someone else's ration bars or in possession of more than a fair share - loses any he or she has on him or her and does latrine duty for a month. Understand?" He glared around the fire and up at the ledges. "We don't have much to steal but this colony isn't going to tolerate any pilfering. Not nohow, no way!' He sliced both hands across his body to indicate the finality of that statement. "You all got that straight?"
"Who made you boss, Mitford?" a male voice demanded irritably.
"You did!" Mitford jerked out his chin and glared in the direction.
Kris thought the voice sounded like the same one that had protested including aliens. She wondered if it was Arnie the weasel-faced but on second thought, Arnie wouldn't have the guts to speak up about anything. He was the kind to go behind your back. And steal a sleeping girl's ration.
"You want the job? Have it!" He made as if to leave the bonfire.
There was immediate loud and vehement protest from human voices and, Kris was glad to hear, a waving of arms and hands from the Deskis and Rugarians.
"I've had years of knowing how to get even more illassorted bunches of bods working together than you possibly could, buddy-' and Mitford's tone made that noun a dirty epithet, "so unless you can beat my twenty-seven years - fifteen of them as a master sergeant - close your mouth hole. Anybody else got some complaints about how I run this chickenshit outfit? No? Well, that shows you've some sense upstairs.
I don't like the assignment any more than you do. But I took it on and I'll see it through until we know what's what on this planet. So listen up now.
"We've got a base camp but we need to check out the area so we don't get any surprises. We weren't the only ones dropped, you know, and some might like to move into our own choice piece of suburban development." That provoked some laughter. "Not much, right now. and his pause suggested that he had many improvements in mind, so there were a few groans. "But we'll do well-if we're let alone. So, two points . . ." and he held up his fingers, "first, we have sentries with their eyes open round the clock, even if we weren't issued one.
Second, when you hear me or a sentry bawling RED ALERT," and he cupped his hands round his mouth and roared the phrase, the sounds reverberating even as the people nearest him flinched back, with sheepish grins, "you come running as fast as you can, knives ready for action.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, my friends," and his expression became very solemn. "We lost out back on Earth but you may be damned sure I don't intend to lose out here. When we were dropped on that field, we got liberated again and I intend to stay that way and alive!
So, any time you hear RED ALERT, whaddya do?" He cocked his head, hand to his ear - "We come running, Daddy," the wit from the shadows beyond the fire yelled.
"You better believe it! We also got to stay healthy so that means latrines, and they need digging where we haven't found long drop holes.
And throw in some sand every time you go. Keeps the smell down. We need hunters out every morning and we need volunteers to try foods and others to cook "em. I talked to a lot of you on the way here but now I need to know which of you have specialist training, like medics or chemistry or even survival courses. Everyone's going to work at something here to make this go. And I don't want any bitching about takilig your turn at the dirty jobs. You'll be rotated. Now, you individuals with special training that I haven't had a chance to talk to, come to this side of the fire when this meeting's over.
You hunters, get your assignments from this Rugarian - he calls himself Slav - and he's got the best throwing arm I've seen since Lou Gehrig "Sarge, you weren't born when Lou Gehrig pitched -" some wit yelled.
"Nope, but I sure saw enough footage on him in his prime. So hunters with Slav. I'll need more scouting parties tomorrow, so if you want some exercise .
and there were guffaws at that, ". . . see Zainal here."
"Until hell freezes over," Mitford said in a tone that brooked absolutely no argument. "He got dumped here just like the rest of us and I'm not brave enough to ask him why.
Again a ripple of surprise but Mitford went on. "I want twenty individuals to make another run to get more grain lemme see a few hands before I volunteer you." The hands were raised, far more than twenty.
"Now, one last thing. There're more males than females. Some of our women got raped by the Catteni. We're humans! No-one bothers a woman in this camp. -, At the first mention of rape, Patti Sue moaned and tried to burrow into Kris. She was trembling all over as Kris put a protective and reassuring arm about her.
"What about a gal raping one of us?" the same wit called, and got snarling reactions from the women nearest him.
"If that kinda rape's inevitable, relax and enjoy it buddy," a woman's voice called out, a distinctly bitter and contemptuous edge to her words.
"I'll personally stake out any man forcing a woman," Mitford said, holding up his big and capable hands. "The same goes for any female dick-teasing." He paused a beat and then gave a wry grin, "That is, if anyone has any energy for anything after a long day here."
"You see, Patti Sue," Kris murmured soothingly, patting the nervous hands clenching and unclenching on her arm, "and he means it.
"He can mean it, but what if "No what-ifs, Patti Sue," Kris said as firmly as she could. But Mitford's call for explorers would give her the freedom to leave this clinging vine tomorrow and do something more noteworthy than gutting squatters.
"You heard and he means it." Patti continued to moan, despite her earlier promise not to "Now, I'll listen to intelligent questions, preferably ones I can answer," Mitford said. "I'll keep an open office but if I'm busy, talk to Bass here. Zainal, you just got appointed our alien liaison man, only because you speak better Barevi than I do.
Dowdall - stand up there, and you, too, Murphy. They're acting as corporals. Got any complaints? Bring "em to them. I assure you they'll be looked into and remedied . . . if humanly possible." "Sergeant Mitford?" A man called, standing up so he could be seen, "any ideas why we got dumped here?"
"Zainal says Cattenis do this to settle some planets.
They come back at intervals to see if anyone's still alive and breathing."
"00 "Then we won't get off?"
"I didn't say that," and Mitford's voice was grim.
"But they have to land to take a looksee, don't they?
There's no guarantee it's them'll take off in the ship, is there?" That comment brought a lot of hopeful murmurs and muffled remarks.
"And one good reason to be friendly to the one Catteni we got on our side," Mitford went on. "Any other questions?"
"Good question and I don't know the answer."
"Does the Cat?" "Our Catteni ally," and Mitford paused to be sure everyone caught his use of the full name, "does not, as his knowledge of this planet is almost as spotty as ours - except he'd heard that some of the indigenous specimens are dangerous. Outside of this camp, you keep your eyes and ears open. Or live long enough to tell us what you saw or heard."
"Gee thanks, Sarge," and a ripple of laughter ran through the crowd.
"Everyone's in remarkably good spirits," Kris said to Greene.
"Amazing how a full belly improves your outlook.
"Some bastard stole Patti Sue's rations," she added.
"Doesn't surprise me," Greene replied in a low voice.
"We can get her more. Or should you keep them safe for her?"
"After what Mitford said about having more than my fair share? Thank you no." "Ooops! Hmmm. Well, I don't think she'll lose "em again.
Maybe you should trade buddies with Sandy."
"A thought," Kris replied, knowing even as she spoke that she'd be conscience stricken if she did.
"She's one tough lady and will watch out for the girl," Jay said. "And someone's going to have to watch for her because she's sure one nervous kid." Kris sighed.
Decisions, decisions. But she wasn't going to be tied by Patti Sue to the cave and not get some "exercise'. And she'd survived on her own on Barevi, so she was confident she could be useful as a scout or food hunter here on wherever they were.
She cupped her hands to her mouth before she could think twice.
"Hey, Sarge, does this planet have a name?" Mitford looked up, trying to see her in the darkness beyond the firelight.
"Bjornsen? Zainal, you guys name your planets?" Zainal stepped into the firelight. "Only numbers," he said in Barevi, shrugging.
"What about "Bounty"? Like in Mutiny on the " a woman called.
"Be positive - El Dorado." The exchange of names and opinions stirred an uproar which Mitford let go on for a while before he held up his hand.
"Murphy found some sort of chalk. He'll put it by the cave entrance and those of you who can write - " there were laughs, "can put up your choice of name. We'll settle the matter tomorrow right here," and he pointed to the fire, "when we issue tomorrow's progress report.
"Gotcha!" was bellowed back at Mitford from every corner and the word bounced about the ravine.
"OK then. Sentries, take your positions. You'll be relieved at first moonrise. DisMISSED!" Despite the military order, Mitford was grinning as he stepped back from the fire and into the darkness beyond it.
"C'mon, Patti Sue," Kris said, rising to her feet. "I want to find Sandy and see where she's sleeping. That way you'll know who to go to tomorrow." Patti Sue was clutching her arm again. "Tomorrow?
"Honey, I can and I will," Kris said. "You'll be all right. You heard Mitford. No-one's going to mess with you.
"But supposing "Shut up, Patti Sue," Kris said firmly, giving the girl a shake. "I can't babysit you every minute of the day."
"Oh," and Patti sank back in on herself.
"Now, Miss Patti," Greene said in a soothing voice, making no move towards the frightened girl, "you will be safe. Sandy and I are supposed to inventory the supplies we've got and what's been brought in. We may have to use the walls for our records but I got some of the chalk Murphy found and you can be our secretary. Is that what you did on Earth?"
"Secretary?" Patti's voice took on a little substance.
"Yes, I was a secretary. A good one but "You've just been promoted to the job here," said Greene so kindly that Kris could have kissed him.
"You heard Mitford - we all have skills that he can use, Patti Sue," she said and, with one hand around the girl's waist, eased her along the ledge to the entrance.
"We'll just find Sandy. We'd better move along now or we might miss her. She's good people.
"But you're my buddy," Patti Sue said in a quavering tone.
"Yes, I was," Kris's conscience forced her to say, "for the trek, but that's over and we're here. Besides, Sandy's a good cook and it's a smart idea to be on the right side of the cooks, you know. Now let's find her." They did, grilling the last of the day's catch.
"Sentries get what's left over," she said, taking in Patti Sue's terrorstricken face and smiling reassuringly. "Patti Sue, you just sit here, right by me. . ." and she physically manhandled Patti Sue into the space she wanted her in. "You go on now, Kris, so Patti Sue and I can get acquainted." Give the woman her due, Kris thought, she didn't even blanch at the idea of having Patti Sue hanging on to her.
As Kris hastily departed, Greene on her heels, she heard Sandy telling the girl that she had a daughter about Patti's age and where she had come from on Earth.
"You can't be saddled with that one any longer," Jay said as they made their way down to the bonfire.
""And there's no discharge in the war"," Kris chanted out, resorting to Kipling.
"Beyond the fire, I think - -" It was an easier climb down than up, so she realized that wider, better steps had been carved out of the cliffside at some point during that day.
They had to wait their turn to speak to Mitford as there were no lack of volunteers for the scouting and hunting parties. Maybe another day Kris could go to the caves to see the stores with her own eyes.
"Got room for me on a scouting party tomorrow, Sarge?" Kris asked when he looked around and saw her. When he spotted Greene behind her, he scowled. "Oh, I left Patti Sue with Sandy but I've got survival skills "Yeah, you did well on Barevi," Mitford said but she thought, for a moment, that he had other plans for her.
"The skills're good anywhere. . .in the universe.
and she grinned. "Sides I had a good rest today, gutting beasties."
Mitford hesitated until he saw Zainal watching him.
"Go with our ally. You're safer with him."
"I am?"
"You better believe it." That came out as a growl.
"Rendezvous at last moonset. Same cave? Good, Zainal'll know where to find you." He started to turn to those waiting behind her.
"Sarge, someone stole Patti's rations while she slept." Mitford nodded to Jay Greene. "Mark a package with her name then, Greene, and keep it in stores. At best, she'll get used to dealing with a male again. Next?" And he looked beyond them to others waiting patiently for his attention. Kris and Jay moved off.
"I don't know if that was an insult or not," Jay murmured drolly.
"Well, I'll know it's safer in your care and she'll get fed."
"Patti Sue'll always get fed," Jay said cryptically.
to her, then she stretched out and there was space left for Sandy, at least, and probably someone else. Because her noise would keep everyone awake, Kris leaned over and, shaking the woman, suggested that she turn on her side. Sleepily the woman complied, and then Patti sighed deeply in appreciation as she made herself as comfortable as possible.
Not that Kris needed any help getting to sleep. She didn't even turn once - that she remembered.
Kris collected Patti Sue from Sandy, trying to ignore the look in the girl's eyes which suggested that she had doubted that Kris would return for her. Sandy asked which cave they were stashed in and she'd just change her bedroll into it.
Kris escorted Patti to the water containers for a drink, and then to the latrine cave and showed her how to take care of that basic problem before they retired.
There was one woman fast asleep and snoring along the inside wall.
So Kris directed Patti Sue to lie next io6
Chapter Five
The panorama from the top of the cliff was breathtaking - and Kris needed to get her breath back after the climb Zainal had led his squad on. Before them stretched, in a westerly direction - as far as the eye could see - the large neat fields, punctuated by streams that glistened as sparkling ribbons in the morning sun. Some of the fields were occupied by grazers whose form was difficult to decipher at this distance. Off to the south there was a huge body of water but whether it was an ocean or a lake could not be ascertained.
This party had also been told to hunt and Zainal had said tersely that it was best to hunt farther from the camp. To this, all the experienced hunters agreed. There was little grumbling from the humans about the Catteni - or none after they'd been on their way an hour for he set them a bruising pace, and sheer human perversity required the eight members of her species to keep up with Slav, the Rugarian and the two Deskis, Zewe and Kuskus - or that was what their names sounded like.
Mitford's claim that the Deskis were useful was borne out when the spindly creatures seemed to ooze up cliffs.
They didn't have suckers on their feet but that was the impression you got, Kris thought. They stood firm behind the ropes they let down for others. So did Zainal, who was the first humanoid to follow. Some way or other, in the five ascents made, Kris always seemed to get hauled up by Zainal, who grinned each time he handed her safely onto the next level. She felt oddly pleased by his continued attention . .
. considering the fact that it was all her fault he was on this planet anyhow.
A day on Botany, which was what Kris privately decided to call the planet, was longer than on Earth and Barevi, so they'd been going quite a long time before the sun was at zenith, which was when Zainal called a meal-break halt on the summit. The ration bars would have gone down more easily with some water to soften them, though they'd all had a good drink at the last stream. Kris, dangling her legs over the edge of their vantage point, munched away and looked at the view, trying to figure out what crops were being grown, and for whom. As far as she could see, the land was cultivated or used as pasture, yet Zainal had repeatedly said the planet was not inhabited, so who was nurturing it and why? Considering that the harvestings were stored in caves, could the consumers be cave dwellers, residing deep within the planet? That would explain why there were no cities or visible occupants.
Not that Kris was eager to meet troglodytes.
The range of hills, of which this was an outcropping, loomed behind and around them, spreading to the east.
Mitford had marched them northwards from the field on which they had been dropped by the Catteni, up the ravines until the caves had been found. But those had showed no signs of occupation, past or present, even by the local wildlife which apparently favoured forested and vegetated areas. Curiouser and curiouser, Kris thought.
Just then the Rugarian, Slav, uttered an odd cry and pointed, his oddly jointed furry arm directing everyone's attention to the northwest. Kris could see nothing but more rolling fields in their neat patchwork arrangements.
Shielding his eyes, Zainal peered out and jabbered
something to the Rugarian who gave his head a sharp affirmative nod.
Zainal turned to the others. "Slav has seen what is different'.
. . not animal." He made a cube shape with swift gestures.
"Any people?" Kris asked, thinking that the presence of geometrical objects might indicate another drop point and more castaways. Not that she really wanted more people whose needs had to be considered.
The field was a fair distance away, though there were two little forests to traverse and, in each, the guys with slingshots brought down some of the alien birdy-like things and enough rocksquats to make the hunt worthy of the name. Kris had coaxed one of the hunters into letting her try her hand with the sling when he didn't need it. By the time they had reached the second wood, she was getting closer to the target she aimed at.
"Wait'll you see a covey of the critters," Cumber suggested, "and then, if you miss what you're aiming at, you might hit something else." "You're encouraging," Kris replied.
"Are you?" and Cumber cocked his head at her, his eyes bright with suggestion.
"Well, on that score, no, buddy, not encouraging," she said bluntly but with a smile.
She would have liked to stride forward, right up on top of Zainal's heels, but that didn't seem a good idea either, so she shortened her stride and dropped back with the Deskis, who were ambling along, both festooned with necklaces of the rocksquats which their unerring aim had downed. They were as good as hunters as they were as climbers.
The cubes were indeed Catteni-issue: one was even unopened and contained blankets, which Zainal parcelled out among the hunters to be carried back. There were dried brown puddles in an irregular pattern across the field but little else. Kris felt a wave of regret for those who had lost their lives here from "unknown assailants', as a news bulletin might say.
Reassembling her clutch of blankets, Kris saw the Rugarians quartering the field while Zainal had several others spread out and searching the borders.
"Think those flying things got "em?" Cumber asked, returning to her.
"Or what comes out of the ground in the dark and sucks corpses dry," Cumber went on, waiting to see the effect his words had on her.
"This world does its own recycling," she replied. "No waste, no debris, no Coke bottles nor dead aerosol cans."
"Huh?" Cumber was plainly a literal-minded man and her facetious remark did not register with him.
Then one of the border patrol let out a shout and everyone, of course, had to go and see what he'd found: a clear trace that some large objects had pushed their way through the bushy hedge.
"Looks like something stampeded through there," Cumber told Kris.
She could see the line of retreat, or flight, through the foot-high crops in the next patch. At that moment one of the Rugarians shouted.
"Quiet, he says," Zainal said in his deep-voiced Barevi just loudly enough for the entire group to hear him.
Slav was gesturing with his knife, and then Kris clearly heard him use the Barevian word "hot' "Hot metal?" she asked, making her voice carry as far as she could.
she strode towards the knot of people clustering about Slav.
"Hot metal?" he was asked. Someone else pulled out their knife, miming a hot blade.
"Yissss," and the Rugarian pointed downhill and inhaled deeply.
"He smells hot metal," Kris said.
Zainal took charge, directing everyone to hide behind the hedges, and for Slav and a human male to go and investigate.
"Hot metal? The people who farm this planet coming to see who's messing up their fields?" Kris asked of noone in particular.
"Bout time someone came to have a looksee, if ya ask me," Cumber said in a pessimistic tone.
"And all we got is knives!" The returning scouts were not much ahead of the "thing' that lumbered after them. Only it wasn't after them: it was following a course to the fields above. It was gliding along on an air cushion, for it negotiated the hedges in a smooth hop and, while Kris and everyone else watched in fascination, it reached one of the crop-bearing fields and immediately went into a different mode: spraying the field.
"Willya looka that!" The speaker rose to full height in his surprise. Immediately those on either side of him pulled him back down behind the screening hedges. "Ah, it am got no eyes. It's just a farm machine. An' I think I saw another one down below, spraying another field." He was correct, as everyone iminediately discovered, by the simple expediency of taking a careful look.
"Close look now," Zainal said in Barevi and pointed at not only Cumber but Kris and Slav to take the detail.
"Stay down. Stay quiet. Don't know what these machines can do."
"Wal, I doan mind restin' my dawgs," was someone's response. "That Cat can sure trot the clicks." Kris was rather pleased to be singled out as someone whose opinion on the machine might be useful. Crouching low, and indeed Zainal moved as close to being on all fours as she'd ever seen a man move - even in Rambo pictures - they traversed the field where another group of whilom settlers had been deposited. They could see the top third of the machine, diligently switching back and forth, spraying evenly.
"That's why the fields are so damned regular, Cumber muttered beside her. "So the machines don't have to do corners or nothin'."
"Work efficient," ris replied in a whisper.
Zainal's hand figgged at them, and they saw him put his finger to his lips for silence. Kris grimaced at having to be reminded.
Machines who came all on their own to do even methodical tasks might be programmed for other actions.
When they got closer to the farther hedge, Zainal motioned them to get even flatter to the ground. Kris suppressed a groan as she fell to her belly and inched along like the rest of them.
They found gaps at the base of the hedges, between the thick trunks of the vegetation, and peered out at the machine which was now on the far side of the field. It was still balanced on its air cushions, still spraying, and the only mechanism that it reminded Kris of was a Dalek from old Dxtor Who videos.
"Exterminate. Exterminate." The Dalekian cry echoed through her head and she wondered just how apt it was.
Was the thing spraying fertilizer or insect killer? It was nearly finished, whatever. When it got to the last corner, however, it turned and came towards them.
Zainal signalled for them to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible by squinching up against, under if possible, the thick hedge.
Kris heard the thing nearing just as she also damned near gutted herself on a pointy root. Grimacing, she endured the discomfort for what seemed to be hours.
She heard a clicking, whirring, and other such noises that were so much like the sounds of that old Doctor Who series that she was also close to laughter. Except this wasn't a laughing matter.
Then the machine "jumped' the hedge and they all got a blast of hot, smelly, metallic air before it swept across the field, not touching any of the debris but certainly, Kris felt sure, checking it over.
Another hopscotch leap and it left, fortunately never getting into the field where the rest of the hunters were, hopefully, making themselves as scarce as possible.
"That thing's dangerous," Cumber told Zainal who merely nodded.
"We get the others and leave, he said, emphasizing the last word significantly.
Slav, who had been listening carefully to the Catteni, now raised his hands to his lips and emitted a shrill sound that wasn't bird call or dog call or anything.
It was answered by a similar call from Zewe.
"Tell. Go," and Slav pointed uphill, the way they had come.
"Good!" And so they started on the way back, joining the rest of the hunters by the time they reached the next field.
The Deski then gave one of their warnings, quick gestures indicating flying things and everyone froze in their tracks. A formation of five flyers came gliding in from the east, swooping down over the field and then quartering it. As nothing moved, the predators were baulked of their reward and, with squawks of complaint drifting back to the breathless waiting hunters, they proceeded on down the slope.
"Wow!" Cumber said in a low and respectful voice.
"That damned machine called in an alarm."
"We weren't seen by it," Kris said thoughtfully, "so it must have some sort of sensor because it sure knew we were there. Like a Dalek."
"A what?" Cumber clearly had never watched the old SF serials.
"A robot with deadly intentions.
One of the other men grinned and said in a nasal falsetto, "Exterminate!
Exterminate !"
"Hey, Mac, keep it down!" someone else ordered in a nervous whisper.
"What is said?" Zainal quietly asked in English.
"The machine reported our presence," Kris said, miming the actions of her words. "It may be heat sensitive. Knew we were in the hedge because of body heat." Zainal nodded. "Take good care. We go to caves now.
Hunt. But watch always." He tapped Slav and Zewe and gave them some rapid orders. "They hear best," he added to Kris.
The two Deskis moved to the sides of the group and then, on Zainal's signal, everyone moved off again.
The return home was even rougher, with all the descents to be made while they were laden with the rewards of their hunting. No unusual hazards were encountered. On the plus side, the sixlegged grazers which they had spotted in the field bled red blood when nicked. Two were slaughtered and dressed right there in the field so that their meat could be portioned out among the hunters to carry home. The additional blankets were put to good use. And were very helpful later when the insects began to rise after the sun went down.
Deskis evidently had a sharp homing instinct because they led the way back in the serni-darkness. Kris had never been so glad to see the campfires of home!
There was certainly applause for the hunters when they returned so well laden. No sooner had Kris divested herself of her burden than Zainal touched her arm and gestured for her to join him in reporting to Mitford.
Cumber and Slav were there, too.
"Cumber said you identified these machines, Kris," Mitford said.
He looked very tired.
"Me? No, not really, only that they're some sort of robot.
"Cumber said they didn't even touch the ground."
"Air cushion propulsion?"
"Hmmm. High tech. And heat seekers?"
"Well, the machine must have called in those flying predators," Kris said. "And there were five of "em, so I'm extrapolating that the machine sensed our five bodies hidden in the hedge. But anyone's guess is as good as mine," she ended modestly.
"But yours is a tad more educated from watching all those kidvids.
I'll buy it, Bjornsen, I'll buy it. G'wan now, and you as well, Cumber.
We've got a sort of bread tonight, soda bread." He grinned.
"One of the chemists found a deposit of sodium bicarbonate. Bread doesn't taste half bad - if you're hungry enough and you ignore occasional grits from the grinding.
No sooner had Kris reached the main cave, to stand in line for her hunk of bread, than Patti Sue discovered her.
The girl threw her arms about Kris's neck and howled with tears of relief.
"Hey, now, Patti Sue, I was perfectly all right," Kris told the girl, trying to calm her down to mere hysterics.
Sandy came to her rescue. "There now, Patti, I told you Kris can take care of herself." Patti Sue was persuaded to release her death hold on Kris. As she stood back, she looked down at her front, now smeared with what also covered Kris's garment.
"Probably blood," Kris said, for the meat she had lugged back had dribbled down her, attracting the insects.
"Oh my gawd!" And Patti Sue backed away from Kris as if she had turned leprous.
"Guess I need a bath," Kris said cheerfully and, taking her portion of bread, ate it on the way down to the underground lake to make herself more presentable.
She wasn't the only one to want to get clean. There were quite a few white bodies splashing in the water.
Someone had added more ropes. Pausing only to add her wraparound boots, food packet and blanket to the row of similar belongings awaiting the return of their owners, she grabbed a spare tether and plunged into the water. Twisting the rope about one wrist, she then winkled herself out of the garment and rinsed it thoroughly. The water was invigoratingly cool and somewhat restored her energy level. She got out, drying herself on her blanket and then wrapping it sarong fashion. She squeezed the water from her coverall and then made her way back out of the lake cavern. She was sure she'd sleep that night.
She did. Until Zainal roused her. It had to be the middle of the long
Botany night because everyone around her was fast asleep, especially
Patti Sue who would have had a ii6
knicker attack if she'd awakened to see the Catteni so close by.
There was just enough light supplied by the ffickering torch in the passageway for her to see Zainal touch his lips for silence.
Groaning involuntarily because she was stiff from yesterday's exertions, she had trouble rising.
Zainal put out a helping hand and - zip - she was on her feet.
She grinned up at him as she followed him out. He didn't release her hand and she was content to let it stay in his strong mitt. She had to entertain the thought that she was definitely attracted to the Catteni, and not just because he was taller than she was. He had conducted himself with such dignity and tact during the past few days that surely even those who violently hated the Catteni couldn't fault him.
Certainly Mitford had made it plain to the motley crew that Zainal was a large and useful entity in their continued survival. Once the euphoria of the past few days settled into boring routine and less exciting uncertainty, she suspected there would be problems.
"Trouble?" she whispered in Barevi once outside the room. "Don't you ever sleep?"
"Not in danger," he murmured back and led her on.
It was third moonset when they got outside. Kris could see faces lit by the campfire in the ravine; one of them was Mitford's.
"Sorry to rouse you, Bjornsen," he said with a grin and gestured for her to hold up her cup. She didn't realize until that moment that she had unconsciously gathered up her accoutrements; her blanket, the cup and her ration bars. "As far as my internal clock is concerned, this is well past dawn."
"And you're a creature of habit?" she grinned at him, accepting the warm liquid. It was some sort of herbal tea which was an improvement on bare, naked hot water.
"Pull up a stone," he added and she sat on the one just to his right. "I want you to go with Zainal, here, and Slav and the Deski Coo, and suss out what other surprises this place has in store for us.
No sense in thinking we're safe in this ravine. One of the egg-heads mentioned that there are indications this," and he waved about the walls of the ravine, "may get flooded in spring. High-water marks and scrapings of trees on the sides, higher up than we can stand, and I ain't that good at treading water." With a start Kris wondered if he was quoting an old Bill Cosby routine.
"I want you to take several days circle around our position here," and he gestured.
"Go straight out as far as you can go in a day's march, making a map of the terrain. Zainal here says he knows how to map. He's picking up English real good. Officer material for sure." This last Mitford said in a lower voice and with a grin meant for Kris alone.
"Seeing as how you know him, and seem to be able to charade things to Slav and Coo, you'd be the human in the team. Unless you got any real objections to the duty."
"Is there going to be trouble for the. . .
ah. . . aliens, Sarge?"
"Ain't there always?" Mitford said in a cynical tone. "I can trust you, Bjornsen," he added in a dark low tone.
"You've proved you can hack it, too."
"Thanks, Sarge," and Kris felt a good deal taller for that unexpected praise.
"And with the Catteni along, he'll see you don't come to harm."
"Thanks, Sarge, she said, this time wryly. Build "em up to knock "em
down, but she grinned to show she had ii8
no ill feelings. It was enough that the sergeant wasn't as misogynistic as some career soldiers she'd heard about.
"I want you to draw additional rations from Greene for all of you.
Seems like the Deski can't stomach the red meat and they need somethin' in their diet, though what it is I haven't been able to figure out." He sighed.
"That's another reason I'm sending one along with you And you're to eat!" He shot one thick index finger at her so suddenly that she rocked back. "We've got enough to supply patrols away from camp. That stuff may be less tasty than field rations, even, but it's got all the nutritional crap you need to march on. Get another issue of blankets and an extra coverall. Got it?"
"Got it, Sarge," she said, her hand half way to her brow to salute when she realized that might not be appropriate even if it was an instinctive reaction to his manner.
"Good," and he grinned in the firelight, having caught that abortive gesture. "Zainal, get the rations and supplies and move out at your leisure."
"Leisure' in army parlance meant right smart. So, in next to no time, they were making their way in dawn's early light up the ravine and into undiscovered country.
Zainal led at a spanking pace that didn't seem to alter, whatever the terrain they had to traverse. But, like Mitford, he did call a halt when full daylight lit the skies.
The first thing Zainal did was tie a knot in a thin strip of blanket, of which he had quite a few tucked inside a thigh pocket. A tally rope? Well, they had no writing materials and Zainal, strong as he was, couldn't exactly carry a sheet of rock with him to chalk up the miles.
Or should she say "klicks' since she was on a military operation?
"What are you counting, Zainal?" she asked.
"Steps, so I know distance," he said in Barevi.
"Oh. . ." and that steady pace now made sense. "What's the Catteni word for miles, or kilometres? How do you measure distance?"
"My . . . step . - he said tentatively in English.
"Stride is the better tem," she said.
"Stride is one Catteni pleg."
"Pleg for the leg," she said, using her own brand of aide-rninoire.
"Make a stride for me, please?"
"Hnunm,' and he complied.
Stretching her own long legs to their limit, she could lust about make the same length. "Hmmm. Over a metre then. Hmnnn. Well, I could almost spell you on a level surface so you could have a break."
"Hmmm,' he said again, blinking rapidly as he sifted the meaning of her words.
So she "charaded' what she'd said and then he understood with a grin.
"One pleg is almost dead on a metre. One pleg, one metre," she said.
Slav and the Deski were watching, too, their expressions keen enough to show they were interested in the demonstrations. So she pointed to the Rugarian, gestured for him to take a stride. His was the same length as hers, but the Deski's was much longer since he had spider-like, long leg-bones. Although Kris tried to get Slav to tell her what a pleg was in his language, and attempted to extract the same information from the Deski, she had no success.
Both kept saying stolidly "pleg, pleg' A plague on it, she thought but smiled and patted each in turn before she sat down again to get the good of the rest period. She wasn't sure if they didn't care to have a language lesson or if they had some obscure reason for sticking so perversely to the Barevi words. Both Rugarian and Deski had rather flat, inflectionless voices, but then what she knew of Catteni was flat and inflectionless, too.
The lingua Barevi had had more rhythin and tone to it than the languages in which Zainal had spoken to both Slav and Coo.
As they hiked on, they reached another plateau where a second break was called: another knot in the tally string.
When Zainal told her how many pleg each knot represented, she realized they were travelling at slightly better than four miles an hour. . . that is, if Zainal was stopping every hour. So, in the next onward push, she counted the minutes while he counted his paces. She thought she might have lost a few minutes because she got sidetracked watching the Deski check the vegetation on the plateau what there was of it because there were no fields or hedges or much of anything. But just when she felt they had been marching the hour, Zainal called a halt.
"Gee, man, you got a clock in your head?" she asked as he made a third knot.
He raised a querying eyebrow at her. It made his face seem more humanish, less Cattenish.
"Lordee, how do Catteni tell time?" she muttered to herself, trying to remember if he'd had some sort of digital device on his wrist, like good space farers should, when she'd first encountered him.
"Time," he picked up on that word and tapped his skull.
"Time kept here. Good time.
"Now, don't tell me your home world has long days and nights like Botany?" The two of them spent the rest period explaining and understanding that concept.
"Full turn of planet is not as long as here," he said in the best English sentence he had so far made.
"Boy, you sure learn fast."
"Is "boy" a good thing to say of me?" Again that quizzical expression.
"Well, yes," Kris replied, grinning, delighted with his sense of humour:
something she hadn't thought Catteni possessed. "But you are a man, I am a woman. Boy is a young man. I'm using it in the context of a slang expression so it doesn't mean the same thing as the word should." He grinned in such aolite way that she wasn't sure if he understood her explanation at all before he gestured them to take up their journey again.
The day grew warm on the plateau, which had no shade at all on its sandy and gritty surface, only the wiry plants with their odd-shaped leaves that didn't look like anything on any Earth. Coo kept tasting plants and even different coloured patches of soil as they went, usually spitting the samples out, so that Kris wasn't sure what verdict was being rendered. She was becoming so thirsty that her tongue felt swollen so on what was the midday rest stop she didn't have the desire to banter with Zainal. The others took out "lunch', gnawing off good hunks from their bars, but she didn't think she had enough saliva in her mouth to chew much less swallow.
"You bite, you chew, be better," Zainal said kindly and rolled his mouthful about to show that he wasn't swallowing either.
She tried a small piece and discovered that something in the bar helped generate some moisture. She didn't eat as much as the other three but felt better for what she did put in her stomach They travelled on then, the plateau gradually sloping down to a lusher sort of terrain. And a stream. She had to summon up all her self-restraint not to prostrate herself in the stream but carefully to re-educate her mouth and throat to wetness.
"God, what I'd give for a canteen.
"What is this "god" so many call on?" Zainal asked.
"Another "boy"?" Coming as the question did in Zainal's rich guttural voice, it sent Kris into a fit of the giggles. She'd often been told that she had an infectious laugh - and had proved it from time to time by setting a whole classroom off - but it pleased her no end that the effect extended to another species. The Catteni's chuckle sounded very human. Slav cocked his head at her and frowned while Coo merely looked at her in consternation, as if the Deski thought Kris was having a fit or convulsion.
"I won't answer that question now, Zainal," she said when she had reduced giggle to grin. ""God" was never a boy! I will explain another time when we have several years at our disposal." Zainal frowned, not having understood all she said.
Which was about par for the course, she thought. And just as well.
Having drunk sufficient water to revive herself, Kris now pulled out the rest of her lunchtime bar and finished it. She was ready to go then but Zainal did not urge them away from this pleasant spot, as much because there were new varieties of plants along the stream bank which Coo was sampling with great eagerness. He came back with something which he showed to Kris, the first time he had done that.
"Looks like a kind of watercress to me, she said, testing one of the stems and a leaf. "Can you eat it?" she asked, gesturing to her mouth with the sample.
The Deski nodded, popped a stalk into his mouth and chewed with every indication of pleasure. Kris nibbled carefully and, feeling her lips and gums go slightly numb, buried her face in the water and gargled vigorously. She felt Zainal's hands on her shoulders supporting her. She rinsed and gargled, being careful not to swallow, and rinsed and rinsed until the sensation was washed away.
"Thanks, Zainal," she said and then saw how concerned all three of her companions were. "Oh, I'm fine. I didn't swallow any of it. All yours, Coo, all yours." The Deski nodded vigorously and made a show of clutching the rest of the sample plant to his chest.
"No more try," Zainal told her sternly.
"You bet!" His concern altered to a glare of frustration. "More "boy" words?"
"Well," and Kris rocked one hand back and forth to indicate neither one nor another. Lord, but she'd never appreciated how complex English is. Or did she mean idiomatic American?
They went on then, until Kris wondered how much longer she could ignore the swelling of her feet which the wraparound boots were not compensating for. And she'd thought she was fit! Ha! She had dropped behind the two aliens - two of her companions, she amended quickly and found herself watching the rippling of the hairs on the Rugarian's legs. His feet did look funny in the wraparound Catteni footwear and he didn't seem to have "muscles' where humans did: but depressions came and went with each stride sort of laterally instead of up and down the way calf muscles did. And in front of him, Coo seemed only to have leg bones, no muscular movement at all, only the tendons - or what passed for tendons on a Deski - on either side of the one leg bone, lifting and lowering it, like the shaft of a crane. She tried to imagine the anatomy of her companions, sans skin, and failed utterly. Biology had not been one of her stronger subjects. Oh, the gaps in her education.
Well, there's nothing like on-the-job training, she thought, or whateve? it was they were now doing.
Some place and time later, she was able to stop moving her legs and was sat down on a rock. There was a small fire enclosed in a circle of rocks and around a cairn of rocks. Odd formation, she thought bemusedly. Then, as the buzz of fatigue allowed it, Kris could hear the babbling of a brook near by. Water! She half rose and then was pushed back onto the rock and presented with a big leaf.
"Drink!" She grasped the leaf, feeling the thickness of it, and found a "lip' from which to drink. The water was ever so cold and tasted ambrosial. Real Adam's ale!
"More?" asked Zainal, looming over her.
She struggled to rise. "I can get my own water - Ohhh, no," and her voice came out just this side of a wail. Zainal's big hand pushed her back onto the stone just as she realized how weak she was.
She sipped this time and was able to take in more of her surroundings.
Someone was chipping rocks?
She looked around and saw Slav and Coo hammering a hole out of the slab of rock not far from the fire. They were on an outcropping that edged yet another of the fields, a metre above ground level.
Large-leaved plants formed a bit of a canopy over the portion of the cliff, affording them some shade. Beyond this small campsite she saw the spray from a little cataract that spilled off the rock and down into a pool, then on down across the field. A crop field, she noticed.
Looking back, she realized with a start of amazement, they were making a rock cauldron. On the far side of the campfire were the limp carcasses of rock-squatters and some other smallish beasties she hadn't seen before - sixlegged - which, she thought idly, would make skinning them tedious. Then Zainal knelt to perform that task. Rather deliberately, she thought, he gathered up the entrails and threw them off, onto the field below.
"Zainal," said Slav and pointed to the now sizeable hole they had chipped into the rock.
"Water," Zainal said, and Slav and Coo, reaching up to pluck more big leaves from the trees shading them, made several trips each.
When the hole had been filled to within a handspan of the top, Zainal threw in the dissected joints of the animals and Coo added some roots, similar to the ones already in use at the cave. Then Zainal, deftly using a forked stick, started transferring hot rocks into the improvised stew pot.
Kris was delighted and clapped her hands that someone was making use of her suggestion. She reached about her and gathered up more stones which she piled in the centre of the fire. They'd probably need a lot to get the stew cooked enough.
Full dark and first moonrise had occurred before they were able to eat, using twigs like chopsticks to get the pieces from pot to leaf. A little salt would have made it even more palatable but hot food in the stomach was enough of an improvement in itself over dry, hard rations no matter how nutritious.
When they had eaten as much as they could, Coo covered the "pot' with a flat rock, wiping his hands as any human would for the finish of a good job.
"Slav, first moonset," Zainal said. "Then Kris, to second moonset. I third, Coo, final.
No-one argued but Kris was glad to have a long enough sleep to restore her energy. She visited the waterfall, drank and then, unfastening the boots, presented her swollen, tired feet to the cascade. She had to set her teeth against the pain but soon enough the abused flesh was too cold to send any other messages to her brain. She stood the cold as long as she could before she hobbled her way back to the fire. She thought her feet flesh had been reduced but she couldn't be sure, they were so numb. Coo and Slav had been off on a necessary absence, too, but they all arrived back to settle down for the night.
She unrolled her blankets, spread them and settled herself on the rocky surface, her freezing feet towards the fire. A good pile of dead material had been piled near at hand to feed the fire through the night. What primeval hold-over made her feel better for having a fire?
It also didn't matter that there was no way to cushion her hips and shoulders on the hard rock: she was too tired to care. Briefly her mind dwelt on the distance they would have travelled that day but she hadn't really noticed how many tally knots were on Zainal's string.
Well, a good night's sleep mended many aches.
Slav woke her and the first thing she noticed was that the first moon was still visible in the sky. But it gave enough light for her to see that Slav was agitated - all the fur on his head was standing up.
He had also roused Zainal. He pointed down to the field and gestured for them to come. Whatever it was did not require either stealth or quiet.
Slav just pointed and looked at them for their reaction.
Kris wanted to throw up. Zainal simply watched the - . things: things with long tentacles and writhing hairs, and seemingly no body unless the body was still underground: the things were crawling over the intestines that he had discarded onto the field. There wasn't that much left of the entrails, for whatever was feeding on them absorbed the matter quickly and, before many minutes had passed, there was only the grassy covering left, no trace of the refuse. Maybe she had lust imagined the squirmy, wriggling roundnesses that had feasted.
Zainal was nodding his head as if this was what he had expected.
Kris swallowed. Was that what had happened to those who had bled on the other field? And the bodies that had been left on the one she had awakened on?
Sure keeps the neighbourhood clean. And those are not "boy" words." In the moonlight his teeth showed whitely "You knew?" she asked him.
"A thinking."
"Thought, you mean.
"Think, thought?"
"Right."
"Sleep now. Show's over." Now where had Zainal picked up that one? Kris wondered as she returned to the warmth of her blankets.
She sighed, maybe she should stay awake and give Slav lust that much more uninterrupted rest. But she was asleep again so quickly and without a single dream - until Slav roused her, to a moonless sky.
She stood her watch, walking the perimeters of their rocky outcropping. Was that why Zainal had picked this camp? Or was it because they could make a stew pot in rock? Not that she didn't put it past this planet to have rockdwellers of horrific abilities, too.
There was no sign of any further activity on the ground, however. And she was a little tempted to throw another piece of garbage down there to see what happened: the sort of compulsion one has to be sure that what one saw was just as horrible the second time as the first.
Night time and silence were great aids to imagination and she had to keep her mind firmiy on the positive things: she was alive, her stomach was full, she was as safe as anyone else in the camp, even if this planet had too many anomalies and mysteries to give anyone peace of mind. So, to keep from thinking of the wrong things, she reviewed all the camping trips she'd ever made the stone pot was a good notion to see if she could remember any other "do-ables'. A knife, a hatchet, a cup and a blanket were not much to survive on, with, by. Not that they hadn't been doing pretty well with just that basic equipment. But there were so many things they lacked. A pail to carry water in, a frying pan to cook food in, a fork or two would be right handy. Why, when she needed it the most, did she not have her Swiss Army knife?
Of course, there were spare blades back at the main caves. Wasn't there someone at the camp who thought he could manipulate blades into other useful tools? Her stomach began to rumble. Damn this planet!
Even meal times were skewed. She slowly ate half a ration bar.
Nowhere near as tasty as that stew.
Despite such a positive bout of thinking, she was glad enough to rouse Zainal to take over sentinel duty The next morning Zainal had already heated up the remainder of last night's stew for breakfast and a hearty one it was - to fill night-empty stomachs. They cleaned up the leftovers, sopping up the last of the juices with another ration bar. Kris was stuffed but she'd work it off soon enough.
She asked Zainal how far they had travelled the day before and he showed her the tally string. She whistled appreciatively: they'd made forty klicks, no mean feat when you considered the ups and downs they'd had to negotiate. Her feet, which she had bathed again in cold water, certainly knew they'd walked that far. Maybe she shouldn't have asked.
It made her feel tired to think she'd trekked that far.
Zainal kicked out the fire and used the stew pot rocks to make a cairn before he signalled them all to move out.
"Circle," he said, gesturing a wide arc, and ending with his finger pointing to the cairn. "Find what is find."
"What we can discover, find, see, know." Kris had never thought of herself as a pedagogue but she had this intense itch to correct Zainal and improve his language skills.
Thank goodness he was amenable to learn-as-you-go.
They jumped down off the outcroppmg and made their way across the field. Zainal moderated his pace from yesterday's stride but not by much. Maybe his feet hurt, too? How much walking did a space trooper get to do?
Coo found some green globes in one of the hedges, which he gobbled juicily, humming happily to himself but Slav curled his upper lip in distaste - a process which fascinated Kris, as Slav really did curl his lip up and into a fold above his uneven set of teeth. She wondered again how Rugarians kept from seriously biting the insides of their lips with such dental equipment.
Everyone kept their eyes open, surveying behind them and above them, especially when they were out in the open. A rearview mirror would have been right handy, Kris thought. Dead things got sucked into the ground at night but clearly the avian critters patrolled by day for their sustenance on things that moved.
"3' The fields were endless on this gently rolling terrain.
Streams were laid on at such intervals that Kris's earlier wish for a canteen was redundant. There were no roads, no bridgs, no fly-overs, nothing more serious than rather abrupt little hillocks of stone that seemed to rise straight up out of the ground. She'd seen something similar somewhere on Earth but it took her some time to dredge up Ethiopia from her memory. Most of the hillocks were bare but a few seemed to have caught enough soil to support bushes, and one or two were crowned with the almost-trees that baby bushes became if they had a chance to live long enough.
Then they came to a whole series of fields that had recently been harvested. No track to tell them what direction the harvesters had come from or gone to.
Although the direction would take them out of the circular loop Zainal had proposed they make, they followed the harvesting signs.
They heard it before they saw it and only had time to take cover before the mechanical gadget floated over the intervening hedge in the very next field.
"Do we stand or run?" Kris whispered hoarsely to Zainal. He shrugged but he was stuck as far into the hedge as he could get, and stock still. She imitated him, wincing as branches dug into the softer parts of her.
They could smell hot metal, combined with odder smells that must have been fuel - only that begged the question in Kris's mind, Who manufactured the fuel, not to mention the machiny? They waited in this position until she got a knotting cramp in one side and grimaced, trying without moving much, to relieve the spasm.
When was that mechanical going to move on? Or, and the thought pierced her with a good deal of fright, was it waiting for reinforcements? Did the machiney on this planet learn? Very carefully craning her neck up, she could see through the funny-shaped foliage of the hedge material that the Dalek hadn't moved a smidgeon: it lust hovered there, on the other side of the hedge.
She poked Zainal who was also watching for movement, and when he carefully turned his head to her, she raised her eyebrows in query.
Just then Coo came alert - not that the Deski hadn't been tense with the waiting. He turned his glance down the field and very carefully pointed out a direction. Something was coming for them? The fliers always seemed to come out of the sun at them. What would be coming up the hill? And should they leave? If they could, with the mechanical monster an arm's length away. And if they did make a run for it, where would they go? There wasn't even a hillock close enough that they could scramble up.
Kris didn't like this at all.
She liked it even less when Coo let out a whimper and pointed with more agitation down the hill.
The things moved so fast that Kris barely saw the glint of them in the sun when they were upon them - and -shooting their little darts.
She felt the prick and she lost consciousness from one moment to the next.
A hand rocking her shoulder roused her from the stupor caused by the drugged dart.
"Kris, wake up." Zainal's voice.
"Lemme sleep." She ached and she was so-o-o-o tired.
"No, we go now or not.
That brought recent events back and she shot up so fast she nearly cracked her head on Zainal's as he knelt beside her.
It was dark all around, but she could make out both Slav and Coo, and then the odd stamping and heavy breathing, as well as animal smells, gave her another clue. They'd been dumped in a barn?
Classified as animals by the mechanical? She didn't know whether she was amused or indignant.
"Water?" And Zainal handed her a full cup which she sipped to revive her parched mouth and throat.
"Thanks." She got up as she finished and, when she would have handed him back the cup, he pointed to the empty loop on her belt.
"Oh! Yes. Thanks again." Then she felt for the important parcel of ration bars and her blankets. All in place and accounted for. She breathed a sigh of relief. "So how do we get out of here?" she asked, sensorially aware of the size, as well as the darkness, of the building.
"This way," and Zainal cupped one big hand under her right elbow and turned her in the right direction.
"Care kind: one of the creatures that made a liquid looing sound.
She blinked furiously to accustom her eyes to the gloom and took a couple of quick and careful steps to catch up with Zainal, Coo and Slav.
"The main door, of course," she murmured when she realized that that was their destination. A very large set of doors. And how they were to open them, when there was no apparent handle or lock or knob - She heard a little snick, a click and a pleased mutter from Zainal and heard the rumble of a door moving on a track as he replaced his boot knife.
"Come," Zainal said, and she and the others wasted no time in slipping out. Zainal carefully closed the door behind him and it snicked once more when shut.
They were by no means clear yet, for their temporary prison seemed to be only one of many such buildings set in a long line, visible as a greater darkness against the lesser one of the sky. For she could see stars above but none of the moons.
"Hold," and Zainal took her hand in his and then she felt Coo's dry fingers closing around her left hand.
Slav, with better night vision, was their leader.
They must have completed a full circuit of the immense yard before they halted again.
"Place to hide?" Zainal asked Slav. The Rugarian shook his head.
Coo said softly. "Up?" and pointed in the direction of the stack of crates that had been halfway round their exploratory circuit.
"Maybe we can see more when a moon comes up," Kris suggested.
Zainal nodded and they made their way back to the tall crates.
Once again, Zainal's height and heft made the difference as he boosted each of his team up onto the first level of the container stack. It took the three of them to haul him to their level. The process was repeated until Zainal decided they were high enough up not to be immediately visible from the ground.
Visible to what? was Kris's question but she didn't voice it.
They had at least reached enough space for all of them to lie down, which seemed the best idea although Zainal just sat, propped against the crate, obviously intending to stand the watch.
"Wake me to spell y,) Kris told Zainal and made to lie down on the hard surface. How odd, she thought, that a simple convenience like a mattress was a distant memo,y.
Then she felt hands pulling at her and, quelling her immediate resistance because the only hands that were that strong were Zainal's, she allowed herself to be pulled around, her head resting on his thigh.
Not quite as hard as the crate, and warm, so she made herself comfortable.
He shifted her briefly and gave her a sort of a pat before he crossed his arms. She was obscurely glad that there were only Slav and Coo to witness this cosiness. Well, hell, she didn't care. She rubbed her head into his leg, wishing the muscles were not quite so firmly packed.
There was rather a lot of Zainal that was commendable.
Slow down, girl, she warned herself. Why, then, do I frel more comfortable with him than with anyone else, even Jay Greene?
The sun suddenly blazing right in her eyes woke her more speedily than any alarm. She was facing into it unlike Coo and Slav who had carefully put their feet in that direction.
Zainal's head had dropped to his crossed arms and he was breathing heavily enough for it to be called snoring.
She was about to wake him when sudden activity below startled her.
Machines were whirring, grinding, revving and there were all kinds of noises, except those of intelligible speech of any kind. She eased away from Zainal - had he moved at all since he had volunteered himself as her pillow? - and crept to the edge and looked down: shuddered and then took a grip on herself. They had climbed considerably higher than she'd realized last night: there was only one more tier of crates above them.
And the crates looked fairly well used, scraped along the sides and dented in places: the usual result of careless packing and unpacking. Only what packed and unpacked them? Where did they get emptied? With what were they now filled?
One building now gushed forth smoke, and another a stench that was unmistakable. Kris had only encountered it once before when she passed a meat-packing company on a detour through a grotty area of Denver.
And it was opposite buildings that resembled the barn they'd been in that night. To confirm her hideous surmise, the double doors of one of the barns now opened and its inhabitants, comprised of the sixlegged grazers and some other smaller and different types, were being herded to the abattoir by a curious mechanical which had long extendable "arms' and which spat electrical sparks at laggard beasts.
All unconscious of their imminent demise, the beasts jogged into the building. Kris steeled herself but heard nothing and saw only the animals entering the building. The doors slid closed and noises she didn't want to describe issued forth, making her clamp her hands to her ears.
"They gather meat, too," Zainal said right beside her.
Instinctively and desperately wanting some comfort for the harrowing sound so near by, she burrowed against him. He was warm, alive and nearly human. To her surprise, he embraced her, soothing her with his hands and thus restoring her courage. It struck her as very odd that a Catteni could be comforting.
It was when the doors of the next barn opened and its occupants were driven out that matters changed abruptly.
For there were recognizable humans staggering out into the light, shielding their eyes from the bright sun that poured, almost obscenely, down the passage between the buildings. They, too, were being herded by a long-armed, spark spitting machine. They were not, as the beasts had been, amenable to such herding.
Even as Zainal reacted, rousing Slav and Coo, some humans were trying to evade the machine's extensions, which was obviously unaccustomed to any sort of protest.
In fact, all the humans seemed to be trying to escape, as if they had figured out the fate which awaited them.
"THIS WAY! HERE!" Zainal yelled, waving furiously and glancing towards Kris to shout directions.
One human spotted them, pointing upwards and calling to the others. Although Kris couldn't imagine how they could manage to help others escape when they didn't even know how to themselves, that was not as important as getting humans out of the clutches of the mechanicals.
The four scrambled down the big crates they had so laboriously climbed the night before. At least, down was easier than up. But it was up they'd need to do again.
The humans pelted down the alleyway to be met by Zainal who had halted his three companions on top of the ground tier with an imperious hand. He gave Kris the unmistakable order to stay where she was. But, as she saw him link his hands, she realized what he was going to do: throw the people up on to the first crate. Kris, Coo and Slav then pushed them to the next level, urging them to get higher up, out of any possible range of the mechanical's extendibles. So they formed a human "lift' system for the escapees: humans, Deskis and Rugarians, three green Morphins and two Turs, the goblins who were so short that Zainal was slinging them up.
In the panic of the effort to get everybody off the ground and started up the crates, Kris got bruised, cut, and had her right wrist wrenched so badly that she had to rely on her left hand. Then there was Zainal to get up to safety because the mechanos were now aware that something was distinctly out of order. Kris wondered if they had counted bodies coming out of the barn and had now discovered the appropriate number were not being processed. A shame to put their production figures out.
But they'd rescued more than twenty from slaughter.
Zainal had to jump to reach the helping hands that would take him off the ground. A funny little clicking machine was now quartering the passageway.
"Climb!" Zainal said to those on his level. "Seek heat.
We go to cold." They climbed and climbed until they reached the top with the others and then they all stopped in awe. As far as they could see there were crates stacked to the same height. Acres of them to the horizon.
"Now this is one mother of a stockpile," a human muttered with an understandably hysterical edge to his voice.
"And we damned near joined it, someone else said.
"More down there?" Zainal asked and Kris noted him breathing heavily for the first time since they'd started this reconnaissance.
"Hell, all we saw was that one stinking barn after those flying turrets darted us. Are we going to hang about to see?" Clearly that was not his preference.
"Hey, you're a Cat!" the first speaker said accusingly.
"Cat or not, he just saved our lives. Thanks, pal," the second man said to Zainal, holding out his hand.
He was filthy and the slight breeze on the top of this incredible'-stockpile wafted a stench off him that nearly gagged Kris.
Most of the escapees now sank to their butts to rest after their scrambling retreat.
"Speaks good English for a Cat," the first man said "Kris Bjornsen, Slav and Coo are us," Zainal continued the introductions. Then he paused for the others to identify themselves.
Their stories were similar to the experiences of Kris's group except that they hadn't had the benefit of a Sergeant Chuck Mitford to marshal them out of danger. The field they had been dumped on had been attacked by the fliers in spite of Deskis' attempts to warn of incoming danger.
Everyone had scattered in twos and threes and small groups, only to be rounded up when they were spotted the second morning by a harvester unit. They'd been in the barn for several days but had survived on their food parcels which were now almost gone. Several of their number had been trampled to death in the barn when the animals had, for some reason, panicked the second night of their incarceration.
"That's why we all smell like this," said Lenny Doyle, a medium-built, darkhaired man with a pleasant, open face and a nice smile. Dick Aarens had been the first speaker and still regarded Zainal with frowning suspicion. He was taller than Kris, but he had a dreadful slouch and a mean slant to his mouth as well as deep scowl lines.
"Zainal got dumped down here along with the rest of us," Kris said with an indifferent shrug to relieve the sudden tension among the newcomers, "and I don't know why he's here, but he is and he was ready to risk his neck to get you out, so cool it, Mac." Dick Aarens reluctantly subsided but Kris caught him more than once glaring at either her or Zainal.
"So, do we go back and see if anyone else's stuck in those barns?" Lenny asked Zainal.
"Why should he risk his neck for more humans?" a stocky man of apparent Italian origin demanded in a surly voice.
Zainal had his head down in what Kris was beginning to know as his thinking pose. He looked up at the sun and then did a slow circle, squinting against the glare of the sun. He said a few brief words to Slav who nodded.
"Slav leads to camp," Zainal said. "The machines learn "Yeah, but do they have something that climbs crates like a spider?" Aarens demanded.
"You have food?" Zainal asked.
"What's it to ya?" Aarens wanted to know.
"Oh, cool it, Aarens," Lenny said. "The machines didn't search us. We got cups, knives and bars."
"No water," and again Zainal glanced sunward.
"I take the point," Lenny said. "Look, I'll volunteer to go back to the edge and see what's up with the mechanicals - -" He grinned at Kris for his description of their captors. "They must've. . .
processed. . . another group yesterday. We heard screaming a coupla times." He shook himself convulsively. "So we figured we might have to make a break for it."
"There're a lot of barns down there," Aarens said, shaking his head.
"We go back," Zainal said. "See."
"Now, wait a minute - - Aarens said, holding up one hand in protest.
To the idea as well as the spokesman, Kris thought, marking Aarens as troublesome.
"Then go with Slav," Zainal said, shrugging his indifference.
"There is much to see and know." This time his gesture meant learning as much as possible about the machines and their operation.
"Can you open barn doors from outside?" Kris asked.
Zainal nodded. "Easy," and now he grinned. "Animals do not unlock doors. Humans, and Cats, do." Lenny laughed out loud at that and nudged the hostile Aarens. "Sense of humour, too. Shall I go back for a looksee? I had a long drink just before we got ejected from our happy home.
Zainal nodded and Lenny trotted back the way he had come.
"Hey, bro, I'm coming, too, and a second man followed.
"The Doyle brothers stick together. I'm Joe Lattore," the stocky Italian said with a grin, nodding at both Kris and Zainal. "So what do we do if there are a lot of other humans, and aliens, stuck in with the cattle?"
"We get them out," Zainal said and, hunkering down, unrolled one of his spare blankets and, taking out his knife, began to rend it into strips. To make ropes, Kris immediately realized "Yeah, a rope would be real handy," Lattore said and took a blanket as Zainal handed them around.
It wasn't easy to do, given the sort of indestructible fabric it was.
Kris had to stop: her wrist ached and was next to useless.
Hauling folks to the top of the crates would be a lot easier. That is, if the mechanicals hadn't figured out where the escapees had gone which was possible. By the time they had acquired several lengths of sturdy rope, the Doyles returned. They had seen no more except smoke from the processing plant.
"Yeah, machines operate on logic and our escape since they classified us as "meat animals" - would be inconsistent," Kris said, as she worked. "Somehow I don't think their programming would extend to coping with inconsistencies. We came up as heat sources where heat sources shouldn't be - in there messing up their crop fields. That was easy for them. So they dumped us in with the other animals they were collecting."
"I don't think I like that," Joe said, shuddering. "Bad enough to be mistaken as food. How come they don't recognize people?" "Does sort of beg the question, doesn't it?" Lenny said.
"I dunno how they figure it all out. We were there four, five days without anyone taking a blind bit of notice of us, or even opening the main door. When they did, we couldn't get out for those sixlegged things being crammed in. And suddenly there was only standing space.
we're scheduled for the chop. They must have started.
well, processing . . . yesterday if what we heard were human cries - . -" Lenny gave another shiver.
Kris watched Zainal thinking over this information.
She wondered how in heaven's name the Catteni scouts hadn't noticed such installations on their exploratory pass of this planet.
Surely they would have spotted such a vast number of crates? Unless, and she thought of the evidence, the scrapes and bad handling, these were new, and the last lot had been collected? By what? For whom?
"We see if there are . . . more people," Zainal said, having reached a decision. "You help?" He looked around at the recently rescued.
Ten decided to remain and help, including the two Doyle brothers and, oddly enough in Kris's estimation, Aarens. The others were led off by Slav, who once again assured Zainal that he could find the cave campsite. He kept pointing to the north and east. The two Deskis went with him, to keep a listen-out for the flyers and any roving mechanicals that would need to be avoided at all costs. If nothing else, this recon had taught Kris, and the others, the sorts of hazards that had to be avoided: sleeping on bare ground, avoiding the harvesters, and freezing when flyers were spotted.
Simple, homely, rules, Kris told herself facetiously. She was glad she'd had a good drink of water before they'd set out. Still, maybe they could sneak back down to the vacant barns.
Which is what they did when Zainal and his stalwans reached the yard. The fact that no-one had been searched, much less stripped, was discussed.
"They didn't search the sixlegged critters," Lenny said.
"But we're. . . we're humans," Aarens said and Lenny's brother, Ninety, snorted.
"Did you introduce yourself? Well, then, how would the machine know we're different?"
"You mean, they thought we were animals?" Aarens was outraged.
"Not very flattering, is it?" Lenny said drolly.
"Just another warm body, bro," his brother, Ninety, quipped back with a grin. "Any warm body'll do. If it registers."
"That is how the machines know," Zainal said. "Heat."
"I'll buy that," Lenny said.
"And movement.
"There are no people . . on this planet," Zainal added.
"Yeah," Lenny said thoughtfully. "Think you're right.
I thought robots were supposed to protect humans." He glanced slyly at Kris.
"Not if they're not programmed to."
"So who, or what, programmed "em?" Lenny wanted to know. Kris could only shrug her ignorance.
Having made their way across the crates and to the nearest barn, they had climbed onto the roof and now looked down through one of the ventilator slats into the barn. It was empty. Empty and smelling of some kind of a disinfectant which had its own unmistakable stink.
"What a pong," Lenny said, wrinkling his nose.
"Could there be such a thing as a totally mechanized farm planet?" Kris said, wondering out loud. Then she turned to Zainal, who was lying on the roof beside her, still looking round the empty space below. "How many continents are there on this world, Zainal?"
"Four.
Two large, one not so large, one small."
"Which are we on?" Zainal shrugged.
"How come he knows so much?" Ninety asked, jerking his thumb at Zainal and addressing Kris "He once saw a report on the place. He lust didn't look hard enough to remember everything we're dying to know," she said, grimacing. "What he has recalled has already saved us a couple of times.
"Who's us?" Kris told them, and Lenny grinned at his brother when she described Chuck Mitford.
"Mitford's not old," she said defensively, "and we were very lucky indeed he was there, because we stayed free." Lenny gave her an odd look. "Can you be sure of that?" "No surer than I am of anything else on this planet." Zainal rose. "We look at all." As soon as a quick peek proved that there was nothing moving in the yard below them and the smoke was no longer coming out of the abattoir building, they checked the other barns: twenty in all, half of which reeked of the disinfectant. Three of the other ten they examined held nothing but animals. They would call down the vent, tentatively at first, but then with more vigour until they were sure there was no-one there to answer. The grazers kept making their stupid looooing sound in response to all questions.
"All the same," said Lenny in disgust. "Never did like cows.
"These aren't cows, Aarens said. "Nothing like cows.
"So? They're loocows instead of moo-cows," Kris said, a comment which brought chortles from Lenny and Ninety.
"They're still not cows," Lenny said. "Cows give milk.
Those things don't have any equipment beyond two extra legs." The next barn produced astonished and glad cries and a jumping about of obvious people shapes in among the loo-cow forms.
"Keep it down, will you?" Aarens called urgently, glancing nervously around.
Lenny Doyle crept to the edge of the barn, looking up and down the quiet avenue and gestured an "OK' "What do we tell "em?" Aarens asked, not looking at Zainal.
"We come at night. They keep quiet now," Zainal said, ignoring being ignored.
"Night's a long way away," Aarens said.
"We watch."
"We could let down those ropes we made and haul "em up?" Aarens suggested.
"It's much easier to open the door at night and let them out," Kris said firmly, knowing that she wasn't up to hoisting who knew how many heavy bodies. "Like we did."
"Night best," Zainal said, nodding.
"Why? Machines don't care if it's night or day. Machines don't need to sleep." Aarens was persistent.
Zainal muttered something under his breath. "Do not run at night.
Can't-' "Why not?" Aarens was getting belligerent, deliberately, Kris thought, trying to find fault with Zainal.
"I think the machines are solar-powered," Kris said, grasping at an explanation that fitted. "Sun power?" she asked Zainal who nodded, smiling that she had grasped the correct explanation.
"Yeah," and Ninety's eyes widened. "Yeah, they got those funny panels. At least the harvester did. Makes sense. There hasn't been any rain yet." Zainal grinned. "Rain very bad here. In places. We see who is where," and he gestured towards the other barns waiting to be searched.
Four more confining humans were found and the message of imminent release was repeated, caution urged and the prisoners were told to get as much rest as they could because the escape route was a rough one.
There was some protest but Kris, speaking for Zainal - as that seemed diplomatic - assured them there were reasons for the delay.
They returned then to the roof of one of the empty barns. Prying open one ventilator slot, Lenny Doyle, as the slimmest of the men, crawled through. He was going to check to be sure there were no interior sensors. They let him down far enough so that he could peer around, swinging on the end of the rope.
"Looks clean to me. Sensor eyes can't be all that different," he said in a loud whisper to those waiting on the roof. "Lemme down. I need a bath as bad as I need a pee. Begging your pardon, Kris." She chuckled and watched as he was lowered to the floor. She went down next and heard them ripping away enough of the slot to permit the heavy frame of Zainal to pass. The thin blanket rope was rough on the hands and she slipped a couple of times because her wrist wasn't functioning, but all of them made it safely to the floor.
There were a dozen or more watering troughs to service the animals the barn usually held, so a few on one side were designated as baths.
Piles of some sort of dried fodder had been placed in wall mangers and Kris looked forward to sleeping a tad more comfortably on a hay bed until moonrise.
Zainal, with Aarens and the Doyles, did a circuit of the empty building, checking for any other sort of sensor that might tell the mechanicals one of the barns was inhabited again.
While most of the men decided to bathe, Kris was more interested in piling up enough fodder to make a decent sleeping surface. She hadn't liked the leer on Aarens' face when he looked at her. He struck her as the sort of devious personality who'd peep if given the chance.
She wasn't going to give him one.
At that, he sought her out, his longish hair still dripping.
She couldn't really hold that against him but she disliked the proprietary way he made as if to join her on her pile of hay.
"You find your own, buddy," she said, as discouragingly as she could.
"Hey, lady, just thought you'd like some quality company. Can't say I approve of a nice girl like you having to be paired with a Cat.
"I volunteered for the patrol, if that's what you mean and her tone implied that had better be "Are there more like you back at this camp of yours?"
"Aarens, get lost. I'm tired and I want to sleep by - - myself," she said, emphasizing her wish for solitude.
"The fresh stuff is over there, Aarens," Lenny said, pointing to the manger, his expression pleasant but there was no doubt that he wouldn't move until Aarens had.
When she was left alone she lay down on her pile, so comfortable that she fell asleep despite the muted voices ofthemen.
Mitford surveyed the camp, well pleased with the improvements of the last two days. They had plenty of game and some of the women had thought of sun-drying the leftovers into a sort of jerky.
"Waste not, want not," was the theme for the day.
Scouting parties kept coming in with little treasures throughout the long day. There was even fine sand that could be used for a timer.
"Like you use to time your boiled egg.
"No glass."
"Well, there're these nut husks. Cut a teeny tiny hole in one, let the sands run through. Turn it over. Couldn't be simpler." "You lose a couple seconds turning the damned thing over - .
"Complaints, complaints."
"Hey, what about a sundial. There's that flat place at the top of the rock just below the sentry post.
"Hell, you're the mechanical engineer. You figure it out.
One one-hundred, two one-hundred, three one-hundred is still a second even here." A commotion midafternoon brought fifteen angry women and one bloody-nosed Arnie to Mitford's office.
Noticing that all the women had wet hair, it didn't take him more than a minute to figure out that Arnie had been peeping again.
"He didn't stay warned off, Mitford," an irate Sandy Areson said, pinching the man again. "He's a dirty pervert, is what he is. And with him doing latrine duty only makes it easier for him to know when we're going to bathe.
Chain him to a rock or by God, I'll sharpen my knife and Mitford had begun to chuckle as he'd had a sudden inspiration. "I think we can provide restraints for our little Arnold Sherman. And provide an object lesson at the same time. Jack Lemass, front and centre," the sergeant added in a bellow.
"Yo!" and a man who had been carving various types of woods available in the nearby copse loped over.
"You rang?" Most people were in good spirits, Mitford decided, and proving ingenious in what they could contrive. They didn't have nails but Jack Lemass, who'd been out ear!y in the morning on a hunting party, was sure they could fashion chairs and tables and other useful items from the larger trees.
"Yeah, d'you think you could construct me a pair of stocks?"
"Stocks?" Jack poked his head forward on his neck in surprise.
"Stocks?" Sandy exclaimed and then burst out laughing.
"Hey, that'd be great and we could belt him with rotten eggs - if we could find any rotten eggs. She gave the cowering Arnie another swat but she, and the other women, began to grin in happy anticipation of his future discomfort. "Make "em as uncomfortable as possible, will ya, Jack?" Jack went through a little routine of pretending to measure the quivering Arnie so that he moaned in apprehension.
"OK, ladies, as you were, Mitford said. "Sorry you've been pestered." "Thanks, Sarge," Sandy said and took his hint, shooing the women out of the "office'. "We've got work to do, too, ladies "Better yet, Jack,' Mitford said, "take him with you to cut the wood and make him help you build it. To fit him because I think he'll be in the stocks a lot. Won't you, Arnie?"
"I was only looking," Arnie whined in selfdefence. "I wasn't doing more than that."
"That's enough. Shut your face and be damned glad I don't get Jack to put a stake and whip you at it."
"You wouldn't whip me?" His voice cracked in terror and his whole body trembled. "You're human, you re American. You can't," and Arnie ended on a note of pure panic "Be grateful then, because the next step for someone like you, Arnie," Mitford said, raising his voice loud enough for everyone working the area to hear, "is being staked out on a field for the scavengers. And don't think it can't happen. It can!' Jack's eyebrows were raised almost to his nonexistent hairline and he whistled softly.
Oldfashioned stocks wouldn't really hurt a man, or a woman, Mitford thought as he picked up another slate to record their construction as a deterrent. But it would prove his administration had teeth and wasn't afraid to bite. So far, people were far more interested in how they could turn their skills to improving their living quarters.
And that was what settling was all about. Living off the land you were on and getting the best you could.
Late that evening, long after the second serving of the evening meal, two more patrols reported in: one had found rock salt which could only improve the taste of food, and the other, geology and mining types, had located deposits of iron and copper and had brought back samples. Murph had bent his ear about all they could do with iron and copper. So Mitford said that he'd organize a squad to help Murph mine and refine. Murph went off, muttering happily to himself.
"Every day in every way, we are getting better and better," Mitford muttered to himself, able to see one more step in their adaptation. Another few months and no-one would recognize themselves as the dispirited dregs they'd been less than a week ago.
When night came Kris was roused with the others who had rested.
Zainal showed the Doyles and Aarens how he had manipulated the lock with his knife blade.
"The ol' credit card trick, huh?" Lenny remarked, then added when he saw the confusion on Zainal's face, "I'll explain later."
"More boy?" Zainal asked Kris, his teeth white in the dark as he grinned.
"More what?" Lenny asked.
"I'll explain later," Kris replied, chuckling. She wondered what Aarens would say if he knew she'd prefer the Catteni to his company any day of the week.
Or any night, come to think of it. Down girl, she told her self but having said that, the notion came back often enough to tease her.
They slipped out of the barn, Zainal closing the door carefully until they heard the lock snick. Then they went to the first of the inhabited barns and Zainal opened it, too.
"Oh, my God, I thought you'd gone and left us," cried the man, his voice sounding loud in the quiet night. He was only one of many crowded close to the door.
"Sssssh," said the relief team as a chorus.
"Damn mechanicals might hear ya," Aarens said.
"Follow me and fer Gawssake, be quiet." While Kris was asleep, the rescue had been organized.
Two men would lead each rescued group down the road to the crates and start them up the ropes hanging in readiness. Zainal and Kris took the last group since Zainal was the only one who knew the exact trick to open the doors.
In the group she and Zainal released there were two women, one of them heavily pregnant and awkward in movement, and the other one older and limping badly.
The pregnant woman was also slightly hysterical with the relief of being rescued.
"It's bad enough my Jack got killed on Barevi, but I thought I'd at least have my baby to cherish," she said weepingly. Not that Kris blamed her but this was neither the time nor place for true confessions. "Then that awful discipline meeting and I wasn't doing a thing but standing where I was told to stand and then I get gassed. I prayed that, somehow, God was with us still and we'd be rescued.
And we are, and I simply can't believe it. Oh, you're so good to risk your lives to save ours." Kris couldn't seem to stem her flow of talk. At least Patti Sue would shut up when told to.
"How're we going to get her up the crates?" she asked Zainal in a tense whisper as they started the people down the road.
"I carry. Not heavy. Big."
"Just don't let her see you're Catteni,' Kris said, glad that the poor light hid the telltale grey of his skin tone.
The pregnant woman, Anna Bollinger, presented less of a difficulty getting up on the crates than some of the others. Fumble-footed and fingered, some of them, and four, besides Anna, had to be hauled up because their shoulder muscles gave out on the third "lift' Eventually, all thirty-five were on the top and moving off north by east as Slav had. Not moving very quickly either, as if the release and climb had about taken all the physical energy they had left in them.
Sometimes, Kris thought as she trudged along beside Zainal, you can do the right thing for the wrong reason.
Her hands were stinging, her wrist ached despite the strip of blanket she had wrapped about it as a brace, her shins were scraped and raw, her toes hurt and she was sure her arm and shoulder muscles would never recover. She would have loved to have had a trough to wallow in.
By the time the first moon came up, they had not yet made it to the end of the crates. Again she wondered what was in them, if it wasn't halves of loocows, and for whom the machines gathered the supplies.
They had to call a break then, to rest the less able of their number. Anna, in particular, and Janet, the older woman, were totally unequal to a steady march. When it was discovered that most of them had eaten the last of their ration bars in preparation for escape, Zainal immediately gestured for the patrol to share out the extras they had brought along. Chewing the dry bars without water to soften them made eating a chore. One of the Turs gobbled his down as if he hadn't eaten in days "He didn't know the Cats had packed us rations," Lenny said. "Ninety and I have been sharing with him."
"That was damned good of you," Kris said, "considering you wouldn't have known where your next meals were coming from.
"Oh, I figured something would turn up," and Lenny grinned impishly at her.
"Aw, now, we're Irish, you see "I had noticed .
Another grin. "And we've this saying in Ireland - that the crack, the fun, is ninety "And we don't mean the cost of the stuff," Ninety said in an irritated voice. "I like the crack . . . pubs and all God, wouldn't a Guinness taste good about now.
"I told ya, don't, Ninety. I can stand anything but your mentioning Guinness," Lenny said, an edge to his usually cheerful voice for the first time in a very trying night.
"Sorry, Kris."
"So I'm Ninety because I look for a good crack," Ninety finished up and gave the final bite of his ration bar a wistful look.
"Damned micks," Aarens muttered. He had positioned himself near Kris, she noticed, on her other side, away from the Doyle brothers.
"Let me straighten you out on one detail, Aarens," Kris said, not that she cared if she saved him some knocks for his attitude, but his comments grated against her sense of rightness. "We're ALL in this together: humans, Deskis, Rugarians, Morphins and Turs. And especially the lone representative of our former captors. He got dumped on this godforsaken place just like the rest of us and he's in command of the patrol that just saved your skin, bones and meat. So cut the bigotry out. Understand?"
"You know him well?" and the man's tone was lewd and his suggestion unmistakable.
Lenny and Ninety both reacted but Lenny was nearer.
He leaned forward until his face was right up to Aarens' "If Kris here says the Cat's a good guy, we'll take her word for it, Aarens.
Now cut your belly achin'. He got you free and, if you want to slope off now and do your own thing, we'll never mention we ever met ya." Aarens subsided as Kris inched closer to the Doyle brothers.
"Where's the Cat? . - Ninety began, looking about him.
"His name is Zainal," Kris said, as ready to insist on that point with Ninety as everyone else.
"OK, where's this Zainal leading us?"
"To the camp our clever Sergeant Mitford established.
A series of goodsized caves with an underground lake.
It's a pretty good place. Hunting's great. How good are you with slingshots?" Lenny chuckled. "You see before you one of the great rabbit hunters of the Blasket Islands." Ninety snorted. "You used a two-two, and then he leaned toward Kris, grinning from ear to ear, "with a telescopic lens and a silencer."
"That was so I could get in a second shot without the little scuts hearing me on the odd time or two I missed my first shot. Once I got my eye in, I didn't need either silencer or "scope."
"We've also found a huge grain store," Kris went on, "so we should even have bread when we get back."
"How far is it?" and Lenny glanced over at Anna and Janet.
"I don't know Wait a mmute - - - Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Zainal suddenly rise to his feet, looking pointedly in one direction. Peering in that area, she made out several figures moving in the moonlight down the slope above the crates. "That's Slav come back. He either made damned good time or our camp's not far away." Slav had brought two other Rugarians and four humans with him - and cold roast rocksquat, some unleavened bread and earthern water bottles that were leaking slowly but still contained enough for everyone to have a drink.
They also carried ropes and more blankets "Sarge says go. We come,' Slav said in Barevi, grinning his jagged toothy smile which included Coo and Kris.
They had to split the meat portions further to give everyone a piece but Lenny and Ninety were definitely impressed.
Anna had to be coaxed to eat - mainly because she was exhausted, Kris decided - but Janet said she would have eaten anything on six legs. They were both given two cups of water as a special concession.
That was when Zainal noticed Kris's bandaged wrist.
"Just a sprain. Nothing to worry about," she said, feeling a little foolish at having strapped her wrist.
"You go with Pess. Lead walkers. Report to Sarge."
"I'll bet he's full of questions," Kris said, glad that Slav had arrived with humans to give Mitford a verbal report.
"But I should stay to help the women."
"No." Zainal said firmly.
"Much help. YOU," and he cocked his finger at her, "better to report.
"All right," and she conceded as gracefully as possible. There were more than enough men to assist the two women, and Deskis and Rugarians to help with portages.
Although Lenny and Ninety protested that they were more than willing to help, Zainal ticked them off to go with Kris. She wasn't surprised that he sent Aarens back with her as well as Joe Lattore and some of the other men, who were all too eager to see this great camp that had been contrived.
Revitalized by the meat and the water, Kris went to reassure Anna and Janet that they weren't all that far from the safety of the caves.
"We've got medical personnel, too," she reassured Anna.
"Medicines?" Anna asked hopefully.
"If they've found bread, they've got the start of penicillin, now don't they?" Kris said jokingly but she had the feeling Anna was hoping for analgesics to take the edge off her imminent delivery. She left quickly then, not wanting to have to face any further unanswerable questions.
As there wasn't a damned thing wrong with her feet and ankles, Kris set the pace, right behind Pess. Aarens started out beside her but she didn't fancy him for company and she gave him grunts for answers to his conversational gambits until he got her message.
Muttering curses about ungrateful bitches and butch women, he dropped back to the rear of the group.
Kris wondered if she had been wise in discouraging him.
But he was the sort who'd need a lot of discouragement and his attitudes irritated her. Better discouragement than an all-out brawl.
A couple of good long climbs were successfully negotiated in the light of the second moon, Aarens bitching about night manoeuvres. By third moonset, even Pess was slowing up. But when the Rugarian hit the beginning of the ravine he brightened and so did Kris, surprised to recognize the terrain she had first walked in a semi-stupor, carrying Patti Sue. But a landmark that led you home - to any home - was always heartening "We're nearly there, guys. Home stretch now," she called over her shoulder and worked her shoulders out of a tired slump.
By sunrise, they were back in a camp amazingly altered in the four days of her absence. As she turned the final curve, she stopped short, noting all the improvements.
And the sight of Sergeant Chuck Mitford more or less where she had last seen him, at his "command' post.
That, too, had improved. The hearth had been enlarged, obviously to be used as a barbecue site, and a fire burned cheerfully in the centre. Blocks of stone had been moved to form a semi-circle around Mitford's central "desk' which had also been enlarged. On one side he had a pile of thin slates, bearing chalk marks, but he was working on something thin, like paper, with a sturdy wooden affair that near as never-mind looked like a pencil.
Sentries topped the higher points around the camp ravine: the stairs to the main cavern now boasted wider risers and a handrail. On the opposite side of the ravine, she couldn't fail to notice what looked like medieval stocks. Two of them, one occupied though she couldn't see the face of the stockee since his head was hanging.
The thin frame looked like Arnie's. She wondered what he'd done to rate that sort of incarceration. And what a novel idea for discipline!
The ravine floor had been swept clean and she really couldn't take in all the other improvements because Mitford had seen her. He grinned as he beckoned her to join him.
As she did, she saw him lean to one side and lift a creditable pottery pitcher. It seemed to be clad in some sort of odd matting and a little steam escaped its lid.
"Pull up a rock, Kris, and tell me what you and that Catteni have been up to," he said, gesturing for her to present her cup so he could fill it. "It's hot, at least, and doesn't taste too bad. I've been in places with worse coffee."
"Didn't the first group tell you?" Kris asked, blowing on her drink.
"I'm debriefing everyone, Bjornsen," was his reply, emphasized by a slight frown at her objection.
She covered her embarrassment at questioning his methods by taking a sip from her cup.
The heat of the beverage was not its only recommendation, for it had an oddly minty flavour that knocked the dryness out of her mouth.
If she hadn't had the cup in her hand, though, Kris would have been tempted to salute Mitford.
Ignoring the fatigue that made it difficult to find the words she needed, she gave what she felt was a concise report of the patrol. She emphasized the dangers of nighttime scavengers, of crop-filled fields, and the notion that the mechanicals were solar-powered.
Mitford nodded at that, making a short notation on the thin stuff "You've a source of paper, Sarge?" she asked, interrupting herself.
"Bark, don't know how long it'll hold the lead. . . even got a pencil - "and, grinning, he held up the thick shaft.
"One of the geologist types found some carbon lead The bark's a lot easier to handle than those slates. Doesn't break and flake. Tell me more about this solar power notion?"
"You've heard it before?"
"Patrols at the granary mentioned "em on the machines garaged there.
Nothing moves at night so it's safe to haul in supplies then. Go on.
Tell me more about the rescue.
That first contingent were too damned wiped out to do more than say they got rescued." He poured her more of the hot drink.
"Remind me to tell you how glad I am to be in the same outfit with you, Sarge," Kris said with a grateful smile.
"Ah!" and he dismissed her remark with a flick of his hand, turning his head briefly away in modesty. Then he grinned at her.
"Wait'll you hear what I got in mind for you tomorrow.
"So long as it's tomorrow, Sarge," she said, managing to produce a cocky grin despite her present fatigue. The drink was helping but the stimulation it provided wouldn't last very long.
"We got thirty-five more refugees." She looked about the camp.
"Handle as many as we can find. Picked up a few more coming south from another drop-off. They either picked the right sort of fields or were plain lucky. They were right glad to find our camp. We'll need all the reinforcements we can get to start our offensive."
"Our what?" She peered numbly at Mitford.
"You don't think I intend spending the rest of my life on this mudball,' Mitford said with a growl.
Kris shook her head. Mitford seemed so sane. And he was planning to get off this world?
"But that's for later. Any new useful recruits?" he asked, bringing her back to her report.
Well, I suppose so but I didn't think to quiz "em.
We've got one very pregnant woman and an older one who's not too spry. Zainal made me come on ahead." Mitford nodded and Kris looked back over her shoulder to see the rest of her group straggling in.
"The two guys in front are good people, Irish, the Doyle brothers.
Right behind them is Joe Lattore and he's OK." She paused, seeing Aarens stumping in behind the Italian.
"And the tall individual?" Kris hesitated long enough for Mitford to raise his eyebrows. "Name's Dick Aarens," she said as noncommittally as she could.
"I'll debrief him myself," Mitford said with a grin for her reluctance. "You go get yourself some rest, gal. You're off duty for the next twentyeight." He pointed above his head at what she then recognized as a sundial. "Took the team three days! All the way from counting sand particles by the second to hourly divisions. Rough still, they say, and Greenwich Mean Time it ain't but it's an improvement." His tone was proud.
"All the comforts of home and time, too," she said, grinning at such a clever device.
"Not that a twentyeight hour planetary revolution is an improvement on what we're used to."
"And the stocks? Your idea?" Mitford chuckled, without even looking up from the notes he was jotting down. "We got too many individuals," and by separating the word into syllables he made it sound like an epithet, "to deal with, who won't make life easier by disappearing when they don't like the way this outfit is run. Get some rest, gal." He gave her a goodnatured buffet to her arm and jerked his head towards the cave.
She was halfway to the steps when he called the newcomers over, the Doyles startled to hear their names and Aarens giving her an accusatory glare.
At the top of the steps, she noted other signs of organization work stations along the ledge and the legend "Home Sweet Cavehome' scrawled in chalk across the entrance. On the space where people had written their choice of name for the planet, "Botany' was underscored and all the others erased. She grinned. Home now had a name.
Inside, the early morning crew were busy stoking fires, putting earthenware pots on trivets to heat, setting out slightly misshapen bowls for cereal. She noticed bowls of what looked like coarse salt by the hearths. On the ledges were other pots and pitchers: Sandy Areson had been very busy.
"Kris!" a voice shrieked and she was enveloped in Patti Sue's arms before she had a chance to evade the girl, who proceeded to weep all over her "I told you she'd be back safe, Patti," said Sandy, coming over and prying the girl off. "Now she's tired, and dirty, and you don't go moaning all over her. She's been just fine, Kris," Sandy added. "She was certain Mitford had put you in danger' "No, we got people out of danger, Patti," Kris said, "and there's a woman who's going to need your help especially: Anna Bollinger. She's very pregnant. Sandy, who's the medic to see to her when she gets in?
They're a couple of hours behind us."
"I'll see to that. You hungry, Kris?"
"Had a bar not long ago but I'd sure love a bath."
"I'll get a clean coverall, and do yours while you're sleeping," Patti said, gushing with her efforts to be helpful.
"Now, Patti, you're on breakfast detail."
"I know, I know," the girl said on her way to a pile of material stacked on one side of the cavern. "I'll just be sure she knows the latest improvements.
Sandy raised both hands, grinned reassuringly at Kris and went back to stirring the pot. Leakage sizzled into the fire but even that primitive attempt at a pot was an improvement over no cooking vessels at all.
"No chance at building a kiln for you, is there?" Kris said, realizing that the pottery must only be sun-dried.
Sandy's grin was beatific. "Mitford knows his priorities Got the "specialists" -" and she grinned, "working on a beehive type. Murph made bellows for me, as well as for his own forge. Jack the Nail found a nice hard wood that ought to burn hot. So we're cooking. And I am until I get that kiln up and firing." She gave Kris a humorous grin as she waved smoke away from her face. "Go bathe." Patti danced about Kris all the way down to the lake, telling about finding the clay and that she'd managed a cup or two that had been fired, and they needed a proper kiln for best results, and they had discovered a nearby crop field of some very tasty root vegetables that were almost like potatoes only the Deskis couldn't eat them at all without getting violently ill.
Kris grimaced as she hadn't remembered to tell Mitford that Coo had found a plant that was Deski-edible. The tunnel to the lake was now well lit. When she and Patti reached it, there were also wooden steps down, a well-lit area and a rack of pegs to hang clothing on, and a rough reed basket of cat-tail-like seed pods.
"Where'd you find reeds?" Kris asked, noting the construction of the basket.
"Oh, Bob the Herb did. He finds all sorts of good stuff Has two patrols under his command."
"And what're these?" Kris picked up one of the pods.
"You'll see," and Patti Sue giggled with anticipation of her surprise.
Then Kris saw that a raft had been anchored securely for safer bathing and there were even steps fastened to the side of the lake. So Kris stripped off the smelly, grimy coverall and slipped into the water.
"Here," and Patty handed her an oval pod. "It's not exactly soap and it'll ruin your complexion but it gets the dirt and . . . smells .
. . off your skin." Kris would have welcomed a Brillo pad, which was what the pod felt like. There was an odd herbal - almost astringent smell off it and that was quite welcome after what she had been smelling like. She rinsed well and then clambered out of the water.
Patti, with an air of great accomplishment, then broke open one of the cat-tails which puffed up into a white fibre.
"Your towel, madam?" She grinned at Kris's surprise.
"It works, too, soaks up all the water. Then we put the used ones over there, in the other basket, and once they're dry, they're good fire-starting material. Clever, aren't we?" And she giggled as she handed Kris the fresh coverall.
"I think we need the twentyeight hour day to get everything done," Kris murmured.
Considerably refreshed and cleaner, Kris was quite ready now to get the rest her body urgently desired. She yawned all the way to the cave. That had improved, too.
With beds made of mounds of branches and, she thought, filled in with more of the cat-tails.
She stretched herself out, turned to her right side, sighed with relief to have her sore hips cushioned, and never even felt the blanket which Patti lovingly spread over her.
The aroma of roasting meat roused Kris, although her stomach was probably sending the message - it was empty. She could hear muted voices, pleasant voices, and feeling encouraged, she angled herself up out of the flattened bed. One other sleeping accommodation in her cave room was occupied by a sleeper and she slipped into her footwear as quietly as possible and left.
Neither Sandy nor Patti Sue were in the main cave but she spotted Bart and approached to see if she could scrounge a meal off him.
"Hey, Kris," the man said, smiling a welcome, "you did great!" and he dished up some of the food he was cooking onto a nearly round clay plate.
"Me? At what?" she asked with a cautious grin. When he also handed her a wooden fork, she exclaimed in surprise, "All the comforts of home." "We're improving. And I mean the rescue of all those folks trapped by the mechanicals.
"Oh, that. That was Zainal. He knew how to open the doors."
"Aw, c'mon now . Bart!" And Kris quickly donned her public relations hat. "He knew how, so what? Maybe I could have opened it, given a hair pin or a credit card which I didn't have. Door catches are door catches: there are only so many ways to lock one. He figured out the mechanism and opened it. The important thing is that he did know how and we could get all the others out before they got slaughtered."
"I heard . . ." Bart began uncertainly "What you heard and what happened could be two different things entirely. Who did you hear from?" Bart shifted uneasily. "One of the guys that came in with you."
"Wouldn't be named "Aarens", would he?" Kris asked, letting her tone drip with scorn.
"Next thing you hear, he'll be saying we oughtn't to listen to Mitford "cos he's a slave driver, a martinet, endangering us, who does he think he is, when he was only a sergeant at that, and what does he know?" Kris waved her arm around, at the well-organized kitchen area, the pots and pottery, the water crates, people moving about at assigned tasks.
"Well, Mitford knows enough to organize us to an amazing degree of self-sufficiency, I'd say. Aarens is a troublemaker and he started almost the moment we hauled him out of that barn." Bart glared at Kris, resenting her tirade, so she smiled at him.
"You're too smart to fall for that kind of drivel, Bart, and this smells too good for me to let it get cold." She sat herself down on a convenient rock and started to eat.
"Now, can I give you the facts, nothing but the facts, about the great slaughterhouse rescue? I'd hate for you to have a bad opinion of me because I stuck up for the guy responsible for saving fortyfive people, forty-six if Anna has her baby." The expression on his face told her it wasn't her he had a bad opinion of, which meant she really needed to put the record straight.
"Well, maybe what I heard was a bit garbled - "Scariest moment in my life was waking up in that barn " she said, giving a shudder, and was still answering his questions when Jay Greene spotted her.
"Sarge needs you, Kris," he said.
"Great meal, Bart," Kris said, standing up and then looking about her for the proper place to dispose of her plate and fork.
Bart grinned as he pointed. "Outside, to your left.
Aarens himself is on KP."
"No better man," she said and left the hearth with Jay.
"I'll take that," Jay said, removing the plate from her hands.
"You don't need to meet Aarens."
"Why? Is he poor-mouthing me? Or Zainal?" Jay snorted. "Don't worry.
Mitford has his measure."
"Does everyone else?" Kris asked urgently. "Hell, he'd've been better off we'd be better off - with him as sausage meat after all," she added callously "He'll spend some time in the stocks if he keeps up "Which will only confirm his opinion of this chickenshit outfit."
"Who cares?" "Speaking of caring," and they were now outside in the bright sunlight.
Mitford was precisely where she had left him a good - she checked the sundial - nine hours ago. "Does he never rest?" Her question was hypothetical for she went on, How's Anna Bollinger, our pregnant lady?" "Doc says she'll be fine - Although she's grieving for her husband." He paused to click his tongue over that tragedy. "Janet's making her her special assignment - Janet and Patti Sue. Was that girl raped?"
"I suspect so."
"It'll take a long while before she's able to talk about whatever it was happened to her."
"She's a sweet kid," Jay said, shaking his head, with a "gone" smile on his face.
"Go as slow as slow."
"I figured that. Kris went down the steps while Jay turned left towards the crates where Aarens was clumsily drying cups with cat-tail fibres. They must have found a humongous supply of the things for them to be used in so many different ways.
The man in the stocks was gone and Kris wished she'd thought to ask Jay what his offence had been. Was that why he'd asked had Patti Sue been raped? Mitford had meant what he said about punishing harassers.
Kris heard steps on the stone behind her and, looking over her shoulder, saw Zainal with Slav and Coo right behind him. She wondered if they shared a cave. All of them looked clean and rested "What are you guys doing up so early?" she demanded.
"I slept much," Zainal said, grinning back at her, his marvellously weird yellow eyes echoing his good humour.
"Slav and Coo well rested. Lot to do."
"Lots to do," she corrected him absently, then hastily added, "but you're real quick to learn."
"Need to learn," he replied, his smile broadened.
"Ve all learn," Slav said in his liquid voice. "Hi, Kn.ssss, he added, emphasizing the sibilant.
Just then the Deskis on the heights let out the whistling alarm and slid, as suddenly, down out of sight.
"Flyers?" someone cried anxiously.
All activity in the camp was suspended. A beat later, everyone out in the open made for caves. Kris looked skyward, pivoting, as Zainal, Coo and Slav were, to scan the horizon. So was Mitford in his exposed position on the floor of the ravine.
Coo gave an odd and ear-splitting cry, which was echoed from above.
"Large thing," the Deski said, spreading his arms to their furthest extension, indicating great size. He rolled his eyes.
"Baaaaaaad. Bad, bad, bad, bad," he repeated, shaking his head and then covering his ears tightly.
But that was as much to mask the noise which was becoming very, very loud - like half a dozen subway trains converging on you and every one of them clanking anff grinding and needing full servicing - as to stress the approaching danger. Kris thought the intensity of the sound was comparable to standing in a continuous sonic boom. Her bones began to vibrate right up to her teeth.
Even the stone under her feet reverberated.
She wanted to ask where the noise was coming from and what made it but she wouldn't be heard above that racket.
The shadow of it came first - longer and wider by far than the ravine, even the hill the ravine dissected. The shadow came on and on, and then they saw the blunt prow of the leviathan that growled and rumbled and still made the very stones shake.
It was coming in, prow definitely aiming downwards, on a descending slant: several thousand feet above them, Kris estimated, blotting out the sun like an island-sized umbrella. A big island, with all kinds of protuberances, long and thin, squat, rounded discs, with all kinds of stick-like rods planted here and there, even on the massive belly doors that were acres long and wide. It seemed to take hours to pass overhead. By then, inured to the noise it made, people were outside again, peering up at the monstrosity. Their curiosity was stronger than their initial panic.
By then Kris had followed others to the nearest height - Mitford, Zainal, Jay Greene, Slav, Coo, the Doyles led the way, joined by half a dozen other men and women who wanted to get a good long look at this vessel.
"It's heading in the direction of the slaughterhouse," Kris yelled above a slightly diminished noise.
"Yeah," Mitford said thoughtfully, rubbing his hand over his mouth, his expression very thoughtful indeed.
"Recognize it, Zainal?" Zainal shook his head slowly, never once dropping his eyes to look at Mitford.
"Catteni have no ship that big." He seemed as impressed by the size of it as everyone else. "Strange - - -" he rolled his hand, trying to find the appropriate word "Configuration?" Jay asked.
Zainal shook his head, made shapes with his hands that looked like the protuberances and spokes jutting out of the ship.
"Oh, those things. Yeah, the ships you took Earth with weren't anything like that one."
"No," and Zainal grinned down at Jay. "Too big, no good "Well, there's that aspect of big, I suppose, Jay replied amiably They watched until it was out of sight but not out of earshot.
On the noon air, they could hear it changing gears or whatever it did, causing the sound to alter.
"Hovering?" Mitford said, disbelieving what his ears reported.
Then he shook his head. "I sure wouldn't want to have to lzft that dead mass from the ground." He sighed.
"7' "How can they?" He looked enquiringly at Zainal who only shrugged again and shook his head. Kris saw anxiety for the first time in Zainal's expression.
Kris swallowed. "If we hadn't got those folks out yesterday Mitford nodded. "You did great, Bjornsen. "Zainal did all the work, Sarge,' she said quickly.
Mitford's chuckle was audible to her and he patted her shoulder in approval.
No-one moved from the uncomfortable height, human or alien. Then, to their listening ears, came a second change of engine sounds. They also heard the powerful blast of rockets, or whatever powered the great ship, as it headed skywards again. It burst into view, nose angled up now. Kris was awed by the technology that could produce such power.
It wasn't a beautiful craft, the way the Discoverer and Challenger had been, delta winged and shingle clad. But it did have a triangular shape to it, blunt nosed as it was.
"You guys willing to take a quick run back down there?" Mitford asked.
He was looking at Zainal, Coo and Slav.
"We sure are," Kris said, and then gulped because she hadn't intended to volunteer.
"Not you, Kris, you're off duty."
"If I am, they are. Only I'm going. I got just as much curiosity as the next one. I can't believe that ship just gulped up all that was there and then calmly took off again." Mitford put his hands around his mouth to shout down to those on the ground. "Dowdall, send a team out to the granary. See if that got emptied."
"Oh lordee," Kris said in a groan. She felt vulnerable again. And she'd brought in more mouths to be fed, too.
"Don't worry," Mitford said, "we're stocked up, all things considered." So the two teams set off. Kris thought their return to the abattoir didn't take. half as long going back as it had coming in.
When they got there, the acres of crates were all gone. In their place were stacks of what looked like collapsed units. That would account for some of the dents and scratches, she thought, still rather numb at the sheer volume that ship had lifted.
Did they have matter transporters? Beam it up, Scotty, was the facetious thought that bounced in Kris's mind until she gave a slightly hysterical laugh to stop it.
"It's all right, Kris," said Zainal, his accent improving all the time.
He must have a terrific ear for language.
Somehow that reassured her more than his words or the arm he laid briefly across her shoulders. "We check the barns "How?" And Kris gestured broadly at the empty space that had once been conveniently bridged by a pyramid of crates. There was a drop of six or seven metres to the first of the piles of collapsed crates. She suddenly felt oddly disorientated by the alteration.
Zainal pointed to the rocky terrain. That was when Kris first realized that the mechanicals had sliced the crate storage out of the cliff side: the barns as well. From what she'd been told, the granary was also stored in natural rock. No arable land was taken up by even such essential facilities. If this was the condition of the entire planet, it was a remarkable achievement in its own right. And here come humans, she thought dourly, to mess it up.
The barns were empty, disinfected and ready for the next batch of occupants. Had the prisoners been dumped down on this planet at harvest and culling time? How often did that monster arrive to collect? Monthly, bi-monthly?
The weather was mild enough to be spring, but the crops in the fields were more mature than springtime growth. And she'd heard that grain had kept pouring into the storage caves, which suggested fall harvests.
The other salient fact was that the machines' masters were probably as omnivorous as humanoids. And needed so much food that they went to the expense of developing highly specialized machinery to nurture and cultivate food crops and meat animals: and had sufficient planets available for their use so that they could devote all? most?
· of this one to food production? The collection vehicle as well as the mechanicals meant an extremely high technological level. And yet Zainal, for all the Catteni were well travelled and doing a lot of exploration on their own, did not recognize the type of craft used, and his exploratory service had registered the planet as uninhabited. Of course, if there was nothing but machines on the planet, that figured.
Only why hadn't the Catteni seen the machines on their appointed rounds?
The Catteni hadn't surveyed the planet in the night only, had they?
Or maybe during an infrequent down time during the "winter' months. Kris's knowledge of farming suggested there were few down times on a farm: something or other had to be tended all year round.
Then Zainal blithely insisted that they have a look at the "garages' where curious vehicles with a variety of strange attachments awaited recall to duty.
"They do not recognize humans. No problem!" he told Kris and she was so flabbergasted that he had acquired the "no problem' slang that he was in the garage before she could protest.
One machine, standing inside, was hooked up to a framework which blinked and blipped. A servicing mechanism? Kris wished that they had someone with engineering training along. But then, who'd've thought they'd have a chance to inspect so thoroughly. Oh, for some of that bark and a pencil so she could make diagrams of the various types of mechanicals parked in the several garages. The last of the big barns contained sacks and sacks of what? Logic told her seeds or possibly fertilizers, more than likely. Had they been brought by the leviathan that had collected the meat? She used her knife to get into some of the bags and got samples of everything. Seeds, definitely, over half the shipment and, by the smell of it, fertilizer in the others.
The patrol got back to the camp by first moonrise. She didn't feel quite so wimpy when Coo and Slav showed signs of wanting to rest but she and Zainal first had to report to Mitford "They didn't take the grain, Bjornsen," was Mitford's first comment but she thought he seemed depressed.
"What did you find?" While Kris told him, including her surmises as she passed over the samples she had secured, Zainal had taken several large sheets of the papery bark and was quickly sketching on them. A couple of times Kris lost the thread of her report when she saw his accurate depictions of the various types of machinery they had seen in the garages. Mitford stole the odd glance, his eyes switching to Zainal's face as the Catteni's pencil flew over the surface, but his sketches looked remarkably accurate to Kris's eyes. Zainal regarded his handiwork and then calmly made necessary amendments, correcting occasional lines. They'd had an engineer along all the time, hadn't they, thought Kris. Zainal had rather more talents than anyone had realized.
"These," Zainal said, handing over the sheaf to Mitford.
"Hey, Bob the Herb, Mack Su, Capstan, Macy, front and centre and bring those granary sketches," Mitford roared in his parade ground voice, then grinned approvingly at both Zainal and Kris. "There's quite a range of these things. Now we got to figure how to disable them."
"Why?" Kris blurted out the question.
"Like you, Bjornsen, I think there are humanoids bound to be involved in this kind of food production, seeing as how they seem to need the same sort of foods we do. It's the pits that the Deskis aren't doing too well on what they can scrounge that doesn't rot their guts and we can't find enough of those greens that Coo thought would help. However," and he went on briskly, "we're obviously dealing with a very hightech race." Kris nodded her head vehemently. "That ship confirms some sort of periodic check. So there's got to be some sort of ongoing monitoring, even if we haven't found a central control point.
Kris wondered just how much of this Zainal understood, but he was listening with every ounce of his big frame. She could feel the tension in the thigh next to hers on the wide rock they were sitting on. Odd, that she didn't mind tactile contact with Zainal but he was so subtle about it, unlike some guys with impudent, wandering paws she'd encountered.
"So, if we start lousing up the machines, someone will come look,' Mitford concluded.
"And we just overpower them?" Kris asked, aghast at the mere thought of invading a ship the size of the collector.
Especially since the only weapons they had were knives, hatchets, spears, and bows and arrows. She let out a burst of laughter.
"Don't laugh, Bjornsen. There's more than one way of infiltrating a spacecraft. And I'm more or less counting on the fact that the investigatory ship would be smaller and have a live, not a mechanical crew. Machines are good enough for routine jobs but evaluation requires brains."
"First things first. Get the investigator here." Those Mitford had called for arrived and then he roared for a cook to bring two plates of food. He must have heard Kris's stomach rumbling.
"We've been tossing ideas around while you guys were investigating, so I'll bring you up to speed, Zainal, Bjornsen," he said and nodded at them both before turning to the other patrol members. "Coo, Slav, get some grub. Go eat." He pointed to the main cave. "And thanks. Oh, Coo, Bob the Herb harvested more of that green stuff you like.
Coo nodded and, with the Rugarian, made a beeline for the main cave.
Mitford's eyes followed him.
"Ration bars are now reserved for Deskis, Morphins and Turs, folks. The rest of us can live off the land.
"Not until we find something their stomachs don't reject." Mitford gave the sort of resigned sigh that meant he was worried about the problem. He was leader enough to want to preserve all his troops, especially those with abilities like the Deskis. "The cooks are busy whipping up a sort of pemmican for patrols to eat so you don't upset the mechanicals by reducing their herds." He grinned.
"What did you call those critters, Kris? Loocows." He chuckled.
"Sarge, I thought you wanted us to upset the mechanicals," Kris said, wanting clarification on that point.
"We plan the upsetting - " he grinned again, "but I don't want any of our guys to get darted out in the fields. So we disable the mechanism. OK, fellas," he said to the newcomers. Capstan and Macy were new faces and names for Kris but they seemed to know who she and Zainal were. Mitford passed Zainal's sketches around.
"Zainal's drawn the sort of mechanicals that are housed at the slaughterhouse. Seem to me to be different from the ones at the granary.
"Highly specialized equipment," Su said, leafing through the drawings, pausing briefly to scowl at several before he switched his lot with Capstan. Kris found out later that the older man had been a designer of highly specialized production-line equipment.
"Look, all of "em are solar-powered!" Su said, flicking his fingers at various flat surfaces on the individual machines. "Like I said they had to be. Ecologically sound, using renewable energy.
Small wonder the Catteni scouts thought the planet was unoccupied.
They'd probably been scanning, or whatever they do, for life-forms and those mechanicals aren't alive. Now, they have to have collectors and storage batteries, too, and where'd they . ah, yes, possibly these units. Hmmm."
"And if there's no sun? Do they all just go down when it's overcast or rainy?" Kris asked, making a mental note of the solar panels on each variety of machine.
"Hasn't rained yet and we've been here ten days," Mitford said with a sigh, his glance going up and down the ravine that had experienced floods which had left visible high-water traces on the walls.
Zainal also looked around the camp and smiled. "Much done in ten days." "Good for morale," was Mitford's terse reply but he added a brief smile at the compliment. "Now, we got individuals who've got real expert with slingshots. Can take out a rocksquat at twentyfive metres. Stones'd take out those solar panels, wouldn't they?" Su thought about that but Capstan shook his head.
"We'd have to know what sort of material they use in the mechanicals' panels. But it would follow that if enough of the surface was marred, it might not collect sufficient solar energy to perform efficiently." "Perhaps," and Kris adopted an ingenuous look and tone to her voice, "we should practise some creative mudslinging? I didn't see a car-wash in that Dalek barn." Zainal flicked her a quick glance because he didn't understand her allusion, so she charaded it and then he smiled, nodding. Su seemed to like the idea and even Capstan gave a droll little smile.
"There're sure enough brooks where we'd need "em to make mud," Su went on with enthusiasm. "And if we got enough on the panels, the sun would dry it hard in place."
"Mud at night. No machine runs in day," Zainal suggested with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Good idea, Zainal," Mitford said, grinning. "Decommission them at source.
"Well, now, hold on a moment," Capstan said. "There would have to be storage batteries, to keep them ticking over and start them off in the morning. Or there should be something like that. We'd have to disable those as well, you know."
"So we do," Mitford said cheerfully.
"I wonder how many we would have to knock out for someone to come check the situation?" That question was tossed around but they all agreed that they would first have to locate more installations for the plan to be effective. Kris, Zainal and the two aliens had not been the only patrol which Mitford had sent out and one, Mitford told them, was still missing. He wasn't worried about them - yet - because they'd gone north, away from the slaughterhouse. He admitted that there would need to be a lot more such facilities to service all the land they could see cultivated and grazed. Enough hills could be seen from the sentry posts: each range could hide more mechanicals, farming nearby arable land.
"Zainal," Kris said after a brief pause in the exchange of ideas, "how many would the prison ship have dropped in one journey?" Zainal's shrug was almost apologetic. "Don't know. No need for me to know."
"Well, they landed more than us and those you just freed up," Mitford said in sudden anger. The others nodded solemnly. With a sigh, the sergeant went on.
"One of the recon patrols tangled with a savage bunch of individuals:
only two of our guys got away and one was badly sliced up.
Estimated there were close to thirty in the lot that jumped them. So it'll be more important than ever for any patrols to post sentries at night. Esker was smart enough to hide himself and Barrett, who was injured, until they could be sure they weren't followed back here. And that," Mitford's thick index finger pointed at each one in the circle to emphasize his warning, "is what no-one does! I'll tell you one thing: they really hopped to it next time I called a Red Alert. And Murph made us a triangle out of metal that would wake the dead."
"But we could hold off hundreds here, Sarge," Kris said, startled. The mere thought that the camp was vulnerable, and to renegade humans, depressed her. As it must have depressed Mitford.
"You better believe it," Mitford said so resolutely and with such a knowing grin on his face that Kris relaxed.
Mitford had obviously been busy placing safeguards as well as amenities. "Do they ever check up on the job lots they drop down?" he asked Zainal who nodded.
"Not soon," he said. "In half a year, he added, dropping into Barevi to express the time.
"Half year," Kris murmured in English and he nodded again as he accepted that new word.
"Would they bring in more prisoners?" Mitford asked Zaina!, who nodded.
"Drop people many places, and he made a spreading gesture with his hands. "Many times to seed planet." Kris wasn't the only one who received that information with a sinking heart. How many did the Catteni expect would survive? And if none did, was the planet written off? What a way to colonize! While she hadn't even thought to estimate how many prisoners had been in that holding area prior to being forced aboard the transport, there had been a lot more than the few hundreds ending up in this camp. They knew of at least four other deposits now. How many had there been in the initial load? At that, they might be better off making first contact with the Mecano Makers.
"Well, we deal with what we can, Mitford said staunchly. "And we'll explore as thoroughly as possible under the circumstances.
"I was in space more," he said, spreading his hands wide open to express his ignorance.
"Huh, so the Catteni operate just like any other army?" Mitford said in a droll tone. "Left hand doesn't know what the right hand does." Kris had a time explaining that remark to the puzzled Zainal who grinned when he did understand.
i8o When Mitford finally dismissed them, Kris made her way down the ravine and over to the stairs. The kitchen cavern walls were now decorated with outlines of vegetations. These were divided into several sections: one marked human with those plants to avoid and those to gather; another had "Deski' in elaborate Gothic lettering as a caption and the subheading "potassium? calcium?".
"Hi there," a cheerful voice said, and Dick Aarens moved to intercept her.
"Not now, Aarens," she said, altering her direction to avoid him.
"Hey, gal, I'm only trying to be friendly." He stepped in front of her.
"So am I, but right now all I want is my bed.
His eyes, a pleasing shade of blue for all she didn't like the man who wore them, widened. "Why so do I!" And he attempted to put his arm around her as if to lead her off.
She ducked out from under. "By myself, Aarens."
"Kris She was both relieved and concerned to hear Zainal's voice behind her. She turned, took a step towards the Catteni.
"Yes?" She hoped her response conveyed her relief at his timely arrival.
"We talk tomorrow's patrol now?" he asked.
Behind her, she heard Aarens mutter something and then the crunch of his feet on the sandy floor as he moved away "Thanks, Zainal. You saved my life." Zainal regarded her with a thoughtful expression. "You do not like him?"
"No," she said, shaking her head for emphasis.
"I think so.
"Watch him, though, Zainal. He's dangerous.
"How?" Zainal was amused at her response.
"He doesn't like you "Because you do?" She shook her head.
"Because first you're Catteni and second he fancies himself better than you. And irresistible to me." Zainal shook his head, lightly gripping her on the arms, a tacit request for explanation.
"I'm not sure I can explain the nuances," she said, grinning up at him. Yellow eyes were much nicer than plain old blue. And she liked Zainal's hands on her whereas Dick Aarens' touch made her skin crawl.
"Nu-an-ces?" She put her hand on his chest, felt the faint pulse of his heartbeat - Catteni had hearts after all. "I'll explain later, Zainal. Right now, I'm so tired I can't."
"Go," and he turned her towards the corridor but when he gave her a little push, she grabbed his hand.
"You come, too. I don't mean to have Aarens jump out at me."
"I like to come," Zainal said and there was a decided glint in his eyes that made Kris wonder how she was going to dismiss this courtier. And, if she hadn't been so tired, she might - just now - have considered She shook her head. The timing was wrong. She was so tired.
So, her hand tucked into his large one, they walked to her cave.
"Sleep well, Kris." F"Don't you just know I will," she said fervently.
To her utter surprise, he cupped her head briefly, tousling her hair before he let go. But he was off down the corridor before she could react.
"Too damned tired even for a goodnight kiss," she said ruefully and gratefully sank onto her bed of boughs.
The next day, her patrol consisted of Zainal, Coo, Slav and the Doyle brothers. Their main objective: to find and disable as many mechanicals as they could, starting with those at the abattoir. The optimum, according to Capstan, would be to dismantle the solar panels, if they could do so. Either smashing the panels or smearing them with mud was equally viable, so long as the mechanicals were disabled. The secondary aim was to continue the interrupted reconnaissance of their immediate vicinity. They started out better equipped than ever, with ropes braided of vines which didn't burn the skin as the tough synthetic material of the blankets did. They each had slingshots, a pouch of suitable small rocks - that was one of the duties for the few youngsters in the camp - a flint-tipped lance, and bags of the new trail food. Kris had sampled it when Jay handed over the ration and it was definitely an improvement over the dry compressed Catteni bar as far as taste was concerned. Coo and Slav were given ration bars, Patti Sue doling them out with thoughtful care. The girl evidently had no trouble serving the alien males, though she never once looked at Zainal.
"We don't know if the pemmican supplies all your daily nutritional needs," Jay said, "but you can hunt to augment protein." The Doyle brothers made cheerful companions, asking questions of both Kris and Zainal. Kris wondered if they had been chosen because, being Irish, they seemed to get along with anyone including aliens.
They made good time, Zainal setting a course diagonally west of the patrol's earlier trek, the one which had resulted in their capture.
They found a hillock and made their evening camp on its crest until the rain came. It wasn't a soft rain: Kris figured that it was comparable to standing under the waterfall in her Barevi refuge. They huddled under an improvised tent made from their blankets which gave them some protection from the driving force of the torrent. It rained hard for what Kris and the Doyles decided was probably an hour, though battered as they were, it seemed an endless period. Then, as abruptly as it started, it stopped.
"Like someone turned the shower off, Lenny said, peering out of the damp shelter. "And hey, not a cloud in the sky and it's only the first moon.
I'd recognize her anytime by her craters." They shook the blankets out:
the synthetic seemed to shed the water - the outside a trifle damp to the hand but the underside dry "Amazing fabric," Ninety said, crushing the edge of his blanket in his hand. "Give credit where it's due. Those Catteni make good survival gear."
"Durable," Kris agreed and looked over at Zainal who was staring about the land below their retreat. "What d'you see?"
"Yes," the Catteni said and then lowered himself to the ground. "You take this watch, Kris. Wake Slav. Slav, you wake Coo. Coo, wake Doyles. You wake me." Feeling for the dry side of his blanket, he then pulled it around him and pillowed his head on his arm. "I sleep, then think better.
Whatever he had feared at least kept them all alert on their separate watches. Maybe, Kris thought as she woke Slav to take his turn, that was what Zainal had had in mind, the sneaky so-and-so.
They were all awake before the sun came up, not being adjusted yet to the longer days and nights. They had saved enough dry droppings to make a fire to heat water from a nearby stream in their cups, adding the dried herbs that became a fragant tea to sip while eating their pemmican.
There were worse ways to break a fast.
When they came to the next ridge, Zainal climbed to the highest point and surveyed the distances, before pointing to their right "Hills," he said crypucally "Can the mechanicals have built into every hillside?" Kris asked, half-running to keep up with his long stride as he marched downhill again.
"We see," Zainal said, grinning at her, his yellow eyes twinkling.
They made the new destination by noontime, striding along the crest of that hill complex until they came to the bare rock and another silent, but full, garage.
"D'you think they take a lunch break and oil and grease themselves?" Lenny asked, as they all looked down at the closed doors of the anonymous facility. "Another granary?" He gestured to nearby fields, straw brown and shorn of whatever crops they might have sprouted.
"We look."
"And smear?" Ninety asked, mopping his perspiring forehead, for the last several klicks had included considerable climbing. "I could moisten a hill or two with the sweat I've raised." The storage barns were empty, not so much as a grain of whatever they had held.
"That was one busy mother of a ship," Lenny said, "if it cleared this, too."
"Long time,- Zainal said, showing dust on the finger he had drawn across the floor.
"Oh? Cutting back the farmers' subsidies here, too, huh?" Ninety asked facetiouslyZainal gestured for the patrol to check out each building of the fifteen in this complex. The last one was the garage where the mechanicals were standing in motionless lines.
They didn't look dusty, but just as Ninety started to enter the building, Zainal held up his arm and then pointed to the long rectangles on the eastern overhang of the garage.
"Sun power.
"Yeah," Ninety said, gulping. "D'you think they've registered us as thieves?"
"Doubt it," Lenny said. "What've they got to guard Fagainst on this planet? They don't even know we're here.
And dangerous!" Zainal chuckled. "We are. To them." Then he gestured to Ninety, made a cup of his two hands and waited.
Ninety, shrugging at the thought of his not inconsiderable bulk being hoisted by the Catteni, put his foot in the hand and climbed to Zainal's shoulders where he was now high enough to examine the panels.
"Hey," he said after a moment 5 scrutiny, "I think they come off - He grabbed one, rocking a bit on Zainal's Fshoulders, but the Catteni compensated easily and Ninety unclipped the panel from its brackets.
"Easy to install, replacements in stock, no waiting, no problem!" He handed each of the four panels down, then examined the links to wherever the power was collected. "Wish I'd seen the specs of the solar power stuff they were bringing into Dublin before we left."
"You weren't taken in Ireland?" Kris asked, somehow having assumed that they were.
"Naw, we were working on a construction site in Detroit. Pay wasn't great but better'n getting only fifty quid a week on the dole." Then he jumped neatly down from Zainal's shoulders and joined his brother, Slav and Coo, who were peering suspiciously at the units.
Zainal seemed to be waiting, his attention on the unmoving machines.
"How much power would these things store up?" Ninety asked him.
"Do we have to wait until dark? We wouldn't be able to see then."
"Maybe they're on standby anyhow," Lenny suggested.
"They're not armed er anything.
"Darts," Zainal said and peered into the garage to see if he could locate the little aerial menaces.
"I don't see anything set in the frame," Lenny said, running a hand down the side of the opening. "No sign of security devices. Not as if I'd recognize any if I saw "em. There has to be some - Coo broke his thoughtful silence by walking right in and straight to the back of the dim garage. Turning around, he raised his long, spider-fingered hands in a "so there' gesture.
"OK," said Ninety, brushing his hands together. "Let's see if we can't disable these fecking mechanicals." He jumped to the flange of the nearest big farm machine and, finding toe holds, climbed high enough to reach the canted solar panel surfaces. "And these come off with a twist of the wrist, too," he said, after yanking first one, then the next panel out of their brackets. There were seven in all. Having done that, he looked down at Zainal.
"OK, boss man, whaddawe do next?" Zainal stepped up on the flange and then on tiptoe to look into the opening left by the removal of the panels.
Kris held her breath, hoping nothing would turn on and knock him out, or off. She couldn't remember, from her brief glimpses of them, what sections of the machinery lit up when in use.
Zainal began tugging at a section which came away in his hands.
He grunted, handed this down to Kris and he and Ninety began dismantling the exterior sheets. Even Slav looked pleased as he, Coo, and Lenny handled the pieces.
"Simple," Zainal remarked after a good look at the innards. "This . . ." and he touched a cube the length of his spread hand, "is the power collector." He pulled it loose.
"Hrnmm, a regular pop-tool," Ninety said, grinning.
"Handy dandy Meccano set."
"Well, if other machines had to service it, might as well be easy to disassemble," Lenny said, changing his voice on the last word to sound more like Short Circuit Number Five.
ùThe wires and connectors that were plugged into the -power cube also came away easily, and Zainal, with yet another grunt, removed the cube.
"Could we use that back at the camp?" Kris asked.
"For what?" Ninety said with a snort. "We haven't anything to power up."
"We could if we had power and maybe some of the engineer types could rearrange all those parts into something useful for us.
"For what?" Ninety asked.
"What's the matter with you? Don't you like technology?" Lenny wanted to know, dismissing his brother's attitude.
"Mitford will want," Zainal said. "We bring on later back to camp." He looked around again, his eyes narrowed.
"What's wrong?"
"No dart thing."
Coo suddenly pointed up, chattering in the way of Deski laughter.
Craning their necks, they finally saw the aerial unit, high up in the ceiling.
"No wonder we didn't see one in the slaughterhouse garage. We never looked up," Kris said. "Well, now we know where it hangs out, we can get that one, too.
"Already half-launched like that, isn't it?" Lenny said.
"That thing has to be programmed by a machine, doesn't it? I mean, it can't go off in here, can it?"
"I hope not," Ninety said.
They had to do a circus act: Ninety on Zainal's shoulders, with Coo on Ninety's to get enough height to reach the thing. In trying to remove it from the brackets that held it in place, the human ladder swayed alarmingly back and forth, with Lenny and Kris doing a dance around Zainal, ready to cushion any faller with their own bodies.
Coo ended up swinging on the thing, to break it loose from its mooring. So it and he fell, Coo uttering amazing cackles as he plummeted, clutching the mechanism to his thin chest. Lenny and Kris smacked into each other as they reached out to catch his spider body.
But they did break his fall even though Kris got clouted across the nose by one wing extension of the flying device. She saw stars but managed to hang on to the frail Deski body until they could ease him to the ground.
When they separated Kris gasped, for the wicked points of the anaesthetic darts were visible along the leading edge of both wings, pointing right at frer. She could so easily have been pricked. She sat down, tipping her head back trying to stem the nosebleed.
The men were all for breaking up the evil device.
"No way, she said with muffled urgency because she only had her sleeve to use to staunch the blood on her face. "Let's find out if there's a reservoir or well of that anaesthetic they use," she said.
"Why?" Lenny demanded. "I'm not a vindictive sort but when I think about what happened to some bodies who got darted -, "I'm thinking of a medical use for the anaesthetic, Lenny. It put us to sleep. And that could be useful."
"Oh, yeah.
So they were even more careful as they disassembled the unit.
Then they disabled all the other machines in the garage, making neat piles of the various components.
"Don't fancy lugging all this back," Lenny said, eyeing the lot thoughtfully.
"We get more people to carry. Aarens is strong," Zainal said, grinning maliciously in Kris's direction.
"He'll love you for that," she said with a snort and a laugh.
"Lugging's about all that gobshite's good for, Ninety said as he regarded the piles dubiously. "But, hey, is it safe to just leave the stuff lying here?" Zainal shrugged. "No machine has power!"
"That's true enough," Ninety said, still worried.
"No power in the garage either," Kris reminded him.
F "Suppose they have got some sort of security patrol that comes around checking to be sure they're on duty or something?" Ninety wanted to know.
After a moment, Zainal grinned. "That is what is wanted."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," and Ninety scratched his head. "So, shouldn't we break all this up so it can't put them all back together?"
"9' "We hide, Zainal said decisively after a moment's thought.
They had to haul the panels and cubes quite a distance to find some place that would be secure from an aerial or surface inspection, and that task took the rest of the day.
That night they camped inside the inoperative garage, safe from the torrential rains that once again pummelled the ground. The rocksquats they'd hunted - Kris had surprised herself by stunning one in her first attempt to hunt with a slingshot - were roasted over the fire they made. The patrol ate, watching the rain sheeting down.
In the course of their seven-day patrol, for that was the time given them by Mitford for this tour, they found and rendered useless four more installations, including another empty abattoir. They camped there that night, more comfortably on fodder bedding while outside the hour-long rain pelted down. It rained every evening, hard, for approximately an hour and they preferred to be undercover during such onslaughts.
"This sort of rain can't be natural," Kris said the fourth night.
"Not rain at night, when all the machines would be safely back in their garages.
"They got the farming so well organized here, I wouldn't put it past "em to organize the weather, too," Ninety said, then added thoughtfully, "Sure would be nice not to have the soccer games rained off.
"You would think of soccer," his brother said with amiable asperity.
"Then there'd have to be a central control facility somewhere on this planet," Kris said, turning to Zainal. He nodded. "Only where?
We aren't going to be able to cover a great deal of distance on foot and we don't even know which continent we're on. Do we?" she asked Zainal.
He shook his head, sighing again and indicating his own frustration over insufficient data.
"Well, if we keep on the way we're going, disabling garages, we may meet our landlord soon. Maybe sooner than we'd like," and unconsciously her hand went to the knife at her belt. "Comforting a knife may be, but it's not really sufficient to combat the kind of technology we've seen." "No intelligence on this planet, Zainal said with a shrug.
"D'you mean anything that comes after us would be a machine?" Kris wasn't at all happy with that notion. "Or more flying darts?"
"We were trapped in that place," Zainal said but he was obviously turning over the possibilities in his head and then gave a convulsive shrug. "We are careful. We keep watch." He delivered a short series of guttural barks to the Deski, who was chewing a mouthful. Coo nodded and pointed to his ear-flaps. Then, to Kris's surprise, he held up one of his two opposite digits in the "gotcha' gesture.
"They catch on quick, don't they?" Lenny murmured as he beamed at the Deski and made the thumbsup with both of his hands. Coo nodded enthusiastically but kept right on chewing.
Kris, watching the Catteni's face during this exchange decided that he had also noted the alteration in the Deski.
Though the alien kept up with the patrol, climbing was no longer as effortless for him and, to Kris, he seemed even more spidery and insubstantial than ever. And he was constantly trying out some new greenery, root, or the nut-like objects he found in the forested areas.
Some of the vegetation sprouted sort of nuts, or fungi, on the trunks.
Coo tried everything and, when the others chowed down on rocksquat, he ate slowly of his ration bars. Twice Zainal had evidently told him not to save the bars: there would be more back at the camp. At least that's what Kris thought Zainal was telling him.
On the morning of the sixth day, Slav pointed out their homeward direction. Kris was suitably awed by the confidence he displayed, since they'd done so much up-and downhill travel, so many detours around impassable rock faces that she had no idea where the home camp was.
At fourth moonrise three days after Mitford had sent out five teams to search and disable, the sergeant was reviewing plans: renovations made by the three architects among them for the abattoir barns. He'd sent a group of engineer types to bring back some of the most interesting junk. The processing equipment in the slaughterhouse had been completely dismantled although they'd have to have serious overcrowding before anyone who knew what had happened in that plant would live in it. However, there'd be more folks who hadn't a clue.
He heard one of the sentries hiss at him.
"Sarge, something's coming."
"Well, don't tell me. Challenge them, but Mitford reached for his spear with one hand and eased the knife out of its sheath with the other F"Who goes there?" the sentry yelled.
Yells answered him but not the passwords. He ducked.
"Shit, Sarge, they ain't ours," and he ducked behind the prominence on his height. "RED ALERT!" He clanged fiercely on the metal alarm triangle set on the height.
I"WHICH WAY ARE THEY COMING, GODDAMMIT, RAINEY!" Mitford roared.
ATTACK! TAKE YOUR STATIONS!" It was fortunate that, even with many out on exploratory patrols, there was usually a handful of people awake at any hour of the twentyeight.
"COMING DOWN THE RAVINE, SARGE! Omigod , and Rainey ducked as a spear clattered on the rock beyond him. "They're shooting at ME!" More spears came spinning out of the darkness, aimed at the source of light which was the "office' fire. Crouching to make a smaller target, Mitford dashed forward. In the stocks, Aarens was shouting to be released as two spent arrows and another spear fell close to him.
"C' MON," Mitford roared at the men and women rushing out of the main caves, spears and knives ready, just as they'd been drilled. With grim satisfaction, Mitford knew there'd be no complaints about his drilling them after this. Only how many were attacking? he wondered, as he pounded up the ravine and grinned as he saw the first attackers appear on the edge of the lighted areas. A good fight, that's what he'd been missing. Seeing a target, he paused long enough to launch his spear at an oncoming body. It pierced the chest of the leader who dropped like a stone. Now the sentries on the heights were using their weapons, firing arrows and launching their spears into the crowd. Then the next of the attackers was howling as he charged at Mitford.
The sergeant met the frenzied attack: the man had a knife in each hand but he hadn't the first clue about effective fighting, slashing the air in the hope that one knife would connect. Mitford ducked, sidestepped and then plunged his knife into the attacker's ribs. The man screamed, an awful wailing desperate sound, knives falling from strengthless hands as he fell back. Mitford remained in the crouching position as he quickly jerked his knife free and then tackled the next attacker. He was peripherally aware that his force was pressing in behind him. Then a stone, thrown from the heights, bounced off his shoulder and he staggered against the wall of the ravine.
"HEY, WATCH WHERE YOU'RE AIMING," he roared as he saw Bart, Taglione, and quite likely Sandy Areson swarming past him.
It was over quickly: the attackers had obviously had no real plan in mind. They'd seen lights and smelt cooking, then attacked at a time when they thought everyone would be asleep.
There were fourteen bodies to be buried and three whose wounds could be sewn up. They were starving and even their Catteni-issue clothing was torn and incredibly filthy. When the sun came up three women crept in begging for help. They were in a dreadful condition, not only starved but beaten and repeatedly abused. Mitford approvingly watched Patti Sue gently leading one of them, little more than a child, into the kitchen for probably the first real food she'd eaten since being dropped.
Only five of the defenders had been wounded: two of those by "friendly fire' from stones thrown down into the ravine. Mitford's shoulder was sore but he didn't mention it to Matt Dargle who was busy sewing up knife cuts.
Another man had tripped in the dark and broken his leg and was cursing his clumsiness while the bone was set.
"Sorry about that, Sarge," he said when Mitford walked round the infirmary to check the damages.
"Weren't you right behind me up that ravine, Bart?" Mitford asked as he watched Matt Dargle sewing up the nasty slice on the black man's arm. "Teach you to keep your guard up.
"Naw, they was aiming at you," Bart said, grinning.
"Saving my skin, were you? Good man!" Mitford gave his uninjured shoulder a quick squeeze of appreciation The battle had roused the entire camp, so the cooks made an early breakfast for everyone.
Mitford took advantage of the meal to drive home the lesson that they had to maintain vigilance.
"Good reaction, quick response time, folks, but they never should have got as far as the ravine at all. I think we'll move the guard perimeter out a bit."
"Draw me a plan," Mitford said, nodding approval.
"You know, with so many out on patrol, didn't we leave ourselves a bit thin of fighting men here?" Sandy asked.
"Not when you were right in vanguard yourself," Mitford said in blunt approval.
"It's my home, too," Sandy said with a shrug. "Besides, you drilled all of us!"
"Didn't I just?" Mitford said with a grin.
"All right, all right, we bitched," she said, flapping her hand at his inference. "You knew what you were doing.
I guess we've got a bit cocky-' "We all know better now, don't we?" Mitford said, glancing around him. "Hell, they didn't even get as far as my office, did they? Now I need a disposal patrol."
"You mean burial party?" Dowdall asked, looking up from honing his blade.
"No, disposal. I want those bodies dumped four fields over at least, Dowdall."
"Aw, Sarge," Dowdall groaned in protest at being tacitly assigned the duty "Don't want that carrion stinking up our camp, do we?
You, you, you, you and you," and he ended up with a full squad.
"Take care of it before the sun warms "em too much." As soon as he got back to his office to write up the incident, Aarens began his complaint.
And you call yourself civilized! Think you're such a big leader." Mitford walked straight up to Aarens, jerking him by the hair of his head so Aarens couldn't evade his eyes.
"Look, you sorry piece of shit. You keep on this way and I'll stake your living body out right beside the others." Aarens gasped.
"Oh, wouldn't I? Just give me an excuse. Just give me one!" Mitford knew that his rage was fuelled more by a reaction to the stress of the surprise attack and the run-off of adrenalin in his system. He oughtn't to lose control by taking it out on Aarens, but better him than anyone else.
"Hey, Sarge, take it easy. Take it easy," and though there was a quaver in the man's voice, his conciliatory manner caused Mitford to let his hair go. "You don't want to waste me, Sarge. Not now. Not when you're going to need me."
"Yeah, me, Sarge," and Aarens actually grinned. "Like I told you when I got here, I'm a mechanical genius. I can make machinery work when no-one else can. I don't even need manuals to tell me how things work. It's a knack I've got. I used to make big money back in the States, just telling executives how to improve the efficiency of their production lines.
Look, I heard what you were discussing with Mack Su, Capstan and the others. They're all desk jockeys. Me, I'm the guy on the floor who carries out their notions. And makes "em work. You don't want to waste the one real talent you've got who can give you lights for the caves? Hot water! Distant early warning devices."
"DEWs? How could you do that?" Mitford was suspicious but certainly willing to use Aarens - if the waste-of-space could produce the goods.
"You could mount solar panels - and their collectors, of course all around the camp," and Aarens gestured with his stocked hands, "with a circuit, say, of a lighter wire. Anything breaking that wire and the alarm sounds Simple."
"At night?" Aarens shook his head, denying that qualification.
"Collectors should save enough of a charge to be functional all night long. Or how do those mechanicals start up? I mean, it's simple enough." Mitford thought there was no harm in running the idea past Mack and Spiller "Yeah, simple enough. Now shut up for a while."
"Yeah, but I'm supposed to be out of this contraption today," Aarens complained.
Mitford gave him a long look and then pointed to the sundial.
"Not until the sun's on the first division.
That makes it exactly a day since you got sentenced for harassing the little Chinese kid." Mitford gave the man one more long stare before he turned to pick up a sheet and his pencil.
He almost regretted the fact that Mack, Spiller and Jack the Nail thought Aarens' idea had enough merit to make a prototype from materials that had been brought back to camp from the abattoir buildings.
Zainal's team made it back to camp just before the evening rains by jogging whenever the terrain permitted, and were met with a stern demand from the sentries for the password.
"Password?" Kris yelled back. "What password? You know who we are! Hell, it's Kris Bjornsen, Zainal, the Doyle brothers, Coo and Slav. Damn it all, Tesco, don't be so hostile.
"Well, it's my duty, Kris. We got attacked while you was all gone." His grin gave her the immediate good news F that the attack had failed and no-one in the camp had evidently been killed or badly hurt.
They passed by Tesco's post and hurried down to the caves, eager for more details about the incident.
When Kris saw that the sergeant wasn't in his office, she grabbed the first person by the arm, a youngster she remembered rescuing from the barns.
"Pete, where's Mitford?"
"Inside," the boy said. "Didja hear about us being attacked?"
"Yes, but we could do with some details."
"Who? What?" Lenny demanded.
"Aw, just some starving renegades. Sarge led the counterattack, he was something else . . ." and the boy's eyes shone with admiration.
"Bart and Sandy Areson right behind "im. I missed most of it," and Pete's face fell in disappointment. "The sentries rained down arrows and stones and clipped a few of our guys. Pete grinned irrepressibly.
"Friendly fire, the sarge called it. And they had fourteen bodies to dump - over that way," and Pete made a wild gesture that indicated a considerable distance "to keep the scavengers happy." He gave an expressive shudder. "So you see, you missed a lot!
"Were any of our guys hurt?" Kris asked urgently, glancing at the empty office.
"Aw, a broken leg and a couple of cuts is all. And the sarge took in the ladies the bad guys had messed up bad." Inadvertently, Kris's glance went to the stocks. They were empty. Could both Aarens and Arnie be on good behaviour? Had the attack scared manners into them?
"Death to all invaders of our Camp Ayers Rock!" And Pete shot his arm up in a clenched fist salute.
"Camp Ayres Rock?" Kris repeated, stunned.
"Sure, why not? The rock that protects us."
"Well, you are named Peter,"
"Huh?" The kid screwed his face up.
"Peter means rock, honey' "Oh, I never knew that."
"D'you know where the sergeant is right now, Peter?" Kris asked.
"Sure. Follow me," and he gestured them after him.
"He's rigging distant early warning devices."
"He is?"
"Yeah, that Aarens guy did "em. Not bad. And they work."
"Aarens?" and Kris turned n amazement to Zainal.
"Wonders will never cease," Lenny said, grinning at her, appreciating her surprise. "So he isn't a total waste."
"Takes all kinds to make a world," was all Mitford said when they met up with him on his way back from the perimeter.
"Surprised me, too," Mitford said, leading them to a small cave that was his "inside office" - since the rains came, he said. "Did Pete there tell you all about the raid?"
"Can we debrief you, Sarge?" Kris asked, laughing.
"Later, give me the report on your findings first. You do all right?"
He glanced around at the others.
"Fine, Sarge, we did great," Lenny answered him.
"Coo's gotten much weaker though, Sarge," Kris said quietly, not glancing in the Deski's direction. Mitford grimaced. "Has anybody else found something to help?"
"Matt Dargle has narrowed it down to the lack of potassium, Vitamin C or calcium and we're looking for sources of those," and Mitford looked dour. "Right now, there're only three Deskis strong enough to go out with foragers to search. He turned to Zainal. "You got any good ideas?"
"Deskis always need special foods.
Bring in to Barevi.
I do not know what." And Zainal sighed. "Good guys, Deskis!' "S'more'n I can say for some," Mitford said in a low disgusted growl.
He went on in a more positive tone.
"Believe it or not but Aarens is the mechanical genius he said he was "So we heard."
"Well, he cobbled together some perimeter circuit warning devices in case some other individuals think they can raid Camp Rock - -, He grinned when he realized they'd heard the location had received a name.
"He and Spiller believe we can even get to adapt the panels to make water hot and maybe even internal lighting and heat. D'you remember anything in that report about the winters here, Zainal?" There was a hint of deep concern in Mitford's eyes. "Like snow or floods or what?" Zainal looked down at his big hands as if they might hold the answers. Then, with a sad sigh, he shook his head. "My people did not explore well. They did not see a lot we have now seen. But this planet has air to breathe and food for most to eat." His voice held a tacit apology for the shortcomings of that exploration team.
"The basic are here. Air, water, food needed to survive.
And we survive well now, thanks to youMitford nodded in acceptance at that approval.
"Well, then, since the farm machinery seems to be shutting down after harvesting everything, and the farmers among us say that those loocows of yours, Kris, haven't been rounded up in a wintering environment, looks like we all can expect to survive whatever the winter season brings."
"Say, Sarge, if the machines are all shut down, either by us or their programming, couldn't we move into the buildings?
We've found enough to accommodate all of us," Kris said.
"That's being considered as an alternative," Mitford said. "Some folks are scared of the possibility of more marauders and feel safer here in Camp Rock. They'd resist leaving. However, those barns would be equally as defensible. Now lemme talk to the Doyles, will ya, and you two get some rest.
The rain was still pelting down when Kris and Zainal stopped in the main cavern for the hot soup and the rather tasty form of soda bread that was available. It was so good that she didn't even spit out the hard bits.
No-one she knew was on duty there so she ate with Zainal. She tried not to, but she couldn't help notice the sideways looks directed at them: some quite speculative and unfriendly. Well, it didn't surprise her that there would still be animosity levelled at Zainal.
Maybe that was why Mitford kept sending them out of the camp on patrol.
Out of sight, out of mind.
She sighed, a little sound but Zainal caught it and looked enquiringly at her. She smiled dismissively and broke off a piece of her bread to soak up the last of the thick, tasty soup out of the rather lopsided pottery bowl. Zainal followed her example, grinning back at her.
They washed out their utensils and returned them to the storage racks.
"I go see Coo," Zainal said.
"I'll come . . ." but when Zainal shook his head, she decided that a dip was the next order of business for her.
"Give him my regards.
"Regards?"
"Warm greetings."
"Oh! Not a "boy" saying.
"Nope!" She grinned at him.
"One day you explain the "boy" thing?"
"Any day now, m "friend," Kris said with a laugh. "Your English improves in leaps and bounds."
"Leaps and bounds?" He frowned as he tried to figure out the meaning of what she had said.
"I'll explain that, too. Me for a bath," she said in farewell.
The water in the underground lake was cold enough to curtail any lengthy wallowing. She was out and blotting herself dry beyond the main lights when she heard voices.
"Aarens had a point. How do we know that Cat isn't a spy? How do we know he doesn't have a comunit of some kind? How do we know he hasn't left messages with those machine-things in the garages?"
"Come off it, Barker," and Kris, hurriedly dressing, recognized Joe Lattore's thick voice. "What would the Cats need to spy on us for, for God's sake? And he's no ordinary Cat anyway. I saw enough of the upper-class dudes and he's one of them.
"That Bjornsen chick told me he'd killed a patrol leader and they caught him before the day was up."
"You also heard the Doyle brothers same as I did, and they said there's nothing doing between "em."
"They was careful, is all.
"Oh, stow it. The Cat's risked his neck to save us and I'm going to be grateful to him until I find a damned good reason not to be. And Aarens isn't good enough. I know his type and I tell you what, was I hiring, I wouldn't hire Aarens noway nohow.
Kris stepped as far back in the shadows as she could, a frisson of fear for Zainal running up her back. Did Mitford have any idea that such feelings were running against the Catteni? Probably, and that's exactly why Zainal was sent out on constant reconnaissance - to reduce the possibility of reprisals against him.
"When's Mitford going to axe him then? Said he would when he found out all the bastard knows. Seems to me he'd've done that by now."
"Maybe that's why he keeps sending him out of the camp? Get something else to waste him?"
"Next time he might just not come back," a new voice said with a malicious chuckle. "We don't need no Cats here."
"Ah, you guys make me sick. He's one man, and he's been useful.
You don't have to like useful people but you can use them. That's what Mitford's doing." Conversation altered when the first man got in the water.
"Keeee-rist, but that's cold! Freeze m'balls off, it will."
"You have "em?" Kris grimaced and stopped listening as the comments became more personal and derogatory. Men were worse gossips than women. She hunkered down in the shadows, her back against the cold stone, and waited. Fortunately the group was not any more inclined to stay in the cold water than she had been and they were shortly out of it and dressing. She waited another long moment until she figured they had reached the upper corridors of the cave and then she left the lake.
She stopped by Mitford's office but he had a crowd, all talking and pushing diagrams at each other, so she went to her own cave. Sleep was the next order of her day.
During her latest trek someone had taken advantage of her absence and stolen some of the brush which formed her mattress, so she didn't have quite as comfortable a night's rest as she'd hoped for. Still, she woke rested before dawn. When she got to the main cavern, hunters were grabbing a cup of the hot herbal tea before setting off to check snares or to hunt. With her cup in hand she wandered, hoping to find Jay or Sandy. They'd level with her about Zainal. At this point in time Kris couldn't really see Mitford executing the Catteni for any reason.
And there was no way Zainal had been "planted' among the prisoners. He was here because other Catteni wanted to get even with him. Sandy was absent, as was anyone else with whom she had some acquaintance.
Finding an unoccupied rock near the front of the cavern, she seated herself and kept watch of those coming into the cavern for their breakfast, waiting for Zainal's appearence. She wondered how Coo was doing.
They really shouldn't have let him fuss with that flying thing: that fall had not been good for him, even with Lenny and Kris cushioning his landing.
She heard the rumble and the warning yell from the sentinels at the same instant and darting to the outside ledge, tried to see what was making the noise. Whatever it was, it was still some distance but it sounded awfully like the harvester vessel: big! Only everything had been harvested. Hadn't it?
"Where's Mitford?" was the cry and several of the hunters took off to locate him. Kris went for Zainal.
She met him head on, bouncing off his hard body and cracking her head against the rock on the rebound. His hand grabbed her upper arm to steady her.
"Another big ship, Zainal, she said, pointing outside.
Still holding her arm, the Catteni drew her along with him and the others who had been roused by the general furore.
Once again, this time in the dark, everyone who could clambered to the nearest height and peered in the direction of the oncoming airborne vessel.
"Think they've come on reprisals?" someone asked.
"With us messing up their mechanicals?"
"Zainal?" Mitford called.
"Here."
"Any ideas?" Kris could see that Zainal had cocked his head, listening intently to the sound.
"That is Catteni engine sound," he said. Then pointed, as a bulk, outlined by running lights, materialized out of the dawn gloom. Even Kris could see the basic difference in design between the first ginormous vessel and this one which was not as large, if the lights indicated its perimeter. Zainal watched a moment more and then pointed in the direction of the abattoir.
"That way.
"Jaysus what're they doing?"
"Any chance they're landing more prisoners, Zainal?" Mitford asked.
"Yes. Good chance." And he began to climb down.
"Who comes with me?"
"I didn't say you should go, buddy,- Mitford said in a tense voice.
"Only fast runners," Zainal said, ignoring Mitford.
"They must unload."
"Yeah, but you'd get there fast enough to take off with them, wouldn't you?" Mitford said in a hard tone, coming out of the darkness to grab Zainal by the arm.
Kris caught her breath. Maybe, after all, Mitford wouldn't object to a summary execution of the Catteni and Kris did not, definitely did not, want to see Zainal killed. She liked him too much!
"Don't do anything foolish, Sarge," she said. "I'll go with him."
"Of course you will," Mitford said cryptically. They had to pause now because the noise of the overflying craft drowned out any conversation.
Zainal kept his eyes on the vessel, then nodded.
"Transport. More people. We must tiy. It is night still," Zainal said and, pulling Kris by the hand, hauled her with him down from the height.
"Try what?" Mitford called out in the same breath that Kris echoed his question but Zainal was already sprinting down the ravine in the direction the long ship above them was headed, dragging Kris along with him.
She was aware of some conflicting and confused orders behind them as Zainal ran onwards. In the first few strides she wondered why he was so keen on having her along but then she had to concentrate on her footing to keep up with him. The fact that she could was a plus. She was sure fitter on this crazy planet than she'd ever been. She could hear others following, cursing at the dark and the bad footing but she concentrated on watching Zainal's movements and the track in front of them.
They were well ahead of those pursuing when Zainal allowed her to pause for a few moments. They were on the downside of the ridge, the lights of the vessel obscured by the lay of the land. She quickly recovered her breath enough to speak.
"Will they stop the same place they dropped us off?" she asked.
"That would be good," he said. "Nothing there." She took that to mean that the field would be empty and thus a good spot to dump more unconscious bodies.
She wondered how long it would take, or did the Catteni have some way of just rolling bodies out of the ship's hold that didn't require individual handling? Then she remembered, all too vividly, what happened to living creatures lying on fields on this fecking world. No wonder Zainal was in such a hurry. Dawn was still far away. Would they get there soon enough to prevent slaughter?
He started off again and she followed, all too aware that it had taken them two days to reach the caverns from that site. Even at the pace Zainal had set, would they make it to the field before the ship took off again?
Well, they had to try. Or maybe he was hoping to attract attention from one of the hill points overlooking the field?
They clambered up a slope now, and Zainal stopped so abruptly that she ran into him.
"Hey, warn me, will - . ." Her voice trailed off as she realized that the running lights were higher than they should be for a ship that might be landing. They hadn't seen its gradual ascent. Zainal cursed, whirled and looked back the way they had come, running his hand and arm along the line the ship had travelled as if trying to impress the direction in his mind. He started back up the slope they had just slid down, digging his toes in and slipping in the urgency of his passage.
Shaking her head, Kris followed him, pausing only briefly when the roar of engines told her that the ship was boosting out of planetary gravity. The flame of its propellant was as vivid as the launches she remembered from Cape Kennedy. She would have liked to watch but had to keep up with Zainal.
They met up with the others in moments, considering the pace that Zainal was setting.
"The ship's already dumped its load," she told them, clinging to someone as support as she gasped out an explanation. "Back that way.
We gotta get there before the scavengers murder "em all."
"Hell, he wanted to catch up with them and get off this bleeding planet," another man managed to gasp out.
"Think what you will, but are you going to help?" Kris cried, shouting the last of her challenge over her shoulder as she took off after Zainal.
They did gather more help as they went back through the ravine again. Dawn was brightening the sky, so it was easier to see where to put your feet. Where the track split, right down into the ravine, or left to continue on the upper ridge, Zainal signalled for Kris to report to Mitford who was standing in his office, fists on his belt as he saw them emerge on the height.
"Need Slav badly," Zainal added and then charged off again.
"What "n'ell's going on?" Kris stopped, hands on knees, catching enough breath to speak. "We need Slav. Ship took off. It's already dropped its load. We gotta get there or the scavengers will."
"Right on!" And Mitford snapped into action, yelling for Slav, Pess, Tesco, Su, and Dowdall as she took up her chase of Zainal.
She finally caught up with him when he stopped by one of the many streams to rinse out his mouth. The sun wasn't up yet and the air was cool, but she was hot from her exertions and wondering if she would last the distance.
"Mitford's organized more help. Is it far?" He shook his head.
"Ship climbing." He looked up at the lightening sky. "Lucky." She hoped so, but how long did those creatures scavenge? Would this half-light be sufficient to send them wherever they spent the daylight hours? She had her breath back and now dropped to her belly, burying her hot face in the cool water, intaking a mouthful to moisten her throat and letting only a little trickle down to her stomach. She was on her feet when he was.
And they ran on.
Actually this wasn't a bad pace, she thought, now she had her second wind. She tried to keep her mind off what scavengers could do to a field full of nice juicy warm live bodies. Now that wasn't a productive thought! At least it should now be clear to everyone at the camp that Zainal had been motivated to "save' people, not get himself off this planet. Though she wouldn't blame him if that had been his goal. Would he have taken her with him? That, too, was not a productive thought but she was beginning to appreciate how much the big man meant to her. She'd never found anyone else who treated her as a competent equal, who had never once tried to come on since the day she had floored him in the flitter. She knew from comments made back in the kitchens at Barevi that, while the Catteni were equipped, to put it discreetly, much the same way as human males were - only more so, as one woman had said drily - the two species were incompatible as far as procreation was concerned. No Catteni-Human offspring would be forthcoming. But, since the day she had clobbered him in the flyer back on Barevi, Zainal had never visibly lusted after her. And she was quite familiar with that sort of look. Zainal treated her not quite as he treated the male members of their patrols, but with a courtesy she found unusual and, maybe even, special to her - even when he knew that it was her fault he was stuck with this bunch of suspicious, unappreciative and sometimes intolerant mixed bag of humanoids. Oddly enough, though the Catteni were the subjugating race, the Deskis and Rugarians didn't seem to feel any animosity towards Zainal . . .
certainly not as much as the Terrans did.
This was not terrain she was familiar with and Kris was relieved to see the sun coming up and clearing away the shadows so there was less danger of her stumbling on the rough ground. That was the one thing she did fear - an injury that their meagre first-aid supplies could not remedy. Or unfamiliar infections that were life-threatening.
The Catteni antiseptic lotion was not a specific cure for everything that could happen to the unwary. But the anaesthetic from the darts could be a boon.
Zainal was bounding up the hill in front of them now, then switching to a zig zag on the steeper parts. He waited on the height for her and pointed. Two fields over she could see the cubes of Catteni supply crates and the fringes of space occupied by inert bodies. At this distance, she couldn't tell if they were being beset by scavengers yet.
Zainal cupped his mouth and hollered a weird cry.
It was answered, she thought, by one of the aliens following. He nodded satisfaction and began the descent.
This hillside was covered with some sort of thorny growth that clung to the fabric of their coveralls with a tenacity which made her glad it wasn't her flesh that was bared.
Zainal, caught on a thick limb, hauled out his hatchet and hewed the limb. Even separated from the mother bush, it still clung to him.
"Careful," Zainal said, holding up his free hand to warn her back.
"Chop first," he added, pointing to the bushes in her way.
"Can I help you?"
"Go down. Hurry," he said, gesturing emphatically to the field now out of sight behind the next rise.
"Stamp, yell." She hesitated a brief moment more but the flash of his eyes when he glanced up from disentangling the thicket branch from his coverall was enough to send her on her way. She used her hatchet to slash and bash a way in front of her and succeeded in reaching clear ground, covered by a stubble of harvested crops, with no further delays.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him finally free of the branch. So she ran on, across the field, neatly leaping the low hedge on the far side and down into the next. She thought she heard cries rising from the drop field. That made her run faster, shouting, giving the cowboy yells she had practised as a tomboy. She paused long enough at the separating hedge to pick up handfuls of stones. Then she leapt over that hedge and almost landed on someone's face. A human. In fact, every body near her was human.
Some had already been attacked by the scavengers.
First she threw her rocks in as wide an arc as she could, shouting as she did so. Then she stomped her way up the long side of the field, sometimes running and jumping down as hard as she could on landing, yelling and yodelling as she stamped until she reached the upper boundary. There were no signs of the scavengers in the centre of the field so she continued her progress around the outer edge, stamping, yelling, pausing only when she had to get her breath and try to moisten the dry tissues of her mouth. She'd completed two sides of the big field when she saw others arriving and yelled and gestured at them to square the field in the other direction.
Then she spotted several people rousing from their drugged sleep and went to assist them. Once again the Catteni had dropped people comfortably near water and she borrowed cups from belts to give people that much comfort in recovering from their ordeal.
Dowdall was opening the crates, going first for the first-aid kits and blankets while the others did what they could for those the scavengers had attacked. She was so busy that she didn't at first realize that Zainal was not among the rescuers.
"Tesco, where's Zainal?" she asked when she did notice his absence.
"Saw him back there," and Tesco pointed vaguely over his shoulder before kneeling to give water to a groggy woman.
Reassured, Kris moved to the next group who happened to be Deskis.
A glance around the field gave her the irritating information that none of the rescuers were doing doodly to help the aliens so she concentrated on them. Not that she found herself kindly disposed towards the Turs, who regarded the water with great suspicion until she took a sip herself and deposited the cup on the ground beside them.
They could do as they chose. Three Morphins had been badly chewed and before anyone could stop them, they suicided, evidently by swallowing their own tongues and suffocating. Their facial skin turned from a normal dark green to almost black. Other Morphins came to view the dead, then piled the bodies to one side under the hedges. Morphin "faces' did not register any expression, so Kris didn't know if they were upset or not but as quickly as she could, she doled out blankets and knives to them, and indicated the first-aid kits.
More people arrived from the camp, including Mitford.
She was surprised to see him away from his office but was glad of his presence. That's when she realized she still had not seen Zainal.
"No, I haven't," Mitford said, frowning as he looked about the field where more and more of the latest arrivals were regaining consciousness.
"No, Su was there to warn us away from it. Why?" Kris didn't answer but, grabbing up a first-aid kit and a handful of blankets from the nearby crates, she started off at a fast trot, dodging around groups and leaping over still sleeping bodies. She flew across the intervening field, now entirely visible in the full morning light, hurdling the low hedge without losing her stride and pelted to the thornbushy hill. They weren't like Barevi thornbushes but where she was damned sure she had hacked her way through was now as solid a vegetation patch as if she hadn't cut it back. There was no sign of Zainal.
Scared now for him, because Zainal of all people should have been able to free himself unscathed, she looked anxiously around. Since he wasn't up at the field, he had to still be around here, somewhere.
And, if the thorns had been toxic enough to slow down a Catteni, he'd have sought water. The thornbushes were not tall enough to have hidden his big frame and anyway his browny-grey coverall would have made him visible even in the dense undergrowth. Water!
There was always water on these damned mechanically cultivated fields. While this field had been harvested, there had to be water near by. She listened hard. Her ears finally caught the unmistakable sound of running water. Downhill there was a small copse of some of the diamond-leaved bushes. Those seemed to grow near the streams.
She heard a low groan, the sort that would reluctantly escape tightly closed lips. With a new awareness that the bushes on Botany could be dangerous, she parted the branches of the diamond-leaf and saw Zainal half-in, half-out of a little brook which welled up from the rocks around which the diamond-leaves clustered. A boot had been cast aside and his right trouser leg was rolled up over his knee, exposing the injury.
"Oh, lord," she breathed, seeing the massive inflammation on the outside of his wide muscular calf. The thorns of Barevi had been dangerous in a nuisancy way, but this injury looked serious. Bending over him, she checked first for any signs of blood poisoning. Not that grey Catteni flesh might exhibit such a trauma. He had blood, as red as any human's, and it had clotted almost black where it had run down his leg. That was when she realized by the size of the wound that he had evidently carved the thorn out of his own flesh.
"Ouch!" she murmured, shuddering convulsively. She sorted through the first-aid supplies for the Catteni antiseptic. That was definitely in order. And it would sting like billy-be-damned when she poured it in that open wound but what other choice had she? She took a deep breath and emptied the entire vial of the solution into the crater he had made in his leg.
"Rorrrrrrgh!" Zainal shot to sitting position in protest at the treatment, his right hand cocked back to strike, his left arm up in guard.
Kris lurched backwards, away from him.
"It's Kris, Zainal. I'm trying to help!" His eyes focused on her face, wild in reaction to the pain and alarm, but, in that brief instant, he recognized her.
"You came," he said in a barely audible voice before he seemed to collapse inward and fell back on the ground.
His eyes rolled upwards, the lids fluttering as well as any southern belle flirt could have done under different circumstances, and then he passed out again.
"Did I do the right thing, Zainal?" She shook, or rather tried to shake, the massive shoulder to rouse him. She retrieved the first-aid bag which had fallen off her lap and tried to think what else she could do to help him.
Swollen tissue could respond to cold compresses. With all the antiseptic in the wound, there wouldn't be much in the water that could exacerbate the wound.
There were sheets of some sort of material in the kit, so she soaked those until they were cold and placed them on the wound. He moaned a little but didn't writhe in pain so she felt it was safe to continue with that treatment.
She made a pillow of one of the blankets she'd brought, brushing the leaves and pebbles off his surprisingly fine, soft grey hair and covered his big frame with another.
It was Mitford himself who came looking for her. She emerged from the brush in response to his calling. Beyond him she saw the lines of the newest immigrants starting the trek back to the camp. He hadn't lost any time deciding to take them in, even if another four or five hundred souls to tend must be the lowest option on his agenda.
"What's the matter, Kris?" he said, trotting up to her in an effortless lope. How he kept sofit with all the sedentary work he was now saddled with, she didn't know but he rose another notch in her estimation.
"Warn people off those thorubushes," she said first, pointing urgently to the slope. But the line seemed to be taking the less direct route, around the inhospitable looking incline. "Zainal's down, with a thorn wound. He carved the thorn out of his own leg but it was toxic enough to knock him out. We'll need to make a litter to carry him back." Mitford winced and scratched his head, half-turning in the direction of his new charges.
"I know, you gotta get them back first, but considering how much Zainal has done "and she was surprised at the bitterness in her voice.
"Now, now, easy does it, Bjornsen, I'm not about to abandon him.
He is too damned useful." In the sergeant's voice, she caught the nuance that Zainal might be useful, but not popular, and knew that some of the gossip about him was true. "We're all in the same boat or," and Mitford gave her a wry grin, "on the same planet, but this new dump isn't going to help!" He sighed deeply.
"Don't mean to add to your problems, Sarge, she said apologetically "Damnitall, Bjornsen," and now he was angry at her apology, "you're not a problem and I won't let him be.
Can you hang on until I see this bunch installed?" With one hand, he gripped Kris's right arm, emphasizing his intent while he hauled his blanket over his head and dropped it beside her. Then he handed over the other sack he carried.
"Food, firing and other stuff. Now, where is he?" She led him to where Zainal sprawled. When Mitford lifted off the temporary dressing, he curled his lip and recoiled slightly at the look of the puncture, then carefully replaced the bandage.
"Nasty, all right. Hope he got all the thorn out, but probably he did,' and there was approval in the sergeant's tone for the measure of the man he knew Zainal to be.
"Hell's bells, he can't be comfortable like that," Mitford added so the two of them pulled the big body out of the water. Then, when Kris had hurriedly cleared a space and spread two more blankets, they managed to roll him into a more level, comfortable position.
Mitford stood then, surveying the area, kicking at the roots of the bushes. "How'd they find enough soil to grow in?" he muttered.
"Rocky enough so those scavengers can't come at you - "They come out at night," Kris began and then realized that it might indeed be night time before help for a Catteni arrived.
"Firing's in there and some of those matches Cumber made. We found sulphur, y'know."
"No, I didn't," and she wondered if sulphur had any medicinal qualities.
"Look, I'll send a litter back for him as soon as possible. Get some more firing when you can." He surveyed the massive Catteni's prone body. "Hope he doesn't get delirious on you or something "I'll manage, Sarge,' she said, gritting her teeth.
"Luck, Bjornsen, but you're the kind who can handle things." As Kris watched him make his way out of the little copse, she was somewhat heartened by his confidence in her. Mitford didn't often praise and while that might be a bit backhanded, she appreciated being thought capable.
She went back to her patient, resigned to a long wait, knowing that Zainal's welfare would be low on the list of everyone else's priorities. She wet the compresses again, glad of the almost indestructible quality of Catteni materials, and then she moistened Zainal's lips.
You had to keep people from getting dehydrated if they'd been poisoned, didn't you? His lips parted as if the moisture was what he needed so she managed to dribble water down his throat and he swallowed eagerly. A good sign. His forehead and cheeks felt warm, but not hot-hot.
She couldn't remember from her previous contacts with him just what a normal body temperature for a Catteni would be. She also couldn't tell if his skin had altered as a human's would with fever.
While one part of her was glad that Catteni were not totally impervious to natural hazards, she was damned sorry Zainal was laid low by as silly a thing as a thorn.
Jay Greene, Slav, the Doyle brothers, a man she didn't recognize and, surprisingly, Coo, returned by second moonrise. By then Zainal was sweating copiously and she tried to cool him off with the compresses. There was such a lot of him to cool! He was restless but not so energetically that she'd had any trouble keeping him prone. But she was getting more and more worried. Faint slithers had caused her to fear that the scavengers might be bold enough to penetrate the rocky dell. She'd taken to periodic stampings about the small clearing, hoping to scare them away. It was only quiet victims they went after, cowardly as they were.
She nearly cried with relief, though, when she heard her name called.
She heaped firing on the little campfire to show the way to them.
"This is Dr Dane, Kris," Jay said, urging the medical man through the thicket. "He's even treated Catteni back on Earth."
"Thank God!' Kris breathed, anxiously urging the doctor to his patient and whipping off the latest compress to show the ugly wound. It looked even worse in the flickering firelight.
"G'day," Dane said in an unmistakably Australian accent, giving her a keen look before he knelt by the patient. "Did a proper job on himself, didn't he?" With deft fingers he pressed the sides of the gaping wound mouth. "Got it all, I'd say. Tough bastards, these Catteni.
Pour the whole bottle in, did you?" and now he grinned at her.
"Fair do."
"It was all I had and it is Catteni issue," she said, noticing that she was wringing her hands.
"Did the right thing, all right." He felt Zainal's skin, placed a hand over the chest and then to the large neck vein. "Not so ragged after all. Right then, let's get him back. Hey, what?" He had straightened up after his examination and saw Coo coming to crouch in the firelight, something in his hand which he wanted to inspect.
The Deski's hand was trembling - with fatigue, Kris wondered, deeply grateful to the alien, in his own debilitated state, for wanting to help an injured Catteni.
ùWhat Coo was examining was the lighter grey crown of a thornbush, the new growth, since vegetation even on this godforsaken planet seemed to follow certain botanical precedents. Then, before she could say anything, Coo had ùpopped it in his mouth and began masticating with every evidence of enthusiasm and relief. In the act of springing upright, the Deski also turned and, with more energy than he had shown in days, plunged towards the hillside.
"What was that all about?" the doctor asked, in surprise.
"I think Coo's located something to take care of his dietary deficiency," Kris said drolly.
"One man's meat's another's poison," the man replied philosophically. "Now let's get this poisoned boyo back to civilization. Quite a set-up Mitford's organized," he added with approval.
"Good ol' Yankee know-how," Jay said with a grin.
"What about Irish improvisation?" Lenny Doyle said, pretending offence as he unlashed the ties on the stretcher poles "Ya think this is strong enough to hold "im?" Ninety asked, measuring Zainal's bulk against the litter design.
"Those blankets are indestructible," Jay said.
It took all of them, with Kris holding up heavy Catteni feet to get the unconscious Zainal onto the litter. Strips of torn blanket secured him for the arduous journey back to camp.
Kris kicked out the fire, stored the remaining firing into the sack Mitford had given her and followed them.
In the bright light of the big rising moon, Coo was busily, and carefully, plucking the very tops of the thornbushes and stuffing them into the open blouse of his coverall.
"Nooco, Coo said, shaking his head emphatically.
"Baaaad for oomans." With one hand he kept fanning the air to reinforce his warning for her to keep back while he kept nipping the crowns with the other.
She tried to recall how many of the newest immigrants were Deski but, suddenly, thinking was beyond her strained and tired mind. She fell in step behind the litter bearers, relieved that her long and ahxious watch had concluded.
When she took her turn as a litter bearer, for she insisted on that, Leon Dane gave her some interesting and oddly welcome news: Earth was fighting back against the Cattem invaders - an evidently unprecedented reaction.
The Catteni method of subduing planets by swooping down and carrying off whole cities of people generally cowed a species totally.
Not so with Terrans. Despite the invasion, resistance began almost as soon as the great Catteni transport ships began loading hostages.
Leon Dane had remained in Sydney, using his position as a physician to relay important information to a very active unit in the Blue Mountains. On orders, he had volunteered to treat Catteni for, despite thick hides, they broke bones and had accidents that would have killed humans.
"If you know your invader's weaknesses, you have a better chance of striking back." He turned a grin on Kris as they moved across the second field. "That was my job.
Unfortunately there isn't much that gets a Catteni down and they seem impervious to any of the Terran toxic materials I tried on "em.
To see the clinical reactions, of course. But, oh my word, but they can mess each other up on their little twentyfour hour vendettas!" He whistled appreciatively. "I spent a lot of time sewing "em up. They don't break easy but they sure do lacerate a treat.
"I guess I'm glad you were willing to help Zainal. He was a victim of one of those twentyfour hour vendettas."
"Was he? And they dumped him in with you lot?" Kris nodded, finding that talking and keeping up her corner of the heavily loaded litter was tiring.
"How'd you get caught?" she asked the doctor.
"Ha! We had orders to riot at a certain time and place and I was sent from my hospital to officiate. I got gassed along with everyone else. The Cats don't ever ask questions.
They're effective that way. But sending one of theirs to colonize " He shook his head in surprise. "Whaddid he do?"
"He'd killed a patrol leader," Kris said. "I watched the pursuit from where I was hiding. "You were hiding?" Kris grinned. "On Barevi."
"Barevi?" He shot her a quirky smile. "Sounds Aborigine."
"Does, doesn't it Catteni Aborigine, at least. Barevi's one of their big distribution and R&R planets. Only a couple of big cities and space ports.
Slave-trading's the biggest industry there. And resupply of Catteni ships.
I figured out, from watching the guy who owned me, how to drive one of those little flitters of theirs and appropriated it one evening." She grinned at Leon.
"Managed quite handily in the jungle there until he," and she jerked her head back at Zainal, "dropped in on me. I was taking him back to where he belongs when I got caught in a riot-gassing, too."
"Hmmm.
"He knew a bit about this planet, enough to save a lot of us from getting eaten by those scavengers, or caught by the avians.
"The Cats didn't leave much for us to go on with," he said in a gloomy tone.
"Zainal says that's how they've colonized a lot of places." She shot a look at him and wondered if she'd offend with her next comment.
"Sort of like you Aussies were. We voted to call the planet Botany."
"Did you now?" And Leon Dane shot her a startled look but he grinned.
"Well, it fits. Australia - well, the Sydney area at least - was settled by convicts."
"Made a good job of it, too, didn't they?"
"I take the point, Kris Bjornsen. And they had as little as we have.
Maybe less. We at least have a lot of specialists."
"Many aliens?
Deskis, Turs, Morphins, Rugarians?" Leon shrugged. "I was working more on the human injuries. But I noticed some strange-looking creatures m the hospital cave. Stick thin, like the one that came with us to fetch you.
"The Deskis. They're not doing well here. Missing some essential ingredient in their diet."
"Hope so." Then Lenny and Ninety declared they were rested enough to take over. Kris was quite willing to give up her end of the litter, guilty though it made her feel for the rest of the way back to the camp.
Lit by many torches, Mitford, Murph, Greene and Dowdall were still interviewing new arrivals when the rescuers arrived by third moonrise.
In spite of the late hour - or was it early? - there was a great deal of activity and the smell of freshly roasted meats Instead of going into the main cavern, however, the bearers swerved to one of the lesser caves.
"Hospital," Lenny said when Kris wanted to know.
"Quite a set-up now." But there was something about the way he wouldn't meet her eyes that bothered Kris.
"I'll stay with him," she said firmly. "He'll need . .
"You . . ." and Leon Dane prodded her chest with a firm finger, "need rest." In the better light of the torches, she realized that he was a good-looking man in his midthirties, spare as so many Australians seemed to be.
"I'll rest better with . . . my buddy," and she added that designation with defensive pride. Dane was looking at her now in a way that made her refer to him in that fashion.
"That way, is it?"
"NO! Not that way," she said, fiercely now.
"But I got him into this mess and I'll stand by him."
"Good on you, Sheila," Dane said, and squeezed her arm in approval. "But he'll be tended while you .
and he prodded her chest with one finger, " sleep." It was a small cave and anyone entering had to stoop or risk a crack on the skull.
Inside there was more headroom, sufficient even for Zainal when he recovered. She said "when' as positively as she could to herself, though he lay far too still to suit her when his litter was placed on the waiting mound of blanket-covered boughs. There was another bed on the other side of the den and she looked longingly at it. Then turned back to see Dane checking the wound again and Zainal's pulse.
"He'll do. Tough bastard," he said again. "You," and he pointed at Kris and then the bed, "get some rest. I'll check in during the night." He gave her a grin. "Haven't lost a Catteni patient yet." Then, when she did not immediately obey his injunction, he hauled her the step to the bed and pushed her down on the boughs, spreading the blanket over her. "Sleep.
She did, rousing once or twice when she heard movement but it was always caused by Dane, checking on his patient.
When she finally woke up, she stretched luxuriously, knowing that she had slept herself out. But a low moan brought her alert instantly and scrambling to Zainal's side.
His injured leg, bare of covering apart from the compress, was twice its normal size well up into the thigh. The flesh when she gingerly touched it was almost burning to the touch. The compress was dry and clung to the suppurating flesh when she tried to check the wound.
"Oh lordee," she murmured and then banged her forehead on leaving the den. "Ouch!"
"Gotcha, did it?" said Lenny sympathetically, rising from a stool by the entrance.
"What are you doing here?" she said, inhaling against the pain of her scraped forehead. Her hand came away with dots of blood.
"Being careful not to bang my skull open like you just did," he said, grinning. There was that in his quickly averted glance that told her he was there for another reason entirely.
"Was I supposed to leave him out there to die?" she demanded.
"Don't jump on me, Kris, I like the big guy," Lenny said.
"Mitford just doesn't need any trouble."
"Mutiny on Botany, huh?"
"Huh?" Lenny echoed, totally nonplussed by her cryptic remark. "Look," he added hurriedly, "Dane'll be around again soon. Go get some breakfast. I'll be here till you get back.
"It's ridiculous with all Zainal has done for the camp that he has to have a guard - - "Now, look, Kris, I'm not so much a guard as I am a sort of orderly," and Lenny looked embarrassed, "in case he needs help.
"I'm paranoid, I guess," she said, relaxing a little. "Dane said anything about his chances?" Lenny shrugged.
"Didn't ask. I just volunteered. I'm on duty for them, too," he said and gestured to the opening obliquely across the tunnel. "We got a lot of patients. Oh, and that Missus Bollinger had a baby boy while we were gone. Fine big lad." Kris smiled through her sigh of relief.
"That kind of good news is very welcome.
"Don't worry. Mitford's got everyone organized already," and Lenny's grin was mischievous. Then he gave her a little push towards the tunnel entrance. "G'wan. Eat.
You're off duty today, anyway, with your buddy on the sick list." Kris didn't hear any nuance in his use of "buddy' so she relaxed. She could safely leave Zainal in Lenny's charge.
"G'wan," he said, smiling kindly, and gave her a half-turn towards the entrance. "Eat. Bread's getting better now the chemist lads've got a good yeast going." She took her time, peering in at the various units in this "hospital', noticing a lot of unfamiliar faces, some obviously in a good deal of discomfort, to judge by their expressions.
She saw Anna Bollinger, sitting up in her "bed', nursing her infant and would have passed by but Anna saw her and waved her in.
"How's the Catteni? I heard he was badly hurt," she said.
Then added in a hard voice and with a scowl. "How?" From the "doorway', Kris answered, wondering about the change in her voice.
Anna had good reason to be grateful to Zainal. In a neutral voice she said: "On his way to keep people from getting scavengered in the dark, he got a thorn in the calf of his leg and had to carve it out." Anna shuddered. "Ooo, nasty. Give him my regards," and she looked lovingly down at the swaddled mite in her arms. "I'd never have had my baby if he hadn't helped me get here." She sighed. "I'm just glad it was I mean - He'll be all right?"
"Yes, Anna, and thanks for your good wishes. I'll tell him. And thanks," Kris said and strode the rest of the way to the outer ledge feeling that perhaps, after all, she'd been imagining things.
The sundial indicated the time as near Botany's noon and, for a wonder, Mitford was absent from his office, though there were others, busily bending over the desk-stones at their tasks. There were other people, the newest arrivals since she didn't recognize any of the faces, evidently revived enough to take part in the business of the camp. There was also a handful just sitting in the sun, eyes closed: a mixed bag because she could spot some Asians as well as the dusky skin of the East Indians.
Above their heads, tacked to the south-facing wall of the ravine, was displayed a veritable mural of rocksquat hides, indicating the continued prowess of the camp's hunters. How much farther were the hunters having to go to catch enough to feed the multitude now here?
She shivered and not so much because the air felt cool to her despite the sunshine but because she worried about the tactical problems of supply. For instance, would there be enough hides to give everyone a warm coat this winter?
And, if a Botany day was twentyeight hours long, how long were their months? Years? How long till spring?
How many more loads would the Catteni drop down on this unsuspecting planet? How would they cope with this influx, much less more? She was hungry and that always made her attitude negative.
Sandy hailed her as she came into the cook cavern.
"Hi there, gal, got something just out of the oven for the likes of you."
"The likes of me?" Kris said in a low voice as she hunkered down by Sandy. She'd glanced quickly about the cavern and saw welcoming grins on other faces: people she did recognize.
"Yeah, you're a heroine, didn't you know?" Sandy winked as she held up the pitcher, waiting until Kris hurriedly undid her cup from its belt loop. "Right up there with Mitford, charging down the ravine like a berserker." She put a pottery plate, almost a perfect circle, on the rock nearest Kris: it held a browned piece of rocksquat, a slice of nicely toasted bread, and some fried circles.
"Not quite potatoes but as near as never-mind," Sandy told her, passing over a gracefully carved fork.
Kris grinned, looking down at the utensil and turning it over in her hand.
"Chantilly silverware it isn't, but better than risking sharp knife points in your mouth." Sandy poured herself a fresh cup and settled close to Kris. "How's the Cat scuse me, Zainal, this morning?"
"I don't know. His leg is swollen awful big.
"The medics are trying a bread poultice. Penicillin it isn't but my grannie was big on a bread poultice for boils and things." Sandy patted Kris's knee encouragingly.
"They're tough, Catteni. Imagine him, cutting the thorn out of his own leg!" She clicked her tongue at such courage. "And we got quite a board of medical men now." She chuckled. "And other specialists. Most of "em seem to have been taken from Sydney. From Botany Bay to Botany," and she chuckled again "Hey, this is good," Kris said, having tried the fried tuber. It was not unlike a sweet potato in texture and taste. "Say, are those thornbush leaves doing the Deskis any good?" Sandy nodded. "Made a tea when Coo explained what he wanted and we've dosed even the sickest." Her expression altered. "We lost three, you know, while you were out on that last patrol."
"No, I didn't." Kris stopped chewing. "They look so frail . .
· "They are if they don't have the right food." Sandy remained grim.
"Their bones break if you so much as touch them hard. You know who helped nurse "em?
Patti Sue!" That did surprise Kris.
"She's not much heavier than they are and has a light touch. She volunteered." Sandy grimaced. "She feels safe with the Deskis and even the Rugarians, you know."
"Jay Greene?" Now Sandy chuckled. "He's going slow but it was him who suggested she'd be good at tending the Deskis. She has been, but it damned near kills her to lose one."
"Look, they got the same rations we all did back on Barevi. I thought the ration bars were enough," Kris said.
"Ah, Coo says they were allowed "plursaw", too, and that's what they have to have in their diet to keep their bones from going soft. A kind of calcium additive, I guess. There isn't an equivalent here .
unless that thornbush junk fflls the gap. He looks better, I know, but he's a young one."
"I didn't know," and Kris was remorseful. "I never asked either."
"There now, Kris, don't take on about it. It isn't as if you've had time to be social, you know, in and out of camp as you are." Sandy reached over for a covered pot set to one side of her hearth. "Made this special for Zainal. It's sort of a broth and the nearest thing to chicken soup I can put together here. It is nourishing and it doesn't taste too bad. Maybe you can get some down him. Leon says injured Catteni sometimes have a problem with dehydration. "Bout the only thing that can debilitate them." Kris thanked Sandy, deeply touched and much reassured.
"Yeah," and there was no joy in Sandy's reply.
"Is he around?" Sandy gave a malicious chuckle. "Him! Boy, didn't he luck out. Seems there's some good to him after all. He's a genius with gadgets. Don't worry about him."
"I don't worry about him.
I worry about his mouth."
"Don't." Kris thanked Sandy again and then made her way back to the hospital. She paused briefly when she saw the line of laden hunters returning to camp. She grinned to see the loaves and fishes that were being supplied to the multitude. She should have asked Sandy how many had been on the latest drop. And her patrol had found yet another nest of empty barns.
Lenny was gone from his post and the small room was crowded by those attending Zainal: Leon among others she identified as medical personnel. She made herself small and inched in, carefully ducking under the lintel and looking for someplace safe to put the pot of broth which was hot. Leon rose to his feet just then.
"Certainly unsophisticated but the best we have to hand.
Ah, Kris," and she could see how tired he was though his hazel eyes were very much alive and keen in his saturnine face. "W're using a bread poultice to draw the infection, now that you lot have providentially rediscovered bread on this godforsaken planet." He grinned. "Great bunch of improvisers here. She's the one found that anaesthetic.
if we could only figure out how to dilute it without losing its effectiveness." His grin extended to his colleagues who acknowledged her appearance with smiles or nods. "Are you available to watch him?
Lenny's off duty."
"I am," she said. "Sandy gave me broth for him." "I'll be right with you," Leon said as the others moved out of the den, all being careful to duck on their way out. "Good-o on the broth.
When I was treating Catteni in Sydney for wounds, dehydration was the big danger.
See you get as much in him as he'll swallow, even if it's only water,' and he pointed to a condensation-beaded covered pitcher on the floor out of Zainal's immediate reach. "But he'll need the nourishment in the broth, too.
Catteni are big, strong and tough but they need to keep their internal economy turning over."
"I'll see to him."
"Good," and Leon glanced down at a slip of the bark paper. "Who's next?"
"That leg fracture," one of the men said, also consulting a slip.
They all left and Kris got a good look at Zainal's now poulticed leg.
She could smell the yeast of the hot bread as she bent over him.
He was motionless, his breath slow and steady, but his skin, when she touched one broad flat cheek, was as hot as ever.
She rinsed out the fluff that was being used as a compress and cooled his face. Then, taking a spoon - the bowl of this utensil was deep enough to hold a respectable quantity of liquid and the rim smoothly polished - she dribbled water onto his lips. Automatically he licked and swallowed. She got maybe half a cup down him with patience and then bathed his hot face, moving down to his chest and arms. His coverall had been removed at some point and a decorous and swift peek of curiosity showed that he'd been given some sort of a modesty clout to cover his private parts, relieving her of embarrassment. He wasn't quite as heavily muscled as she'd thought with the bulky coverall disguising a body that, by any standards, was beautiful. She shook her head at that wayward thought. What the hell's wrong with admiring a beaut:ful bod on a guy? Nothing, unless you also don't think of that body next to your own! Whoops, girl. Down! She told herself sternly.
She allowed herself to stroke his skin, softer than its greyness looked.
And exhaled, trying to shake off a sensation in her gut.
Nevertheless, the opportunity to touch him in more than a nurse-patient relationship was almost too much to resist. She smoothed back his silky grey hair, as fine as a baby's. In repose his features were even more patrician, when she compared him to some of the other Catteni she remembered. Yes, decidedly he was several castes above the average male mercenary. She was so accustomed to the look of him now that he didn't even seem alien any more. Hmmm. Well, that attitude was better than rampant xenophobia!
Between her sessions of watering him - she also got him to take some of the broth which had cooled enough to be dripped into his mouth - she rested on her bed, drowsing occasionally. She wondered if he knew they were trying their best to help him because he lay stolidly unmoving, even when the poultice was still hot. The only response he gave was to swallow when moisture was offered.
Time to water him again.
More noise outside, muted though it was, warned her of increased activity in the hospital. Lenny popped his head in.
"He may not be eating, but you should." Until he mentioned it, she hadn't realized how empty her stomach was.
"So, what's for din-dins?" she asked facetiously.
He grinned and brought a plate from behind his back, complete with pottery-domed lid.
"We're getting quite fawncy, this weather," he said.
Then he lifted the top.
"My God, it looks human," she said in pleased surprise.
For the meal consisted of more tubers, boiled by the look of them, a section of avian, to judge by the configuration of the wing, and two portions of greens.
"Just what the doctor ordered! Leave you to it! Oh," and he reappeared in the doorway, "mass meeting this evening at the sound of the gong!" "Gong?" she asked but he was out of earshot.
She ate with a good appetite and the food was delicious.
The ration bars and the travel meal had doubtless been nutritious but real food of differing texture, now that was civilized.
Leon came bustling in when she had finished and he was looking rested.
"He's been taking both water and broth whenever I offer them and I've cooled him down in between.
But he doesn't move much," she ended lamely, looking expectantly at Leon Dane.
"Hmmm. They don't. Real adherents of the grin-andbear brigade.
They suffer in silence. I suspect he's more conscious of what's going on than you realize. Zainal?" Leon leaned over the Catteni, hand on his brow and then on the main artery on the left of his neck. He proceeded downwards, checking the temperature of the skin and then palpating the thigh tissues. "Hmmmm."
"Your "hmmrns" are getting longer," Kris remarked sardonically "When in doubt a thoughtful "hmInm" is reassuring."
"Whommmm does it as well, y' know," and Leon was now delicately prodding the wound area, having lifted the poultice.
It had turned an obnoxious shade of grey/orange/green. "Yes indeed.
I think that's doing it."
"You do?" and Kris leant over to see what he could possibly have taken as encouragement. The ghastly hole did look . . . "healthier" was the only word she could find. Nicely red instead of raw red, and the swelling had noticeably subsided so that the kneecap was once again visible. "I think I agree."
"Keep on with watering him. Ah, you're with us," Leon added suddenly when Zainal startled them both by opening his eyes.
"I need to lose water," Zainal said clearly.
Laughing, Leon collected a cleverly shaped pottery utensil at the end of the bough bed which Kris hadn't actually noticed before, and she beat a hasty retreat while Leon attended the patient.
He came out with the utensil in his hand, chuckling to himself.
"He'll do fine. Just fine. Don't forget the meeting tonight, will you?"
"How long have you been awake, Zainal?" Kris asked in a diffident tone of voice.
"Off and on," he said, his eyes closed but he held out his hand and when she took it, his eyes opened. They held a look which made her chest swell with some unidentifiable emotion, so strong that her eyes began to water. His grip was very delicate and his skin still more than warm. "I knew you were here. You were there, by the water, too.
Good of you, very good of you."
"Not at all," and she covered his hand with her free one. "You're . .
. we're buddies. We look out for each other." His eyes flicked open.
"Buddies?"
"For lack of a better tem, yes. I won't let you down."
"That I know." Then he released her hand and dropped his arm to his side, closing his eyes again. "Water?
I am no longer full." And his lips lengthened in a slight smile.
"The tasty water."
"We call it broth."
"Good." She fed him and felt good about it.
The meeting was very well attended though Kris missed some of Mitford's usual satellites, the Rugarians, as well as the Doyles. Even patients who could be moved out to the ledge in front of the hospital were present: Anna and her baby, the fracture cases - everyone except Zainal.
Kris was obliquely offended by that but talked herself out of indignation: plainly Zainal was too ill to be moved and she could report to him - and defend him if necessary. Now why was she feeling so defensive about the Catteni?
Jay Greene had Patti Sue on one side of him. She joined them, leaning against the rockface on Jay's left side.
"Oh, a Mitford morale-building session and the latest news." Jay grinned.
"What latest news?" Kris demanded, knowing he was baiting her and giving him an ingenuous grin.
"The batch you and Zainal discovered weren't the only drops that night. Mitford sent off an exploratory patrol to see how many fields got seeded in what we believe is the typical Catteni drop pattern."
"More people?" Kris gave a frantic glance around the cave system, certainly overcrowded by the latest group of refugees. How were they going to cope? Then a rattle of the alarm triangle brought a wave of hush over the congregation. Mitford stood up, waiting until he had complete silence.
"OK, folks, listen up. There're more drop-ins . . -" He paused until the mutter - Kris thought she heard resentment as well as surprise and concern - had subsided.
"I take it as a good omen, considering what debriefing I've had." He chuckled. "The Catteni aren't finding it as easy to subdue good ol' Earth as they expected." A cheer went up.
"And they've just increased our specialist departinent by four doctors, eighteen nurses, nine computer specialists, fourteen engineers, some good ol' hunter types from Australia, and a bunch of other real useful individuals, including some professional cooks so we oughta be eating even better in the near future."
"Even with so many mouths to feed, Sarge?" a woman shouted.
He waved off that concern. "We got a whole planet to hunt and plenty of grain stored where we can get it."
"Winter's coming "So's Christmas and we'll have heating units from those solar panels long before. Now settle down. What we're going to do to relieve the housing shortage here is move into the buildings we know are empty, and already plumbed for our benefit."
"But all those machines "Have been decommissioned,' Mitford said, raising his voice to parade ground volume. "The Botany Hilton or Sheraton or whatever, are safe, sound and have . .
he paused, "space available. Our local home decorators have been busy designing alterations, so I think you'll be surprised at how comfortable you're going to be."
"I'm not so sure I wanna live near machines "Quietest neighbours you ever had, I'll betcha," Mitford said and got another ripple of laughter.
"Good chance of us having an intercom system, too, now we got more technicians. All that machinery's going to be recycled for our benefit!"
"Yeah, and what happens when their owners find out?" The man spoke with a slight accent but Kris couldn't locate the speaker.
"As I understand it, Dr Who always managed to evade the mechanicals and so can we," Mitford said with great good humour and got more laughs. "Seriously, though, folks, our population's growing and once again he paused, "everyone's welcome. This is an equal opportunity situation. Let me make that plain. D'you get me?" He waited for the response and, to Kris's relief, got a fairly hearty cheer. "For one thing, there's safety in numbers, especially when you can recruit a lot of specialists who can improve our conditions. And we do. Hell, sixteen days since we got dropped to Freedom on that field, we've even got decent spoons and forks, and better rations than we landed with. Furthermore, we've sorted out some basic problems our allies were having since Zainal and Kris Bjornsen found the nutrient plant that seems to be helping the Deskis. Even if Zainal found it. .
. the hard way' Applause and goodnatured laughter acknowledged that announcement and Kris was well pleased by both elements: that Zainal was getting the credit and that the Deskis were stabilizing.
"We Yanks have a reputation for making something out of nothing, and now that the Aussies have joined us, we'll do even better.
There'll be duty and housing rosters up on the bulletin board - - -" and he pointed to the location on the main cave wall opposite him, "in the morning so be sure to check. We're going to try and make space here in the headquarters to process incomers and as general hospital.
Tesco's in charge of quarters, Dowdall'll take work assignments. You need to see me, check with Cumber. That's all for now, folks.
Dissss-MISSED!" There was goodnatured laughter at his military salutation and he disappeared into the darkness beyond the main campfire.
"Hi, Patti Sue," and Kris leaned around Jay to speak to her.
"Heard you've been a real Nightingale to the Deskis." Patti Sue linked her arm through Jay's in such a proprietary fashion that the gesture indicated her improvement from terrified refugee to self-confident young woman.
"Do what I can," she said, her drawl more pronounced than ever.
"You've done marvels, and you know it," Jay said, stroking her hand.
"D'you know if you're moving from the Rock?" Kris asked Patti Sue and then looked at Jay.
He shrugged. "Dunno yet. COQ'll be up tomorrow morning. We'll all know then." In the middle of the night, Kris was roused by considerable noise in the corridor. Even Zainal was awakened, propping himself up on one elbow and trying to see out.
"Don't you dare put a foot on the ground," she said, pressing him back down. She felt his cheek and he was considerably cooler than he had been when she had last checked him. "You're better. Don't mess up.
I'll go see." She'd told him about the meeting and also that Mitford had given him credit for finding the remedy for the Deskis.
"Even if you had to do it the hardest way possible," she'd said with some acrimony. He'd only snorted. "At least they know one Catteni's a good guy." Maybe others wouldn't.
She didn't add that, but that sentiment naggingly lingered at the back of her mind.
She folded on her shoes, the only thing she took off before going to bed, and went out into the corridor.
"Good!" One of the new Aussie medics said, grabbing her by the arm. "We need all the help we can get." The newest arrivals had not had a Zainal or Kris to stamp the ground and despatch the scavengers and there were many with mangled arms and legs. Most of the victims spoke languages she didn't understand but which sounded Slavonic or Scandinavian. Only a few had some English.
When she was sent by Leon to get more supplies and rouse additional helpers, she saw that the ravine was crammed with bodies, draped wherever they had stopped, too tired to move another step. But the cook cavern was ablaze with lights. Sandy, Bart and half a dozen others were busy at their hearths and the "store' was busy with Jay and Patti Sue doling out supplies. Jay instantly filled the hospital order and she returned.
The third moon had set before she was released and when she got back into the tiny den she shared with Zainal, she had to step carefully over the three other bodies bunked in there during her absence. Fortunately they were fast asleep, though she thought she saw Zainal's eyes glimmer in the corridor light as he checked out her arrival.
So no-one was able to follow the carefully detailed rosters that were up on the camp's main bulletin board.
More parties were sent out to help stragglers, to hunt, to collect additional supplies of grain from that supply depot. Jay complained that folks had to search fairly far from Camp Rock to find firing and brush for bedding.
By high noon, all the new arrivals had been fed a decent meal and had some place to lay their blanket.
The Rugarians, led by Slav, finally returned, bearing the crates with the basic supplies that had been left with this new group. Class C was what Mitford decided to call them. All morning had to be spent extracting information from those who could speak English among the Russians, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Bulgarians, Rumanians and some Greeks who comprised this drop. The fact that so many different nationalities were resisting the Catteni on Earth gave the entire camp a morale boost.
"But why'd they have to dump "em here when they don't even speak English?" one man complained in a wail.
"Who asked?" a wit demanded. "We'll manage. Hell, I know five Deski phrases and nine in Rugs. I'll manage another few lingos. Well, at least until they learn English." By evening the population had increased by a thousand and fifty-two: far more than the camp could accommodate, even by crowding into all available cavern space.
Of Class C, those that could speak English and had not been injured or had suffered only minor hurts were sent off with Sandy, Joe Lattore and Tesco to orgamze quarters in the abattoir buildings.
"They don't know what happened there, and I don't plan to tell "em,' Sandy remarked to Kris when Kris came upon the woman packing her pots and utensils. "I'll organize the cooking there. Twenty barns, are there?" When Kris nodded, "Ah, we'll probably be able to accommodate a lot more than we're taking with us right now, but it'll sure ease the crush." There was no longer sitting room in the cook cavern and every single hearth was going full out all the time.
The smell fromunwashed bodies exuding fear as well as sweat quite masked the more appetizing odours of grilled meats and fresh bread.
When Sandy and her contingent had left, Kris couldn't see where space had been gained and went back to the hospital with the broth she'd gone to collect. Zainal was more eager for any news she had than the food she brought him, but he ate that hungrily enough. His leg was nearly back to its normal sturdy size and the wound was healing cleanly. But it was still crater sized and Leon had made it clear that Zainal was not to move about much.
Zainal did, though, helping with patients who had to be lifted when their dressings were changed or when they were being moved to new accommodations. He did more than he should, but she couldn't keep her eyes on him all the time and there was a lot to be done to make the injured as comfortable as possible without pain relief and no other anti-infection medication than the harsh Catteni fluid. The merest drop of the powerful anaesthetic tended to render a patient unconscious for a full day. Medically that was imprudent, however much relief it afforded the injured party.
"Whatever those critters are that scavenge, at least they bite clean,' Leon said later that day when Kris helped him bandage an arm wound. Flesh had been excised as cleanly as a scalpel would cut but the patient had lost muscle as well as flesh and, from the extent of the injury, Kris rather thought the man would lose the use of his arm entirely.
"They bite big, too," she murmured under her breath, after looking to be sure the victim was unconscious.
Leon only sighed and continued his repair. Kris was rather surprised at her ability to regard hideous tears of flesh and muscle with an objectivity she didn't know she possessed. She hadn't been nauseous once, though others on the temporary nursing staff were.
The dressing complete, both she and Leon finished the current round and walked towards the front of the "hospital'. A breeze was blowing in and freshening the air of the "emergency room' which, for the first time in several days, was empty of patients.
"You," and she took Leon by the arm, "need food and rest, not
necessarily in that order but I can see to it that
you eat!" She took a deep sniff of the incoming breeze.
"Smells good, too." Hauling him by the arm, she marched him out and down the ledge to the cook cavern.
"I hate bossy females," Leon protested, but weakly, as she manoeuvred him past those busy with chores on the ledge.
Below, in his office, Mifford was still debriefing the able-bodied of the last batch though, from the expressions on his face and Esker's, he was making slow work of it with two blond Scandinavian types sitting there.
"Most Scandinavians speak English," Leon remarked.
"The ones you've met in Sydney, or the ones in Oslo, Bergen or Copenhagen?" Leon laughed wearily. "I always wanted to take a travel year.
"Well, guess what? You're on it. Already Kris missed the dour presence of Sandy at her hearth but Bart was present, and evidently in charge of the catering.
"Never been in a job that was so damned constant," Ban said when they presented themselves at his hearth.
He rolled his eyes and then mopped the sweat off his forehead with a pad of fluff which he then dropped into the fire. It hissed. "I'm cooking all the hours the good Lord put in this crazy day. What's your pleasure? We got soup for starters, soup and then, for the main course, soup. We even got crackers," and he offered a square of unleavened stuff, "cos we ran outa bread and the new baking hasn't risen yet." "Why, I think I'll have soup," Kris said, getting herself a clean bowl from the stack at the hearth.
"I'll have a taste adventure, then, and try the soup," Leon said and Bart grinned as he ladled out their portions.
"Don't ask what's in it, will ya," he said as a final caution when they moved out to the ledge to enjoy their meal.
"That's a promise," Kris said with a laugh.
The soup was tasty, with a tangy bite to it, as well as unidentifiable shreds of meat. The satisfying warmth in the stomach revived her. That was, until she saw Zainal carefully making his way down the steps to Mitford's office.
"What the hell does he think he's doing?" Dane demanded.
"Something other than lying in bed doing nothing," Kris answered Leon's complaint. She nervously shifted her feet, knowing she shouldn't follow the big man but wanting to be sure he didn't open that leg wound.
He very carefully negotiated his descent, so she made herself relax. The question was: what urgent business could Zainal have with Mitford that he'd risk opening that wound? Something he couldn't trust her to do for him? Down girl, she told herself firmly. She might be his keeper but she was not his conscience. Whatever he was saying to Mitford, the sergeant was listening very hard. Zainal was still there in the office when she and Leon had finished eating and had to go back on duty.
That evening Esker found her settling the other patients - none of whom had any English - in her den.
"Mitford needs to speak to you, Kris. And you, too, Zainal." He was gone before Kris could question him but, thinking over the tone in which the summons was delivered, she felt no apprehension. After all, Zainal had had that intense discussion with Mitford. Had the sergeant reached a decision? If one was needed?
Mitford was, as usual at this time of his long work day, sitting by the fire, the pottery pitcher of beverage by the side of his rock, the half-full cup in one hand. In the other, he had a stick and was prodding a billet to a better position in the fire.
"Zainal has some cockamamey notion of sending a mayday to his people next time they overfly us," Mitford said, narrowing his eyes as he looked up at Kris. "He feels we haven't had the last of these drops." Mitford gave a little sigh for the problems that yet another influx of people would provide. "Now, fer starters, I don't know as how I want to appeal to them for any help but it's the truth we need some sort of medical supplies, as well as the proper nutrients for the Deskis. That thornbush junk is not quite enough, not for the older Deskis though it's helping Coo. I just don't like to lose anyone, human or alien." He scowled as he delivered that remark.
"How could we possibly contact them?" Kris said, turning to Zainal.
"Make this message on field," Zainal said, and unfolded a slip of bark on which were written, or maybe "drawn' was the proper tem, four complex hieroglyphics Zainal had inscribed.
"How? We haven't rediscovered paint yet here." He gave her a brief smile. "Ground is dark under ." and he waggled his hand to try to find the appropriate word.
"Stubble? Grass?" she supplied.
"Whatever. Take off covering, leave ground bare." That was a good idea, only somehow Kris shared Mitford's obvious reluctance to make any contact with the Catteni.
"We put message many fields off," and Zainal gestured to the north.
"They know we live. They bring more they don't want."
"They know we're here?" Kris asked, more disturbed by that than she liked though a quick look at Mitford showed him more sanguine.
Zainal nodded. "Heat sensors. Then he stretched his lip in a humorous grin. "That's why they fly over."
"Humph, thought that might be it,' Mitford said.
"Bastards!" Then Zainal's grin altered to one of amusement at the sergeant's acceptance and once again Kris was amazed at how that smile transformed his alien cast of countenance.
He looked almost human, except for the white of his teeth contrasting with the grey of his skin. "Know we live so send more."
"Yeah, but they still don't know about the existence of the Meco Makers!
Zainal shook his head. "Sensors find warm bodies, not machinery.
"Hmmm," Mitford said, stirring the fire with his branch.
"Coo still weak but young. Older ones worse and get worser," Zainal said urgently in English, then, in his concern, resorted to Barevi. "Catteni take captives everywhere, but they take good care of them. Of Rugarians, Deskis, Turs and Morphins, and Terrans.
Healthy bodies work better. Asking for proper food is acceptable.
"Won't they find it strange that we ask in Catteni symbols?" Kris asked, pointing to his bark message.
Zainal grinned broadly again. "They know humans are smart," he said in English. "Too damned smart, so they drop them here. No trouble here. Coo and Pess good folks. Can't lose." Now he turned his earnest expression on Mitford. "I work with Deskis and Rugarians before.
"You sure have learnt English quick, Zainal," Mitford said in a drawl, temporizing, Kris thought. Then he regarded Zainal for a long moment. "And the Deskis deserve saving.
Your guys'd just drop the supplies?" Zainal nodded. "They wouldn't come down to find out?" Zainal shook his head. "Why not?" Zainal now laughed. "You make trouble. They he paused and Kris could almost see him trying to sort through his head to find the right words, "play it safe. I play it safe, too."
"You mean, you wouldn't take the opportunity to get off Botany?" Mitford asked that in such a mild tone that Kris hoped Zainal would see he was being deftly interrogated.
"They don't take back what they put down," he said with a philosophical shrug.
Mitford grimaced. "So there's no chance we could commandeer one of their transports?" Zainal considered this and finally shook his head. "They be careful where they drop." He grinned. "Especially near you Terrans."
"How do you know that?" Zainal's teeth gleamed in the firelight when he smiled.
"Know it before, back on Barevi. Lots of talk. Hear it now from the new ones. Believe it, too. I see how you work."
"Thanks, buddy' Mitford replied sardonically but amused by Zainal's approval. "Why would they do us a favour then?"
"I tell you why." Now Zainal seemed to tense and Kris felt Mitford was pushing him too much, as if he didn't quite believe Zainal was on the level. "Keep healthy to improve this planet." Suddenly Zainal held out the slip of bark with its symbols and, with one thick fingertip, explained them.
"This says "drop"," and he pointed to the intricate hook in the centre of the first glyph. "This says "food"," and he ran his finger half round the next curlicue, "this "Deski creatures". This means ." and he moved to the next glyph, ""danger to the death" surrounded by urgent Fourth one says "medicines for infection". Four only.
Easy to make, easy to read from distance." His tone was cold and firm.
"OK, OK, man, I believe you," Mitford said. "Just had to ask."
"These my people, too, now, Zainal added, straightening his wide shoulders as if he, too, would assume some of that burden from Mitford.
"We are one people now, or by God, I'll know why!" Mitford said so fiercely that Kris almost recoiled. The sergeant saw her reaction and gave her a quick grin. "I could even get to like being in charge of this motley crew.
"Sunrise Kris started to protest but Mitford held up a hand to silence her. "If he thinks he can, he can. Those Deskis need the right food. And we can use the Deskis' abilities.
You go with him, Kris. How many will you need to carve the message, Zainal?" The Catteni waved his hand to indicate he'd go alone.
"Stuff it, buddy, man," Mitford said irritably. "You'll need help making those figures large enough to be seen from altitude. I know.
Had to do it in "Nam once. Even SOS takes time to make." He turned to Kris, an almost wistful expression on his face. "You don't happen to speak any Scandinavian language, do you?" And when she shook her head, he sighed. "New guys are all I have to send with you but you can break "em in to our new ways at the same time. And, I'll pick you one that speaks English and the rest'll be told what to do. Got it?"
"Got it, Sarge," and she rose, recognizing a dismissal when she heard it.
Zainal extended one hand to Mitford which the sergeant took readily enough and shook.
"You will not be sorry," Zainal said as he rose.
"1 sincerely hope not," Mitford replied. "Esker will have a patrol ready at first light."
Despite a broken night's sleep - since two of their room-mates were so restless any long period of sleep was impossible - Kris and Zainal were up well before the Botany dawn. They'd eaten - Bart was absent, asleep, one of the other cooks said, yawning - and were getting their travel rations when Esker came in with six people, five men and a woman who was nearly as tall as Kris.
She seemed relieved to see that Kris was in the party.
"I speak English," she announced. "I am named Astrid.
These are Ole, Jan, Oskar, Bjorn and Peter. We lived near Oslo.
Esker has told us we go with you to dig?"
"Yes, dig," Kris said, with a reassuring smile because she obviously thought it an odd job. She shook hands all round. "This is Zainal, our leader.
"You have Catteni as leader?" Astrid asked in a startled whisper.
"Good one, too, or you'd've all been eaten.
"Pardon?"
"The scavengers? The things that go bump in the night on this planet?" And Kris made a mouth of one hand and bit her other arm. Astrid reacted to that, jerking back and away from the demonstration.
"I do not always understand, Astrid said apologetically.
"We are still alive. We keep others alive?"
"Exactly! To help the Deskis keep alive we send a message."
"Someone will read?" Astrid was clearly amazed. One of the men shot her a quick sentence in the oddly liquid Norwegian language. She answered him as quickly and turned back to Kris. "I don't believe."
"Believe. We will carve the symbols on the ground to be seen in the air," and she mimed the actions.
"Oh," Astrid said and explained to her compatriots, who nodded in vigorous understanding.
"Kris?" and Kris recogni; one of the Australian nurses, hurrying into the cavern, waving a sack made from part of a blanket, the ubiquitous material used for anything from aprons to tents. "More fluff dressings for Zainal's leg." Then she shot an accusing look at the Catteni. "I knew you'd go off without them and that leg still needs support and dressings every day. I don't care if you are some kind of superman, you bleed red like the rest of us. Here!" And she jammed the sack into Zainal's hand and whirled about and ran out again.
With a half-grin, Zainal managed to look slightly embarrassed as he stowed the sack into the larger one he was carrying.
"Now we go," he said. Whether he had seen Mitford's gestures on their first trek or not, he raised his arm above his head and brought it down in the direction they were to travel.
Reassured by his manner, Kris motioned for the rest of the patrol to follow her and they left, as a good team, she thought.
But, as they left Camp Rock, Kris realized that last night both men - maybe unintentionally - had avoided discussing what would happen if the Meco Makers appeared first? Of course, with winter approaching - but it struck her as unrealistic to think that everything mechanical went down with the close of the growing season. Surely there was some sort of supervisor, or superintendant or overseer on the planet? Maybe on one of the other continents? Nevertheless, some thing must be in overall charge. When there was no response from the garages now that the solar panels were disconnected, some thing must register the lack of response. And check up.
And response was what they hoped to get. Or had Mitford's objectives changed now he was getting accustomed to being the top man here on Botany?
Well, as her grandmother used to say, why borrow trouble? It finds you soon enough.
While Zainal was not setting the pace he had on the first patrol Kris had done with him, he certainly didn't amble.
By the first rest stop, Kris knew that the Norwegians weren't going to slow them down.
Probably ski'd all winter in Norway. She kept her eyes on Zainal, though, to watch for any signs of an unconscious favouring of his inlured leg. Then she became aware that he was watching her watch him.
"You tell us names of things?" Astrid asked during the break.
"I don't know as we've named much, Astrid," Kris admitted, taking a swig of water from her pottery bottle.
Sandy's kiln worked and she'd found a glaze so the canteen, while still breakable, didn't leak. She even had a proper pouch for it, now attached to her belt.
"There're botanists going about checking plants to see if they're edible and stuff like that but I can't say as I've kept up with what they're doing."
"You are out on patrol?"
"Most of the time."
"What are these machineries?" She looked puzzled.
"Ah, yes, well," and Kris explained, pausing while Astrid made quick translations to her compatriots until Zainal gestured for them to take the road again.
"You have done most well," Astrid said when Kris finished her brief history of Botany. "We are glad we drop here."
"Got dropped here," Kris corrected automatically.
"Ooops, sorry, Zainal has me helping his English."
"Oh, help my English, too."
"You . . . teach . . . us?" one of the other men, Ole, Kris thought, asked her. She hadn't quite sorted the guys out yet.
"Might as well. English lessons on the march."
"We have no Deskis to hear flying danger," Astrid said, her eyes wide with apprehension now. "We were told that there is danger that flies," she added when Kris regarded her with astonishment at her knowledge.
"The nearby garages are all disabled, so I don't think we're in danger of any avians swooping down on us."
"Pardon?" Astrid's English was not up to Kris's comment.
"My pardon, and she rephrased the remark in better English.
"Explain "boy" now," Zainal suddenly said, dropping back so that he was abreast of the two girls.
"Oh, yes. Well," and Kris floundered briefly. "Boy can mean several things. No, I guess many. A boy," and she held up one finger, "is a young male person: too old to be a baby and too young to be considered a man yet. OK?"
""Boy"? Is only that?" Zainal twisted his face into a perplexed expression.
"We have what we call "slang", in English: patois, idiom, in other languages," Kris continued determinedly.
""Boy" used as slang is an expression of amazement, amusement, pleasure, and it's usually said as "oh, boy!"
or "0000 booooy!" or "0 boy!"' and she emphasized the different emotions with exaggerated gestures and tones.
"All "boy"?" asked Zainal. "I don't understand how a boy, a young male person, can be surprise, funny, good times."
"I think you do, Zainal,' Kris said, suddenly realizing that he was teasing her. "G'wan with ye now, m'boyo!" Astrid translated to the others, grinning and laughing and saying "oh, boy' in different tones of voice.
"Oh, boy and isn't this getting out of hand," Kris said, shaking her head at her predicament.
"0 boy, 0 boy, 0 boy," Zainal said and, to nonplus her further, he put one arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug.
"You've been talking to other people," she said, throwing off his arm and stalking ahead of him. Then she realized she was overreacting.
Why on earth, when she really wanted to get close to him, had she repudiated his friendly gesture?
Regretting her behaviour, she slowed down and caught his hand, holding it while they walked.
Mter the second rest stop, Zainal struck off in a northerly direction, pointing to broad fields of golden stubble that spread upwards to a rocky summit. If, as Zainal had suggested, the Catteni kept to the same line to make their drops, those fields would be visible if they were going to buzz Camp Rock again.
They reached their objective by midafternoon. Zainal sent Kris and two of the men off to hunt for rocksquats, sunning themselves.
Oskar and Bjorn were proficient with the bows and arrows they had been supplied with while both were congratulatory when Kris brought down four creatures with well-placed slingshots. Of course, she'd missed six so she didn't think that much of her accomplishment.
The men were obviously accustomed to good hunting practices because, as soon as they found the next stream, they skinned and dressed down the meat without directions from her. They washed all the carcasses and pelts well, before going back to Zainal's field. They were setting about to bury the entrails when she indicated they should leave them.
Kris spotted some nourishing types of greens in the hedgerows and harvested them. She kept her eyes out for the tubers which also grew wild at the edges of fields.
Fried, they'd be a good addition to the roast meat and the travel rations.
Zainal had had the others help him to outline with rocks the glyphs that they would have to hack out of the soil. He was pacing out the second huge pattern, putting down the bordering rocks while the others gathered more. Kris could also see, at the top of the field, a circle of stones with a nice fire burning in it, fuelled by the loo-cow droppings collected on the way. They'd be only a step away from the safety of the rocky height, which was just fine by Kris.
The scavengers foraged in crop fields as well as pastures and only the stomp-stomp of the loocows' six legs kept them from being fair game. Was that why the loocows had six legs? More to stomp with?
But the scavengers were no doubt the reason why, as Kris had noticed, the loocows seemed to sleep during the daylight hours.
Those loocows probably had to do an all-night stomp to stay alive.
The hunters displayed their spoils and Kris set about finding the right size of flat rock to cook them on.
She'd been warned to be careful about overheating her newly issued cooking pot, since it was, after all, only glazed clay, but she'd been assured by Jay Greene that it would bring water close to the boil - and that would mean she could cook the greens. She took them to the ubiquitous stream to wash and filled the pot, and very shortly the stones were hot enough to start cooking rocksquat.
By then, Zainal had outlined all four huge glyphs. After a good dinner, he suggested that they start hacking out the soil to bare the dark ground.
That was tougher work than they had anticipated, for the ground cover had deep, tough root systems and Kris found these had to be cut out: the roots wouldn't just pull away like any well-behaved Terran weed. Her arms and shoulders ached from her labours and she was quite glad to break off to heat water for the nighttime beverage.
The medics had come to the decision that the herbaltype tea that had been concocted contained useful trace elements, so a bedtime cup was standard issue. A nice homey touch and no reason not to continue it out in the rocky wilds of Botany. With warmth in the belly, it was easier to sleep.
The turf-cutters made themselves as comfortable as they could on the rocks and those who had later watches had no trouble falling asleep.
It took them five days to complete the glyphs: five days of fingernail-and back-breaking, arm-bruising and blister-making toil, since the only tools they had were hatchets and knives. They'd been issued with spares of each tool and had needed them to complete their task, resharpening the dulled edges every night. Then, deterutined that his message would be seen, Zainal had them outline the cuts with the sparkling white stone that comprised this rock outcrop. The full sunlight that fell on the glyphs caused the mica in the rock to glint.
Almost as good as neon. Exhausted as she was, Kris had to admire the final result.
"Do all Catteni read?" she asked Zainal.
"Those on watch do," he assured her.
His leg was a bit swollen from his unremitting labours but the flesh was gradually filling in and he took a brook-shower night and morning. Cold as the water was, Kris liked the new type of ablution.
She and Astrid bathed upstream of the fellows, but the rivulet was deep enough for a person to lie down on the sands and let the water cascade over them in a horizontal shower. The sand was very fine and provided a rough but effective cleanser.
Besides, you were so cold you didn't feel the abrasions.
Or so Kris told herself.
The rocky height was home - or had been home - to a huge colony of rocksquats. The patrol took some time out each day to hunt and then to cut the excess meat into strips to dry on the hot rocks the next day. Kris was very pleased to be so productive - especially since there were so many more mouths to feed.
Each night, however, reminded them that a colder season was approaching and Kris did worry about how cold that would be.
Fortunately, the Catteni-issue thermal blankets were efficient in containing body heat inside them. The evening showers blessed them on schedule but those were no longer as violent as they had been: more like a gentle watering than torrential rains.
On the sixth day they started back to camp, hunting when they could, for additional protein was always welcome. Zainal set a faster pace this time to allow for interludes of hunting, and they reached the caverns to find them still crammed with people. Bart took their offerings with profuse thanks and then asked Kris if she'd take a hearth and cook what they'd brought in. As she certainly couldn't refuse the man when he looked so harried, and the cook cave was obviously pushed to the limit, she agreed. Astrid lingered, as much because she didn't know where to go as that Kris was a familiar face.
Until a messenger came for Kris to report to Mitford.
"I watch you. I now know to cook," Astrid said, taking the long-handled fork Kris had been using and pushing her on her way.
Zainal and Ole, who did have some English, were in Mitford's office. The pile of bark sheets was higher than the stone he used as a desk and was weighted down by what looked like a gold nugget, a lump of iron and a greeny mess that had to be copper.
"Gold in them thar hills?" Kris asked when he motioned her to a seat.
"That and more. We've been busy while you've been carving that mayday."
"You're never not busy, Sarge."
"Patrol found the remnants of another drop and nine survivors. Eight Deski and a guy from Atlanta, Georgia, who had the sense to stick with the aliens. Damn it," and Mitford's face was suffused with anger, "I shoulda had you put a PS on that message: make the drops in daylight. I hate it when I lose people like that."
"But they weren't ours, yet, Sarge," Kris said, trying to be conciliatory. Mitford gave her a dirty look. Hey, she thought, he's really into this Leader bit. Well, it's not as if anyone else had volunteered for the responsibilities and the headaches. And look at all that Mitford has gone and done.
"They could've been. And another garage was found and deactivated.
Twenty more barns to be made into domiciles."
"We put them in the barns. Easier that way, but I'd rather have the people to go with them." Zainal had been constructing another glyph and now held it Off to inspect the result. He made a few more strokes as adjustments, then turned it to Mitford and Kris. "That should do it," he said.
Mitford reacted to that almost unaccented remark. "You learn quick, doncha?"
"I have to," Zainal replied. "Take two, three days there and back." He rose, glancing up at the sundial. "Have enough light the travel."
"How's your leg?" Mitford frowned at it, as he could see nothing past the bulky trouser leg. Then he caught Kris's surreptitious headshake. "No, better start fresh tomorrow. The others are only Terrans, not as tough as you Catteni." His little snort took the sting out of that remark as he looked up at Zainal towering above him.
"You think your guys'll listen?" Zainal nodded solemnly. "They don't know the dangers here. They don't know scavengers. They wish this planet coln-nized. We have survived," and he shrugged, "so they think all can."
"But even the report you saw said there were dangerous animals down here." Mitford's scowl deepened.
Zainal shrugged and grinned broadly. "We have survived. Water, air, animals, light gravity, better than Catten!" As if that answered the necessary criteria.
Mitford snorted, shuffling several pieces of scribbled bark about on his worktop. "As far as we know, they made three drops this time.
We were one of four. And three weeks between trips. That right?" Zainal cocked his head thoughtfully. "Could be. I was space, not colon-y." And he spread his hands in a very contemporary human gesture of ignorance. "You know the problem: one group does not know what other does."
"Yeah," and Mitford's drawl spoke of much experience with such inequities.
A woman, face red, hair messed, coverall opened halfway to her waist came stamping her way up the steps to Mitford's office.
"Mitford, either you cut his libido off at the root or I'll do it myself with a dull knife."
"Arnie?" and Mitford rose, gesturing authoritatively at two men lounging to one side, playing some sort of game involving pebbles. "No questions, no answers. Bring "im.
Put "im back in the stocks. And he'll stay there till he rots or we can think of something else to do with him."
"Tie him out in a field for scavengers and even that's too good," the woman said, closing the fastenings on her coverall and then smoothing her hair. "Horny pervert! I'll give you a full report of this latest trick of his when you're done here," she muttered as she politely took herself to one side so Mitford could finish with his current interview.
"At least the ratio between male and female evened up a little in "the last drop. But I don't need guys like Arnie," Mitford said when the woman had settled out of earshot.
"He's been in the stocks four times for peeping and twice for stealing."
"Stealing what?"
"Food! Extra blankets, a sharper knife because he's too lazy to hone his own." Mitford made a noise of disgust. "I need him like a boil on my ass. Don't ever feel sorry, Kris, that he got force-whipped. He just got his in advance."
"Tie him out for the scavengers," Zainal said blandly.
"Good idea." Mitford grimaced, showing his teeth and expelling air through them. "Can't, but I may yet . . . You get food and rest, ya hear, Kris?" When she dutifully nodded, he added, "And make sure Dane sees his leg." Over Zainal's protests that's exactly what Kris did, roundly scolding the Catteni because he hadn't reported in to Leon Dane when they'd reached camp. He was at first amused by her tirade and then frowned as she grabbed him by the arm to lead him to the hospital end of the caverns, when he did not turn in that direction immediately.
"Now listen here, Lord Emassi Zainal," she said, "you were given an order by Mitford and, if you plan to go out tomorrow, you'll obey it or you won't go. And no-one will go with you to help dig that message." "Then no message." He shrugged as if it were all the same to him.
"Ohhh, you make me so mad . Kris tried to keep her voice down because she knew she sounded shrewish but he was being so unreasonable.
"Just because you're a Catteni doesn't mean you don't bleed like us frail Terrans and that you didn't damned near die from that thorn toxin, and I don't want to go through that again. You're too important to me to be stupid about your health." He grabbed her by the finger she was shaking at him, looking around because he had noticed just how much attention her accusation had focused on them.
"I go. I see Dane," he said far too docilely, and she watched to make sure he did.
Lordee, you'd think a man as old as Zainal would have the sense to take care of himself. And she didn't like it when he got all compliant. That wasn't Catteni of him.
retired to the next field to get an overall view of their labours.
"Man? Another "boy" thing?" Zainal asked, one eyebrow quirking upwards in amusement.
"Yeah, you can if you wish, substitute "man 0 man o man" for "boy 0 boy o boy". It's how you feel."
"Young or old? Small or large?" Zainal asked, his eyes twinkling down at her.
"I think," she said in a severe tone, "that you're kidding me."
"Ah, kid, a small goat," Astrid said with an unexpected display of humour. "Oh, in slang a "boy"!"
"Right!" Ole asked her a question and she replied, laughing when he grinned in comprehension, "Baby, kid, boy, man," he said with just a hint of the liquid Norwegian in his tone.
"Kidding? Can one having boying, too?" asked Zainal.
"Yes, actually," Kris said. "But it's spelt differently and means a floating object in the water to warn seamen off underwater dangers.
"See man?" Zainal asked, gathering his brows slightly which made him look quite ominous.
"We have a lot of words in English that sound the same but mean different things."
"Context how the word is used in the sentence. Hey, is this a language patrol?"
"Why not?" and Zainal grinned. "Work is done. Now we. . . play?"
"Ha! You wouldn't know how to play," Kris retorted.
"Wanna bet?" he replied.
"You've listened too much to the Doyle brothers," she said waggling a finger at him.
The fifth glyph took them most of the clear day but went more smoothly, since they all knew how to do it. They immediately started cutting sod at the top as Zainal laid out the design and they were well started when he finished.
They didn't even have to find more mica rocks since there was still a pile left over from their first job.
"Shropshire Man this isn't," Kris said when they He grabbed her finger and she tried to pull away which resulted in a tugging match, then turned into him chasing her, trying to recapture the finger while the Norwegians watched this juvenile display with unsmiling dignity.
Kris was quicker on her feet than the heavier Catteni, so she eluded him, ducking under his grasping arms and hands, and taunting him to catch her. When he did, he held her tightly against him. She could barely move but she scrunched her hands behind her back so he couldn't recapture the finger. It was all very silly, since inevitably his superior strength would win out but she found she enjoyed Zainal's surprising playful side. Inexorably, he recaptured the right hand, and with amazing gentleness, considering the strength he applied to the task, he drew her hand up and, recapturing the finger, kissed it. Then the palm of her hand.
A spurt of something ran through her at the touch of his lips on the softer, if blistered, skin of her hand. Startled, she caught his eyes. The twinkle was there for the success of his recapture, but some other emotion darkened his odd-coloured eyes and made her catch her breath.
"Happy now?" she asked with some asperity.
"Yes," he said simply and immediately let her go.
On the way back to camp, in between foraging, Astrid and her compatriots kept up quite a lively discussion until Kris finally asked them what was so interesting.
"The land," Astrid said with a sweeping hand. "It is beautiful country for growing and for aninla's who eat grass. Very well done, too. Oskar and Peter are raised on farms. They say very well done."
"It is, and wait till they see what the farmers are," Kris said.
"Pardon?" There was a brief delay in the conversation while rocksquats were added to the day's bag. Throughout the rest of the day, Kris heard about the ecologically - the word was the same in Norwegian but sounded different - sound fashion in which Botany's agriculture was done. Proper drainage, available water, copses of vegetation used as windbreaks where the land was not arable, even the hedging that separated the fields was approved. For what it was worth.
Kris did not want to be the one to tell them what farmed the land here. But she began to have more respect for the acumen of the absentee landlords: whatever they were besides omnivorous.
Great excitement buzzed about the camp when they returned and Kris didn't report to Mitford the observation they'd made on their way back.
The sergeant was sitting with what looked to Kris very much like a handheld phone. He was talking into it, so unless Chuck Mitford had flipped his wig, and she wouldn't have blamed him if he had, he was talking to another unit of the Botany Colonial Establishment.
"Great, huh?" Bart said when Kris, Bjorn and Oskar brought the results of their hunting into the cook cavern.
"Yeah, but more importantly, the technies know now what chips do what in the mechanicals' circuitry. Real breakthrough." Kris allowed that it must be, since everyone was so happy about it, and she supposed she should be as elated because it was one more step back towards sophisticated living. However, she was oddly disturbed by the breakthrough and certainly couldn't figure out why. She'd probably been enjoying this atavistic hunter-explorer life more than she should - considering it also involved lots of discomfort and uncertainty, as well as enough hazards to get the ol' adrenalin flowing freely most of the time. Camp Rock would really benefit from some modern conveniences. On the other hand, was instant communication really a benefit?
"Put another toggle on my belt," she muttered under her breath, "for the handheld!" Then she added, "Say, Bart, where do I find out where I'm buncing tonight?" Bart pointed to the irregular opening that led to most of the dorntitory facilities as well as the lake. "List right there." Her name had a big fat P beside it: so did Zainal's, and, as she looked down the list for the Norwegians, they were P's, too. P for Patrol?
"Bjornsen?" someone sang out at the front of the cave.
"Sarge wants you.
Muttering about being homeless, Kris made her way to the office.
There were three handsets on Mitford's "desk' "Latest in recycled mechanicals," Mitford said in great good humour. "We can keep in touch with our outposts and our scouts. You gotta get some height to boost the signal - -" and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the top of the cliff behind him where, of all things, an aerial now swayed in the evening breeze. "But don't seem to have any trouble with range.
Anyway, we'll know soonest when the Catteni make another drop. We've got a network of lookouts - and not just for the Catteni's next move." He rummaged briefly through the sheets on his worktop and flipped free a large one - no, it was quite a few sheets neatly glued(?) together.
Well, the loocows had hooves, so someone had remembered to boil "em up for glue. A map had been drawn on the big sheet - or, the beginnings of one, for only the centre showed contour lines, streams, fields, forestry. The map gave Kris a much better idea of the terrain in and around the main camp, and the siting of the various mechanical facilities.
"Neat," she said.
"We got a bona fide surveyor," Mitford said proudly, tapping the map.
"Pretty good, huh? Even got relative distances.
"Nat. Geo. Soc. would be proud to claim it," she agreed, grinning at Mitford. "You don't waste time civilizing us, do you, Sarge?"
"Not much," he agreed amiably, "but then we got lots of Yankee know-how - and Aussie." He noticed her jaundiced expression and cocked eyebrow, so he cleared his throat as if he'd had to do that before continuing.
"Alien allies, too," he added. Then he surprised her by hefting one of the units and plonking it down in front of her, all businesslike again. "I want your patrol to start examining this area," and his thick index finger wandered down to easterly uncharted areas. "I'll need to keep in touch with you in case we want Zainal."
"Are you keeping Zainal out of camp for a reason?" Mitford regarded her steadily, his grey eyes not avoiding hers.
"You might, at that, think I am, and I am. He's too valuable a resource to be wasted "Then I haven't been wrong - there's feeling against him." "Can you honestly blame people for resenting him as Caneni?"
"Even if he was dumped down like everyone else?" Kris asked plaintively.
"Even then because he's still Catteni and no weapons but a knife, and alone.
"He's not alone," Kris said staunchly.
"I know, Bjornsen. But there's this thinking that there must have been a good reason he got dumped, other than killing another Cat. . .
Catteni," Mitford said and, when she started to protest, he held up a hand. "I've seen and heard all about Catteni one-day vendettas, Bjornsen, and if it was only for killing a patrol leader, he'd've been released from the slammer the next day. He sure the hell isn't like any other Catteni 1 ever met or heard about."
"What about the latest drop? If it hadn't been for Zainal..
"Kris!" Mitford's hand on her arm and sharp tone stopped her. He didn't look around to see who might be near enough to hear their discussion but there was something about his manner now that suggested to Kris that he didn't want her blowing her top right now. "There are a lot of folk who should be grateful to Zainal. But they aren't. And that's the long and short of it. I can't change human nature, you know." And he sounded sincerely regretful. "And I won't run him out of the camp." He blinked and then said softly, "He's too useful a resource.
Now, girl," and carefully he began to fold the map. He put it into a flat envelope made out of the ubiquitous blanket, complete with shoulder-strap. He laid that alongside the comunit, then added a thick carbon "pencil' and fidgeted until he had them alligned to his satisfaction. "I want you and Zainal to go walkabout with Astrid.
She's chosen Oskar to go with. Zainal says she's competent and can keep up. I've a pair of Australians who swore blind they could keep up with Aborigines so they oughta be able to keep up with you two. They were in the last drop and are grateful to Zainal. Though half the time they act like this was some great joke. Possibly it is." He paused, musing on that theory. "One of "em has medical training and did botany in the Outback downunder. With this handheld, you can keep in touch with me. Esker, Dowdall, and a new guy, ex-Anzac major by name of Worrell who did some military governing so he knows more than I do He waved off Kris's immediate disclaimer. "I'm glad to have him aboard.
They call him "Worry" and he does, so I don't have to any more. He'll be at the other end if I'm not. That clear?"
"In a way, yes," she replied as civilly as she could, for she was seething both with indignation that Zainal should be exiled and relief that she was going with him.
"Your friendly roving reporter!" She rose.
"Good girl, Bjornsen, I like your style," Mitford said, peering up at her. "I gotta defuse the situation, you understand."
"Yeah, I guess you do. Only why," and she nodded her head in the direction of the stocks where Arnie was constrained, "can he be tolerated and not Zainal?" Mitford snorted. "Takes all kinds and he's. . . supposedly - - human. One more complaint lodged against him, though, and we take punitive measures he won't like at all. Especially as we wouldn't use anaesthetic." Then he looked over towards the main cavern. "That's your patrol, Bjornsen. I told Zainal, too. Report in every day, will ya? So we know the equipment's still working.
The code here is 369," and he grinned.
"Sir!" she said, stamping her feet up and down, coming to attention and saluting him in the manner of a British soldier.
He waved her away and three people vied to take her place, ey'eing her map case and handset. She strode off, head high, looking neither to right nor left.
Zainal was leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest, watching her progress. The other four members of the patrol were talking quietly. She nodded to Astrid and Oskar, then looked at the two new folks. She held her hand out to the woman whom she liked on sight: almost spare in build but wiry, with a complexion that had been roughened by hot Australian summers and faded short curly hair to a ginger shade. But she exuded an air of competence, a characteristic of so many Aussies. At her feet, beside her travel gear, were a first-aid kit and a light bow with a sheaf of arrows.
"M' name's Sarah McDouall," she said, giving Kris's hand a firm hard shake before letting it go. "This here's Francis Marley. We made a good team in the resistance "fore we got caught. I'm your medic."
"Call me Joe. Anything's beller than Francis," he said, giving Sarah a mock glare for her introduction. He spoke in a slightly nasal tenor voice which seemed to have a lilt of quiet laughter to it. He was tall and lean, sun-creased eyes, an open face and smile, with dark hair growing grey at the temples. One hand kept going to his head as if to adjust a missing hat. The gesture developed into a scratch of his skull. "Stocknian, I know a bit about plants." He had a sling tucked in his belt, a blanket pouch that bulged with pebbles. He sort of leaned against the three light lances he was armed with. They had, Kris noticed, metal tips.
My, she thought, the arsenal was improving, too!
"Anyone know where we're bunked?" Kris asked.
"Zainal knows."
"I lead, you follow," Zainal said, pushing himself off the wall and moving off, past the hospital cave.
Kris wondered if he was annoyed that Mitford had given her the comunit.
His expression did not give her any clues.
It was more a dug-out than a cave but it would shelter them from the evening shower and the colder winds that now blew during the night.
There was just room enough for six bodies but there were hooks for hanging and even a ledge.
"More or less," Joe said with a grin.
"You don't mind a Catteni patrol leader?" Joe's eyebrows raised slightly and Sarah gave her a sharp look.
"Well, now "Zainal here leads," Kris said firmly. "I'm signals," and she tapped the comunit.
"I need a bath," Kris added, carefully stowing the map case and the handheld on the ledge. She turned to Astrid.
"That's what we call it, Kris said with a grin, easier now she'd made her point, and turned to Sarah.
"Had one. I'll get our grub. Smells good. C'mon, Joe, Oskar.
Don't take too long," Sarah said to the bathers.
"You better believe it," Kris replied and then, with Astrid on her heels, retraced her steps to the cook cavern and then down to the lake.
Astrid had no problem with cold-water bathing but then, if she was accustomed to saunas in Norway, she wouldn't have. But the temperature did not encourage one to dawdle and they were washed, dried, dressed and on their way back to their quarters about the time their evening meal was ready.
"I do miss a beer," Joe said plaintively, sopping up the last of the gravy from his bowl with his bread.
"I miss a cigarette," Sarah said.
"I, too," Astrid said with a smile, and translated to Oskar. He raised both hands skywards in longing.
"You know plants?" Astrid asked Joe. "Find us one like tobacco."
"Now there's a right good idea," Joe replied. "Do my damnedest, I
will." Chapter Eleven
Each morning Kris checked in and usually spoke to Mitford, giving him an all clear. Each evening, around the fire, she got the others to help her map the terrain they had covered that day.
On the fourth day they came upon another mechanical garage and spent the day dismantling it. Kris added that detail to the map with a certain amount of pleasure.
Joe Marley pushed back his nonexistent hat, scratched his scalp as he viewed his first mechanicals. Oskar, examining the first large harvester (Kris thought last out, last in), rattled off a long sentence to Astrid.
"He want to see it work," she said, eyeing the large mechanico dubiously.
"Maybe next year," Kris said airily, "if we decide to put "em all back in operation. If there're any with full parts by then." Zainal had already unfastened the solar panels on the top of the garage. Then he went after the flying dart-dispenser.
Leon had asked particularly for them to collect any they found, for the anaesthetic.
"Oskar asks how machine go with no wheels," Astrid said, peering under the skirt of the biggest farm machine to check on that lack.
"On an air cushion," and Kris mimicked the sound and the method.
Oskar nodded approvingly, still walking about the mechanical beast. He also examined the flying device, carefully, since Kris warned him about the darts peeking out from the leading edge. Oskar seemed to approve most of the harvester design. Then made a rollercoaster motion with one hand and said something to Astrid.
"His farm is on hill. This thing," and she kicked at its flange, "fall over," and Astrid demonstrated something losing its balance and tumbling downhill.
Joe had moved to the storage areas, hunting for something.
"We saw some working on others," Zainal said and stepped up to the face of the harvester to start removing its solar panels.
"Oh, my word, this planet's odd," Sarah said.
"You can say that again," Kris agreed. "They'll want panels and storage batteries back at the camp, or wherever. There's quite a herd of them here." She peered into the shadows of the garage to the indistinct forms parked there.
"Could we bed down here tonight?" Sarah asked with such a lack of expression that Kris almost grinned.
"I think so," she said. "I wouldn't mind being out of that wind for a night, myself."
"There're rocksquats back aways picking up her weapons.
"Kris, go with her," Zainal said when the woman started off on her own.
"I can handle myself," Sarah said indignantly.
"You go with," Zainal said. "This planet has dangers.
Kris knows dangers."
"Yeah, but I don't hear as well as Coo," Kris said, carefully setting down the comunit and the map case.
· " Sarah said, "Is he always like that?" Sarah asked Kris when they were out of earshot.
"Don't bristle," Sarah said with a grin. "He's not half-bad for a Catteni. Not that I've met that many. But I heard ." and she let her tone rise up, a subtle prompting for Kris to expatiate.
"As Catteni go, he's pretty good," Kris said noffcommittally.
"And he's saved a lot of folks "Oh my word! You don't need to defend him to me. I came to on the outside of that bloody field and the guy next to me was being chewed up. I would have been next but for you stomping about like a brumby. Anyway, it's only good sense to go out with someone. Believe me, you do where I come from!" They came back with rocksquats and some of the tender-fleshed little avians, brushwood and a pile of droppings from the next field over. They had spotted only distant ffiers but Kris pointed them out and told Sarah how to avoid becoming a meal.
"Are they after one now?" Sarah asked, squinting at the aerial menaces.
"Who knows?" Kris didn't particularly want to find out. "Now, if you were back on Earth, you'd probably jump into your four-by-four and go investigate."
"Probably, but we're not on Earth now, are we?" and there was a world of regret in her tone.
"Sorry," Kris said in a rueful voice. She hauled her gaze away from the distant avians and they walked on in silence for a while.
Then they reached high ground where Sarah stopped to look out over the vista of neatly squared, hedged fields and sighed.
"Oh my word! My da would go spare. And no-one is in residence?" "Haven't found any one yet. And that's why we're dismantling the garages, to sort of give notice." Sarah's eyes bulged. "You mean you want to find out who made those - . - machines?"
"Did anyone tell you about the ship that collected the harvest?" Kris grinned down at the slighter woman, the braces of rocksquats swinging from the stick she carried over her shoulder.
"I heard something - a ship as big as a city?"
"Small city," Kris said with a laugh.
"You want to go on it?" Sarah's eyes went wide again but from respect.
"Not me, personally," Kris replied, though if Zainal was involved in the adventure, she'd probably be right there with him. And he probably would be in the boarding party. "It'd be interesting to see what species set up this planet, made it self-sufficient, selfrepairing, yielding so much food "FOOD?" Sarah gulped and a brief panic almost made her drop her stick.
"That's what this planet does - makes food, and we don't know for whom. Or what. Except that they're probably omnivores like us." Sarah gulped again. "I hadn't thought about that aspect of it."
"Well, it's easier to concentrate on making out day by day at the moment," Kris agreed.
"Yeah, there's that all right," she said as they came around the bend of the smooth-domed rock that housed this garage.
The others had dismantled what could be taken back to the camp for recycling. Oskar had shown himself particularly adept with the disassembly and the others had started to defer to him. As he worked, he asked for English words for various items and cheerfully muttered them under his breath, committing them to memory. Joe was almost his equal but then, he said, from the time he was old enough to lift a screwdriver he'd been taught how to do repairs on his father's sheep station.
"You're looking at a heap of future handhelds and other useful gadgets,' Joe said, gesturing to the neatly stacked things, including wires, connectors, linkages and all kinds of curious gadgetry that had been inside the mechs. "A DIY treasure-trove."
"Would you know how to make something out of this?" Kris asked.
"Depends," Joe said cheerfully, "on what's needed." Zainal came up then, her comunit in his hand. "You are asked to call home."
"ET?" Kris asked with a grin but only Sarah and Joe caught the
reference.
She shrugged and tapped out 369
and a strange voice answered.
"Worry here."
"Worry?"
"Ah, I'd be speaking to Kris?"
"You are, and you'd be Worrell."
"Since I landed here, it's been worry, miss, so "elp me.
Report?" She gave it to him and he expressed pleasure in the discovery of yet another garage and its reusables.
"Mitford's all right, isn't he?" she asked before she signed off.
"Never beuer," Worry said and even over the line his voice sounded sardonic. "A truly amazing man."
"I can believe that!" There was a laugh at the other end and then Worrell signed off with a reminder to register the approximate location of the new garage on the map. Zainal assisted her, as he was able to give her the relative distances from their previous camp and what he called a good guess as to the contours of the day's travel. Although Kris knew her legs could testify that they'd travelled far that day, her legs only knew they'd travelled, not how far up hill and down.
The next noon, they reached the top of a high ridge and saw the unmistakable shine of sun glinting off a body of water so large that a further shore was not discernible even from their vantage point. Then, to their right on the shore line, the obvious square outlines of an unnatural formation bulked large.
"A place for boats? They fish, too?" Astrid asked, shielding her eyes with one hand.
"Could be. They'd hardly let the wealth of a sea just sit there without harvesting it," Kris said.
"Too right," Sarah murmured, also peering ahead.
"Would it be a salt sea?"
"We'll find out," Joe said.
"Zainal?" Kris asked since the Catteni had said nothing but was staring hard at the building.
"We go careful. Fishing year long."
"True, but how could a machine fish? I mean, the sea doesn't follow any programme, does it?
Storms and stuff - - - unless they can control tides as well as the rain. Not that I wouldn't put it past them," Kris said, mildly bitter.
"They do not control us," Zainal surprised her by saying.
"Tell the others."
"About the flying darts and stuff?" She did and then turned back to Zainal. "However, if there are machines, surely they'd be specialized for use in the water. That building seems to be right on the edge. I don't think we have much to worry about them charging inland at us."
"Famous last words?" Joe said, nudging her with an elbow and grinning.
"I hope not. One trip to an abattoir is quite enough."
"Canning factory is what this'd be," Joe said, still teasing.
"Hmmm." Then Kris giggled. "Imagine him in a sardine can," and she tilted her head irreverently at their patrol leader, still looking intently at the building.
"We go slow. We do not approach until second moonrise "If you say so, boss," Kris said flippantly.
There were tides on this world, judging by the high-water marks and the flotsam deposited along the beach.
"With so many moons, tides would be complex," Joe remarked.
"Swim?" Astrid wistfully asked Kris, though she peered at Zainal for permission.
They approached the beach a kilometer or so from the building.
Hiking through the white sands had been hot work, for the shifting surface made the going difficult even where it was somewhat held in place by tufts of a sturdy grassoid and, in one place, a plantation of reeds. Joe took samples of each plant in case one or more of these supplied trace elements that would help the Deskis. The sea might be several days' journey from the main camp but it was not inaccessible.
Another stumpy-branched growth which reminded Kris of wind-stunted cedars bore a hard fruit of some sort. Joe stuffed the harvest from two bushes in his pack.
Zainal swung his glance right to the building, which now seenied to be hovering above the sandy ground, an optical illusion, Kris was sure. Then, for a long moment, he watched the sea itself and finally shrugged It'd be ironic, Kris thought, to have survived all the dangers the land was providing to get drowned by some sea creature, but she couldn't see any disturbance on the lightly rippled sea: certainly nothing that would indicate underwater denizens. Then Zainal strode down to the edge of the water, and scooped up a handful from the next incoming ripple. He smelt it, then stuck his tongue into the liquid.
"Salt. You swim first," and his finger pointed from Sarah to Astrid to Kris. "We watch."
"Us?" Sarah piped up impishly but she was already walking down to the water's edge, opening her coverall.
Kris had lost a great deal of her conditioned notions of modesty over the last few weeks, so she followed Sarah, Astrid trotting ahead of both of them, shedding her coverall with haste, and nearly tripping as she removed the right trouser leg. She threw the coverall away from her, where the sand was still dry, and then ran the rest of the way into the water.
"Don't go too far out," Joe called and then he, and Oskar, hunkered down on the sand. Zainal remained standing, scanning the sea constantly.
The sea wasn't as salty as Kris remembered the Atlantic on her eastern seaside vacation, though there was sufficient to make it quite buoyant, and she settled into a crawl. Sarah was whooping and splashing.
"Hey, I like this. A sea I can swim in without worrying about sharks." "Don't go so far out," Kris called, all too aware that Botany was quite likely to put up a few seaborne surprises.
She was a bit surprised that Zainal had let them swim at all.
"Let's keep close enough to shore to get there before anything out there "and she waved at the innocuous spread of water, "can get us."
"Good thinking, mate," Sarah said and paddled back towards her.
Astrid swam with studied economy of stroke, Kris noticed, while Sarah thrashed about with little expertise.
They didn't stay in long, out of deference to the men who were keeping watch and who probably wanted the refreshment of a swim as much as they did. But Kris felt better for the bathe and waved to the men that they were comang out now. Zainal was still watching, but not the three nude women emerging from the ocean. Joe and Oskar had politely averted their gaze as the girls emerged.
"OK, guys, Kris called when they were dressed again.
"Your turn." She went up to Zainal. "I'll keep watch." He shook his head. Then, with a wide sweep of his arm, gestured Joe and Oskar to go in without him.
"Don't you swim?" Kris asked, amused.
"Too quiet," he said cryptically and continued his scanning, not just the horizon but the beach on both sides of them.
"On Earth - Terra - fishermen usually go out at dawn, or on the tide,' she said conversationally. "So the machines, if there are some, would be quiet this time of day, I think."
"I have never been to sea before,' Zainal replied in the same tone.
"You look a bit like a lighthouse, though," and Kris giggled, "standing like that."
"Light house?" He frowned but didn't pause in his vigilant and careful scrutiny.
"Hey, I think this planet has clams, Sarah cried.
She went down to her knees and started digging with her hatchet.
The next little wave ripple flooded over her legs.
"Didn't know you had clams in Australia," Kris said as she strode down to Sarah.
"Biggest clam-beds ever outside of Sydney. And oysters.
Kris's one seaside vacation had included hunting for quahogs on a Cape Cod beach so she recognized the little holes left where molluscs had opened an air passage. She began to dig, too.
"What you do?" Astrid asked, joining them.
"Dig and. . . oh. . ." Sarah closed her fingers around something and hauled it out of the wet sand. "What on earth?" She rinsed the rest of the sandy mud off the shelled creature and showed it to the others. It was oblong with a shell obviously "built' around it, rough like an oyster, not smooth like a clam.
"Well, it's like both clam and oyster," Kris said. "And with no claws it's not a crab. Oysters are good for you and so, for that matter, are clams. Might even have the trace elements the Deskis need.
Sea stuff is full of minerals and junk."
"Yeah, I know," Sarah said, rolling her eyes. "I drank enough cod liver oil as a kid. Hey, Joe, c'mere a minute, will ya?" Joe, totally unselfconscious about his nudity, joined them and took the "clam' from Sarah.
"We will have to go the empiric route, I suppose," he said without real enthusiasm. "At least it won't eat us first." He took Sarah's hatchet, held out his hand for Kris's and, using one as a counter, hit the shell with the other.
"Oops, hit it too hard," he said, looking down at the mashed stuff that oozed off the side of the blade. "Get me another one." After the capture and dissection of three more molluscs, Joe decided the "flesh' might indeed be edible. He dressed, and they all went to find something burnable. No-one quite had the courage to try the mollusc raw, though they all thought it smelt as seafood should. Joe was game enough to be the guinea pig when the first one they cooked turned brown and a prod with the knife point went easily into the meat.
"A bit chewy but rather tasty, chums. Rather y' Sampling another morsel, Oskar agreed and immediately went out to gather more shells.
Zainal only smiled and, although he put a piece in his mouth, did not swallow it, shaking his head.
"You don't have things like this on Catten?" Kris asked him, teasing.
He shook his head. "Eat land animals only."
"Fish has better protein content and less fat," Kris said, enjoying his reaction.
Zainal went back to watching.
Making a camp in the dunes, out of sight of the building, and shielded from the light breeze that had sprung up, they ate a meal that began with clams broiled on the half shell and then cold rocksquat.
Joe suggested that they wait and see if any of them had a reaction to the molluscs before they went on a hinge of them. Oddly enough, they all wanted to eat more.
"Probably they contain some trace elements our present diet is not
supplying," Joe suggested. "Sometimes our
bodies know better than our heads what is required. But let's give it the overnight test. If no-one's had diarrhoea, vomiting, nausea or dies on us, the clams should be fairly safe to eat."
"Fresh," Kris added.
"By the seaside, by the beautiful sea," Joe warbled.
Then the talk shifted to the point of whether or not scavengers lived in the sand dunes.
"Maybe something even worse," Sarah suggested, shuddering.
"I'd kinda looked forward to making a sandy bed," Kris said wistfully. "At least you can get it to conform to your bumps and lumps which rock won't." Joe whistled. "Yeah, great contours!" and he made a show of leering at her. Sarah pinched his thigh, calling him to order.
"I do miss mattresses, Kris said, sighing. "I honestly don't miss much else. Most of the time, that is. But I'd really, truly, deeply give my eyeteeth for even a pneumatic camping mattress," she said, hugging her knees to her. She caught Zainal's amused glance where he sat opposite her, his eyes twinkling in the firelight.
"Eyeteeth?" he asked.
She bared her lips and showed him.
"What good are your eyeteeth to anyone else?"
"They aren't. It's just a saying." The remainder of the evening was spent in language lessons. Oskar was picking up more and more English and Astrid's was becoming more fluent. She was also picking up some of Kris's pet phrases though such flattery made Kris just a little uncomfortable.
When fatigue made longer and longer pauses between conversations, Zainal announced the watch roster. He suggested that the sentinel stomp, and that was the word he used with a grin at Kris, around the perimeter from time to time, just in case the sand did harbour a species of underground scavenger. The others were to bed down in the sand around the fire which the sentry would keep going.
"In between stompings?" asked Sarah irrepressibly.
"As you say," Zainal agreed, nodding.
The long night passed with no alarrns and Kris, comfortably positioned on the sand, slept deeply and well. As usual, everyone roused well before the Botany dawn. Since no-one had suffered any alimentary reaction to the clams, a beach party was organized. In the dim predawn light, they dug clams and when they decided they had enough for a good feed, they took a quick dip in the sea to wash off the clinging shore mud.
Rather a festive breakfast ensued. Then Zainal suggested they use the last of the night to approach the building and scout it out.
No-one had yet figured out how long a day's charge of solar power lasted in the collectors since the mechs were usually inactive during darkness.
The building was bigger than they'd originally thought and seemed to expand as they approached it. Zainal, whose night vision was superior to the rest of the patrol's, discerned some curious superstructures on the front of the building, and a railed runway leading down into the water.
"A launch site?" Joe suggested.
"On Terra, fishing is done in the old ways, Astrid said. Joe and Sarah agreed.
"Do they have an automated boat, then?" Kris asked.
"Maybe they whistle the fish into their nets," Joe murmured.
"Haven't heard a mechanical make any noise apart from "clank-whir",' Kris said facetiously.
Machinery did not need windows, either, and the building had none.
It looked as if the entire front of the building opened to permit the exit of whatever machiner was stored inside. The largest solar panels they had yet seen occupied the roof, held up by a heavy stem which implied the panels altered direction to accumulate as much of the sun's rays as possible. That was a new wrinkle in the mechanicals' technology.
Zainal could find no exterior slit or lock or anything that would give them access within. He even had Joe up on his shoulders, searching the seaward walls as high as he could reach.
So they waited at a discreet distance to see if the building would open itself up once daylight had arrived.
They waited until the sun was at its zenith, and occupied themselves by trying to fish, using the thinnest possible strips of blanket attached to a pole, and a piece of thin wire bent into a hook with a portion of clam attached as bait. When they caught nothing from the shore, they waded out as far as they could without losing their balance and finally caught some flat fishes. These they grilled for lunch, taking cautious bites.
"What I'd give for a testing kit!" Joe sighed wistfully.
"You miss mattresses, Kris, I'd give my eyeteeth for just a magnifying glass." He paused. "And a few odd chemicals to test for toxicity. I'll not even dream of having a microscope "Don't!" Sarah said.
"Look, why not put such tools past our panel of talented DIYs," Kris said, "considering what they've managed to produce so far," and she tapped the comunit.
At high noon, when no activity emanated from the building, Zainal said they would take measurements of this, the biggest facility they'd yet seen.
"Maybe it only goes after certain types of fish that aren't running right now," Joe suggested.
"Or maybe there's a satellite up there," and Sarah pointed skywards, "that tells it when to go fishing." Zainal shook his head.
"No satellite or Catteni do not explore."
"Are you aware then," Kris asked, startled by the concept, "that there are other sentient space-travelling species?" Zainal gave her a slightly patronizing look.
"Space is very big. Many planets can be settled," and he added with one of his engagingly broad grins, "Not always this way." Then he added, "It is a mark of honour, not unhonour "Dishonour," Kris interposed.
"To be transported."
"I could have done without the honour," Sarah said drolly, then added quickly, giving Zainal's arm the briefest touch, "But then I wouldn't have met you, or learnt that we Terrans are pretty damned good!"
"You are!" Zainal gave his head one of his quick aftirmative nods.
"Honour to me to be here."
"Well," Joe remarked, obviously gratified.
"Now we go search more," he said, and raising his arm over his head, gave the "move-out' signal.
Kris was gratified, too, by that little exchange. She was even pleased that Sarah had touched Zainal: up until that gesture of conciliation, no-one had made any physical contact with Zainal - except herself. And Leon, medically, but not socially. Touch him, he's real live flesh and bleeds red blood, she thought sourly as they moved out, matching his easy jog pace: a disciplined squad, fit and able to cope with anything Botany had so far meted out.
Joe paused a couple of times to collect samples of berries or hard-shelled tree and shrub fruits. The soft ones he sampled or had someone else sample; judiciously, of course. S6me of the soft berries were so bitter the merest morsel caused the mouth to pucker. A good rinse with water helped dissipate the effect. One, a dark green, was sweet enough to encourage the taster to try more. The green fruit was gathered but not eaten until the samplings proved there would be no ill effects.
They spent the rest of the day on the shoreline, noticing the flotsam pushed up by high tides, mainly seaweeds.
These Joe thought might have nutritional value, so he gathered specimens. They also noted the abundance of molluscs along the coast by the frequency of the blow holes. Towards evening, they dug out a quantity and, along with a plump rocksquat, tuber roots and greens that grew in abundance, made an appetizing stew, to which the seawater was added to provide the salt they were all beginning to crave.
They found another sandy camping spot, on a height above the shore which stretched out in both directions as far as anyone could see.
Just visible in the dim light were the lavender blobs of a spattering of islands which made them wonder, around the evening campfire, if this was an inland sea and there might be a distant shore.
They considered continuing along the coast as far as they could go.
"We come again. Mitford will evaluate the situation first," Zainal said.
"Hey, now listen to him," Sarah said, grinning.
"Evaluate", huh? That's a fifty-dollar word, mate."
"I listen, I learn," Zainal said, grinning back at her.
\* Mitford himself got in touch with the patrol the next morning to call them in.
"Getting too close to the time the Catteni might come back," he said. "Swing wide but start back now." Zainal had them strike obliquely back to camp and they came across two more agricultural garages and an abattoir, empty and waiting. They disabled everything, stacking the various useful parts for later pickup. Scratching his head, Joe regarded the piles.
"I wonder has anyone re-invented the wheel yet," he said. "Sure save packing that stuff out on our backs."
"If you have air cushions which hop over obstacles, a wheel is a backward step," Kris said.
"Hence no need for roads - - - a waste of good arable land, if you ask me."
"Too right, mate." Oskar nodded approval. He was having to rely less and less on Astrid for translation.
"Just so long as I'm not around to carry the can when the bosses discover what we've done to all their facilities," Joe said, washing his hands and flicking his responsibility away "What if it's only more machines?" Kris asked, for she had considered that possibility. "At least machines don't get angry' "Machines also don't eat meat or make bread," Sarah said staunchly. "The bosses have to be humanoid or why all of this?"
"Yeah, but I'll bet they use machines for all their dirty, boring chores," Joe replied thoughtfully. "I mean, the technology level that went into the design and manufacture of these mechs is phenomenal. We don't have anything its equal. Not even you Yanks with those great combine harvesters you have in your midwest.
"But machines have to be designed by - - something else. They might be able to repair themselves, but design?" She shook her head.
"There are intelligent sentient beings somewhere at the end of the line of machines.
Sarah and Joe snorted in chorus. Joe, with a grin, added, "So long as they're friendly."
"They are earth friendly," Astrid said, speaking brightly.
"Are they human friendly? That's the big question," Joe said.
"I like this planet," Oskar said. "Now we run it, not machines.
Not bureaux or men who do not understand the land."
"Anything different in this lot?" Zainal asked Oskar as he added a coil of wire and a handful of connectors to the pile in front of the young Norwegian.
He shook his head but looked at Joe for confirmation.
Joe shook his head.
"Nope, Zainal. Nothing that can't wait, as far as I can see. And I've got the anaesthetic darts wrapped up in my pack."
"Good!" They settled down for the night in one of the barns.
"So Kris can cushion her bones on straw," Zainal said with a grin.
"Too right," she said, having picked up that Australian phrase from Sarah.
First the girls retired to the second barn for the privacy of their evening baths in watering troughs. When they returned, straw was piled in outrageously high beds.
"Deep enough for you, Kris?" Zainal asked, sweeping a sort of bow towards her accommodation.
She made a big show of spreading her blanket and then hesitated, not sure how she would get on to it.
Zainal picked her up and, with a deftly controlled throw, deposited her, squealing in surprise, in the exact center of her "mattress' "Ohhhh,' and she drawled the exclamation as she wiggled her shoulders and hips deep into the soft mass.
"Heavenly."
"And I do not ask for your eyeteeth," Zainal said, stepping back to take a brief run to launch himself onto his bedpile.
"I wonder," Kris said as she settled down to sleep, "what the mechos will say when they find six piles of battered fodder in these barns.
"Probably check the programming of their mechs," Sarah said sleepily.
She was the last to speak that night.
They made it back to Camp Rock late the next afternoon.
Kris and Zainal made their report to Worrell, who said Mitford was out inspecting the latest gadget to be put together from "all those spare parts you blokes keep finding'. Worrell was a balding chunky man, more barrel than leg, with a flushed complexion and many small red veins on his cheeks and chin. He had a habit of hitching his coverall, and the leather belt of worked rocksquat hide that circled it, as if he was afraid it would slip around his hips. Kris wondered if he had once had a beer belly, though he was thin enough now: an effect of being long aboard a Catteni transport ship.
"Anyone with any claim to mechanical skills has been drafted," he said, grinning and then, losing his grin, pointed to the empty stocks.
"That Aarens fellow's organized quite a production line at Slaughterhouse Five." Worry blinked at their exclamations. "Publicly we're calling it Camp Narrow for the narrow escape I hear some of your blokes had from a processing plant.
So," and Worry gave another hitch to his trousers before he motioned her and, just as politely, Zainal to take a stone seat.
These had been improved by a reed-woven cushion, probably filled with fluff seed: much more comfortable than plain stone. My, but I've become soft, Kris thought, wanting mattresses and cushions to put my sit-upon upon.
Although Worrell looked first at Kris, it was Zainal who gave the report in an English that was almost as unaccented as Kris's. He even managed the tinge of a drawl she was in the habit of using. She drew out her map and showed Worrell the distance they'd covered which drew an appreciative whistle from him - and the new garage locations.
He was particularly interested in the shoreline building.
"Think Mitford'll want that inspected and entered."
"Anything else exciting happen around here?" Kris asked, noting that the main camp did not seem as crowded as it had been when they left.
"Well, we've set up two more camps besides Camp Rock," and he grinned broadly at Kris who chuckled.
"Camp Shutdown's one of the garages you lot found on your last walkabout and Camp BellaVista's the other side which Cumber's patrol found," and he waved his hand to the east. "The miners've got living quarters in their adit, Ironclad."
"How many patrols have gone out?" Kris asked.
"At the moment, four others." Worry pulled a sheet from under a pretty agate used as a paperweight, checked that it was the one he wanted, before he showed Kris the small-scale map with its lines indicating patrol directions. "We'll know this place as well as the mechos do. "Is something burning?" Kris asked, aware of an acrid metallic stink in the breeze that was blowing across them in the office.
"Ah, yes, we got us a forge here, too. There's another one at Ironclad. Found us a real top-grade of iron ore, plus copper, zinc, tin, gold and bauxite." He winked at Kris with a grin on his face.
"You'll note how far down the list gold is. Any road, mines are over thataway," and he waved a hand northwards and then northeasterly.
"Got us two farriers, a wrought-iron fabricator and nine Fwelders.
We've screwdrivers, now, and screws, all kinds of other tools, nails and hooks; soon maybe even needles and pins and I dunno what all else.
Skillets, kettles and pots are being turned out of the sandpit daily.
Pretty good stuff considering we're back to re-inventing essential equipment." Kris grinned back at him, amused. "The mechs didn't mine any metals on the planet?"
"Nary a nugget, as far as we can see, and some of the ore was just lying around like they couldn't be bothered shovelling it up."
"So they bring in all their equipment," Zainal said thoughtfully, fingering his lower lip.
"Looks like. Leastwise we haven't found any garage or building or mine adit or anything suggesting the alloys they use in the mechos were indigenous. And oh my word, some of our engineers would give their eyeteeth (Zainal shot Kris a quick amused look) to know the composition of the alloys used for the chassis of those mechos." Worry whistled again.
Kris was wondering if this was an Antipodean habit - whistling for emphasis. Joe Marley was prone to whistle, too. Well, it made a nice change from swearing.
"And the computer guys are right beside "em wanting used in the
motherboards
0m.
"So no-one reinvents the wheel here?" Zainal asked, astounding Worrell again.
"I thought you didn't speak much English, Zainal," he said, giving Kris a suspicious glance.
"I learn languages easily," Zainal said. "I learn -" and he paused briefly, touching his fingers in his counting, "fifteen with English.
"Some people got a real talent for it, that's the truth. I still have trouble with the Queen's English." Then Worry gave a big grin.
"You mentioned the wheel, well, I want to tell you, we have passed out the need for something as primitive as a mere wheel."
"We did?" Kris asked.
"One of the engineer blokes got one of the air cushion mechos working.
Only now they gotta reprogramm it to work when thy want it to."
"Boy, o boy, boy," Zainal startled Worrell into an On-mouthe stare, "then we don't have to carry all those parts back here."
"You bet!" Worry's smile was proud as he shuffled to find another sheet of paper. "Ah, here we are. Your patrol's bunked in Mitchelstown. You got tomorrow off and I think they'll want you hanging about here a bit."
"Mitchelstown?" Kris asked.
"Yeah, we started naming the caves. Makes it more homey. So the main cook cavern's now Cheddar. We even got nameplates so you'll know when you get to the right one. Mitchelstown's quite roomy. Second turn on the left past Cheddar. Near the jacks, too."
"How is the Deski, Coo?" Zainal asked and Kris was annoyed with herself that she hadn't thought to ask after their comrade.
Worry looked his nickname. "Not good. Leon says he's holding his own but the thorn greens are not enough Sometoohinn, but not enough.
Sure that message gets read g, hope "We found a lot of stuff on our patrol - maybe edibles that might be good for the Deskis," Kris said.
"Clams, berries, nuts."
"Clams? No oysters?" Kris shook her head.
"I liked oysters," Worry said emphatically. Then he slapped both hands on his knees, rose and shook hands first with Kris and then Zainal, before turning to Joe and calling him over. "So, Marley, pull up a stone and show me what you brought in." His gesture included not only Joe but Sarah and the two Norwegians.
Cheddar had improved almost beyond recognitio - not the least of which were the solar panels, like chevrons, above the entrance. There were tables and stools, and brick hearths replacing circles of stones, and ovens ranged on one wall. Bread racks showed the day's produce which was not limited to large, economy loaves, but featured small ones as well. The supply area now had a front counter and shelving behind on the wall to display goods which proved that ingenuity was rampant.
A neatly curved doorway gave into a storage area beyond the main cavern but the door was closed. Store shut!
Someone had also been successful in blowing glass, Kris realized, noticing that the corridor lighting had glass shades: sort of lumpy and blurred but glass nonetheless.
Mitchelstown not only boasted a carved nameplate, the letters outlined in black against the lighter stone, but also some rough bedsteads and mattresses, covered by the ubiquitous thermal blankets and probably filled by the fluff. At least it wasn't raw dirt or stone. Little alcoves had been cut into the wall for shelf space and there were thick wooden pegs hammered into the wall for hanging things.
As if they had something to hang. But Kris did now - the map case which Worry had told her to hang on to for their next patrol and the comunit, which she carefully put on the pegs.
"Well," Kris said, settling tentatively down on the nearest bed, "all the comforts of home. What?"
"You did not give eyeteeth, Kris," Zainal said, his eyes twinkling at her "Didn't have to, she said, laying down fully but starting upright so quickiy that Zainal looked around anxiously to see what had startled her. "Muddy boots," she said and unfastened hers, kicking them off. "Definitely the comforts of home." She lay back again.
"What was your home on Terra like, Kris?" Zainal asked, removing the accoutrements from his belt and neatly bestowing them on the shelf above the bed next to hers.
"It wasn't a cave, that's for sure," she said, unexpectedly irked to be asked such a question. Suddenly she had a glimpse of why others could dislike Zainal simply because he was Catteni: his presence reminded them of what they had been taken from. She pushed down that irritation and, as civilly as she could manage, described the split-level ranch-style house she, her parents and her brother and two sisters had lived in: her neighbourhood, her friends. She rattled on, unable to stop talking about her black-and-white cat, about the dormitory she'd lived in at college, until Joe and Sarah appeared in the opening, Astrid and Oskar just behind them.
"Is this our home from home?" Joe asked in a bright voice.
"Yes, it is," Kris said and was suddenly impelled to leave.
Rising from the bed, she stamped back into the boots she had removed, left the room and half-ran across the cook cavern and out, taking the steps as fast as she could without any caution, and across the ravine and campfire site, beyond the stocks and up onto the heights, down behind them and off up the next rise, where she was away from anyone.
There she sat herself down and, burying her hands in her face, cried. She didn't know why she'd reacted in such a childish way, unless it was just that the "loss' had finally caught up with her. Up until the moment Zainal had asked her, she hadn't allowed herself to think about home, her family, and all the things that were dear and familiar. She had forced herself to concentrate on first, surviving, and then on the challenge of patrolling with Zainal, of proving herself useful on this crazy world.
She'd kept up, she'd done all that was asked of her, but that didn't make up - at this moment - for the future she had once planned for herself.
She sensed, rather than heard or felt, someone near by. Whirling around on her bottom, she saw Zainal.
"It was all your fault. . ." The moment the words were out of her mouth, she cried out. "NO! I didn't mean that, Zainal. I didn't mean it! Don't go." He stood where he was, rock solid and unsmiling, but apparently concerned enough to make sure she did herself no harm.
"Sarah says to cry is good."
"How did she know I'd cry?" A twitch of one huge shoulder. "She is woman, Terran like you. She was right, wasn't she? You cry."
"Don't blab it all over the mountain, damn it," she said, blotting her cheeks so she had a reason for keeping her want Zainal to see her crying: she didn't. "Do Catteni women cry?"
"Yes," he said so stoutly that she knew he was lying.
"You're lying in your teeth." The knowledge that he would prevaricate made her feel better.
"My eyeteeth?" And the rumble of his voice under her ear was tinged with laughter "You're Jag at me . . -" she said in an ominous tone.
"I am laughing at the thought of teeth with eyes as if teeth can see." "Yes, that is a bizarre concept, isn't it?" Zainal had eased himself closer to her and his proximity was comforting. He had a different body odour to human males, she realized. It wasn't an offensive pong, not oniony like most guys, but she couldn't identify what it did smell like, except that she liked it.
"I rarely get silly," she said briskly. She didn't want a sentry to come by and see her: this meeting could be misconstrued and she didn't want any more rumours about Zainal scooting about the camp.
"What is your home like or will that make you sad enough to cry?" The notion of a Catteni in tears made her giggle.
"You are better now," Zainal said and, putting a hand under her chin, tilted her face up.
Kris was nearly unbalanced by the unexpected tenderness in his warm yellow eyes. Why had she ever thought them an odd colour?
Food is ready. Are you not hungry? Hungry brings tears, too.
She shot him a keen look. "I won't blame tears on hunger. I got homesick."
"Home sick?" He was puzzled.
"Yes, sick for the sight of familiar things and people you love."
"I don't think Catteni understand "homesick"," he said at his drollest.
Now he eased her towards the cavern. "Why do they call this Camp Ayers Rock? Joe laughed." Kris grinned again. "That's a big landmark in Australia." She glanced about her. "Much bigger than this but I guess the outline might be similar. The Aussies must have padded the vote . . if they even took one."
"Not my home world," he said so emphatically that she wondered if it was the planet itself or the people on it. "We go see Coo and Pess. Tell them about the new foods."
"Yes, we should," she said, now ashamed of her weakness when good friends were in desperate need.
Coo and Pess, and the other ill members of their species, were all together in one hospital cave. Weakness lay on them like a palpable cloak, turning their skin a pale, sickly green. They were lying on plump pallets but to Kris it seemed as if it was an effort for them even to breathe. Pess looked nearly transparent: he was the oldest of the Deskis. It was their bones, wasn't it, that were weakening? Not their lungs.
All the Deskis seemed happy to have visitors and they all gabbled in their own language to each other when Zainal and Kris told them about the foodstuffs that they had found on their latest patrol.
"You think good, you do good," Coo said, looking from Kris to Zainal and nodding. "Coo walk with you soon."
"Learning more English, too," Kris said, shifting her feet and slightly uneasy in the face of such a wasting illness. She remembered how indefatigable Coo and Pess had been on their first patrols together, To see them in such poor condition really disheartened her. If she wasn't careful, she'd start weeping again.
"Do you have seas on your planet?" she asked Coo.
"Large waters, salty." Comments were exchanged and Coo, as spokesman, shook his head sadly. Then Kris tapped the water jug.
"Big water, you can't see across it."
"0." Both Pess and Coo responded to that and vigorously nodded. "Big water good."
"Good for Deskis?" and again Kris was rewarded by a nod. "Maybe the clam things will help." Then Leon put his head around the door frame. "Don't overtire them but I hear you found some possible nutrient sources on your latest trek?" All too relieved to have an excuse to leave the Deskis, Kris was happy enough to describe what Joe had found.
"I'll catch him later."
"How are they, Leon?" Kris asked in a low voice.
"Holding their own and the female's pregnant." Kris glanced over her shoulder. "Which is she?"
"The one next to Pess. Her mate. We're hoping he can last until she gives birth but it's doubtful. His age is against him. He's not as resilient as the others. If they were humans, I'd say they had rickets and they'd need vitamin C. I've ordered a microscope," and he gave a brief grin, "from those engineering blokes who say they can make anything we need from mecho scrap. Wish they'd hurry up.
At that point, Zainal joined them in the hall but he didn't need Leon's diagnosis to know how serious the Deskis' condition was.
\* They made a good meal that evening, the highlight being a fermented beer that was being brewed in Camp Rock.
It had a kick to it, all right, but the taste was weird.
"We'll get it right. We'll get it right," said Worry who had joined them at the table with his cup and the pottery pitcher that held his ration of beer. "Castlemaine XXXX or Foster's it ain't, but we'll have a respectable pint by the time winter comes. We'll need it then."
"Hmmm, meteorologist bloke says he thinks winters are bad here. Sees signs on the trees and stuff. We'll do a good business in rocksquat furs."
"Business?" Kris asked. She seemed to be asking a lot of questions.
"Sure, worker's worth his hire - in privileges. Mitford won't allow gold used as barter or we'd never keep people at their chores.
They'd be out gold digging. Working on some wine, too, out of those green berries. Right tasty. And a cordial for them who don't like the taste of beer."
"There are such people?" Kris said, her expression bland. "How do you like it?" she asked Zainal who was cautiously sipping his beer. "Is there anything like this on Barevi or Catten?" "Yes! Not as good as this," Zainal said, a comment which did his credit no harm.
The beer might taste odd, but it had the same effect as anything brewed on ol' Terra. Two cups and Kris was ready to sack out. Zainal remained behind with Joe and Oskar who was, perhaps, unwisely getting his cup refilled too often.
Early the next morning, it was clear that he had and Astrid, with Joe and Zainal's assistance, took him down to the lake for a remedial swim. Having nothing better to do, Sarah and Kris tagged along. They had the lake to themselves at that hour, it was still full dark outside.
So they were all together when Kris's comunit bleeped.
"Sentries report something big coming in," Worry said.
"Get out here."
"But it's still dark. They won't see the glyphs, Kris said in a wail, once again feeling the muscle-aching labour of making those marks in the hillside.
"I stay with Oskar," Astrid said, taking his limp arm from Zainal's grasp.
The five of them ran back up the steps, glad of the light from the glass-covered lamps that made a fall less likely. They ran along the corridors and through Cheddar Cave where the bakers greeted them cheerfully, then they erupted out, onto the ledge.
Listening intently, they could indeed hear the distant rumble of an airborne vehicle.
"Riding lights passing over," said a voice just beyond them on the ledge and Kris recognized it as Worry's.
"I've notified Mitford. He's alerting the local sentries. Is that Zainal there?" Worry swung a lantern. "Could you possibly tell "It slows for landing," Zainal said.
"No," and Zainal shook his head. "A guess would be where it landed before," and he pointed in that direction.
"Cor! We can't make that before it lands."
"We make it before they depart," Zainal said and, pivoting on his heel, passed Joe and Sarah as he made for the steps.
Kris followed, beckoning for the others to come, too.
She made a quick detour into Cheddar. Grinning at the bakers, she held her hand over the loaves just out of the oven.
"Sure And she tossed a loaf each to Joe and Sarah who had paused to see what she was doing.
Then they went after Zainal. The rumble was getting louder, like a swarm of very angry, very large insects.
Once they were off the Rock, Zainal set a bruising pace. When they stopped for a breather, the ship was passing overhead.
"Transport," Zainal said, peering up at the dark mass, outlined in blinking running lights.
Kris begged the stitch in her side to stop but when Zainal took off again, she was right on his heels and the others behind her.
Despite the darkness, they managed to get over the rough ground with few stumbles and no falls.
Something in the sound of the alien airship seemed to rev them up to the effort. Pictures of the wounds scavengers made on unresisting bodies plagued her when the stitch in her side returned and she ignored it again. If only she could keep from stumbling.
Zainal vaulted the first hedge, for once not considerate of those behind him. But he wasn't showing off his physical superiority, so Kris suppressed the surge of resentment as she trailed further and further behind him. She stood at the hedge that was too high for her to vault, Joe and Sarah coming to a halt beside her.
"Well, let's borrow an army trick," Joe said, observing the problem, and threw himself on the vegetation to make a way through the branches. Kris and Sarah carefully crawled over his body, then helped him through and they were away after Zainal who had reached the other side of the field.
"Damned Cat," Kris muttered under her breath but put her best effort into shortening his lead.
By now, the ship was well ahead of them but she could make out by the running lights that its stern end was swinging round. Did it land on its tail?
How did it disgorge its unconscious passengers? The mass of it disappeared below the hill down which they were pelting, faster than was wise in the light and the conditions underfoot. In the growing light of day, they could see Zainal plunging through a gap in the hedging and they altered their hell-bent pace in that direction and through to the next field.
Was this the one on which they'd been spread out, all unwitting of the dangers lurking underneath them? Kris wondered, but all the big fields looked similar. The main concern was that, even if the ship landed several fields onward, they should be close enough to prevent loss of life and injury. The skies were brightening. But, damnitalltohell'n'gone, the Cats weren't at the right angle to have seen the glyphs in the dark - even with the sparkling stones to outline the figures.
And, she nearly lost her balance at the thought, what if Zainal left with them? She whimpered, once, twice, but hadn't breath for more as she pumped her tired legs harder to keep up with the man.
Underfoot she felt from one pace to another the big ship's mass settle to the ground. "Its mighty engines roaring," she thought irreverently. Oh, God, what if the Cats captured them again? She was halfway to halting while she briefly considered that aspect of rushing to rescue unknown folks. The thought of Coo wasting away, of those of his species who had already died, and the baby that should be born, spurred her on. Aren't you the altruist! But such considerations lent the requisite energy to her legs.
Joe and Sarah nearly ran into her when she stopped at the next hedgerow, stunned by the mass of the landed vehicle. No wonder they'd had to use the larger Botany fields.
The ship had put down in the uppermost third of the space available. Suddenly lights came up, illuminating the field with beams so bright she had to shield her eyes.
"They don't . . . do things . . . by halves . . . do they?" Sarah said, panting, as she looked out through spread fingers at the scene, but she sounded cheerfully impressed.
Kris was quite willing to catch her breath until she saw Zainal, clearly outlined in the spotlights, running uphill, towards the ship.
That alarmed her so much that she found herself holding her breath and getting funny bright lights in her peripheral vision. So she made herself breathe long and deep. Now a wide ramp was emerging from an expanding hold aperture.
"Damn him," she muttered and pushed her way through the hedge, ignoring scratches on face, hands and wrenching her coverall free from a snag.
Just then Catteni started to unload their cargo, three or four obviously unconscious bodies at a time, two limply draped on broad shoulders and two, equally flaccid, hauled out by the fabric of their coveralls.
The fact that the Catteni then lined them up neatly in rows seemed oddly incongruous. Lots of Catteni and, despite her urgent need to be near Zainal, Kris felt her pace slowing.
"If. - you do.
. let us . know," Joe said, coming up buide her: his stride faltered and his breath was laboured.
He bent over, hands on knees to restore himself.
Two Catteni paused in the unloading as Zainal approached: both covering him with hand-weapons.
With the ship still wheezing steam and interior parts of it clanking, she couldn't hear what was said, even if she had understood Catten, but Zainal was plainly acting authoritatively and both Catteni seemed to recoil. They hurried back into the ship but, now that the hold was wide open, Kris saw that one veered forward while the other merely resumed his labours.
The Catteni worked so swiftly that there were two full rows of unconscious bodies already spread out.
Two cartons, presumably the usual knives, hatchets and blankets, were in place at the side of the field.
Not quite brave enough for a closer confrontation with Catteni soldiers, Kris, Joe and Sarah, struggling to get their breath back, halted of one accord, just beyond the first two cartons, half-hidden in the shadows beyond the bright spotlights. Zainal swivelled slightly to his left, nodded at them, and then turned back. The other Catteni ignored him as they continued to unload.
Suddenly, those going back into the ship snapped to an attentive halt and three Catteni strutted into view.
Two stopped at the edge of the ramp while the third continued on to Zainal. They were of a height but Kris loyally thought Zainal was just a shade taller, and broader, and prouder.
She heard bits and pieces of the staccato language the Catteni spoke:
the newcomer began to gesture impatiently, she thought. Then, with less vigour, he turned his head from side to side. Body language was not all that different, Kris thought. He didn't like what he heard or he didn't know if he could comply. Zainal seemed to stand even taller then and crossed his arms on his chest as if he had delivered an ultimatum.
That the other man was indecisive was now obvious to Kris.
Suddenly, he gave an abrupt nod and, doing a snappy pivot on one heel, marched back up the ramp, his two guards falling behind as an escort.
Zainal just waited, arms crossed, allowing the stevedores to make their way to either side of him.
"Why didn't he go aboard?" Joe asked.
"He didn't seem to receive an invitation to do so, Kris remarked.
"Then, too," and she recalled what Zainal had mentioned once, "he said that what was dropped is never picked up."
"Did he mean himself? I mean," and Sarah was surprised, "he acted like he outranked the captain or whoever that was. And whatever it was he asked for, I think he's going to get it. They didn't seem surprised to have another Catteni come out of the dark just like . .
and Sarah snapped her fingers, " . . that either."
"Not that I've ever seen Catteni soldiers . . ." and Kris paused to
make it plain that she didn't consider Zainal in that category, ". . .
display surprise or any other
"Just doin' my job, man," Joe murmured.
"They said Zainal was an "emassi"," Sarah said, "so he wouldn't fraternize with the likes of those stevedores anyhow."
"He was a spacer, any road," Joe added, "not ground force."
"Don't get antsy, Kris," Sarah said, patting her shoulder placatingly and grinning in the darkness. "We like Zainal He's good stuff."
"Us Aussies appreciate a chap like Zainal," Joe put in.
"Hell's fire, we're all in this together. Operation Fresh Start, m'girl." The unloading continued inexorably and the skies lightened.
"Should we ah - -" and Joe nodded his head towards the hedgerow.
"No way. I'm not hiding from the likes of them Atta girl," Sarah said, chortling. "You tell "im."
"Sides, they can't do any more to me than they've already done, dropping me here," Kris said firmly. She wet her lips and tried to suck some moisture out of her cheeks to ease her dry throat. There'd be a stream near by, somewhere. . . when the Catteni had lifted off again.
She wasn't moving until they did. They could just decide to cart Zainal off with them.
The watching threesome were startled to hear low mutterings and swearing behind them. Swinging around, they saw dark figures pushing through the hedge and the next thing Kris knew, a somewhat breathless Mitford came to a jarring stop to her left. He'd brought quite a mob with him to judge by the numbers of white faces in the gloom, straggling onto the field. Though what men and women, armed with the primitive weapons they had, could do against the Catteni, she didn't know. A show of resistance might bring out the forcewhips and the skin on her back crawled at the very thought of that deterrent.
"What's happened? What's Zainal doing?" Mitford asked in measured gasps.
"We think he's asked for stuff for the Deskis. That's what we need, isn't it?" Kris replied.
"He been inside yet?" someone asked from the anonymous crowd.
"No, and I don't think he got asked." Someone snorted in disbelief.
"Look at the way they're unloading those poor slobs," another man said.
Kris thought it was one of the Doyles from the rueful lilt in the voice.
"Poor bastards."
"Well, they'll be made welcome," Mitford said emphatically. "Won't they?"
"Sure, Sarge, sure." Now Mitford snorted, having set matters straight on that score.
More cartons were placed and the Catteni, seeing the observers, grinned and exchanged comments with each other.
"Not flattering, I'm sure," and that was Lenny's amused voice.
"The same to you, m'bhoy!" he said in a louder tone, although he was instantly hissed silent by those around him.
The Catteni looked back and one made a long forward step as If to see the reaction. No-one moved a step but Kris saw bows come up with notched arrows and spears readied to throw. The Catteni seemed surprised but a shout from the ship had him speeding up his return.
It seemed they had to wait for ever. But the sun was up and the urgency that had prompted their arrival was now irrelevant. But, and that thought sent a surge of pure panic through Kris, the Catteni made several drops in a trip, didn't they? Had they landed beyond Camp Rock?
No, Zainal had said that they were coming in at a landing angle.
This was their first drop? Couldn't Zainal have them drop the whole load here and save us from running all over the planet, picking up survivors? Kris thought, irritably. She tried to moisten her throat again and then felt Mitford press something against her: his water bottle. Well, he hadn't run off at the drop of a hat as she had but kept his cool long enough to bring necessary supplies.
She swilled the first sip around in her mouth and then 3" finally swallowed it, taking a larger drink before she passed the bottle to Sarah beside her.
And they waited: Zainal had not visibly moved a muscle since th& captain, or whoever, had left him. He was like a statue, bathed in the very white light of the glaring spots, making the in-and-out traffic go around him. At length, Kris decided that was funny and began to chuckle to herself.
"I'd like a laugh myself," Mitford muttered.
"He's like a traffic island. He's making them go around him but he's not moving an inch. See," and she pointed out a pair who were forced to divert. "And wouldn't you think, being Catteni, they'd push him out of the way? If they could? If they dared?"
"Yeah, you're right," Mitford answered in a pensive tone. He raised his voice a little louder so the others would hear. "Yeah, our Zainal's showing them, that's for sure." Kris thought how clever of the sergeant to broadcast his observation. And if Zainal really did Two Catteni came out with a largish carton which they placed to one side of Zainal.
Four more came with smaller packages. At that point, Zainal raised his left arm, gesturing broadly for them to approach.
"All right, let's pick our parcels up," Mitford said and called out five names.
"I'm coming, too," Kris said, stepping forward beside Mitford and found Joe and Sarah in step with her. When the sergeant gave her a frowning look, she added, "We're his patrol." Mitford grunted. Then, as a phalanx, they approached the ship, Mitford in front. Kris could feel herself trembling at being so close to a Catteni vessel, much less the creatures themselves. Two passed them, with their loads of human bodies. She'd already noticed that this drop was a very mixed bag indeed. She'd noticed Deskis, Rugarians, more Turs and some odd-looking troglodytes she hadn't ever seen on Barevi.
As they neared the hold opening, she became aware of the stenchemanating from the cargo: sweat, excrement, the stale odour of bodies long enclosed in an inadequate space, and the acrid tang of whatever was used to keep people in stasis for the length of the journey.
"What a pong!" Sarah said, fanning the air in front of her.
So they did not dally as they collected the crates. It took four men to manage the big crate, and the Catteni laughed to see their struggles with the mass and the weight, so it was as well that Zainal's patrol elected to come along.
Even the smaller crates were heavy, and Kris felt her back muscles strain as she picked up hers.
"You coming?" she murmured to Zainal who had resumed his cross-arm pose.
"Soon. I have not all I want.
"You'll stay with us?" It was extremely important to Kris that he did. She was in a panic that somehow she'd lose him now when she had suddenly realized how much he meant to her.
"I stay.
On the way back to the sidelines, she held herself to slow, even steps, determined that she would not give the Catteni any chance to laugh at her.
"Janiemac, what did they put in this?" Lenny Doyle exclaimed as he helped ease the crate to the ground.
"Careful now, it might be breakable.
"Naw, Lenny, but we sure are," Ninety said, groaning, and he made a big display of rubbing the small of his back.
"Is he coming?" Lenny asked Kris, gesturing to Zainal.
"Says he is. They haven't given him all he asked for."
"Let's hope they give him more than he should get," and, with a sudden spurt of fury, Kris recognized Dick Aarens' nasty voice.
"Why'n'hell bring him along?" Kris demanded of the Doyles.
"Only way to be sure he does his share," Lenny said.
Then he added, "He's getting far too cocky, showing off to everyone that he was the only one who could figure out how the mechos work and what parts'd be any good for us.
"Fat chance of that - - My God, look at the piles of folks," Kris said, for the original, fairly neat order of the rows had altered and bodies were being crammed close together.
"That's more than were in our drop," Mitford said, obviously doing a body count. "Many more. Maybe they're doing us a favour after all, putting the whole nine yards down in the one spot."
"We'll make room. A lot of "em are ours!" the sergeant said in a determined growl.
"So we share. We remember, don't we, what it was like.
So we damnitall share!" There was no further argument as the unloading continued. "I'd rather have them with us, where we can see "em, than turning wild and causing our camps no end of trouble." Fatigue from the tearing run to get here, as well as hefting that heavy carton, began to take its toll of Kris's energy. Wearily, she sat herself down on the carton.
"I've a loaf of bread to share," she announced, suddenly remembering that she had and reached into the map case.
She broke off a piece and passed the loaf to Mitford.
"Good idea," Mitford said. "At ease, men and women. Let's watch the big fat smelly Cats at work." So everyone assumed lounging positions, on the grass, seated on the line of supply cartons or just hunkered down. Joe and Sarah shared their loaves and many in Mitford's group had thought to bring food which they distributed.
""Lift that bale, tote that barge"," sang Lenny's tenor voice softly.
"I could sure stand getting a little drunk and landing in jail," another male voice said and sang the final word down to the bottom of his voice range.
Everyone laughed and the Cattenis heard.
"They're twitching."
"Let's not lay it on too thick."
"Ah, Sarge!' "Easy does it. You do remember forcewhips, don't you?"
"They're not carrying any."
"Only because everyone's unconscious."
"Are you counting, Tesco?" Mitford added.
"I would if you - . . eight hundred twenty, one, two and three .
. . don't interrupt me allatime."
"Let's not make them too mad, blokes," Joe Marley said. "They're taking it out on "em." Everyone shut up, now that Joe had pointed out the rough - rougher - way the Catteni were depositing the unconscious bodies. Almost slamming them into the ground.
"Zainal, can you tell them not to mash the cargo?" Mitford said, raising his voice to parade ground level.
Zainal swivelled at the hips and, seeing one Catteni doing exactly what Mitford protested, snapped a savage bark. The erring Catteni made a big show of placing his burden down more carefully. The others, under Zainal's watchful gaze, behaved more circumspectly "Is Zainal going to stay there until they finish?" Lenny asked, leaning down to Kris, his expression anxious.
"I think so. At least he can curb their boyish bad habits."
"How does he get away with it?" Lenny asked.
"Because he knows how to give orders," Mitford said, almost admiringly.
Idle conversation continued among the watching gang, but no more bursts of laughter to annoy the Catteni.
Tesco had got up to a thousand when Mitford gestured for Dowdall to take over. Then more cartons were brought out which the Catteni stacked on the other side of the field, in a sort of farewell gesture of bad feelings. Still Zainal waited.
All the soldiers had disappeared within the ship and the silence was broken only by noises from the vessel itself, metallic complaints and emissions of liquid and steam.
Suddenly the watchers could all hear the sound of boots on metal and a second delegation, five Catteni this time, appeared in the opening. Two stayed inside, three came down, and two stopped partway.
The remaining Catteni, dressed in a more elaborate uniform and shorter by a full head than Zainal, came right up to him and presented first a sheaf of what Kris thought had to be printout and then another folder.
These were presented most punctiliously.
Kris thought for a moment that the officer was going to click his heels together and bestow a Teutonic military bow on Zainal.
Zainal accepted the offerings, almost diffidently, said a few words in a low voice and casually sauntered away from the ship. The blinding bluewhite lights went out, the ramp was retracted and they could hear warm-up engine sounds from the ship.
For a moment Kris feared that the exhaust from its engines would fry the nearest bodies. But, whining at a pitch that made everyone cover their ears defensively, the big transport lifted vertically in a slow ascent, then edged forward. When it was several fields beyond its landing site, the rear engines glowed from yellow to white to a blue actinic light that made Kris and the others avert their eyes.
The wind of its passage was enough to knock several watchers off their feet: the bodies of the latest victims fortunately were low enough to be below the blast path.
Kris could no longer contain herself but rushed out to Zainal, who had begun to walk more briskly, undisturbed by the takeoff wind.
"Did you get what you wanted? What did you want that took so long?" she cried as she neared him.
"I got the explore report "and he held up the folder, "and medicals on Deskis." He held up the sheaf. "Treatment for Deskis . .
." and he pointed to the carton Kris had lugged over. "Medicals for humans and Rugarians," and he indicated the others. "And testers."
"How come they snapped to for you, Zainal?" Joe asked.
Zainal grinned. "I may be down but not out.
Kris giggled nervously at his casual use of slang. Go to the head of the class, she thought.
"I am still Emassi and they know it," he added, snapping out the "know "So what's "emassi" when you're at home?" Joe demanded, cocking his head to one side.
"A born rank." Zainal shrugged it off.
"Birth rank," Kris corrected automatically. She wanted Zainal to speak English properly.
"I understood him," Joe said in tacit reprimand.
Kris firmly closed her lips to a smart retort. Now was not the time to bicker.
"Look at it this way, folks, we've almost doubled our population the easy way," Mitford announced when he jumped to the top of the crate.
"Back at the old stand, huh, Sarge?" someone shouted.
"Yeah, and we'll follow the same routine. Only this time, we're ahead of the game. We know the drill.
Dowdall, get back to Camp Narrow and organize beds and food. Send me at least twenty more people. Bring some buckets and pitchers so we can water "em. We'll start sending folks back as soon as they're able to walk.
It's not that far and that's a blessing. You, you, you and you, start moving among "em and pick out the injured those Cats really banged some of "em down hard - and any DOAs. Lenny, Ninety, break open these cartons.
Su, Jay, start distribution. Then, Jay, you lead the first group of fifty back to Camp Narrow." Mitford jumped down again and stood by Zainal. "It looks to me like they emptied their entire load on this one field. That right, Zainal?" Zainal nodded.
"Is that report readable?" Mitford peered at the glyphs which resembled those that Kris had helped carve in the hillside.
"Yes. I also told them that this planet is occupied by others of hightech skill."
"No." Zainal's grin was bleakly amused. "But they will tell to those who need to know-' Mitford gave him a sharp stare. "Why didn't they believe you? Did they think you were lying or something, to get off-planet?" Zainal shook his head. "I told them, first, that I am dropped and I stay." He did not look in Kris's direction but she knew, definitely, that he was saying that for her benefit and her heart did a little painful jump.
But she was so glad that he hadn't gone. "They believe report says this planet . . . empty."
"Lord," Joe Marley said in a groan, "how'd they miss the garages.
"Garages do not show warm-blood life forms," Zainal said and grinned.
A nearby groan from one of the bodies interrupted the conversation and they sprang into action. Actually, Kris thought as she took Mitford's own canteen to the nearby stream to fill it, Zainal, she and the others needn't have run so fast or risked broken bones to get here.
It had taken the Catteni several hours, at least, to unload. They could've walked, or waited for breakfast, but she was damned glad they hadn't. She'd have missed Zainal standing there like a Gibraltar Rock.
Would he have continued to stand there all day if they hadn't been willing to accede to his requests? Or demands? Being an emassi certainly granted him privileges, even if he had been dropped.
They were so well organized, and Mitford harangued so effectively, that the "indigenous personnel', as he referred to them, were served hot, revitalizing drinks from a hastily erected camp kitchen before the sun was halfway up the sky and, later, sandwiches for lunch. The newly awakened were kindly advised to stick to water at first and then slowly chew down a third of a ration bar: gorging on empty stomachs led to unpleasant reactions.
Mitford had immediately sent the medical crates - all but one tester kit - on to Camp Rock with news of this new drop and a request to Worry to send Leon and other medical assistance. The Catteni had broken a few bones of those they had slammed down so hard. Some of the new lot would have to be accommodated at the Rock, as people were beginning to call the cavern camp, almost affectionately. Kris felt considerable gratification at the thought that Leon would now be able to treat Coo, Pess and the pregnant female and to keep the newly arrived Deskis healthy.
By the time the first batch of flfty moved slowly out on their way to Camp Narrow, Mitford had taken Kris off wake-up duty and put her onto debriefing: getting names, occupations, origins, and lastly but just as importantly, what they might know of recent events - recent to them - on Earth. The mere fact that people were resisting the Catteni continued to boost morale. Today's encounter on the field also ranked as a major plus.
"Getting something out of the Cats without having to pay for it," was the happy summation.
When she took a few moments to eat her lunch, Mitford approached her for a synopsis of her findings.
"So far the humans I've got originated from North America, Canadians as well. Then there seems to be a whole raft of English, French and German. Resistance', and she grinned, "is increasing and the Catteni have had to call in reinforcements to deal with stoppages and sit-downs and all kinds of passive movements. There's also active sabotage, too - blowing up Catteni supplies or shipments destined for Catten or Barevi." "Shipments? Arty things?"
"Not that I heard.
Somehow, Sarge, I don't think our artistic tastes would parallel Catteni.
"Two Canadian dentists, nineteen teachers - it seems the Catteni emptied a private school for one reprisal.
They took . . . all the girls away," and the words came reluctantly out of her. "Some of the teachers are nuns.
They resisted the kidnapping. One said she had had her arm broken. It looks a bit crooked, and I can feel the excess calcium where the break was but basically it's completely knitted."
"A long time coming here, then. What do they use for this stasis junk?" Kris shrugged as she flipped over her sheets to pick out the more interesting occupations. "Five hairdressers, two masseurs, a reflexologist "A what?"
"Makes your feet happy.
"Argh."
"You should try it, Sarge, it can really relax you!"
"I said useful occupations!"
"How about two chemists, five pharmacists, a structural engineer, nineteen housewives, three with kids still attached, and . . . you know, there's not a single person over fifty among those I've talked to."
"Don't give me nightmares," Mitford said.
"Two jewellers, three exsoldiers and a detective inspector." She came to the end of her report on the morning's interviews.
It took the rest of the long Botany day to process everyone.
Zainal talked to the new Deskis and sent several up to watch for fliers but Mitford felt that, having disassembled the garages, whatever mecho summoned the fliers had also been disabled, but he was quite willing to post sentinels, "just in case' Three hundred and two dead were left on the field.
Some could be identified by others who had been captured with them at the same time so their names were recorded.
Kris had to look away from the small bodies of the children.
Those under five could not endure the stasis.
Their deaths, so needless, so terrible, distressed her.
"You never knew them," Zainal murmured to her when he saw the tears in her eyes.
"No, and no-one will now.
She turned away, fighting with the fact that Zainal was Catteni, too, and a member of the species who had caused the deaths. She told herself flrnly that Catteni or not, Zainal had done all he could to help and certainly he had been able to reduce unloading injuries. They should also give thanks that he'd been able to ensure just one drop site. Even Mitford's talents as an organizer would have been stretched to mount multiple rescue operations and get everyone undercover before the scavengers emerged from the night ground.
Zainal touched her arm gently. "We go now. Night falls."
"Yes, it does," she said, heaving a sigh against the stresses of the very long day in which she had been going all-out most of the time.
The rescue teams were somewhat cheered by the hot meal awaiting them at Camp Narrow. Having so many barns available for housing since the resident population of the Camp was only a few hundred - made the difference between total chaos and mere confusion. Many of the newly arrived did their best to help, either settling their injured comrades, or lending a hand with the chore of feeding the multitude.
Leon and his medics had set up an infirmary for the injured and the weak. Kris saw Zainal and Leon examining the contents of the tester kits, Zainal carefully translating the properties of the various vials to the doctor.
Since there were a number of totally frightened aliens in that category, Leon had Zainal stay on to translate. Slav could at least reassure members of his own species who, Kris noticed as she ate, seemed quite cheerful. They were certainly inspecting Slav's weapons and even trying to pull his bow, hissing in the Rugarian equivalent to laughter.
Several of them were females which might account for Slav preening as much as he did. She hadn't really thought about how the other species would manage, either in relationships or propagation. If what was dropped on a planet stayed down, at least mating would be possible for all five species. Except Zainal. She put that exclusion to the back of her mind.
Mitford was everywhere, encouraging, detailing jobs, trying - it seemed to Kris watching him from the corner of the kitchen barn where she had wearily slumped - to make himself known to all the Terrans. To her surprise, she even heard him speaking a few words of German and French to representatives of those nationalities. She knew French well enough to tell that his usage was rudimentary, but he was trying. And the folks responded with a little more hope in their manner. Then she saw Aarens, hunkering down by a very pretty girl and chatting her up in what sounded like extremely fluent French. She was clearly flattered and, as clearly, recovering from the shock of the journey. Aarens, who wore a vest of many pockets and a belt of tools including an assortment of screwdrivers of all sizes, was making her laugh.
"Come," and Zainal held out a hand to her. "You sleep.
Tomorrow is another day." Grinning at his unwitting use of the famous Scarlett O'Hara phrase, she extended her hand and let him haul her to her feet. She couldn't help but notice that many eyes followed them out of the barn. Maybe she should paint "one of the good guys' on his forehead. Then she ffinched, remembering her own recent and less than charitable thoughts. But she'd been tired and upset when she'd thought them. And she'd had the grace not to voice them. She was even more tired now and where on earth was Zainal taking her? Halfway to the Rock? He turned her in at the last barn which, she noted, was relatively empty. Others were already sacked out - or would that be strawed out? She giggled.
"Soft bed," Zainal said when he had gently herded her to the far corner where a huge mound had been carefully prepared.
"Oh, thank you thankyou thankyou," and turning, she just let herself fall backwards into it. She was faintly aware that Zainal was tucking her against his body and then she was out for the count.
\* She and Zainal both drew debriefing duty the next day, she with humans and he with the various aliens. As they were in the same barn for that job, she saw how he handled the different species: the forty Deskis with dignity, the twenty-nine Morphins with a cool, diffident manner, and the thirty-eight Turs with a sharp, very Cattenish delivery. Slav had been handling contact with his own species of whom there were sixty. Since there were over eight hundred humans, there were five other debriefers besides Kris, three of whom could speak other languages: German, French and Italian.
Late that afternoon, Mitford called a meeting in the garage of the Welcome Committee and his aides to organize the dispersal of the huge addition to Botany's population. Worry and Esker had made the trip over from the Rock, Tesco and the Doyles who were in charge of Camp Narrow were on hand, and Aarens was conspicuous by his absence. She'd last seen him breakfasting with a halfdozen girls.
Kris was amused to see that pieces of mechos were doubling as stools while the carcasses, in various stages of dismantlement, had been pushed back to allow enough space for the meeting. She noted the veritable snow of sketches, diagrams and drawings that were tacked up on the walls and hung over different worktops which were littered with components being reused.
Mitford made a point of having Zainal sit on his right while Slav was on his left.
"First off, folks, I'd like to say that we owe a lot more to Zainal here
than we can ever repay. He got us nutrients that'll keep our Deskis
alive and tester kits so we won't have to risk poisoning to find out
what is edible. He got," and now Mitford held up the folder that the
Catteni captain had passed to Zainal, "the "official"
-, and he paused for a sardonic grin, "survey report on this planet. You will be glad to know that we're on the biggest of Botany's four continents, the temperate one.
Zainal's translated the report and, frankly, I don't think much of the exploratory team that landed on this world.
Neither does Zainal."
"Nice to know the Cats aren't as great as they think they are," someone said. "No offence, Zainal!"
"None taken,' Zainal said with a cheery wave and a bland expression on his face.
"Zainal will summarize the report to us. Floor's yours," and Mitford sat down, gesturing for Zainal to stand.
"The report says that the planet has good air to breathe, good water to drink, and the. . . green plants - grow, so plants for other worlds can - - - grow well, too. True. The report says two . . .
Cats . .
and Zainal's use of that nickname in a pejorative tone of voice elicited grins from his audience, "disappeared one night. Guard saw movement but did not go see.
He thought men go to leak." Zainal might not be obviously trying to ingratiate himself, but he was couching his comments very cleverly indeed. "Not found anywhere. Guard tells of strange movement.
This planet has dangers. Two more are not seen so all sleep inside." "Ah, c'mon, Zainal, how'd they miss the garages and these barns and all?" Esker wanted to know.
"Sensors look for live flesh and ship lands in cold season." Zainal shrugged. "Sensors register metal but not much for . . ." He turned to Kris, "those who work in ground "Miners."
"Miners, and no special metals needed by Catteni."
"Some of those mecho alloys are very special indeed," Lenny Doyle said, "very special."
"I agree," Zainal said, "but the stupids on survey do not know. Take dirt, water, stone samples, and flesh of rocksquats, avians, loocows and critters they find on other lands, but . . . they do not see trees for forest." Ninety laughed aloud at that. "Attaboy, Zainal." Kris had been watching reactions and, of all there, only Dowdali and Tesco didn't seem to respond in any way to Zainal: they just sat there, eyes on the Catteni.
Kris wondered from their attitude if they even believed what he was saying.
"What about winters here, Zainal?" Lenny asked.
"Report of - - -" he frowned and turned to Kris, "what falls from skies, wet, cold, solid but . . . runs like water from sun "Snow.
"Ah, snow."
"Deep snow?" Lenny asked.
"Not when here. Oh, hand wide," and Zainal held his big thick hand flat, thumb down, to indicate the depth.
"That's deep enough."
"Longer day than Catten, longer y) "How long?" "Report says," and now he held up four fingers, then all five and flnally two.
"Oh Lordee, that's longer by three more months.
"Find more silos and start breeding rocksquats in captivity," Mitford said. "Anyone volunteer to farm rocksquats?"
"Hell, Sarge, don't take the fun out of it for us hunter types," Worry said plaintively.
"Say, Zainal, how long did this team of surveyors stay on Botany?"
Zainal looked down at the report. "Twenty days.
"Hell's fire, we've surveyed better than they did, haven't we?" Ninety said, laughing.
Zainal tapped the sheets. "This has tests done which Leon and Joe Marley need. Useful. Some plants deadly."
"Tell us something we didn't find out the hard way," Tesco muttered.
"That'll help even at this date," Mitford said. "Now, would you mind telling us about your conversation with the Catteni ship captain?" Zainal's wide lips twisted briefly in mild contempt.
"Not captain. Below captain. One step."
"His exec?" Mitford suggested.
Zainal shrugged. "Emassi may command, even Emassi who is drop.
They obey. Good habit. They do not believe mechs. Do not wish to believe what is not in report." He gave an amused snort. "They will.
They also debrief." He shot a glance at Mitford. "We will see."
"Yeah, but they won't see any mechos if they do a fly-by now, will they, since we've disabled them all," Ninety said, almost querulously.
"So?" Zainal asked. "We are here. We can use mechos.
Next time Catteni drop, different story. I do not stand," and he imitated his cross-armed stance at the bottom of the ramp, "and wait." "You'd attack one of your own ships?" Ninety asked, surprised.
"Why not?" And Zainal regarded Ninety with amused condescension.
"A ship useful when mechos return next year to collect."
"You mean, you'd mount an expedition to follow them to their home system?" Kris asked, amazed by his intention.
Zainal nodded. "Be very good to see who farms whole planet."
"Hell, I'd be scared out of my wig," Dowdall said, regarding Zainal with interest. "Wouldn't they be a bit much for you by yourself?"
"You come with me?" "Me?" Dowdall was surprised and then he grinned, rather nervously, back at the Catteni. "Man, if you're willing to go, I guess I would be, too."
"We have six airline pilots now plus two retired NASA mission specialists," Kris said brightly. "Maybe we could Boy, I'd just give my eyeteeth to be in a first contact group."
"No eyeteeth left," Zainal told her with a big grin.
A rather odd silence followed that remark which made Kris blush though no-one was actually looking at her.
"A lot of us here would, not just those NASA blokes," Worry said, breaking in. "But I think that's down the road a while. You didn't happen to find out if they're going to dump more people on us, did you?" he asked wistfully Zainal shook his head. "Not the question to ask. Captain takes orders. Low captain. Not smart," and he held up one big hand, rocking it as he had seen Ninety do. "You Terrans make trouble, get put here. Simple." He grinned in what Kris took as approval. "Terrans make big trouble for Catteni." His grin broadened.
"And you like that?" Tesco asked, an edge to a voice that was louder than it need be.
"Yes, I do," and he jerked one thumb at his own chest, "other Catteni do not!" And he shook his head.
"Good on you, he added, "to make big trouble. Makes Catteni think."
Worrell guffawed out loud. "Good on you, Zainal, too.
Couldn't be cast off with a nicer bloke."
"So, we can expect more?" Mitford said, not entirely pleased with that prospect.
"Believe so. But . . ." and Zainal held up his hand, "maybe report changes minds. Maybe .
"And the Cats would let us take the rap from the creatures who own this planet?" someone at the front of the garage asked in a sharp voice.
"Possession is nine-tenths of the law," Kris said emphatically, having caught the hostile tone in the murmured comments around the garage. "We're here and we're obviously going to stay "Catteni are not the highest. We take orders, too," Zainal surprised everyone by saying.
"From those Eosi you were telling me about?" Mitford demanded, scowling, his body tense.
"We work for the Eosi who own most planets good for humans, Catteni and others. You do not want to meet them," Zainal said, shaking his head.
"Oh yes I would if they're the ones responsible for this whole schtick,' Mitford said, his scowl black.
"That's what we heard back on Earth at any rate," Worrell said.
"Not that we saw any Eosi on Earth. Just their mercenaries." He grinned. "We'd made the planet a little too unsafe even for the occupying forces."
"And all this time I thought the Catteni were our enemies?" Dowdall said, trying to digest the information.
"While they're just hired hands."
"Now you know," Mitford said, scowling.
"How come we're only finding out about these Eosi now?" asked Dowdall, shooting an accusing glance in Zainal's direction. He wasn't a man who liked surprises.
Zainal grinned. "First I have no words. Second you do not ask.
Do not debrief me. The Doyles and Worrell laughed and Dowdall, now no longer quite as hostile towards Zainal, managed a weak grin.
"Eosi make good use of all peoples, Zainal said. "Very clever species." "Then let's take all the heat off Zainal," Kris said. "Let's make the bad guys the Eosi and spread the word." A second thought struck her and she hurried on. "Do you speak Eosi, if they came to investigate this place again?" Zainal considered that question. "If report goes high enough, I think they send but not Eosi. High Emassi.
But I do speak with Eosi." He didn't much like to, either, Kris decided from his expression.
"So, do we wait until some high muckymuck reads a report sometime this century or what?" demanded Tesco.
Zainal looked briefly at Mitford who nodded and took over the reply to Tesco.
"We do as we have been, what we can with what we have. If a mecho ship comes to look Botany over, we grab it if we can."
"And go where with it?" Tesco asked sardonically. "Not even NASA got beyond Jupiter."
"I take ship. I am space captain," Zainal said, "but will need crew." "Well, that's a great idea but how'll you do it? If you Cats don't know about the species which farms this planet, how would you know how to pilot one of its space ships?"
"If ship has living pilot, we make pilot take us back," 33' Zainal replied, not at all confounded by the snide query.
"If mecho, it will return to base: that is what it is made to do.
We ride on it."
"And then what?" Tesco demanded surlily.
Zainal shrugged. "First, ship has to come here. Where there is much .
· Yankee in-gen-oo-it-tee." Kris let out a laughing cheer, seconded by some of the other Americans present.
"Those of us from Oz aren't that bad in the make-do line either," Worry said staunchly.
"Which ship comes first, then we make plans. Right?" Zainal said and turned to Mitford who stood up again.
"That's it, Zainal, right on the nose. So, listen up, folks. We gotta get the latest recruits settled in and let "em know the score.
Worry, you call a meeting at The Rock as soon as you get back and tell "em what happened. All patrols are to make housing their priority, so hunt out some more garages. We'll need to get ready for the next group. I'll get on the blower to Shutdown and BellaVista," and he glanced fondly down at the comunit attached to his belt. "We might even claim Botany as ours! And the hell with Eosi or whatever."
"Long live King Mitford facetiously.
Mitford's expression turned sour instantly and he waved an angry finger at Lenny.
"Can that sort of crap, Doyle. I'm no king nor want to be.
Anyone else wants to carry the can on this planet, they're welcome to it!" He glared around him and no-one doubted the sincerity of his wish to step down, but no-one offered to take over either.
"Ah, I was kidding, Sarge," Lenny said contritely.
"You're doing great.
Lenny Doyle said "I'll second that," Worry spoke up, lifing his hand to raise a cheer. Which was unanimous.
"Well," and Mitford was only partially mollified, "I didn't ask for it but someone had to organize you sorry collection of individuals."
"Which you have done admirably," Kris said. "No-one else could have! So relax, Sarge."
"Ahhhh," and he made a mock swipe at her and then his expression cleared. "Is there any of that beer left?" The moment "beer' was mentioned, Kris noticed that the tension oozed out of the air. She was willing for a few pints herself until she saw Zainal edging towards the door. With the general movement and shifting in the room, she slipped out after him.
It was full dark outside, no moons up yet. She could see Zainal moving across the light shining out of the next barn door, left partly ajar.
"Zalnal," she called softly, knowing he could hear an even softer whisper. She saw him pause, saw him stride out a few steps, and then she ran to catch up with him, catching him by the arm. "Don't you dare run out on me, buddy!" He strode on, making her half-run to keep up.
"Do they still not understand? We Catteni are not our own masters . .
. either!"
"No, I don't think they did understand. I certainly didn't.
"We do Eosi - - dirty work. Explore for Eosi, fight for Eosi, police for Eosi, kill . . ." and that word came out violently, in great repugnance, "when killing needed.
People hate Catteni. They better hate Eosi!" The pent-up outrage within him had carried them well past the barns now and into the openness where the meat crates had been stacked.
"I didn't know that, Zainal. I think it will be easier for you when everyone else does."
"I do not ask easy," he said, angrily whirling towards her, a dark shape, his grey skin making him almost invisible in the shadows.
"Yeah, but you don't need hate. And there are, I have to say, a couple of people "Couple? More than couple. Couple only two, yes?"
"Yes, perhaps, but they are stupid people who don't like anyone not just like they are. So let's make them hate the real villains, the Eosi. Catteni have to take orders, though it never occurred to me you guys were taking orders from anyone." She paused, trying to sense if she was saying the right things. "So what are these Eosi like that they can command tough, big, brave Catteni?"
"They "and there was more to Zainal's pause than a search for an appropriate word. For the first time she sensed fear from him. "They are brains. . ." and he tapped his forehead, "who know . - - every thing.
"Brainy know-it-aIls," she began, with laughing irreverence and he caught her hands.
"Do not laugh at Eosi until you have met one.
She caught the tremor in his hands and heard it in his voice.
"You have?"
"Yes, as a child, I go with father to be - - examined by Eosi." He inadvertently squeezed her hands so hard, it took a great effort not to cry out. The examination must have been a painful process if his response to the memory of it was this fierce.
"You passed?" she asked, more curious than ffippant.
At that, Zainal straightened his shoulders and stood more erect.
He probably hadn't even noticed that he had been unconsciously contracting in on himself.
"I am Emassi. We speak to Eosi." Then she could see his teeth, whiter than his skin even in the shadows he stood in. And he was not smhing.
Kris thought of the Cabots and Lodges of the old Boston proverb.
Well, it was one way of shaking off the aura that Zainal's fearfulness of the Eosi had put into the atmosphere around them. But that chain of command did explain why the transport captain didn't dare ignore Zalnal.
"Maybe no-one will come to Botany and we won't have to worry about Catteni or Eosi or even the mechos' makers," she said, soothingly.
Zainal snorted. "No, they will come. The Eosi will send high Catteni."
He paused a moment, evidently considering what he had just said.
"And the mechos will send their representative and they'll come together in a head-on collision and leave us to get on with our lives." She spread her hands wide and then banged both fists together, knuckle to knuckle. "Poof! They all disappear in a cloud of smoke and that's that!" He had her in his strong hands then and she was being lifted up a few inches off the ground so that they were eye to eye. He was smhing now"Is that how you wish it?"
"Sure, why not? The wheels of the universe turn in mysterious ways," she said, airily bending several aphorisms to her purpose. "Terrans will make so much trouble that the Eosi will have to give up on our planet. Or better yet, the Catteni will get a dose of the smarts and start collaborating with the irresistible Terran forces and go out against the Eosi domination and free the entire galaxy! You do come from this galaxy, don't you?"
"We do." He sounded cheerful again. Then his expression altered as he looked down at her. "You like this Catteni?" he asked, "this Emassi, this Eosi speaker?" She swallowed for she picked up on his sudden uncertainty.
"Yes," she said, trying not to sound as eager as she was.
Catteni wouldn't scare off easily, or would th? One kiss, a few hair touslings.
"I go slowly, like Jay," and he grinned. "You are not like Patti Sue -" "I should hope the hell I'm not."
"But you will have heard things about Catteni - - - "I know you, Catteni Emassi Zainal," and she jabbed a finger at his chest so hard she nearly bruised the tip.
"You're the one I worry about."
"You worry about me?" and if the notion pleased him, it also amused.
"Why, they could have shot you where you stood yesterday morning.
My heart was in my mouth the whole time."
"You worry about me?" He caught her by the arms, picking her up as if she were no more . . .
weighed no more than . . . than a Deski, her legs dangling.
"Yes, you great lummock. And with me you don't need to go slow.
I've been hoping you'd make some sort of a move on me for the - - He kissed her then, and the mere touch of his lips to hers was the catalyst for a storm of emotions within her, emotions and sensations that coursed up her veins and bones so that she had to fling her arms about his neck to be sure she wasn't reeling.
But Catteni don't kiss, she thought irrationally along with some other more sensual observations. His lips were firm and he seemed to know exactly how to kiss with great effectiveness. Oh, Lordee, but of course he'd seen Joe and Sarah exchanging affectionate kisses in the evenings. Oh, Lordee, but he'd learned fast.
With one arm pinning her to him, his other hand made short and devastatingly accurate examinations of her body. But he'd said, back in the ffitter - oh, ages ago - that he hadn't tried a Terran before.
That was when she'd had to deck him. She wanted to deck with him.
"Catteni are good lovers," someone else had told her more recently.
Well, she was going to find out, like real soon. She wriggled a bit to get some space and shoved her hand into his coverall to feel the sexily smooth skin she had admired during his illness.
He murmured against her lips and then began to move off, taking great eager strides to wherever he was hauling her. Wherever could he be taking her? There was so little privacy to he had in any camp and Kris wouldn't have thought they could find a secluded spot in a place currently jam-packed with bodies, but Zainal seemed to know exactly where he was going. Had he planned any of this? Then he altered his stride, grunted as he climbed up and over and into something metallic.
By the smell she knew it had to be one of the reconverted mechos she'd heard about and she was now being laid down in the load bed. On piles of blankets. Oh, they were in one of the reconstructed air cushion vehicles that had collected the stores from the drop field.
She didn't think about much after that because Zainal's hands, gentle for all their size and strength, were peeling off her coverall and she was trying to do the same with his, only their hands kept getting entangled.
"Always you must help - -" he said on a laughing note.
She threw her arms over her head. "So you do it. Nor did he waste time. He had hauled off her boots and shucked her out of the coverall in seconds. Then she saw him, a grey blur above her, as his hands pushed back her hair and his fingers outlined her face, in such a gentle, tender, loverly fashion that her senses were overwhelmed.
She felt him lean into her, carefully, as if afraid to crush her body with his mass. One other fact about Cattenis sprang to mind: they were big! She could feel that he was, too. And she had a pang of fright.
"I do not hurt you," and his voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.
"Not you, Kris. Do you believe? I go slow, slow, slow. .
." and she could feel the pressure that was slow oh, much too slow.
She squirmed, trying to force herself down and him in.
She heard his gasp, but he would not accede to her whispers and kept up the slow penetration until she was moaning for completion.
Never in her albeit brief experience at this sort of dalliance had she been so eager to accept all a man could give. Not even with Brace Tennemann and she'd thought he was the best-looking man on the football team in her sophomore year.
"You go too slow, Zainal," she cried, again trying to pull him as close as his fir'my propped arms would let her, kissing whatever part of him was in reach, sensuously caressing the marvelous skin of his body.
"Slow makes it better," he said, his tone rippling with laughter, possibly with delighi at her urgency. "Slow is better for me, too." And slowly he continued his seduction of her willing self, until she was so strung out with the incredible sensations he was producing that she wondered how she could survive the climax. Then it came over her, and him at the same instant, for they cried aloud in the same instant: cries of joy and immeasurable elation.
Just when she felt she could stand no more of the exquisite relief, it began to ease, and she was able to feel the shudders still rippling through him. They were both gasping for breath and he fell to one side of her, limp with such a massive release.
"You go that slow the next time, Zainal, and I'll kill you," she murmured.
"Slow is better for you and very, very good for me," he said, almost smugly but his hand, running softly down her body, expressed his tender concern for her.
"This is going to be an equal opportunity partnership, buddy," she said.
"I get to call the pace now and then."
"Oh, do you?" To her total astonishment, he moved to cover her again.
He chuckled in her ear. "Like the thorns of Barevi, it doesn't take a Catteni long to re-arm."
"Oh, my God!"
"No, 0 boy, 0 boy, 0 boy?" he asked teasingly.
"No, man, 0 man, 0 man!" She paused, taking a deep gulp of breath.
"I think we. . . do. . . it your way again.
Please!" Emassi Zainal was only too happy to oblige.
Sometime during the night, Zainal moved her back to her assigned sleeping place, clothes and all. She grinned when she woke up and found herself discreetly clothed, her boots at the side of the straw mound she was occupying.
Zainal was, it was true, on the other side of her, but beyond him were Joe and Sarah, much as they had bedded down all together during the patrol. It was very considerate of him to think of her reputation: if, indeed, he had given it a moment's thought in the midst of last night's ardour. She was, when she stretched, quite sore, despite his go-slow policy, and understood precisely why most human females would have felt terribly violated by their treatment in Catteni hands. But it does indeed depend on the man! Catteni or human!
Someone was moving outside in the aisle, rattling each barn door in turn to rouse the residents. Another Botanical day was starting.
This one was filled with sending people on to BellaVista, Shutdown or the Rock. The word was that Camp Narrow would concentrate its efforts on recycling the mechos, so those with mechanical skills or technical training would be based there. Now that they had the two vehicles, they could collect what they needed from the other garages, including "body' parts to make more useful vehicles. More comunits were being assembled and more mobile carriers made out of existing chassis.
"Not speedy, but they sure do manoeuvre the obstacles," Lenny told her
at noontime. "Some of these lads are really clever," he went on
enthusiastically. "They figured out how to short circuit, or whatever
it is you do with programming
chits . .
"Chips, then, how to keep the versatility but give control to the driver. Clev-ver!"
"Indeed."
"They don't have much speed which the lads are still trying to improve "Personally, I'd rather not ride over this landscape at speed," Kris said.
Lenny just grinned. "You've never done it." Kris went back to debriefing, but was called over to help Mitford and his aides figure out where best to place the remaining recruits.
"How long does it take a person to become the "indigenous personnel"?" she asked Mitford at one point. She was finding it necessary to shift position a lot to ease her soreness. But it had been worth it. Zainal smiled a lot today as he went from one group of aliens to another.
"Huh? Oh," and Mitford grinned, leaning back to stretch his arms and ease his shoulder muscles. "Here, let's just say until they have to help a new batch in-flow. Say, tell me about this seaside building your patrol found?"
"There's not much to tell. It was closed up tight even though Zainal tried every which way to get inside. Maybe the fish aren't running."
"I do like sea food. Like clam chowder, too," and Mitford for once sounded a little wistful. Kris was rather pleased that she was audience to that mood.
"With one of those aircushions, we could start at dawn and be back by nightfall with a sack of clams," Kris suggested.
"You could at that. If Dowdall hadn't interrupted just then, Kris was sure they might have been given a go-ahead on such a luxury run.
But the vehicles were more urgently needed for other tasks.
On the third day, she, Zainal, Joe and Sarah escorted an aircushion car, carrying some of the less able recruits on their way to BellaVista via the Rock. Worry greeted Zainal and the others effusively from his office.
"Your patrol needs to hunt for us," he told them, "and you're to break in some of a mixed bag of the new blokes and sheilas. The Rock's going to be Supply Depot for meats and green groceries.
"Mixed bag?" Kris asked.
34' "Too right, since you've got Zainal and he can speak Deski, Rugarian and Turs."
"Oh, that kind of mixed bag," Kris said. If they had Turs to train, Zainal was the right teacher.
"We also need you on short day-trips," Worry said more confidentially to Kris. "In case of you know what?" And he tilted his chin skyward.
"Oh, in case we get surveyed again," Kris said, looking at Zainal who now sported a comunit.
Mitford expected to be back at the Rock the next day but he'd had a private word with Kris.
"Why?" she'd asked, glaring at Mitford.
"I don't want to lose our most valuable alien asset. "You won't lose him."
"Not by his choice, I don't think," and Mitford gave Kris a searching look which she returned without a blush.
He nodded, as if he knew more than he would conirnit to words.
"He's emassi and can deal with Eosi . . . I guess they permit emassi Catteni to speak to them. We might need him badly to deal, for us, with these Eosi.
That is, if one of them ever does see a report on this planet."
"Zainal is sure they'll send some sort of emassi, higher in rank than he is. Eventually," and then Kris realized she'd reassured the sergeant on the very point that concerned him.
"There's a lot more going on, on Earth, on Barevi and Catten, than any of us knew," he went on.
"That's for darnn sure," Kris said.
"Just so's you know I'm counting on you, Bjornsen." She gave the sergeant a level look, noticing the new lines around his eyes, the muddy look in the pupils from the many problems he was dealing with.
"You can count on me, Sergeant, she said and this time, she did give him a formal salute.
He grinned as he returned it.
They were still bunked in the Mitchelstown cave and the possessions they had left behind were untouched. Fresh coveralls and pairs of boots had been added to each shelf.
Seeing these, Kris and Sarah voted on a dip in the lake so they could wash themselves and their coveralls, since they now had fresh ones to wear. Not that the coveralls showed any of the hard usage they'd been given over the past five weeks.
A youngster, not one of the rookies, caught them before they left their quarters.
"Kris Bjornsen?" he asked, looking from Kris to Sarah.
"Yes," Kris said.
"Dr Dane wants you to come speak to him. When you can. It's not urgent, he said."
"Tell him we got his message and will see him shortly.
"I'm Buzz," and the boy grinned to show two missing front teeth, "because I buzz abojit the place like a hornet.
Mom says I'm too noisy to be a bee and there aren't bees on Botany anyway. My real name's Parker but I don't like it at all."
"Buzz is a grand name for an active boy like you," Kris said and smiled back at him. "See you around."
"You will," he answered cheerfully over one shoulder, already "buzzing' off.
Leon wanted to report on some of the findings now that he had test kits. The information would be invaluable to any hunting party since Leon and his assistants had been able to identify other nutritionally rich plants, berries and nuts.
"We've put some of the younger members of the Rock out looking for these," and he tapped the nut-like shells.
"I've seen them in quantities around here. And these berries are rich in C and A." He pointed to some of the green globes that Joe had thought might be digestible.
"We're trying to dry them for storage. I know you hunter types would prefer to go for the meat but these can be just as important to a properly balanced diet."
"Can we see Coo?" asked Kris.
"If you can catch him," Leon said drily. "That stuff was magical on all the Deskis. I'm keeping a real close watch on Murn, the female.
Even Pess is back on duty.
Thanks, Zainal." And Leon gave him a comradely clap on the arm.
"You saved their lives, you know." Zainal merely flicked his eyebrows up but Kris had a sense that he was not as diffident as he appeared.
Leon was obviously of the same mind.
The Rock was full again. That seemed as it should be to Kris.
Furthermore, many more of the indigenous personnel waved or smiled at Zainal when they met him.
They hunted the next day, returning home laden with rocksquats and another loo-cow, since Bart and Pete in the Cheddar wanted to roast one whole to show the rookies that it could be done and that the meat was tasty.
They hunted the next two days, in different directions, and spent part of the day picking the nuts and stripping the branches of every berry-shrub they located.
"We'd've had more," Sarah said with a jaundiced glare at Joe Marley, "if more had actually landed up in the sack!" Joe merely raised his eyes in innocent surprise. Oskar guffawed aloud as he handed over a heavier sack than Joe's.
They did not hunt the next day, although that was the plan. Just past third moonrise a sentry excitedly stamped into Mitchelstown cave and called out Zainal's name.
"You gotta come. Something's about to land. Not as big as the others but big enough," and with that, the man ran out.
"Wake Worrell," Zainal called after him.
"That's where I'm going," the man cried over his shoulder and was told to keep his bloody voice down as he proceeded down the corridor to Worry's quarters.
"All come," Zainal said, pushing his large feet into his boots.
The sentry's arrival had awakened everyone but they hadn't moved to dress. Now they did. In a hurry. But when Joe and Oskar reached for their spears, Zainal stopped them.
"No use against Catteni hand-weapons and shows bad faith," he said.
"Who do you think it is, Zainal?" Joe asked before Kris could.
"Catteni. And early even for them." It was two-moon time, so the night was bright with them, and clear. When they went up to the height with Worrell in tow, they could see the approach of the ship, its running lights twinkling.
"Small, fast ship," Zainal said. "It is heading for that field, I think," and he pointed to what was the nearest expanse, a twenty-minute hike from the Rock.
"They know where we are?" Worry sounded upset.
"Life-form readings," Zainal said succinctly. "They an effort to relax
completely as he listened to what
know where transport landed. The Rock shows many people."
"Not dumb. Well, these Catteni at least," Worry said and started down from the heights. "No offence intended, Zainal."
"None taken," was the easy answer.
"Maybe we should let them wait long enough to discover the scavengers?"
Joe suggested slyly.
Zainal only grunted but Kris thought the notion held a certain charm for him as well. So it wasn't surprising when Zainal neatly slingshot a rocksquat fast asleep on a boulder and hauled it along with them as they traversed the rocky hillside.
The craft had landed long before they reached it. An open portal spilled light onto the stubble of the field.
Light didn't attract scavengers: it repelled them. Just outside the illuminated area, Zainal casually dropped the rocksquat.
"How long does it usually take?" Joe muttered.
"Longer near light," Zainal said and continued on his way to the ship.
It was a sleek one, Kris saw, and looked like it was meant for speed and manoeuvrability with its swept back wings and tapered nose.
But it was a large affair, not as big as the Challenger had been nor the Enterprise, but a fair size - three, four times the height of Zainal and about as long as a Boeing 727 but much wider.
Zainal halted right in front of the door and cracked out sharp Catteni words.
Instantly three Catteni filled the doorway, one of them striding down the ramp towards Zainal. Watching his face, Kris saw his eyes widen for an instant, in surprise, she thought, and his right hand, which she could see, briefly clenched into a fist. Then he seemed to make was said.
"My report cause trouble," he said to the others in a brief aside before spitting out more Catteni phrases.
The officer, for that's what Kris decided he was, was of high rank, to judge by the excellent fit of his tunic and the complexity of insignia on his collar and cuff.
Zainal didn't seem in awe of him, or even respectful, unless Cattenis always snapped at each other: sort of like the English who are scrupulously polite to people they do not like and continually insult their intimate friends.
The Catteni language sounded as if it was composed of growls, grunts, gutturals and fricatives, without a single mellowing vowel.
However, it might only sound vicious.
You'd think the Chinese were cursing each other until they smiled and bowed so politely "There is other trouble," Zainal said after a spate of raw staccato noise. "With Terrans and with Eosi." Now he grinned malevolently . . . at least his mouth looked malevolent in proffle.
"And " Worry prompted.
"I am drop. I stay drop. He say it is duty to come. I say I drop, I stay. His loss, your gain." Then he turned his grin on Worry, and Kris thought his look was as mischievous as if he was holding some kind of a royal flush in his hand in a high stakes poker game.
"Ughh," Sarah said suddenly, moving closer to Joe.
Zainal looked over his shoulder and so did Kris, so they both saw the first tentacular strands of a scavenger feeling its way out of the ground to encircle the dead rocksquat.
Zainal said something and stepped aside for the captain to see.
Although the tentacles seemed to avoid the lighted area of the body, they gleamed slimily in the shadows.
Strips of the squat animal noticeably disappeared at an ever increasing rate as the scavenger decided its victim was tasty.
Then Zainal held out his comunit, pointing to various elements of it, patently displaying irrefutable evidence of alien artefacts that had been recycled. That elicited a surprised exclamation from the captain and the other two Catteni who bent closer to see the device.
For one moment, Kris was afraid Zainal would let them have it.
That was when Kris thought Zainal began his own demands, for the captain shook his head vehemently at first but, as Zainal became insistent, he seemed to relent and ask questions of his own to which Zainal replied with a quick shake of his head or an affirmative nod.
Then the captain said something to one of the others who went off, down the bluewhite lit companionway to the bow of the ship.
The captain continued his interrogation. Some of his questions Zainal answered. Others he shrugged off, impatiently or irritably or with an amused, superior expression.
The messenger returned with a handful of printouts, some crumpled. The captain barked at him and, with a startled and penitent look, the man hastily reassembled them in good order before passing them over to the captain, who glanced down at the first sheet before he gave all to Zainal. Zainal immediately passed them to Worrell.
"Maps of this world from space," Zainal murmured.
"Show mountains, metal deposits, other data. He does do not want to give." Kris could see that only the sternest self-control kept Worrell from peering avidly at the material.
Zainal now stepped back from the open portal but the captain followed
him a step or two, managing sharp and penetrating glances at the
indigenous personnel, as if determined to store their faces for future
reference. Kris did not like that scrutiny though it gave her a chance
to identify this Catteni as another emassi like Zainal with his fine, almost patrician features. With his gaze still on Kris, the captain asked a short question. Zainal answered with a sort of supercilious expression on his face. Shock registered on the other man's face and he gave Kris a second startled look.
"I tell them you are very smart Terrans, all of you, and I am proud to be in your patrol, Kris."
"Thanks a peach skin, Zainal." If this fellow ever landed on Botany and started looking around for her, she'd make herself very scarce. He must blame her for Zainal's decision not to "take up his duty' Then his look turned "knowing' and sly. He said two short words.
So fast that his movements blurred, Zainal shot out a fist and decked him, ignoring the weapons which the other two immediately almed at him. He stood back, arms crossed on his chest - old Stoneface while the captain, waving aside the guards, got to his feet, rubbing his jaw.
"Nice to know he gets a bit of his own back, Worry murmured to Kris.
"What'd the bloke say?"
"How would I know?" Kris muttered out of the side of her mouth but, from the look on the captain's face, she also decided to get into the act. Zainal had given her the clue - he was in her patrol. She gave Zainal a stern look as if he shouldn't have retaliated. "Now wasn't that a half-ass thing to do when all we have to defend ourselves with is slingshots?" she said to Zainal in as imperious a tone as she could muster, as if telling him off. Which she was, since the drawn weapons had scared her badly. She'd seen them in action and the charge they propelled jerked every nerve in a body unless you were lucky enough to be knocked out first.
"Worth it," Zainal said but he made a subservient nod of his head at her and, stepping back slightly behind her, crossed his arms again.
The captain asked one more question, his tone almost plaintive as he rubbed his jaw.
Zainal gave a "that's impossible' sort of hitch of his shoulder.
The captain said something else, more briskly now, waving at his two subordinates who moved off into the body of the ship. With a very respectful salute to Zainal, and a crisp but equally respectful bow to Kris, the captain stepped back into the ship and the portal slid shut, putting them in a darkness lit only by the one remaining moon in the sky.
"Hey, couldn't they leave the lights on until we got safely off this field?" Sarah cried.
"Stamp as you go," Zainal said, turning and trotting away from the ship, coming down hard every third step.
"You'll tell us what we couldn't understand?" Worry asked, trying to pace Zainal but his shorter legs were unequal to it.
"I will." They were safely away from the ship when it raised vertically, as the transport had done, and then gathered speed in an ascent angle.
"VTOL! Wow!" Joe said. "Do all your ships have that capacity, Zainal?"
He mimed the action.
"The ones that land, yes. Biggest, stay above," Zainal replied and continued on.
Stamping, even every third or fourth step, jarred her tired body, but every time Kris felt herself slacking off, she thought of the slimy look to the scavengers' tentacles or feelers and that reinforced her step. They reached stony footing and, as one, leaned against the safety of the nearest rock.
"That last bit he said, before you socked him," Kris asked firmly.
"Socked him?" Zainal asked.
He wasn't temporizing because she realized "hitting' and its synonyms might not yet have come up m conversation. She demonstrated.
"In Catten women lead only other women," Zainal said.
"But special . . . ah, rank of women do command even Emassi."
"Why did you hit him?" Zainal's lips curled in a snarl before he answered. "He put a bad name on you. A wrong name."
"Thanks, but didn't you take a chance? They might have shot us because you hit their leader. That sort of thing got you in trouble before, you know." Zainal grinned, pressing his thumb against his chest.
"The trouble is mine. I do not "sock" to kill so the others do not fire. They only . . . how do you say . . ." and he crouched, reacting with his hand standing for, the weapon.
"Reflex action?" Joe suggested.
"Hmmm," Zainal said although he had not quite understood the tem.
"Let's leave the subject of Kris's honour aside," Worry said.
"Why did you want these?" He was unfolding the sheets. "Can't even see what they show in the dark."
"Maps of this planet from space to tell us where we are.
Where to go. Where. . ." and now he paused, frowning, unable to find words to use, "where biggest garage is."
"Really? Had your blokes found it?" He shook his head. "Show where metal is. A very oh, funny?
No, not funny." He struggled, turning to Kris to help him out.
"An anomaly?"
"How in hell would he understand "anomaly"?" Worry asked.
"Oh, hush, I'll explain it. An anomaly is something that should not be where it is. A deviation from the normal. A queer difference."
"Ah, yes." Zainal became quite agitated. "That is it.
More metal than good to be there. Many places. Lots of metal.
Not right metal. Anomaly . . . hmmm," and he almost tasted the word.
"Something that is different."
"They didn't want to give you these maps?" Sarah asked, also trying to discern details from the printout.
"No."
"They wanted you to go with them, didn't they?" Kris asked pointedly.
"Yes, they said all was OK', and his grin was broad with malice, "to come home. More than one day. Catteni drop me here. I stay here.
They cannot make one rule for me, because I am useful to them, and one for other Catteni."
"Man's got a sense of honour, so he has," Joe said in mild surprise.
"Why not?" Kris snapped back.
"Why not indeed," Joe said in a placatory fashion.
"Why didn't you go, when, you could? What was the duty they want you for?"
"Emassi duty," and Zainal's voice turned inflexible.
"Too late for that duty now. Once I wanted that duty. Not now.
Much has happened. They drop me. I stay drop."
"Dropped," Kris said automatically.
"Dropped. Funny language, English."
"You're not the first to think so." "Nor will I be last," and he grinned in the night at her.
"So," Worry said, "they wanted you for a duty you no longer feel, you need do?"
"Right. No-one believes what I told transport men about mecho makers."
"So that's why you showed him the comunit," Sarah carried on, "because he knows what supplies came with us and that certainly wasn't included."
"Right," Zainal said.
"So you showed him and now they will have to believe you," Sarah went on, "but why wouldn't they believe you?"
"I dropped," and he emphasized the final d of the past tense.
"So now what?" Kris asked, worried.
"We wait. We see."
"And if the Eosi come before the mechos' makers?" "Not Eosi but someone higher than "Zainal jerked his thumb upwards indicating the late captain. "We wait.
We see."
"I don't like this," Worry said. Then the comunit he wore at his belt bleeped, a curious intrusion in the night.
"Worrell here . . . Oh, Mitford. Yes, Zainal did make contact with the spacecraft. Here," and Worry handed the unit to Zainal. "He shoulda called on yours." The conversation was onesided but since everyone listening knew what had happened from Zainal's point of view, some of his responses were amusing, though possibly not on Mitford's end, or in the middle of a cold night - and Kris was beginning to feel the chill in the air. Finally Zainal gave a series of "OKs' in response to Mitford's instructions, depressed the "off' button and passed the device back to Worry.
"He knows. We know. We say nothing," Zainal informed them.
"Say nothing?" Worry exclaimed. "The whole camp got wakened by that damned sentry rousing you and then me.
They'll demand to know.
Zainal shrugged and struck off up the next tier of rock.
"False alarm, that's what we'll tell them. It was a false alarm.
Ship just flew over," Worry went on.
"Wrong time of night to overfly anything," Joe suggested, climbing behind Worry. "Moons went down early."
"Nonsense," Kris said firmly as she followed Joe, Worry and Zainal. "We tell the truth, or how will they trust us?"
"Good point," Sarah said, starting up. "We want to build trust, not destroy it."
"Say nothing," Zainal called down to them. "Smile and say nothing. Sarge will tell them what they need to know." "He's got a point there," Worry said.
"One thing puzzles me," Joe said, spacing out words as he climbed, "why your survey didn't tumble to the fact that this world - well, this continent at least - is all carved up into neat fields? Surely they must have seen the anomaly in that. . . a clear indication that this planet was, had been, cultivated?" Zainal answered. "Loocows and rocksquats not smart so planet is not occupied! They do not "see" the machinery." He added a plainly derogatory phrase in the harsh Catteni.
\*\*\*\*\* Then they all had to save their breath for climbing.
When they reached the Rock, only the sentries were awake, as they should be, and Worry brushed off their questions with a "Nothing to worry about. Tell you in the morning, I'm bushed."
Mitford arrived the next morning in a refitted tractor which had been altered to carry six passengers. Mitford had with him the two NASA mission specialists, both of whom, he said, had had training in discerning planetary features from space. Kris, Zainal and the others had breakfasted and were well prepared for a Mitford debriefing. The MSs - a man and a woman with really nothing to distinguish them from anyone else except that they had been in space - took charge of the maps at one end of Mitford's desk which Worry had hastily surrendered to the sergeant.
"Why'n't you take off with "em?" was Mitford's first sharp question to Zainal.
He smiled. "I like it here better. Zainal didn't look at Kris but Mitford did and she mildly returned his stare in a "none of your business' attitude. "I dropped," and again he made much of the past tense, emphasizing the t sound. "I stay." She really didn't think it was only her presence that had caused Zainal to stay: he had made it clear to the ship captain that he felt bound by some obscure point of honour, though he might have used that as an excuse, she thought.
Still and all, they must have really wanted him back to send a special fast courier to collect him.
Hadn't they known where Emassi Zainal had been taken, considering the circumstances of his capture before the grace period had expired?
The captain had registered surprise, not pleasant, either, on seeing Zainal at his portal. Possibly the captain hadn't known whom he was going to meet on this planet.
She found it hard to believe: did Zainal like her so much he couldn't live without her? Kris gave her head a little shake of denial but she couldn't help grinning slightly. Catteni and human were biologically sterile, even if they could enjoy sexual relations - and "enjoy' was a pale word to apply to that tempestuous event. She was sort of hoping he'd ask for more: not that they'd had time for any further such . . . enjoyments. She didn't consider herself remarkably sexy - well, until Zainal had aroused her. Even without the sexual rapport, she liked Zainal. He was a complex man. Man, oh man, wasn't he just! And he had conducted himself with tact and a respect for others during a very difficult few weeks. Back on Barevi, having a Catteni "interested' in you was not what you wanted. Zainal was, in all respects, different.
She had to wrench her thoughts back. The NASA pair were excited about some aspect of the symbols Zainal was translating from the map legend. Craning her head, she could see that not only were there overviews of each hemisphere of the planet but close-ups, if you wanted to call pictures of entire continents "close-ups', showing contours, mountains, valleys. There were even sea-scapes of the ocean floors and their mounts and abysses. Complete! Then she gave full attention to what was being said.
"The position is perfect for a command post, Sarge, the man - Bert Put - was saying, tapping an elevation point, almost dead centre of this, the main continent. "Not easy to get to but that's only a sensible precaution and here. .
he pointed a blunt finger again, "is another concentration that matches the same symbol of the abattoir which we've already discovered.
Possibly a garage, situated below the main facility. Everything's on remote so it doesn't matter how far above the garage the command point is."
"That location's not all that far . . ." Mitford said, pulling at his lower lip in a pensive fashion. "Hmmm." He walked his fingers the distance. "Well, a good week's march."
"Not now we have that vehicle,' Worry said eagerly.
"We've only got the one big one in operation . . Mitford began, "but hell's bells, it'll get a patrol there and back faster "n' safer than they could trot it. OK, Zainal, Kris, Bert, Sarah as medic, Joe as hunter, and you'll need a good mechanic." Mitford winced. "He's a pain in the butt, I know, folks, but the best mechanic we've got is Dick Aarens.
"Aw, Sarge," Kris began in protest.
"Now," and Mitford held up a placatory hand and stared her down, "he's not going to trouble you with Zainal along."
"He hates aliens' guts,' Kris complained.
"He may but he's proved that he can read the meco makers' schematics and alter them as easily as you'd play with a Lego set.
This is not an outing. This is a patrol! You gotta pass by Camp Narrow on your way, so I'll go with you and give Aarens the business.
You ." and Mitford turned to Zainal, including Joe and Sarah in the same glance, "discipline as and when he needs it. As hard as need be.
The trip may even do him good."
"We'll see that it does," Kris promised caustically but she wasn't at all pleased at Aarens' inclusion in what should have been a great jaunt with good people she trusted. Even if she didn't know Bert Put well, she liked his frank, open face and enthusiasm and the avid way he had examined the alien charts, like a boy with a gizmo he had never expected to own.
Careful inspection of the terrain to be crossed suggested this would take three, possibly four days, at the speed the modified tractor could make.
"We run faster," Zainal said with a little grunt.
"Not over some of the ground, m'friend," Mitford said, pointing out several areas that appeared to be significant heights and rivers.
"That thing hops barriers like a gazelle, saves you having to take the long way round. We tested its stability on every sort of terrain and it's better'n' a tank. Can't tip because it just lifts on its air cushions. More comfortable than the tractors I remember as a kid.
"Sarge, you were never a kid!" Kris said, teasingly.
"I begin to think you're right, Bjornsen," and he slipped the map over to Dowdall. "Dow'll make you a copy to take along. The originals aren't going out of my possession. Now, figure out the supplies you'll need and you're to take along some furs. You'll be at altitude and it's bound to be colder this time of year." Zainal looked even larger in the fur vest that had been made for him. But he wore it with an air that made it seem regal ermine.
"Biggest damn rocksquat I ever saw," Sarah said, grinning from ear to ear.
"I am funny?" Zainal asked in mock indignation. He flexed his shoulders. "It fit well. Warm." He slid out of it and, folding it up with care, tied the bundle with a thong.
There were fur rugs as well as vests for each member of the expedition, including Dick Aarens. Kris was still struggling to accept the necessity of him joining the patrol.
"I know he's a horse's ass, Kris, but he helped put this vehicle together and he knows how to get the most out of it. You will need him on the team."
"I will not like it, Sarge, and if he so much as - - "Clobber him. Or better still, let Zalnal do it. Only not too hard.
You may need him undamaged." Mitford gripped her arm in a firm but friendly emphasis to his orders.
Bert Put's presence helped a great deal, even when all he had to look at was the relevant section of map that Dowdall had competently produced. They let Mitford off at Camp Narrow and reluctantly collected a cockily grinning Dick Aarens, who was still festooned with his belt of tools and vest of pockets which bulged with unidentifiable lumps.
"Ready when you are," he said jauntily, climbing up to the seat Mitford had vacated between Joe Marley and Sarah McDouall.
"Just don't let it go to your head, buddy, Kris said, glaring at him because he was deliberately playing kneesies with her.
"Only trying to be friendly," Aarens said in an almost plaintive whine.
"Maybe I should drive. I know this baby inside out."
"I drive," Zainal said and that was that. Mitford had tested his skill on the way to Narrow and this wasn't the first ground vehicle Zainal had ever driven.
Zainal turned the control handle and the Hopper moved forward. It had been so named on the trip down since it invariably "hopped' any terrain that exceeded its pre-programmed optimum angle. They had all learned to hang on to something to be secure against unexpected manoeuvres. Generally the aircushioned vehicle proceeded smoothly Aarens' attempts to chat up Sarah failed when she made it obvious - by linking one arm through Joe's that she was uninterested. Aarens sulked until Bert Put's look of disbelief at such childish behaviour shamed him into neutrality The Hopper might be faster than the average tank but it was no McLaren on a Grand Prix circuit. It also "flew' neatly over a wide meandering river and three narrower ravines they encountered the first day. When they camped for the night on a rock ledge, above a small cataract and pool, Zainal and Bert figured they had covered nearly seventy miles.
Rocksquats and some tasty little fish taken from the stream provided supper. After reporting in to Mitford, Zainal assigned watches and gave Aarens the dog watch.
When Kris woke the next morning, she found Aarens asleep.
"What is there to watch for?" Aarens demanded in outrage when Zainal roughly shook him awake. "Hey, take it easy. Scavengers can't attack on rock and no-one's ever seen fiiers out at night."
"There're renegades still unaccounted for," Kris said, "and you know damned good and well they'd want this Hopper."
"We haven't seen ANYone," he protested.
"Do you think they'd be stupid enough to expose themselves until they were ready to attack?" Kris went on, livid with rage at his stupid arrogance, clutching her hands at her sides because she was afraid she'd deck Aarens. Even as she thought of the joy she'd have in seeing him prostrate on the hard rock underfoot, she realized the unwisdom of such retaliation. They might indeed need Aarens if the machine failed.
"But no-one did attack us," he replied in sullen selfdefence.
That night he was made to gather firewood and rocksquat dung as punishment for dereliction. Nervously, Kris woke several times that night during Aarens' watch, to be sure he remained awake. Evidently Zainal did the same thing. The time they woke together, Zainal pulled her close to him and affectionately nuzzled her neck but that, unfortunately Kris thought, was as amorous as he got. She was glad of that much, though she ached for more.
It took them six days to make the designated point and the garage they found was visible for miles above the barren wasteland that spread out before it.
"Strange place for a garage," Joe Marley said, trying to gauge the height of the doors.
"The command post is directly above this, isn't it?" Kris said, peering over Bert's shoulder to check the map.
"It would appear to be - - - up there," Bert replied, pointing and then sighing at the sheer faade of the cliff it topped. Only the solar panels, too regular in shape to be a natural formation, marked its location. "I wonder if we can get the Hopper up there from another approach.
and he looked eastward along the range.
"No, we have rope," and Zainal hefted the coil from the storage shelf of the Hopper.
"And pitons," Joe said, gratefully, having watched Jay Greene include those recently manufactured items in their supplies.
"If you'll bring the Hopper alongside, I'll just start dismantling those solar panels," Aarens said, speaking for the first time that day.
"I wouldn't want anything fall down on you guys while you're climbing that cliff," he added with a sneer.
"Too right," Joe Marley said. "I'll help you. We don't all need to climb." Zainal peered at the sun, already well down the sky.
"Not today. Tomorrow. Today we all help remove panels. Get inside, too." But he did not appear too sanguine about that possibility as he inspected the huge grey-metalled doors. "No crack." When they reported in to Mitford, he was glad to hear they'd reached their destination but warned them to go slow if this appeared to be a totally different sort of installation. Since it might well be the control point for an entire planet, the Mec Makers might well have equipped it with safeguards.
Aarens took down the solar panels. "That's what I'm here for, isn't it?" he demanded nastily. "What I'm good at. You guys'll take forever and you. . ." and his hostile gaze settled accusingly on Zainal's heavy fingers, ". . might damage the panels. Some were damaged beyond use, you know. You guys don't respect technology like you should." Knowing how the patrol had had to struggle with the solar panels, Kris reluctantly had to admit that Aarens did it faster, and probably better than anyone else could.
The fact did not endear Aarens to anyone and he had to stand watch that night, too, though he complained about the duty.
"I have big hands," Zainal said, raising one big fist and examining it as if he'd never seen it before. He smiled and turned towards Aarens, his intent very clear. "Big hand, big damage."
"You wouldn't dare," and Aarens moved around the fire near Sarah, who promptly resettled herself, leaving him all alone again. "You need me as your mechanic. To tell you what's up there."
"Perhaps," Zainal said, "but I have pilot spaceship many years now. I know a thing or two about circuits and more about spaceships." Aarens retreated into dour silence again, glaring across the campfire at them.
"Wake me for the dog watch, Joe said in a low voice to Zainal. "I don't trust him."
"Where he go?" Zainal asked, with a shrug.
"Not so much where would he go, but what would he do? Like disable the Hopper for spite or slip some of those poisonous leaves in our morning tea? Hell, I wouldn't trust him not to usher renegades in and laugh while they slit our throats," said Joe.
Aarens said nothing the next morning when he was awakened at dawn with the others. But he had a smug sort of twist to his features as if he'd won a round by not having to stand a watch as the others did.
Which he had, Kris thought, disgruntled.
Try as they could, and Aarens was doing his level best to solve the problem, they could not find out how the door opened, and there was only the one.
So, having spent a fruitless morning, Zainal decided to use the afternoon daylight to make the climb.
"Why'n't we start tomorrow, early, first thing?" Aarens demanded in a suddenly nervous twitch. "Get some rest today. Hunt."
"No, we climb,' and Zainal slung one coil of rope to his shoulders. "I, Kris, Bert. Aarens, you go hunt greens by river. Joe, Sarah, watch. Kris, give Joe your comunit." When she had, Zainal approached the cliff beside the garage where there were some irregularities providing footand hand-holds. At least in the first fifty or so feet.
It wasn't as hard a climb as it seemed looking up at it. Indeed, the rockface was most obliging even though it had an outward bulge that was a trifle awkward to manoeuvre. Then they came to the area of squared-off, dressed stone which must be the control post. A further twenty feet, easily scaled, got them to the array of solar panels crowning the cliff top. But, once again, no discernible way into the facility which they knew must be contained behind the rock. That is, until Kris, exasperated with the whole thing, climbed well above the panels and discovered the vents.
"Well, they had to have venting somewhere, didn't they?" she said when she had called Bert and Zainal to inspect her find. Then she saw both men regarding her, and she looked back at the vents and realized she was the slenderest one among them. "I knew we should have brought Lenny.
It took a good two hours to pry the grill off the vent with the use of the heaviest chisel of the ones Zainal "borrowed' from a protesting Aarens. He had showered imprecations on them if they nicked any of the blades. When Zainal had chipped enough space for his fingers, he gave one mighty pull and wrenched the vent cover off.
They slung a rope under Kris's arms and, not without scratching herself, she squeezed into the opening and was let down. A long way down into musty darkness.
Then, as soon as she touched the ground with her feet, lights came up:
an orangey glow rather than the bluewhite of the lighting the Catteni used. She could see the panels that lined the "front' of the facility and then the long boxy rectangles that ranged along the back.
There was nothing that resembled seating, nothing that resembled anything she was familiar with, bar the sloping control panels with their regular indentations. There were six rectangles of an opaque material which looked like screens, placed high up on the walls, and a larger one like a blank picture window in front.
"I think Bert better get down here, or you, Zainal," she said. "I haven't a clue what to do next." Bert's head appeared in the vent aperture. "Tell me what you have in front of you, Kris. Maybe I can talk you through it.
"Ha!" She ran her fingers lightly over the lefthand group of indentations and, in the next instant, everything lit up.
"Oh, Lord, I hit something. Hey, and there're sorts of pictograms that even I can read. And one of them looks like doors." She pressed her fingers together, ditheringly, and felt totally out of her depth to be confronted with such technology. She could now feel a humining through the soles of her boots, low and not menacing. She told them about it.
"We hear, too," Zainal said, his voice encouraging.
"How many door pictograms?" Bert asked.
"Five."
"Do they differ in any way?"
"You mean in size? Yes."
"Try the smallest and see what happens." Reluctantly she put her finger in the depression beside the small door pictogram. She heard a whoosh and saw a door panel swing open behind her "I've got access to the inside." "Take a look around, then." She did and came on to a blind corridor, wide and tall, cut into the rock. She reported.
"Try the next door glyph." She did and heard a roar from both of them, then Bert's raucous "Open sesame!" She felt the cool air before she realized that she had inadvertently opened the outer door. She was overwhelmingly relieved, however, when Bert and Zainal entered the room.
Bert's face was a study - the eager boy on Christmas morning with all the games he'd asked Santa for - as he pored over the control panel. Zainal was more interested in the rectangles on the inner wall, looking for the way in to their innards.
"Well, here goes on the Big Daddy Bear," Bert said in a tone of decision and pressed the last of the line of "doors' Immediately Zainal's comunit bleeped.
"Hey, man," and Joe's triumphant tones were audible to all three, "you did it. The main portal's sliding back inside the cliff, smooth as a baby's ass. And, wow!"
"Some kind of aircraft: one, no, two of "em, parked in tandem. Stubby wings, look like aircushion lobs as I can't find any wheels but I'd say they were atmospheric planes. Maybe for the inspector general to have a look round, see if all the mechos are doing their jobs right.
Hey, now, wait just a sec, there, Aarens . . ." Abruptly the transmission cut off.
Zainal leapt for the outer door, Bert and Kris almost bumping into each other to follow.
Over the bulge of the cliff, they couldn't see what was happening at the base by the garage until Zainal's unit beeped again.
"S' all right here," Joe said. "Sorry to panic but that fool got himself inside one of the planes and I didn't know what would happen." "We need that fool up here, Zainal said, scowling, and Kris just wished that Aarens could see that expression: he'd take less risks if he had Zainal to account to.
While they awaited Aarens' arrival, Bert studied the panel hieroglyphics, trying to figure out what did what.
There were only a few identifying signs that made any sense, the doors being one. Another was a line of six depressions, marked with a blunt-nosed object, some sort of a projectile. One space did not light up.
"Could have fired one off," Bert said. "A probe? Some kind of a capsule?"
"Or a torpedo," was Kris's guess.
"Yeah, could be any one of those."
"Zainal?" The Catteni came in to study the line, shaking his head after a few moments, though he passed a hand over the torpedo/probeglyph. The comunit bleeped.
"He won't go," Joe said, thoroughly disgusted.
"He won't go?" Zainal repeated, blinking.
"He won't climb up. Seems he's afraid of heights."
"Afraid of heights?" Zainal echoed, as if he didn't believe his ears, or thought he had misunderstood the words.
"Wouldn't you know?" Kris said.
"He will climb," Zainal said flatly. The look on his face boded no good for Aarens.
"I'll help," Kris said happily, looking forward to Aarens' reaction when he realized he couldn't pull that sort of an act on a Catteni.
They rappelled down, Kris revelling in the manoeuvre, for she'd always liked this exercise in her survival course.
Joe and Sarah now had Aarens cornered in the garage, behind the two stubby-winged planes nose to tail in the long building. The garage was much higher than it needed to be to accommodate just the two planes. The garage was also lit, so all its functions were controlled from above.
Kris wondered if the planes were also remote control devices.
Maybe that was what the screens beside the control panels were for:
remote viewing. Zainal now confronted Aarens, picked him up by the fold of his coverall and carried him, onehanded, to the front.
"No, no, I tell you I won't go. I can't handle heights. I'll faint. I'll be sick all over you " Aarens was protesting, batting vainly at the hand that carried him.
"You are needed up. You will go up!" Zainal told him and then gestured at Joe to bring the spare rope.
Without actually releasing the now violently struggling mechanic, Zainal created a harness that strapped his arms tight to his chest, with loops under his arms for him. Then Zainal fastened the loose ends of the harness to himself and started up the rockface, hauling Aarens who was flailing hard with his legs to impede his upward progress.
"You'd better use your legs to keep from bruising yourself against the rock," Sarah suggested with objective indifference.
"Ah, I can't. I can't stand heights. Oh, God, oh, God, oh God," and he kept up that litany as Zainal inexorably hoisted him, dangling and banging against the cliff-face.
"Oh God, oh God." Kris followed behind, not that she could have rescued Aarens, or even wanted to, or would need to since Zainal had the exercise under complete control.
"Oh God oh God, oh God," Aarens' voice rose to an hysterical pitch.
"Keep your eyes shut then, you damn fool," Kris advised. "Don't look. Don't look down Aarens did not become sick but he did have an episode of incontinence. Kris was able to move out of the way of it which was as well, as it left a wet streak down the cliff.
The "o God o Gods' became piteous and hoarse but Zainal ignored them and then Bert helped haul the terrified man up onto the shallow ledge and through to the door into the control room.
"Pull yourseif together," Bert said with disgust to the quivering mechanic as he untied the ropes. Zainal was shrugging out of his harness. "This complex goes deep into the mountain, Zainal. Care to have a look?"
"No, I stay here," Zainal said, looking down at the sorry sight Aarens presented. "He must do work." Kris was glad to leave the close confines of the control room because Aarens' accident was smelling the place up.
She didn't know how Zainal could stand it, but the door was left open and perhaps the wind at this height would clean the air and dry Aarens off.
Bert led her out of the control room, through one door and then down a short flight of very wide steps with low risers. Lights came up, brightening slowly, as if slow from disuse, to the same orange glow that shone in the control room. They entered the first room and it was empty of everything but a sort of long pedestal table; no chairs or stools or anything to sit or rest on. The table did look used, with some edges smoothed and some scratches marring its surface. Scratches from what? Bert urged her to the room on one side.
"I don't know if these are beds or what," he said, pointing to large square platforms, built up a foot off the floor surface. "Much less this?" and he showed her an equally large room beyond, which had a square depression in its centre with what seemed to be a drain in the middle. "I can't find any water outlets or hoses or anything." They prowled here and there about the rooms and decided that those that had the same built-in equipment might be sleeping accommodation. The purpose of others was not immediately apparent. Some had large rectangular coffers which defied their attempts to open them. The wall shelving was all above her shoulder height.
"Big creatures? Appendages at this level?" Kris asked, pretending to remove something from a shelf.
"Not been used in yonks," Bert allowed, scuffing the dust on the floor.
"I don't know what this is," Aarens voice said, issuing from somewhere near the ceiling. "No reaction anywhere." Bert and Kris grinned at each other.
"Maybe we better tell them that they're on intercom," Kris said.
"Why are you touching the bullets glyphs?" Zainal was saying, a note of concern in his deep voice.
"They're for those torpedo-type gizmos on a rack in the garage," Aarens was saying in a smooth sly tone. "Could be "Don't!" Zainal's command crackled.
Just then they heard a rumbling that echoed up from below. With one accord they ran back to the control room.
Zainal was standing over the prone body of Dick Aarens, his right hand still clenched in a fist. In his left hand he held the comunit, its "on' light glowing.
"I decked him," Zainal said. Then he pointed to the panel where one pf the bullet depressions shone red.
"He pressed it. It go off."
"Thanks, Zainal," Joe's voice could be faintly heard from the comunit. "We moved. The right way. Thing launched in a blaze and we'd've been all too close to its exhaust.
"You'll have to stand in line,' Kris said, pulling the comunit over to her so that she could register her priority.
"When he comes to, that is." She toed the prone body.
"What did he think he was doing, Zainal?"
"Make trouble," Zainal said.
"Oh!" That was from Bert Put because Kris was shocked into immobility by the very thought of deliberately summonmg the mecos' makers, and having to answer to whatever used solid rock as a bed and ate at a table without sitting and had shoulder-high storage units.
"Oh my God!" she finally said, leaning weakly against Zainal.
"Maybe good idea after all," he said at length, nodding his head.
"Then we know worst, or best."
"How could it be best?" Kris asked, very glad when Zainal put a supporting arm around her, his fingers tightening briefly on her shoulder, encouragingly.
"First, best to know. Second, fun to find out who makes mechos." He grinned at her exclamation of protest.
"If the condition of this place is any evidence, no one or no thing has been here in a long time, Zainal," Bert said, shaking his head. "Wish I could have seen it go," he added sorrowfully.
"Ask Joe when we get down again."
"And what do we do with sleeping beauty?" Kris asked, prodding Aarens' shoulder again.
Zainal took a deep breath and then let it out.
"It'd be more fun to lower him down when he knows he's up high," Bert said with a malicious expression on his usually pleasant face.
"And listen to the O-God-O-God-O-Gods for hours?" Kris said.
"Well, if I promise not to touch anything, can I stay up here and see if I can figure out any more of what that panel controls?" Bert asked.
Zainal shrugged and looked at Kris. "I don't see why not, NASA-man,' she said with a grin.
"First, we report to Mitford," Zainal said.
"He's not going to like this," Kris said, shaking her head.
"Especially since I think we were probably supposed to prevent just such a thing happening.
To her surprise, Mitford took somewhat the same attitude Zainal had: he wouldn't have authorized sending a message, if that was indeed what Aarens had managed to do. But he was, in a way, relieved that it had gone off "And if your guys are watching this planet, Zainal, it's going to give them a shock."
"There is that," Zainal replied.
"Should we come back to the Rock, Sarge?" Kris asked.
"Might as well, but on your way back check out the other sites on the part of the map I gave Bert." Then Mitford signed off.
In the end, Zainal lowered the unconscious Aarens down the rockface, with Kris guiding the strapped body's descent. It wasn't what she'd rather have done with Aarens but that would have been playing the game on his level. Sarah and Joe loaded up a sack of food, water and furs which Zainal then hauled more carefully up to Bert. He would leave his comunit with Bert so the MS could stay in contact.
"Tell Bert there's no real rush for him to come down," Joe said to Zainal on the com, winking at Sarah in a conspiratorial fashion.
They decided not to untie the unconscious Aarens but put him in the Hopper, between the seats. Sarah flung his fur over him.
"It may stink in the morning but that's his problem,she said.
"There's stew for supper," she added. "Just the four of us." Then Sarah smiled, a different sort of knowing smile. It didn't take a moment for Kris to catch on and she grinned back, nodding her head.
"We could stand our watches together tonight. Be sort of cosy, wouldn't it?"
"Great idea," Kris said, her eyes wandering over the area to see where she would place hers and Zainal's blankets and furs.
Certainly far enough away from Aarens to be able to ignore any complaints from him when he finally came to, and far enough not to impinge on the privacy of Joe and Sarah.
"I hear Catteni make great lovers," Sarah went on conversationally.
"Yeah. Back on Earth, I knew a couple of girls who took up with Catteni . . on purpose, to find out what they could," Sarah hastened to add.
"Ah, line of duty," Kris said.
"Well, the word I got was that giving out was not the hard part of the job." Sarah winked at Kris, and waited a moment, evidently wanting some indication of how Kris accepted the information. "In fact, they used to come home smiling. Oh, I know there were plenty yelling rape, and I heard all about Patti Sue, and I know some of the rougher types were brutal. But Zainal's different. Oh my word, but he's different and if I hadn't met Joe . . ." Sarah's smile was enviously wistful.
Then her expression changed to her usual forthright candidness. "What I'm trying to say is, don't worry about liking Zainal that way, Kris.
And I think you do like him."
"Hmmm. I think I do, too, Sarah. And thanks." Then, while Sarah went back to the fire to stir the stew, Kris watched Zainal rapelling down the faade, his movements deft and graceful. But then she was accustomed to his size and she certainly was no longer going to be worried about what other people thought.
Still it was good of Sarah to speak up as she had. Especially since a lot of people now on Botany had mentally paired Zainal and herself off a long time ago. She watched while he untethered himself, neatly coiled the rope for future use and then entered the garage. She watched him have a good look at the launch tube that had released the capsule and the other lour sitting in their tubes. Ventilators had come on when the missile had surged out of the garage so that the fumes had dispersed, but he sniffed, trying to decide what fuel had been used, she thought. Then he inspected the rest of the puzzling cabinets, panels and equipment.
He settled himself on the sloping stubby wing of the last plane and took some bark paper and his carbon pencil out of a thigh pocket.
She joined him when he began to make accurate sketches of the interior.
"Upstairs?" Zainal asked, puzzled. When she pointed upwards, he grinned.
"Yes. We get it all down for Sarge.
For report." Kris liked watching Zainal work, the deft way his fingers moved, big but not clumsy. She thought of how they would move on her, while they stood their double watches that night, and shivered with anticipation.
He had considerable skill as a draftsman because he only needed a quick glance before he sketched in a whole section accurately, frowning as he held the sketch up against the model to be sure he had done it with precision.
"You're a man of many talents, aren't you, Zainal?" she said when he had finished the lob.
"Not so many," he said in an abstracted tone. Then he put pencil and paper to one side and, catching her arm, pulled her against him, all his attention on her.
"How about standing a double watch with me tonight?" she asked, almost coyly. She disliked "coy' because girls who are five-foot ten don't do "coy' well but Zainal had changed many of her attitudes.
He ruffled her hair which was growing long again and would soon have to be braided or it would get in the way.
"I can possibly do that, he replied amiably.
"Sometimes, Zainal," she began, tsck-tscking in surprise, "you sound more American than I do."
"I mean, it's great you've learnt English so well so quickly."
"I like to learn something else quickly and well," he said and nuzzled her neck, biting her ever so gently.
"Are lovebites part of a Catteni wooing?"
"Wooing?" he asked against her neck.
"Making love."
"I think so. I have not loved a Catteni." His phrasing made her catch her breath. If he hadn't loved a Catteni, did he love her? Don't be stupid, Kris girl. He's an Emassi where he comes from and has met Eosi. He's too important for a girl like you from ol' backwater-"f-the-galaxy Terra. But her arm, of its own accord, tightened around his neck and she kissed his cheek. His smooth cheek.
"Don't you Catteni ever need to shave?" She had no idea what possessed her to ask a question like that then, but that was her all over.
He laughed down at her. "Shave? Ah, take off face hair. No face hair on Catteni." Then he rubbed his cheek against hers.
"HEY, YOU HAIRY LOT," Sarah called from the campfire, unaware of the topic of their conversation.
"DINNER!" Zainal slipped his arm about her waist and pushed her off towards the fire and their dinner.
"When we stand watch tonight, I do not think we stand long," he said so only she could hear him, "though of course it can be done that way, too."
"Whatever," she managed to reply though the idea fascinated her.
Over the stew, Joe Marley was full of speculation about the prospect of a reaction to the homing capsule.
"Maybe it is not homing," Zainal suggested.
"What else could it be?" Joe replied. "Nothing's been blown up anywhere, if it was a torpedo, or Mitford would have told us. Besides, those mothers are big, complex affairs. It was fuelled, too, judging by the stink it left behind. So, possibly it could be a homer."
"True.
"And maybe now we've got into this place," and Joe jerked his finger at the maw of the garage, the orange light so dim they could not even see the tail of the first plane, "we might figure out how to get into the seaside facility."
"Not if we have to take Aarens along with us to get it to open," Kris said firmly.
"Bert comes," Zainal said.
"If we have time for it before the mecos' makers come back at us," Joe said gloomily.
"It could take decades for the homer to reach its destination."
"Then what good is a homer?" Joe demanded. "No, to be efficient, and these Meco Makers are damned efficient engineers, it would have to reach home in a relatively short period of time." He wasn't happy at the thought of what response would be made.
"Why borrow trouble, Joe?" Kris asked.
"Well, it's only smart to think ahead, to plan for contingencies.
"That's Mitford's job," Kris said easily. "And Worry's.
Let him do that for all of us." Her stomach was full and it was great to be able to lounge around the fire, close to Zainal, and knowing he was close to her and would be closer once they got Joe and Sarah off to their own bed.
"We get one sooner from Catteni is my say, he said, hands clasped behind his head, his eyes gleaming gold in the firelight. He looked both alien and wonderfully familiar to Kris.
"Why? Would they have put up a satellite er something?" They had to explain what kind of satellite Joe meant and Zainal agreed that Catteni had such equipment.
"But they do not yet believe in the Mecho Makers.
Though maybe since - - -" and he paused, a slight frown creasing his forehead.
"Since that captain came?" Kris said,- prompting.
Zainal grinned at her. "He believe and is able to act without order."
"Was he under Eosi orders to come here, then?" Zainal shook his head.
"He came to get me."
"But you were dropped and you stay," Sarah said, teasingly.
Kris, who was aware that that had been a far more significant encounter than anyone else could know, glanced quickly at Zainal to see how he reacted.
"I stay," he said and then grinned.
"But he might have activated a warning device?" Joe asked, getting the matter straight in his own mind.
"That is possible.
"So they would know something's been launched." Zainal nodded.
"Maybe they won't drop any more unwilling pioneers on us then," Sarah said hopefully Zainal chuckled. "They had more Terrans to drop in safe place. Many more."
"Oh Lord, however will we manage?" Sarah cried.
"We've done very well so far," Kris said with some asperity.
Sarah and Joe were late droppers-in and acting as if they'd been here all along. Well, what's wrong with that? Kris chided herself. At least they want to be part of this cra colony.
"So we have," and Zainal unfolded himself from the ground. "We take first watch," he added casually.
"No, you'd fall asleep after all that lugging of bodies up and down that clifface," Joe said as casually.
"We should do something about feeding Aarens," Sarah remarked with no enthusiasm for the task. "And changing him or that Hopper will sure stink tomorrow' "He's not awake," Zalnal said with a shrug.
"You didn't hit him too hard, did you, Zainal?" Kris asked wistfully.
"Naw," Joe answered. "I've been checking him. Zainal just decked him right proper, that's all. Something we've all wanted to do, I might add.
"Oh God, oh God, oh God, not you, too?" Kris said mischievously.
That brought a laugh from the others.
The comunit beeped and Joe answered it. "Bert checking in, are you? . . . Naw, we wouldn't go off and leave you to explain to the Meco Makers. We're about ready to sack out now. Found nothing new, all right Oh. . . Well, we have had a day full of surprises, at that.
You'll stand first watch? Oh, that's good of you, mate.
You got the place to watch from all right. Over and out.
Then he grinned at Zainal. "He's first watch. He'll wake me.
And I'll wake you. I'll check Aarens again now."
"Just give me a shout," Zainal said. He held out his hand to Kris who let him pull her up and into his arms as Sarah disappeared into the dark after Joe. In the firelight, his eyes were golden. "I do not know your thought, Bjornsen," he said, "but I am lucky you were in the thornbushes of Barevi."
"You think you were lucky? Mter all that's happened since then?" She leaned back against his arms to catch the look in his eyes.
"You change my life. Not many change a Catteni."
"No, I don't think many do," she could agree wholeheartedly.
"Now, there is a long time before we stand our watch." There was devilment in his yellow eyes as he looked down at her. "What shall we do with all that time by ourselves?"
"Hmmm, oh, I think we can find something to do." And, of course, they did.
L "EN VOl Sergeant Chuck Mitford kept to himself the news that Aarens had sent off what appeared to be a homing projectile. Damn the man! Just like him to act with malicious intent. Before he'd heard who was leading the patrol, he'd been eager for the expedition to the putative control facility. Another chance to show off how clever Dick Aarens was. And the man did have a genuine -mechanical bent. All the experts agreed. But that didn't keep him from being a royal pain in the butt! And he'd been equally eager to devolunteer when he knew that he'd have to deal with Zainal. And that the Bjornsen girl was part of the team.
"D'you know about them?" Aarens had ranted. "D'you know she's sleeping with that Cat?"
"If she is, it's her own business, Aarens, and I wouldn't put on that innocent look were I you," Mitford had replied.
"You're quite the lover-boy on your own, aren't you? However, I'm warning you, I get one more complaint of harassment and, not only will I put you in the stocks every night so we'll know where you are, I'll get Dane to castrate you.
"You wouldn't dare?" That had shaken the mechanical genius because he knew all too well by now that Mitford did not make false promises.
So Aarens had taken the initiative the first chance he saw. But then, there would have been no message in the homing device, if that's what it was. Perhaps the Meco Makers would ignore its return. False alarm.
Mitford sighed and linked his fingers behind his head.
He'd hate it if all he'd built out of SFA here on Botany went down the tubes. He was rather proud of the order he'd been able to achieve out of nothing. And it had been pure heaven to be without any smartass captains and lieutenants with their smartass West Point training to tell him half of what he did wasn't in the Book. Well, it wasn't because he was writing this book himself.
He hadn't wanted the job but he'd come to enjoy it.
Starting off fresh and making one world the way it should be. Not many men get that chance.
Tomorrow morning, he'd start on contingency plans.
One thing for sure, they might be in for some serious trouble from the Meco Makers for messing up their machines. They'd probably have to leave the garages and barn facilities, so he'd better scout for more caves where they could hide and carry on in spite of owner occupation.
And then there were the Catteni. Would they maybe have dumped some sort of a satellite spy-eye to orbit the planet? To see if there was any contact with a technically advanced species who had a prior claim on the planet. He'd have to check with Zainal. Mitford had a hunch that more went on in that early morning meeting with the emassi ship than Zainal had reported. But he respected Zainal far too much to grill him. That guy was honourable and people wre beginning to see him in that light. Which was another load off Mitford's shoulders If the emassi were up to something that would affect Botany, Mitford was pretty certain Zainal would level with him.
Mitford grunted and muttered to himself, "I drop, I stay. And chuckled. Glad he hadn't listened to those who'd wanted to waste the Catteni on that field.
He wasn't all that happy that the Bjornsen girl had taken up with him, though. He'd've fancied her himself.
A leader had a few privileges. Damned few.
He suspected nothing was going to change the Catteni's plans for Botany. This was such a convenient dumping spot for all the troublesome dissidents the Catteni couldn't handle on Earth . . . and Barevi.
Well, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Only what law applied to Botany? He'd make it his if he could. He was getting pretty good at this governing business. Making a better show than either Democrats or Republicans ever had.
Or would they all be caught in between two master races. . . the mysterious Eosi and the even more unknown quantity of the Mec Makers?
Could be interesting. Could be fatal. Well, he wouldn't worry about that. This was a large continent.
He must remember to get in more bark sheets or have someone start to manufacture paper. They'd need more copies of the maps, geographical and spatial. Surely there was someone among his lot of individuals who knew how to make decent paper! He fumbled at his breast pocket, got out the slip of bark he kept there and one of the newer, more streamlined pencils and jotted down a note. There!
Tomorrow he'd start figuring out how to cope with invasions. Would he, as planetary leader, get a chance to confront representatives of either faction? Hmmm. Maybe he could get them to accept a compromise? To turn the planet over to him. Fat chance of that but Mitford chuckled at his presumption.
ASU-ME, he thought, remembering the old axiom of assunung too much.
Whatever!
He'd get his six hours' sleep first, get his mind rested for the duties of the morning. So he turned over, socked the fluff-filled pillow into proper order, and slept.
The launch had been observed. The spatial direction of the torpedo noted and the report forwarded to those concerned with such matters.
The satellite logged the departure of a missile from the surface of the planet under observation. It analysed the components and attempted to correlate the information within its memory banks, but found no match. The unusual speed and approximate direction of the device was also noted as it headed galactically north and east towards the furthest edge of the Milky Way. Just as the missile reached the heliopause of the system, it disappeared. A scan produced no debris; no ion or any other trace of what had powered its drive could be detected. It had vanished: a fact that was unacceptable to the monitoring program and caused a functional error which required internal investigation and repair. Although its earlier tracking was recorded, the satellite did not - due to the anomalies - immediately forward the data to its server.
Consequently, without a requisite emergency code, the information went through several processings before the anomalies were noticed. It was then immediately reported to the proper authority. A team was despatched to correct the malfunction, but none was found even after a complete overhaul and maintenance check of the satellite. The data was therefore suspect as a malfunction in itself, rather than the recording of an event. The planet was, after all, a penal colony; the exiles equipped with the barest essentials for survival and no technological equipment whatever. It was only by chance that the report was ever seen by persons with the essential information to realize the significance of the sighting, and the mysterious disappearance of the homing device.
"You say that he refused to answer the summons?" The speaker scowled at the Emassi captain.
As they were also father and son, the son was accustomed to his sire's scowls; he almost enjoyed the reaction, knowing that Zainal's refusal to return and accept the duty imposed on his rank and family would blacken his brother's previously spotless reputation in their father's estimation.
"He was chosen,' Perizec continued, bashing one huge fist onto the pervalloy worktop. 'He cannot refuse the summons." 'He did,' Lenvec said with an imperturbable shrug of one shoulder. "'I'm dropped, I stay." You know the convention." Perizec crashed both fists onto the worktop, bouncing everything on it, and scattering the files from the desk rack. 'An Eosi matter has precedence over any Catteni convention! You know that!" The scowl deepened, pulling down the heavy mouth and jaw, darkening the gray-toned skin. 'He has known of this duty since he was presented to the Eosi. Dropped or not, he is to return to accept that duty." The fists banged emphatically again.
Then Perizec's eyes narrowed to slits through which his yellow pupils flashed with anger. 'How did he come to be dropped on that felon planet?" Lenvec shrugged. He knew that his father was well aware of the whole circumstance, but he repeated the report.
"Zainal engaged in a fatal brawl with a minor transport Allo l officer. The crew sought vengeance and Zainal escaped in a flitter, which was hit and crashed in the western hunting grounds. No trace was found of him then, but he was discovered later that night among dissidents who had been gassed during a riot. Because it was within the twentyfour hours, one of the crewmen made certain that he remained in the transport facility and was included in the shipment. He made his presence known to a second Drop crew. Your office was alerted and I made the run to retrieve him. He refused . . ." 'I know, I know,' and Perizec flicked thick fingers to end the recital. 'He must return. The duty is required of him. We cannot avoid the choosing." He frowned, deep in thought. 'See to it that the crew who arranged his deportation are sent to the same destination. They will ensure that he is ready to be collected when next you land there." 'A thought, sir,' Lenvec began, "Catteni would not be popular on the planet and may even be prevented from finding Zainal." Perizec regarded him with a direct anger. "Zainal survived.
You said yourself that he was the member of some sort of team." Lenvec shrugged. 'Zainal is, after all, Emassi, sir, and as clever a man as you yourself . . ." Perizec grunted at the filial compliment. "He is also Catteni and would resist attempts to eliminate members of his own race." 'He might not be in a position to do so. He may also wish to eliminate the crew for having put him on that planet in the first instance." 'They will have to be "rewarded",' and Perizec's smile was unpleasant, 'for their part in his exile. See to that. And let us find among the Emassi two or three of Zainal's hunting friends.
Them he would certainly protect, would he not?" Lenvec nodded. 'They will see to it that he is willing to leave when next you land."
"By no means. That would put Zainal on his guard. When is the next mass transportation scheduled?"
Lenvec consulted his wrist unit. 'In twenty-two days."
"Choose the men . . ' 'A female, too, sir, if I may suggest it. He's been a long time without . . . companionship." 'An excellent notion,' and Perizec grinned back at his son.
You have someone in mind?" Lenvec nodded. 'They will all be rewarded." He reached to the files and methodically began stacking them in order as he continued speaking. 'This must be completed as expeditiously as possible. I have told the Eosi that Zainal was sent on a special assignment and is unaware of their need of him. We have been granted a respite, but their anger will fall on us all if we do not present him within a reasonable period of time." Lenvec nodded. Since Zainal had been acceptable to the Eosi, there had been no need for Lenvec to be presented. Nor would he wish to be accorded such an Eosi 'honour' since he knew exactly what that entailed. However, he might yet find himself the substitute, if Zainal did not present himself. The honour of the family was at stake. Failure to comply with an Eosi demand brought disaster and disgrace to every blood relation.
"Keep me informed, Lenvec,' Perizec told his son by way of dismissal.
As Lenvec saluted formally, pivoted smartly and left the office, Perizec began to consider how to punish the stupidity of a mere freighter crew who had presumed to place an Emassi among transported dissidents. He enjoyed deciding on the exact and perfect punishment for their presumption and shortly was able to issue the necessary orders. Once the rumour was circulated, few Tudo or Drassi would dare to repeat such treatment, no matter what the cause. That this abrogated one of the main tenets of Catteni discipline did not bother Perizec. But then his rank had some privileges, and he exercised all frequently.
As he was supposed to do, the Deski immediately informed the camp leader what he had heard on the height above Camp Rock.
"You heard a ship come down?" Worrell asked, rubbing his face hard in an effort to comprehend what Coo was telling him.
"Come down,' Coo said, nodding vigorously, 'not big. Not you-zoo-al,' he added, struggling with the syllables.
"Not usual?" Worrell repeated, while Coo nodded with a Deski-style grin which Worrell was now accustomed to. 'You mean, not a Drop?" Coo shook his head and then nodded, to be sure he was understood.
Worrell sighed with relief. The damned Catteni had speeded up their deposits of Colonists' over the past month to the point where there was barely time to assimilate each new delivery.
"No Drop. No long down. Come,' and Coo gestured with his thin, oddly-knuckled digits, swooping them down to close with his other hand, then pause briefly before elevating it again. 'Go.
Soft." And now he put a hand to his ear and pretended to listen hard.
Instantly Worrell began to fret. His nickname 'Worry' was less a contraction of his surname and more a description of his chief trait.
"A quick Drop, then. A few people at the most. Only what kind?" he asked himself more than Coo. 'Nearby?" 'Not near-near." Coo dropped his head, orienting himself, then shifted his feet slightly to the right so that he was facing due north. The Deski ability to know where they were was an extremely useful trait on Botany. They could get themselves back to the main settlements, like Camp Ayres Rock, from any point so that it had become practice to include at least one Deski in every scouting expedition.
Now Coo extended both long, doublejointed arms, kept the right one facing due north and angled his left arm almost due west. 'There. Not near-near." 'Really?" Worry rose and patted Coo's bony shoulder. "Real good, Coo. Thanks."
"Beaus job, Coo." Worrell turned up the light so that he could see the map hung on his wall. Much of the continent it represented was still blank but, over the past few wintry months, details had been added by scouting teams. 'If we're here, Coo,' and Worrell put his finger on the cave system of Camp Rock, 'how far west?" Coo extended his head towards the map on a neck that seemed elastic, put one digit on the Camp and then slid it in the appropriate direction. 'No more far." 'Really?" Worrell felt anxiety bloom in his gut. The point Coo had indicated was where Zainal and his team had met the scout ship: the one sent to take him back to his duties as a Catteni Emassi. 'Thanks, Coo. You'd best get back on duty."
"I got' And the Deski slipped quietly from the room.
Worrell glanced briefly at his timepiece. Dawn was too far away for him to send a squad to check the landing site. The nightcrawlers would be all too eager to catch anything that travelled above ground. Not even a large team, stamping heavily, would escape those winter-hungry denizens.
Then Worrell chuckled to himself. If Catteni had indeed landed someone for some purpose . . . like getting in touch with Zainal again . . . they'd have had a welcome they didn't expect.
"Serve 'em right, too,' Worrell said, though he was not by nature a vindictive man. In a considerably more cheerful mood, he returned to his bed and went soundly back to sleep.
Worrell would like to have had Zainal to send down to investigate the reported landing, but he and Kris Bjornsen were out with their team on another long scouting trip: looking for more caves, barns or rocky terrain to house the settlers continuously supplied them by the Catteni. So he sent for Mic Rowland, one of the Fifth Drop group. He'd been a stunt-man for the movies and could be trusted to observe, be discreet and get himself and a team out of trouble. Worry told him about the late-night landing, and where Coo had thought the ship had touched down.
"If a Deski said it landed there, we'll find some signs." Mic was far too accustomed to working with all-sorts, as he called them, not to appreciate talent wherever it was found.
"Even scout ships leave a stench behind them,' Worrell agreed.
"Take a party of those newbies with you. Give 'em a chance to hunt."
"Sure thing,' Mic said with a businesslike nod.
Worrell grinned when he saw Rowland tag the first five people in the breakfast line whose new-looking coveralls marked them as the latest Drop. He did let them eat first before he took them off.
Worrell knew the trip would do them good. So many got to Botany still full of their Earthside sabotage activities, and how many Cats they'd injured or killed and other kinds of derringdo? so that they needed to be taken down a few pegs to the realities of Botany. Fortunately, more were adapting well to the new world than Worry would have expected.
What caused the Australian - and the other Camp managers - concern, was the indisputable fact that the Catteni were making more frequent deposits of dissidents. Zainal had been surprised too and had suggested, slyly, that it was because Earth was showing far more rebellion than any other race the Catteni had subjugated. So there were more rebels to be exiled. So far the colony had been able to absorb both quantities and alien species, though they had followed Zainal's suggestion to let the belligerent and uncooperative Turs go off on their own in the small groups in which they arrived. However, the population of Botany had risen from the original Drop of 572 to nearly 9,000.
Worrell worried all day over what Mic Rowland would find. He also widened the perimeter guard in case of infiltration, warning them vaguely that someone had seen Turs prowling about. It was possible, in Worrell's view of human frailties, that even some specimens of Mankind could have been brain-washed into cooperating with their Catteni masters and would try to slip into the colony to cause trouble. That actually made more sense to him than a secret landing of Catteni, since they would be instantly noticed. So far Zainal remained the only one of his race resident on Botany. And he had barely escaped being killed that first day which was fortunate since he had proved so helpful in the early Drop, and ever since: even to rejecting a chance to leave.
Mic Rowland returned with enough game to justify the hunt.
Dismissing his weary group, he caught Worrell's glance, jerked his head towards Worrell's office on the height and moved quickly to join the Camp manager there. He dropped the rocksquats with the cooks, but not the sack in his right hand.
Once they were private, Mic upended the sack on the table and grinned at Worrell's surprise.
"That was all that was left. And not the same sort they issued us,' Mic said, 'much better made. And this." He took from his chest pocket a very thin plate about seven centimetres long and maybe two thick. 'I'd say it was a comunit, or some sort of call device. Maybe even an implant. I rubbed the gore off." Then he picked up one of the boots which was scored as if something hot, or very strong, had twined around it, leaving deep grooves. He twisted the heel and the whole lower part of the shoe swivelled free, showing a compact kit of small tools, embedded in the material of the thick sole. 'There's something in each boot." He picked up the smallest pair and opened the sole of one, revealing its contents to Worrell. 'This looks like a drug injector." He opened the other, which contained two small vials. 'And the drugs." 'Drugs? Yes, well, I'll give that stuff to Dane." Worrell counted eight boots in an effort to defuse his mounting anxiety. "Dropped a team, did they? To do what?" Though he had an awful suspicion his first guess might prove correct. Would Mic know?
Mic shrugged. 'You been here longer. An educated guess would be they were after Zainal." When he caught Worrell's sharp look, he grinned. 'I heard. Damn few would have stayed if they had a chance to leave."
Mic shook his head. 'Some bits of metal, probably from whatever they were wearing, but even Catteni material is edible to the crawlers.
Boots are just a touch too tough for 'em." And he flicked his fingers at one. 'Big mothers wore 'em. Big even for Catteni. They have goon squads, too." 'One pair is much smaller. Would they have sent a woman with them?" Mic shrugged. 'Who knows what Catteni will do?" He closed his lips on whatever he had been about to add and shrugged again.
Worrell could very well imagine what had been left unsaid.
Before his deportation, he had seen enough of the higherranking Catteni women to know that Kris Bjornsen was a lot betterlooking than the best of them. Many disapproved of her liaison with Zainal but no-one, other than Dick Aarens, had the gall to complain or dispute it.
"Couldn't fail to, not with those empty boots scattered around. I don't think the newbies noticed that the footwear isn't the same stuff we have. So I'm reporting a missing patrol to you.
Right?" 'Too right,' Worrell said, 'and I trust you rammed home the lesson?" 'Never miss an opportunity like that, Worry." And Mic left with a big grin on his face.
Worrell made a mental note that Mic was ready for more responsibility. First he dialled Zainal's team number for them to report in, then he got in touch with Chuck Mitford.
"Well, put 'em in a safe place, Worry,' Mitford said, 'until either Zainal or I can have a looksee. Just give the medical junk to Dane; he might know what it is and maybe have a use for it.
I suppose you better send those tools down here to Narrow for the engineering types. They could use some high-quality stuff despite some of the new items they've been able to turn out recently. I'll have to figure out a way to explain their . . . ah . . .
acquisition." He contradicted himself a moment later. 'I don't have to explain anything, do I?"
"Sure don't, Sarge."
Worrell grinned at the comment. In one of the recent drops there had been several ax-admirals, ax-generals and assorted other brass, most of whom - when they had had a chance to recover from the trials of their journey - were quite willing to refer respectfully to Mitford as 'Sergeant'. Most . . . and those who didn't soon learned how much was owed that 'sergeant', or found themselves settling into perhaps less amenable camp sites. No-one - except someone on sick call - shirked assigned duties, and everyone took a turn at hunting, preparing food, sentry and whatever other duty they were thought capable of managing. When he hadn't anything else to fuss about, though, Worrell worried that some sort of high-level executive-type consortium might try to bounce Mitford out of his current eminence. Of course, if Mitford decided on his own hook to step down, that had to be entirely his option. So far, Mitford's management - and he had listened to suggestions from just about everyone in the first couple of Drops - had worked pretty damn well.
"Sarge, should we worry about human infiltrators?" he asked, hoping to have such a notion knocked down.
Mitford's snort made the diaphragm of the portable phone vibrate and Worrell began to relax.
"Not unless they can run faster than a crawler can grab. And if there were four Catteni, they'd have been heavy enough on those big feet of theirs to have alerted every scavenger four fields over." There was a brief pause. 'Worry, you don't actually believe any human being would work with the Catteni, do you?" 'There've been traitors, renegades, spies, quislings in every war, Sarge. Why not this one?" Mitford cursed briefly, but colourfully. 'You could be right.
Damn it! Only why send in infiltrators by special delivery? You could as easily send 'em in a regular Drop. Anyway, why mess us up? Zainal says the Catteni prefer colonies to prosper so they can come in and take over when one gets going wells Pause.
"Furthermore,' and Mitford's tone was adamant, 'they'll have their work cut out for them if they try that tactic on my planet." Nor would anyone dispute Mitford's use of the possessive pronoun.
"We'd be with you four hundred percent, Sarge."
Another brief pause. 'I'll tell Easley we'd better be double careful checking IDs on the next Drops. Right?" With that he cut off, leaving Worrell not quite as anxious as he had been: no-one was going to take over 'my planet'. He grinned at the outrage in Mitford's voice. Scouts had come across the remains of several rough camps in the hills, above the level the night scavengers inhabited, and the skeletons of those who hadn't survived. But everything was much better organized now, especially the Drops. Peter Easley, former personnel manager of a huge international firm, had been responsible for that. His second morning on Botany, he sought Mitford out and made suggestions on how to simplify, speed up in-flow, and how to catch the signs of those still in trauma and needing counselling. He'd deferentially organized additional men and women experienced in crowd control and personnel handling, and passed on recommendations of other specialists that Mitford might want to interview himself. Mitford turned the whole problem of Drops over to Easleyand the complexity of Resettlement - another of Easley's sensible recommendations to Yuri Palit, previously a UN resettlement manager for displaced persons. There were now enough degree engineers, aviation and production line mechanics and inventor-types to keep Aarens from getting cocky while speeding up their output.
With enough handheld communication units available, scouting teams could report in to Mitford on any unusual occurrences, as Worrell had just done, and the sergeant had actually been able to keep 'business hours'.
"I'll get enough time yet,' Mitford had recently confided to Worrell on a trip through Camp Rock to Camp Silo, 'to lead a recon group myself." 'Is that what you'd really like to do?" Worrell had asked, since it was the first time he'd ever heard something akin to a complaint from the man.
"All this brandnew world, and everyone else is getting to see it first!" Mitford had flung up his hand in frustration. 'Well, I get closer to it all the time." Then he'd grinned. 'And I get less and less paperwork to do." So now Mitford had more time to spend on organizing the teams and sending expeditions in every direction, trying to locate more bases, especially to replace Camp Rock which was established just above a deep gorge that showed the scars from centuries of spring flooding. Zainal and Kris Bjornsen were on just such a scouting mission now, hoping to find a site that was not an installation of the Mech Makers' or the 'Farmers', as many people were beginning to call them because of the agricultural emphasis of the planet.
Worrell packed the boots back into the sack, but he peered more closely at the plate. There did seem to be round indentations on one end: possibly touch points. He counted nine - as many as a numeric pad, and was sorely tempted, but decided against any whimsical experimentation. He'd sent out the recall sequence and Zainal and Kris should be back in a few days.
\*\*
· The team were at that time in a state of exultation, for they had managed to complete a difficult ascent up an irregular cliffmass and now looked down into a long valley that bore no traces of the neatness which typified the land the Mech Makers farmed.
Their ascent had been a quick decision, prompted by certain anomalies that both Zainal and Whitby, the mountaineering expert of the team, had noticed. The first was a stream bubbling vigorously from what seemed like a solid rockface.
Investigating, they found the stream had bored a channel through the stony barrier.
"That's not the kind of rock that water erodes,' Whitby said.
"It was carved somehow." The second curiosity was that, in Whitby's estimation, the high mound of rubble that barred their way could not have been caused by a natural landslide or depression, and he called their attention to the top of the cliffs which did look shorn.
"Could have been an earthquake,' Kris had suggested.
"We've seen no other subsidence on our way here,' Basil Whitby had said, shaking his head and glancing along the cliffs on either side. "Not a landslide, not with that kind of stone." Then he grimaced at the tumbled rocks of the barrier.
"Don't see any kind of a road leading up here,' said Sarah, swinging around to be sure.
"As if mechanicals left any tracks with those air cushions,' Joe Marley reminded her, and she made a face at him. 'Not even a mark where a big mother would have parked for a time."
"Animals do leave tracks,' she replied.
"And we haven't seem many of them lately, now have we?" he said in goodnatured sparring.
"There have to be other animals than loocows, rocksquats,
nightcrawlers and those vicious avians. Even I know that much about
ecological balance." 'Maybe,' and Leila Massuri's tone was cautious,
'that barrier's there for a good reason." She and Whitby were the new
members of the Kris-Zainal team. Leila contributed
\_d
more to the pot with her crossbow prowess than to discussions.
"Keeping something in? Or out?" Joe asked, accepting the premise.
"We find out,' said Zainal and began to pass out appropriate equipment for scaling the barrier. Though the air cushion of their all-terrain vehicle allowed it to traverse very rough ground, the gradient of the rocky obstacle in front of them was too acute.
They were far better equipped now for explorations that they had been in the initial days after being dumped on Botany. Leila slung her crossbow across her back and made sure the quarrel pouch was fastened, while Kris loaded her pouch with pebbles for her sling and slung the rope coil Zainal handed her over one shoulder. Whitby had fashioned himself a proper climbing pick which he slid into the loop at his belt, then stuffed pitons into thigh pockets and secured the short compound bow and quiver of arrows to the harness on his back. Sarah and Joe had slings as well as boomerangs, a type of equipment that was becoming more popular; Fek and Slav armed themselves with lances and hatchets. They all carried blanket rolls and a small sack with food and water.
The climb up the irregular and often shifting cliffside had taken most of the morning, but the view at the top was more than worth the effort. Below them lay a peaceful valley, obviously undisturbed by the agricultural mechanicals that dominated the slopes behind them. At the narrow end of the valley they could see a distant waterfall, its descent a murmur as it fell into a small lake. The stream leading from it meandered down the far, lower side of the valley and blundered into the cliff, answering the question of its origin. The valley floor was interspersed with flat grasslands and some of the odd-looking thickets that in their season would bear edible berries. But the most unusual feature was the little groves of what Kris called lodgepole trees: straight tall trunks that flattened at the very top into a thick, flat crest of narrow branches fanning out, and were covered in needles during the warmer weather. Specimens did grow in some of the hedgerows that lined the mechanicals' fields but only as single trees, not in copses like these, and certainly not as many groves as could be seen from their vantage point.
A cool, pungently scented breeze cooled their sweaty faces.
"It's as good as Shangri-la,' Sarah McDouall said, beaming down at the valley. 'It's lovely. So peaceful, so . . ." 'Secret?" Joe supplied. 'I wonder what else we'll find down there." 'Why, there's space for hundreds here,' she said, ignoring his implicit pessimism.
"Hmmmm,' Zainal murmured, obviously sharing Joe's caution.
"Slav?" he asked the Rugarian, who was shielding his eyes as he surveyed the valley.
Slav shrugged.
"Fek?" Zainal turned to the Deski, the only one who showed no exertion from the difficult ascent, but the Deskis were such natural climbers that Kris had wondered if their home planet was nothing but perpendicular surfaces. Actually, their oddlyshaped hands and the soles of their feet became slick with a sort of adhesive substance which gave them purchase on sheer surfaces, and their unusually jointed arms and legs permitted them to assume postures that would have broken human limbs.
Fek had assumed her intensive listening posture, almost as if her hearing organs were extending themselves from the side of her head, wide open to experience the slightest of sounds.
"Wind. Water. Small noises,' she said, shaking her head to indicate a lack of obvious danger. 'No livings." Without waiting for Zainal's signal, she started to descend. He shifted the heavy coil of rope he carried, rubbed the sweat off his face and followed.
Fek found the easiest descent for the rest of the party, zigzagging down some of the sheerer boulders which she would have managed quite easily with her natural advantages. But she, too, stopped where sheer-sided stone angled sharply outward.
"I'd say that looks like something was meant to stay in there,' Kris said.
"Twentyfive metres slanted at fifteen degrees or more,' said Whitby. 'So we rappel down." He unloosed his pick, found a piton and started hammering it in while Zainal removed the coil from his shoulder to rig it for the drop.
Once again, Kris thought as she took her turn at the descent, that silly survival course comes in handy in my new life on Botany. All of them, even Fek, grinning for all she was worth as she rappelled, made it safely to the floor of the valley.
"Leave,' Zainal said when Whitby would have released one of the three ropes used. He grinned. 'If something is kept in, we can leave quickly." Leila immediately armed herself with her crossbow and looked around warily.
"It's full daylight, Lee,' Kris said reassuringly. 'So even if our thudding on the ground here aroused anything, we're safe as long as the sun shines. Me, I'm for that stream." One bend of the meandering water was not far from them and, though Leila did not put up her crossbow, they all approached the stream. Sarah, as team medic, used one of the testing strips on a cup-full.
"Potable,' she said and dipped her cup back in to bring it full to her mouth, though she sipped carefully.
The other humans did likewise, then rinsed their sweaty faces in the cooling water. Fek and Slav, who never seemed to need much water, remained alert, listening and looking for any dangers unseen from the height. Then both knelt to take a sample mouthful directly from the stream, as they preferred to drink.
"This place looks almost too good to be true,' Sarah said, breaking off a branch from a nearby shrub and smelling it. 'One of the burnables, and growing all over the place,' she said with an expansive gesture of her hand up the length of the valley.
They could just make out the waterfall through the copses of lodgepole trees. 'Plenty of stone, too, ready to build from,' she added, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at the rocks behind them.
"Not bad at all,' said Joe Marley, already closely examining a handful of the ground vegetation and discarding the varieties he recognized. He was the team's botanist and medic.
"It is very pretty place here,' Leila Massuri said in her careful English, her contralto voice making inflections which were almost musical. She gazed around her with an almost dreamy smile on her unusual face. Maltese by birth, but with both parents of mixed blood, she had been corralled by the Catteni in a demonstration raid in Marseilles. 'So why was it blocked off?" 'We look closer,' Zainal said, pointing at Joe, Sarah and Whitby. 'You go right with Slav,' he said. 'Rest of us go left and meet at falls." Zainal gestured for Fek and the rest to accompany him as he waded across the stream, not more that knee-height at this point. Once on the other side, they spread out in a loose line, checking the ground, noting which of the low bushes would bear fruit in season and generally sizing up the environment.
"No rocksquats. That's odd,' Kris said when they had beentravelling a few moments. She pointed to rockyprojections where the stupid creatures would be likely to perch, since they enjoyed the sun.
"There were some,' Zainal said, and pointed to a little heap of bones just visible through the branches of a low shrub.
"No nightcrawlers then,' Leila Massuri said with a shudder.
She was a Fourth Drop, and remembered all too keenly that the person next to her had been absorbed by a nightcrawler before her horrified eyes just as she was waking up.
"I'm not sure I like the possibility of more omnivores,' Kris said although, in truth, they hadn't seen much in the way of any other hostile creatures in their considerable travels, except for the aerial marauders which either Slav or Fek warned them about. They either camped in the vehicle or on rock heights to avoid earth-bound scavengers.
"Things do die of old age or of falling off high places,' suggested Leila.
"This stream gets swollen, to judge by the height of these banks,' Kris said, pointing to them.
"Spring melt,' Whitby said. They could not see the higher ranges, now hidden by the unbroken line of cliff surrounding this valley; mountains which were snow-clad all year round.
Sarah McDouall had quipped that it must have annoyed the mechanicals to have so much unusable uphill land. Whitby's face had had a hungry look on it as he surveyed the towering peaks.
"Never did get to the Himalayas,' he had murmured, 'but those buggers'd be great fun." 'Later,' Zainal had said, but grinned as if he understood the mountaineer's yearning.
Now the Catteni stopped to squat beside dried dung, partially covered by dirt. Grooves did suggest the claw-marks of a considerable-size animal.
"Old,' Zainal said, finding a stick and poking the droppings.
"Big,' Kris remarked, and looked around the glade.
Zainal picked up the desiccated patty and dropped it into the sack he kept for fire makings. Then they all continued on their sweep, more vigilant now. More dried dung was found, but all examples seemed to be old and Kris was somewhat reassured.
"Reminds me of a place I went to once in Yellowstone Park,' she said when they reached the far side of the valley and its stony barrier. Craning her head she peered upward, looking for cave entrances, but saw nothing, not even a ledge to give access to even the most agile creature. 'We could use this wall for backing and build outward,' she said. 'If we could get one of the vehicles to manoeuvre through the pass, so we could transport all that stone someone dumped across it." 'We'd need explosives to move the lower rank,' Whitby said.
"They were planted there to stay." 'To keep what in?" asked Kris with a shiver for whatever that might be.
Zainal shrugged but, by the way he was examining everything, Kris rather thought he could see the valley as a human settlement too; it could accommodate several hundred folks, leaving plenty of elbow room. Of course, first they had to find out why the valley had been so tightly sealed.
Despite that consideration, she found herself looking for likely home sites. Imagine, a proper house at ground level . . .
maybe even steps-to a sleeping loft . . . one with plenty of head room. She glanced over at Zainal's large figure quartering the ground ahead, searching, searching. Considering how much time he'd spent in space, he seemed completely at ease on planetary surfaces. He looked over his shoulder and beckoned for her to join him.
More bones, larger ones this time.
"A six-footed animal. Too small for loo-cow,' and he held up what looked like a handful of thigh bones, then a smaller one that fitted neatly into a clean socket. He rubbed his fingers across the bones. 'Chewed, too." He pointed to obvious toothmarks. 'Wouldn't want to meet that on a dark night!" Kris grinned, as much for his use of the slang expression as for a sentiment she could immediately share.
He fiddled with the bones, making her hold the front set of legs, trying to get a size on the animal. The skull had been smashed into fragments, including the jawbone, although a scattering. of molars and pointed teeth did not suggest to Kris that this had been a herbivore.
"That should please the biologists,' Whitby said, joining them.
Leila and Fek peered over his shoulder. 'They said there had to be other carnivores for ecological balance." He picked up a fragment of the cranium and tapped it. 'Hmmm. Thick. And yet crushed like a melon. Wouldn't like to meet what did it." 'A sentiment we all share,' Kris remarked dryly, letting the bones fall out of her hands. Several smaller ones shattered. 'Been here a long time if they're that brittle."
"Hmmmm,' was the response from Zainal and Whitby.
"Caves, possibly?" Zainal added.
"Haven't seen any yet,' Kris said cheerfully, and then Zainal had them spread out again to search.
Though they came across more scattered bones, some in advanced states of decay, nothing else came to light. They reached the lake first, as the other scouts were finishing their explorations of the other side which was wider at the point.
Suddenly Joe let out one of his ear-splitting Australian howls and
gestured broadly for them to come on the double to the cliff wall where
he was standing. Zainal strode into the stream without a second
thought, but Whitby pointed to a convenient
i scatter of rocks and boulders to get the rest of them across the water. Zainal was up to his chest in the centre of the stream, but he was already running towards Joe and the others before the rest of them managed to cross.
"I don't like the look of this,' doe said, holding aside branches so that the skeleton grotesquely draped on the scattering of rocks could be seen.
"It's human,' Sarah said. 'Or was." She was pale under her tan.
Kris peered briefly, enough to see that the skull was human but not all the rest of it. No leg-or arm-bones, just the torso.
Slav and Fek looked and nodded.
"Bird,' Fek suggested, gesturing the swoop of the predatory avians.
"Could be." Joe cleared his throat and let the bushes fall back.
Suddenly everyone was craning their necks back to scan the top of the precipice.
"Ah, they'd have attacked before now if they were nearby,' Joe said.
'You haven't heard anything, have you, Fek?" he asked
Fek shook her head and pointed above her head. 'I hear high."
"We do know that the avians always come down from the mountains when they attack,' Sarah said, her colour returning as she and the others moved towards the cover of the nearest copse of trees.
"I listen good,' Fek added, touching both ear holes.
"We found some lots of other bones, all old, some even partially embedded in the dirt,' said Joe. He sighed as he let his gaze rove across the valley. 'Too bad. It'd be a great place to set up a permanent headquarters." Zainal was shading his eyes from the now noon-high sun to look at the straight cliffs that formed the boundaries. He shook his head. 'We must know why,' and he pointed back to the barred pass. He clapped his big hands together, startling everyone so that he grinned. 'There are fish in stream. Let's catch and eat. We have time." So far all the brook and lake denizens had been edible, with the one exception of a multilegged bottom-hugging worm that appeared only in stiller water and was toxic.
The dung that had been collected gave off such a stench that they doused the fire with water and started a new one in a fresh place, using windfall branches. Whitby rivalled everyone else by catching the orange-gray scaled fish with his bare hands.
Everyone ate their fill, and there was enough cooked left over to save for the next day.
Worrell and Chuck Mitford were enjoying a few pints of beer by the fire when they both heard a growling bark. With no dogs on Botany, the unexpected noise had both of them reaching for their daggers while Mitford roared for a sentry's report.
"Nothing's moving, Sarge,' the call came back. 'And First Moon's bright enough to see klicks in all directions." A second bark, which had at least three syllables twit, sounded again, this time with a hint of impatience. Instantly Worrell reached for the pouch in which he had put the thin plate that Mic Rowland had discovered.
"How did Leon say you operated one of these things?" Worrell whispered at Chuck.
Chuck took the object from his secondin-command and depressed the first button. 'Tikso dams. Chouma,' he said in a guttural voice as if he were expectorating rather than speaking.
He put the unit down on the table beside them and glared at it.
"Didn't know you spoke any Catten, Sarge,' said Worrell, impressed.
"Whoever it is wants a report. I told him later. And to be quiet,' said Chuck Mitford. 'At least, I hope that's what he'll understand I said. Where's Zainal?"
"Still hunting safe places up in the hills."
"I'll see can I reach him,' Mitford said and connected his unit to the aerial socket that served Camp Rock, high up on the cliff.
He let it ring awhile. 'Asleep or out of range. Well, let's keep after him until he does answer. Come to think of it, Leon Dane knows more Catten that I do. At least enough to stall them until Zainal gets back."
Worrell went to the infirmary caverns. He had already been given the injector and drugs, but had put them aside until Zainal could tell him what he might know about the contents of the vials.
"So someone's looking for those the midnight beasties ate up for us,' Leon said with a faint grin. 'Someone forgot to brief the landing party about Botanical life-forms. And Zainal went to such trouble to give 'em a demonstration. Served 'em right.
D'you think they were here to collect Zainal?" 'Only reason I can think of for them to send four,' Chuck Mitford said with a snort.
"That wouldn't have been enough of a guerrilla gang to do doodly against us, but sufficient to snatch a man. Zainal did mention that he was wanted back home for a duty of some sort he'd rather avoid. Maybe they want him badly enough to come after him." 'Lemme see the unit,' Dane asked and Chuck handed it over.
"Oh, that's the idiot kind. Already preset to its destination.
So what do you want me to report?"
"Do they give a damn if the team landed safely?" Chuck asked.
"I doubt it." 'Then let's say that they're hiding out. Haven't located Zainal . . . no, make that target personnel." 'Emassi?" Worrell suggested and Chuck nodded agreement to the change.
Leon scribbled what looked like hieroglyphics on a sheet of paper.
"You can write it, too?" Worrell asked, impressed.
"A little,' Leon said with a wry grin. In his professional capacity as a surgeon working on injured Catteni under the eyes of their medics, he had been in a very good position to pick up the language as well as aid the subversive elements in Sydney.
"Most of what I learned is either medical or military. I can't ask for my aunt's pen on the table or order a meal. But I can spout real good Emassi-like orders." He scribbled something else, this time in English. "How does this sound, Sarge?: "Emassi not here.
Moving to find. Report tomorrow this time. Do not contact."'
the day,' Chuck said thoughtfully. 'That'll give us some time at any rate. You can say that much?" 'Too right,' Leon said, grinning broadly. 'Most fun I've had all week." They went outside and up to the top of the Rock for a clearer message. The moon shone down on the trio.
"Right out in the bright light, too,' Leon said, shaking his head and grinning. Then he sobered, depressed the appropriate 'seed' stud and, with his free hand clutching at his throat, growled out the message in a hoarse whisper.
He released the stud, counting. Then he shrugged, depressed the stud and repeated the message. This time a single word answered his effort.
"What was that?" Chuck asked.
Leon gave them a conspiratorial grin. 's'Kotik". Means "Accept". Nothing about doing a good job or anything, but Catteni don't expect thanks, do they?" He handed the unit back to Chuck Mitford, and they were starting back down when he had a sudden thought.
"Hey, maybe I should have sounded feminine. You did say you think one of the victims was a female?" 'One set of boots was much smaller,' Worrell said. 'But,' and he scrubbed his head, 'I don't think women lead many Catteni commando units." 'No,' and now Chuck's tone was smug, 'though they might just have sent along someone Zainal might be glad to see about now . . . as bait."
"Guessed wrong, didn't they?" Leon remarked in a level tone.
It was when Kris, Sarah and Leila decided to have an afternoon swim that more skeletons were found, gleaming white bones in the shallows among the thick water reeds that grew there.
"That does it,' Sarah announced, refastening her coverall.
"Makes me wonder what the fish we ate had for lunch."
Leila looked slightly nauseous.
"Sarah!" Kris exclaimed. Medics often displayed a ghoulish sense of humour. She did have to swallow before she added, 'We'd better see what kind these are." Zainal waded in to fetch some of the nearer skeletons which were identified as loo-cow, rocksquat, Turs and another human skull, still partly attached to its neck. It was Leila who found the odd scales and quills. No-one had taken any more than a glancing look skywards for any hovering avian predators, but everyone agreed they didn't seem to be feathered so perhaps they used the lake for bathing or removing damaged parts in a grooming ritual.
"But they could just fly in and out. That barrier wasn't for them,' Sarah said, frowning over the puzzle.
"It must have been something real bad for the Farmers to want to keep it contained,' Kris said, trying not to shiver. She glanced up to see the position of the sun. 'I move we get back to the vehicle and out of here. I don't want my next place of residence to be that lake."
So they put out the fire and retraced their steps to the barrier.
"Start up,' Zainal told the other. 'Whitby, with me. I look closer at stream . . ." The two trotted down to the other end of the valley. Kris, Leila and Slav made the first ascent on the ropes. When Kris gratefully reached the top, she could see Zainal and Whitby having quite a gawk where the stream went through the bluff. The water boiled up over whatever outlet there was, for its flow made a wide pond at cliff base. She wondered what Zainal had hoped to learn from scrutiny.
As soon as Fek, Sarah and Joe joined them, they continued on up the cliff, reaching the top just as Zainal and Whitby surmounted the slanted barrier and began to unhitch the rappel equipment. The others started down to the vehicle, but Kris waited for Zainal and Whitby.
"Well?" she asked as Zainal pulled himself up beside her.
"Something could swim through underneath,' he said.
"Have to have been damned desperate to take such a risk,' Whitby added, 'unless you've some amphibious species here you haven't told me about yet."
"On Earth large carnivores will swim,' said Kris.
"On Earth,' Whitby agreed, nodding as he mopped his forehead and face. He looked back down at the daunting rockface. 'If whatever it was had nothing left to eat, even the fish, possibly it would take such a risk. But I would still rather not meet whatever it was. Let's take a look at that aerial . . ."
portable.
"Worrell here. You guys all right?" The Aussie was shouting into the speaker.
"Yes, all right. Deep in a valley all day,' Zainal explained.
i !
"Oh. Well, a problem dropped in here the other night,' he said.
"And you're needed back as fast as you can make it, Zainal." 'What sort of problem?" Zainal asked, but Kris thought from the twinkle in his eyes that he had some idea. 'They look. for me?"
"We think so. Only they weren't briefed proper."
"Nightcrawlers?" Zainal asked, and grinned when Kris shuddered.
"You bet,' and Worrell sounded pleased. 'Only someone's asking question on the portable that was about all that was left of them . .
. bar the shoes. Leon told whoever called that you weren't here and they were still looking."
If Zainal hadn't been grinning like a loon, Kris would have gasped.
"Hell no, Zainal,' and Worrell's tone was indignant. 'Chuck's got an idea." 'I wonder if we have same one,' Zainal said, winking at Kris.
"We come as fast as possible."
"Tell you when we get there." Worrell disconnected and Zainal replaced the unit in its pouch, fastening the flap.
"Should I know what I just heard?" Whitby asked respectfully, but his curiosity was apparent.
"Why not?" Zainal said with a shrug and nodded to Kris to explain. Whitby had breath for a good chuckle over 'I drop, I stay,' and Zainal's demonstration about the nightcrawlers and showing the hand unit that proved the planet possibly had another owner.
The question which Whitby did not ask, nor did Kris volunteer to answer since she didn't know it, was what duty was so important that Zainal had to be abducted by stealth. They had reached the ground now.
"We go back to Camp as fast as we can,' Zainal said.
"We're five days' away,' Joe protested.
"We took side trips up here,' Zainal reminded him. 'We take turns.
Drive all night."
"Hey, it sounds important."
"Dirty work with cross feet?" asked Zainal.
"Cross roads,' Kris corrected, in spite of realizing that he was being deliberately obtuse.
"Sticky wicket, huh?" Joe said and neatly finished recoiling the ropes. 'Let's move out. I'll drive first. I've had a breather." Both Slav and Fek liked to stand up in the front of the load bed of the vehicle, hanging on to the frame, staying alert and watchful.
Sarah and Leila sat in the wide front seat with Joe.
Kris, Whitby and Zainal arranged themselves on the bedrolls in the back. Zainal then slid down until he could put his head on Kris's shoulder, then folded his arms and promptly went to sleep in the smooth-riding aircushioned ground machine.
They arrived back in Camp Rock by sunset of the next day, having pushed the vehicle to the limits of its panel-supplied power. Joe was of the opinion that the two full moons had been bright enough to keep the power levels high, but Whitby and Leila had argued the point. It made an interesting discussion during the long hours of the trek, when they halted only long enough for natural requirements and to bag a few rocksquats.
Joe turned out to be correct about additional power, though the vehicle had slowed down considerably.
The sentry hailed them on their approach and rang the bell so that Worrell and Mitford were awaiting them in the parking area, one of Camp Rock's newer amenities. A big haulier and a small runabout, reserved for Mitford's use, occupied the space.
"We heard the transport,' Zainal said as he swung down from the driver's seat. 'Another Drop?" 'Yeah, another thirteen hundred reluctant colonists,' Mitford said with a grimace.
.: i' 'Your species shouldn't be so difficult to manage,' said Zainal with a grin.I 'We also had to answer another message,' Mitford said, showing his teeth.
"Tell me,' Zainal invited.
"We'll just unpack,' Joe said tactfully and gestured to the others.
Zainal caught Kris's arm as Mitford and Worrell started up the stone steps that led to the height's office. The two-roomed stone building had been built on a levelled-off area, well above any spring flood that might rampage down the gorge that split Camp Rock. Aerials and solar panels were attached to the slated roof of the goodsized facility. A desk, occupied as much by Mitford as Worrell in his capacity as Rock's manager, commanded a view down the length of the camp from the main wmdow. From the other, smaller one, the view was across sloping stone to the first of the Farmers' fields.
who was to report." Zainal shook his head, his expression inscrutable. 'I said,' and he put one hand on his windpipe to alter the sounds he made: '"Mektichak Zainal obli. Tik escag eridi.
Tikso tag"." He removed his hand to speak less growlingly.
"Which, I think, translates into "Moves Zainal much. Hear returns soon.
Report then."' Leon raised an eyebrow at Zainal.
It wasn't often that the big Catteni burst out laughing as he did now, grinning broadly and obviously also enjoying some sort of a personally satisfying private joke.
"You don't know it, Leon, but I am always moving a lot. You said exactly what they will believe. Where is the unit?" Leon slid it out of a chest pocket. 'Since I'm the only one who knows enough Catten to answer, I've been in charge of it." The communicator looked much smaller in Zainal's large hands and could be slipped into a pocket or down a boot.-He examined it carefully, his smile broadening agaih.
"This is very good. Very good,' and Zainal's eyes sparkled with Mitford gestured for all to sit on the stools and benches amused triumph.
provided. 'Leon's coming,' he added. 'Lemme fill you in." Zainal nodded.
"The unit buzzed off shortly before we heard the transport angling in for a landing." 'Usual field?" Zainal asked.
Mitford nodded. 'They've got that much right at any rate.
Leon got a message that suggested the commando group was to meet with the transport and deliver your unconscious body.
Certainly there was a group hanging around near the hedges doing nothing, apart from peering around and listening to their wrists a lot."
'What did you say back?" 'Leon told them the search continued." Zainal
frowned slightly. 'What words did he use?" 'I knew the right ones,'
Leon said, entering just then and leaning against the door frame to
catch his breath from the climb. 'I always had a team watching me
operate on any wounded Catteni. I got used to some of the distinctions
Emassi made. So I adopted a hoarse whisper in case it was the female
"These were found in a boot,' and Dane very carefully laid the other three items on the table.
Zainal held one vial up to the light and snorted. 'Vikso. In very small doses, it will be useful to you, Dane. Makes muscles weak,' and he pretended to sag like a limp string puppet before he handed it back to the surgeon.
So, they knew they'd have to knock you out,' said Chuck Mitford, tipping back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest. 'Care to tell us why they'd go to this much trouble over you?" Zainal chuckled again, still very pleased, and seeming to ignore the question.
"This will be useful,' he said and waggled the unit before replacing it carefully on the stone slab that was the sergeant's worktop. 'Now we can set traps. Two would be the most we could get." 'Two ships?" Kris caught on first, though Mitford's chair returned to all four legs as he leaned across the desk, looking so eager and hopeful that Kris caught her breath.
'two?" Worrell exclaimed, amazed at the audacious prospect.
Zainal nodded, leaning across the table towards the sergeant.
"You have captured me. You, Kris, will speak this in a message, but I have fought hard and killed two. You need fast scout before vikso,' and he tapped the vial, 'wears off. They must land where Emassi scout met us. They must land silent,' and he dropped his voice to a dramatic whisper, 'with no lights, and walk to edge of field to help you move captured Zainal."
"But I don't know enough Catten."
"You will when you send message,' Zainal said, and the look he gave her told her she was in for it now, but she managed a grin. After all, she'd been teaching him English: turnabout was fair play. 'You will have made my capture." The?" Kris looked around the room at the others, grinning at her almost maliciously. 'Cut it out, you guys,' she said with an edge to her voice.
"At ease, Kris,' Mitford said, understanding her flare of resentment, and then focused his attention back on Zainal.
There was no question that the sergeant would do much to possess a useful spaceship, but he was not totally reassured by such sketchy details. 'So you get them out of the scout, and preferably disposed of by the nightcrawlers, and then what?"
"We have one scout vessel."
"And no reprisals?" Mitford was extremely sceptical.
"No reason because the ship will take off . . ." and everyone exclaimed at that and Zainal glanced about, grinning again. 'It leaves to make them believe what will happen next." He turned to Kris. "You will manage to make one more message . . . and then . . ." He slid one finger across his throat and grinned.
"You overpower us again?" Kris rolled her eyes incredulously.
"Boy, will they buy that?" 'Buy it?" Zainal asked. His command of idiom and grammar was increasing, but was not yet as good as his accent.
"Believe it,' she substituted, and Zainal grinned.
"On Barevi I showed you I am difficult to catch."
Uris laughed. 'All right. So I manage a message out before you
"And I alter course . .
"YOU alter course?" Mitford asked, suspicious, narrowing his eyes and staring hard at Zainal.
"Certainly, so that moon hides ship to get back here." Then Zainal grinned again. 'I will bring Kris with me . . ." and Mitford glowered more deeply, 'and Bert Put and the woman, Raisha Simonova who flew in space from your planet. They learn to use the ship. It is very simple to fly. You may come, too,' he added with a grin and a bow to Mitford.
"Thanks, but no thanks,' Mitford said with a wave of his hand and a fleeting expression of distaste. 'I'll stick to good ol' Terra Firma. But taking the spacers is a damned good idea." 'I'll go in your place, serge,' said Worrell, raising his hand, his expression avid for the experience. 'If I could . . ." he added hopefully. 'We don't want too many people in on this, do we?" Mitford shook his head, fretting over flaws bathe plan, then caught Zainal's eyes again. "Your guys won't come looking here for the scout?" 'Scout does not leave much trail, and they will not be quick to look around here,' and he circled his finger in the-air, meaning Botany. 'They will start looking where I have friends to hide me.
If they come back, the scout will be hidden with other metallic stuff at Camp Narrow. It will not be noticed in a scan." Then, after a moment of silence when the others were thinking the plan over, he added, 'The last place they will look for me is here!" He pointed an emphatic finger at the ground as he grinned at them.
"Well, I'll buy that,' Mitford agreed in a droll tone, with the beginning of a smile on his lips.
"It will work,' Zainal said with such conviction that Mitford began to straighten up from his crouch across the table. The Catteni paused, a smile tugging at his mouth. 'Then . . ." and he had everyone's attention, 'the next transport ship to arrive will be surprised and we will have two to use." There was a long moment of surprised reflection, but Mitford broke it. 'Your people can't be that stupid,' he began . .
.
"No?" Zainal said, raising his eyebrows with a sarcastic expression. 'The transport uses only Drassi. Not Emassi. The transports that come here are all in bad condition." He grinned again.
"Used over often. So if the ship explodes after takeoff . . ." and he spread his hands at such a simple ruse.
"The ship will explode?" Mitford asked, jutting out his chin.
"An explosion can be made with metal left in space to prove accident. That is why it is very necessary to get the scout ship first. It can dump garbage into space. Then, we have two ships."
"Only one of them is not in good shape,' Mitford pointed out.
Zainal shook his head in denial. 'Many people here are trained to work with machinery. I am not just pilot. I know how to . . ." He tapped an impatient finger on the worktop as he searched for a word, 'to . . . repair as well." He grinned. 'I have faith in your people, Mitford. Have faith in me." 'Jesus, Zainal, I do, believe me,' Mitford said forcefully, slamming both palms flat on the table. "And I think that goes for all here." That vote of confidence was immediately seconded. 'And it would be great to know we're not stuck any more on .
. ." He paused, looked surprised and then laughed.
"You know, I'm not as eager to leave Botany as I used to be." He brushed away that candid remark. 'Won't the Emassi retaliate on Earth when they've lost both a scout and a transport here on Botany?" 'I don't think they would,' Leon Dane spoke up with a wry grin. 'The Catteni I met considered us a short step above aborigines. Our sabotage and revolts are annoyances that will stop when the leaders are all rounded up and dropped here." 'Or elsewhere." Zainal disconcerted them all by that qualification. 'There are other planets that need to be . . . tested for occupation. Not this one alone. I do have one worry,' and he glanced at Worrell.
"I'm almost glad to hear that,' Mitford answered drolly.
"What?" 'That Lenvec, who came in the first scout ship, speaks to a higher commander that we have technology not sent with us.
That this planet is in use. That is another reason to capture me again."
Zainal looked dubious. 'He can be persuasive but,' and now he gave a snort, 'many Catteni believe only what they like to believe."
"Just like some humans I know,' Leon said in a caustic tone.
"So, we might even have something to defend ourselves with if the Farmers come looking for us,' said Worrell, looking relieved.
Zainal shook his head. 'Only scout has weapons. But two is better than nothing, and there are other uses for a scout."
"Our own exploratory missions?" Mitford asked.
"I myself will like to know who the other owners are. Don't you?" and Zainal dropped yet another startling proposal. He grinned.
"Also, it is not the Catteni who are your real enemy. It is the Eosi.
Who farms this planet, who left that command tower, may be stronger, wiser and better than Eosi." He leaned back then, watching Mitford's expression changing as he absorbed this concept. 'I do not want Eosi controlling my people any more. Or yours. This is the first time I think there is the chance to end Eosi." 'Well, I'll be fucked,' Mitford murmured, dropping his shoulders as he relaxed in complete surprise at Zainal. He began to grin and a laugh started in his belly, a laugh that was joined by Leon Dane's yowl of approval and Worrell's expression of sheer incredulous delight.
"So that's what you hatched up on the way back here last night,' Kris said, eyeing him drolly.
"Isn't that taking on one helluva lot?" Mitford asked, but the gleam in his eye and the jut of his jaw suggested a measure of approval.
Mitford slapped the table again and gave another burst of laughter. 'Yeah, why not?" 'We can try . . ." Leon said, swatting his thigh with one hand in emphasis. 'By God, I want to!" 'Do you think we should?" asked Worrell, hitching his pants with his elbows.
"I mean, they may be mad enough at us for what we've already done to their neat agricultural enterprise . . ."
do you have to pretend the transport explodes? And why do you
have to be careful returning the scout to Botany?"I "We must joke the satellite." 'Joke?" Mitford raised his eyebrows. 'Oh, fool." 'Satellite?" Worrell exclaimed, anxiously.
Zainal held up the slim unit. 'They have one because this relays the messages. A satellite is standard for any colony planet.
It sends in reports. It must send in the right . . . fool it."
t ones so we . . . ah
"Clarify one point for me, will you, Zainal?" Mitford asked and when Zainal nodded, he went on, 'Why do they want you so bad for that duty you don't want any part of?" Zainal gave a harsh laugh. 'I was chosen for it by Eosi. They can choose someone else now."
"Just what is that duty?" Mitford asked, at his bluntest.
The change in Zainal's posture and face, though subtle, sent chills down Kris's spine and caused Mitford to recoil slightly.
"Eosi use your body." Then, with a second almost imperceptible change which emphatically told Kris that he would not elaborate on that subject, he went on, 'So, do we take the scout ship?" His expression altered back to his usual bland one as he looked around at the expectant expressions of Kris, Dane and Worrell before settling his gaze on Mitford. 'That much is possible, but we must act tonight.
Kris must learn what to say.
I need Bert Put and woman. Is that possible?" 'Can do,' Mitford said and reached for the handheld com, tapping out the code for Camp Narrow. "Yo, Latore? Send Bert Put and Raisha Simonova up here on the double, will ye?
Something's come up. We need them before . . ." he glanced at Zainal who held up two fingers, 'second moonrise. Okay?" Then he paused, his eyes flickering with rapid thoughts. 'We'll call this Phase One, and all of it stays among us." The others nodded.
"Phase Two we'll talk about if Phase One works."
"It will work,' Zainal said with absolute confidence.
"Phase Three . . ." and Mitford pointed a finger at Zainal, 'is going to need a lot more thinking."
Zainal was in total agreement.
"Dammit, serge,' said Leon Dane staunchly, 'even the merei, notion of .
. . Phase Three . . . puts heart in me. Think what it.t
can do to the general morale?"
"I do,' and Mitford's voice had dropped to a growl, 'and I don't want even a whisper of a happy smile on your faces when you leave here.
We're doing well enough right now, better all the time, and I don't want to have to deal with false hopes. Let's take it a step at a time." "Don't you mean a phase at a time?" Kris asked, stifling a desire to giggle.
Actually she wanted to cheer wildly for the surge of hope that Zainal's master-plan had personally given her. Securing the first ship would be a big enough coup. Hijacking a transport would prove to everyone on Botany that they could get their own back on the Catteni.
She wasn't at all sure about Phase Three, but having two space-going ships gave them a positive advantage in finding whoever did own Botany.
Would a Catteni scout ship be able to keep up with the monstrous leviathans sent by the Farmers to collect the harvests of Botany?
First, shetold herself firmly, get it, then dream. And, if they were a species that resented having their supply planets taken over by another space-faring power, maybe Phase Three would happen. And both Earth and Catten might get free of Eosian domination.
"Right,' and Mitford gave her an odd smile, 'hijacking spaceships sure beats sitting around waiting for the next Drop-ins." He caught Zainal's eyes and began ticking off details on his fingers. 'You teach Kris what to say to get the scout down here by second moonrise?" Zainal nodded. 'So, if the scout buys it, they come down, leave the ship . .
. only how'll they know you're there to be picked up? I can't volunteer anyone at night out on a field . . ." 'Aircushioned vehicles attract no nightcrawlers,' Zainal said, grinning.
"On the way back,' Kris added, 'we found out that the full moon's enough to keep power up." 'Good point,' and Mitford went on, 'So we've got standins far enough up the field . . ." 'Vehicle will move towards Catteni,' Zainal said, nodding.
"But not fast because they carry heavy load." He thumbed his chest. The." 'Good . . . so there's enough time for the nightcrawlers to attack. What about the Catteni shooting 'em? That Lenvec Emassi saw what nightcrawlers do." Zainal shrugged. 'Winter nightcrawlers are very hungry, very fast and grab feet. Or we can be humane,' and he grinned as he saw the reaction to the word, 'and kill before they know. We have fast and silent weapons. Lance, crossbow, slingshot."
"Won't they leave a man on board?" asked Mitford.
Zainal shrugged. 'I am drugged. It will take two-three to carry me. If is one, once we open hatch, it is over for him." He tapped the knife at his belt.
Mitford made an approving sort of grimace. 'All right . . .
Everything goes according to plan and you, with your crew, take off and do your disappearing act. One small detail. Kris might be useful to lure the pick-up squad down but if you are overcoming a crew, would you not kill off the female first, the one who drugged you?" Zainal slowly nodded his head, perceptive enough to know what Mitford did not spell out. 'Leon speaks Catteni. I cannot talk because they have record of my voice. Leon can give final message." 'point,' end Mitford looked at Kris. 'You understand, don't you?" Kris did, and did not bother to hide the bitterness she felt for such a suggestion.
"You will go to space another time,' Zainal told her, looking from Mitford to her.
"Now, wait a minute, Mitford,' Dane began to protest.
"Leon will speak the necessary dying words,' Zainal said firmly, his eyes still holding Kris's. 'It reassures." 'It had better,' and Kris glared fiercely at Mitford for his insulting contingency.
"Why do you need Bert and Raisha?" Worrell asked.
"They need to have a first lesson in flying a scout. More people who know is better." Zainal put an odd smile on his face. 'And soon." 'I'll buy that,' said Mitford, shifting his eyes anywhere but in Kris's direction. 'Phase One is green for go . . . and definitely top security. Use your team, Zainal for the driving and . . . the executions. Slav and Fek see well in the dark. I'll send Bert and Raisha to you as soon as they get here." Then, in a complete change of voice and manner, 'Did your patrol find anything interesting before you were recalled for this?" Astonished by that 'business-as-usual' switch, even in Mitford, Kris glared at him.
"A very interesting valley,' Zainal said, rising and popping the unit up into his pocket before he picked up the sack of empty boots.
Leon took charge of the medical items. 'Let Joe and others debrief." Then he held out his free hand to'Kris. 'Now, you must to learn to speak like Catten female." 'I thought I'd already done that well enough to fool a Catten,' she said, cocking her head at him and reminding him of the episode when 'she' had suddenly become his 'leaders in front of the Emassi.
"We will improve the fool,' he said and gestured for her to precede him.
"No, joke is the right word in that context,' she murmured, still trying to defuse the anger she felt over Mitford's show of distrust.
The trouble was, she could see his point and that made her madder still.
Surely he couldn't doubt Zainal's integrity?
"After all you've done,' Leon Dane muttered, exiting behind them.
"Not to worry, Leon,' Zainal said.
"I do all the worrying,' said Worrell, but his tone made it obvious that he felt Mitford's precaution of keeping Kris out of space unnecessary.
"Don't worry about tonight,' Zainal said-sounding, to Kris's ears, far too cheerful considering what he had just set into motion.
Then Kris found her mind going back to the echo of his colourless voice
saying, 'Eosi use your body." Small wonder he
r
wanted to avoid that duty. She knew without a doubt that he would have hated possession. And yet, his original comment on 'that duty' had indicated that it was considered an honour for an Emassi, and one they undertook with some pride. Had Botany wrought a great change in him, or was it simply that he now had an escape from such a hideous future? Then she began to wonder how deeply the possession went: was just the body used as a vehicle for these mysterious Eosi? Or did they subsume the entire personality, leaving nothing of the original man?
"Don't think about it,' Zainal said softly, touching her elbow as they reached ground level. 'I do not mean Mitford." Then he hailed the other members of their team, obviously waiting a turn to report to Mitford. 'Go on up. He's waiting to debrief you." 'We're in our usual abode,' Sarah told them as she followed Joe up the steps. "We've already put your gear there." 'Good. We have a small job to do at second moonrise. I tell you later." Kris knew Sarah was dying to ask what that was about, or why had Dane and Worrell also been in Mitford's office for an ordinary scout debriefing.
"We swim first?" Zainal asked as they made their way to their quarters in Michelstown cave.
"You bet. I think better cleaner,' Kris said and besides, not only could she use the immersion in the cold waters of the lake to reduce her anger but she also needed the privacy with Zainal . . . if they had the lake to themselves.
They did, and there had been clean coveralls in their quarters to change into. Zainal put the Catteni communicator carefully in the pouch with his portable unit in his fresh clothing before they left for their wash.
He seemed as eager to make this a special occasion, too. They spent
time soaping each other and then swimming exuberant lengths against the
lake's deep current within the roped safety
l
i area before emerging to dry each other off. That led to a chance to release tension. In moments like these, Kris wondered just how much Zainal really did deviate - no, differ - from other Catteni and even Emassi. She knew that her association with Zainal was not universally accepted. There were incidents of spitefulness with each new Drop but gradually, over the past months, that had altered - with very few exceptions - when most Botany settlers learned just how much they owed to Zainal's presence on the planet. Xenophobia was not encouraged by Mitford or Easley, or any of those involved in introducing the new world to its whilom residents.
Her pleasurable ruminations were rudely interrupted the moment they started back up the stairs to the main cavern, as Zainal barked sounds at her.
"We're starting already?"
"Second moon rises soon. You must be ready."
..
"I gotta know what the sounds mean, Zainal,' she complained.
"Get the sound right and then I tell you meanings,' he said, and repeated the four staccato syllables which she did her best to imitate . . . though the combination of fricatives was enough to choke her.
She'd already noticed that characteristic of the Catten language. Sort of like German with a French accent . . .
or maybe guttural French with a very bad German accent, and a little Chinese for seasoning.
She managed to get the first set of syllables to his satisfaction by the time they reached the main cavern. Food was still being served, and they stood in line for their portions which they took to the privacy of one of the lookout levels, out of earshot from those who were enjoying their meal outside in the mild evening.
Botany's primary had not yet set but the first moon was already above the eastern hills, a pale ghost in what was left of sunlight.
That reminded Kris that time was a constraint.
Because she had always learned better using visual aids, Kris took a sharp pebble and scratched out the phonetics of what Zainal coached her to say . . . as well as she could. Just when she though her mimicry was accurate, Zainal would shake his head.
"What's the matter with that?"
He shook his head again but patted her shoulder. 'You don't I
sound . . . mean."
"Mean?"
He growled out the words she now knew meant, 'Report.
Found Zainal. He fought hard. Two dead. He is drugged. Land where
Lenvec did. No lights. Meet in field." She tried again, as deep in her
throat as she could, stillI realizing that even that wasn't perfect.I
"They might." Then he held up his hand. 'What was it that Leon did to sound hoarse?" 'Grabbed his throat,' end doing that, she repeated the phrases once again, hoping she wouldn't accidentally strangle herself.
"That's it,' Zainal said, bringing both his hands together in a clap of approval. 'Now, listen . . ." and he rattled off a sentence of which she understood three words: 'Report' 'dead' and 'land'.
She told him what she understood.
"You may be asked. You must know what to answer to any question."
"What about "I don't know?"'
"You must sound as if you do know all. So, say first "Chouma" quiet - as if you can be overheard. Then "Schkelk" . . ." and Kris sat upright with surprise because she knew what that meant.
Zainal grinned with surprise as he nodded. 'Say as harsh as you can because you are dealing with a stupid person." 'I heard it said that way often enough on Barevi,' Kris said in a rueful tone, and then spat out the word with appropriate venom. Zainal laughed and gave her hand an approving squeeze.
with you. You sound almost Emassi. After "Schkelk", you repeat the original message to be sure they heard you right the first time. Next you say "Kotik?" in the way which means they are not to question you again?"
"Got it."
He drilled her and drilled her until her voice became hoarse enough without a need to strangle herself. She was surprised to see that first moon was bright and high when he finally said she was good enough.
"Now? You mean, we do it tonight?" She panicked; she wasn't ready yet. 'But Bert and Raisha . . ." 'They are here. I saw them drive in. I brief them, too. So we send message now. All is fresh in your mind. And mouth." He pressed the finger pad and, much too quickly for Kris's peace of mind, a voice responded. Kris gulped and began her well-rehearsed message: overriding one question with as harsh a'Schkelk' as she had ever been given. Zainal nodded assurance, wagging his hand to reassure that the interruption meant nothing. She said 'Chouma' as nastily as she could and went right into the prepared speech again. By this time she was so scared that her final 'Kotik?" came out every bit as savage as the worst Catten guard.
An almost meek 'Kotik' plus two syllables she didn't understand was the response, and Zainal depressed the disconnect button.
"Baby, you were great!" And Zainal tousled her hair and pressed his cheek against hers with great affection. That had become his special caress for her.
"But what was that last bit?"
"Your name. You are, or were, Arvonk."
Kris made a face. 'Awful name."
"Useful to know."
"They answered awful fast."
Zainal considered that. 'They want Zainal bad. They are there till they get me."
"In a bigger ship?"
"The scout is ship enough for this errand."
"They're NOT getting you!" she said, jumping to her feet.
"No, they are not,' he agreed equably and took her hand as they made their way down and across to Mitford's office.
l
Mitford must have been watching because the group he had been speaking to were abruptly dismissed. Surprised, they passed Zainal and Kris on the way up the steps. Bert Put, his lean face alight with anticipation, and Raisha Simonova raced across the gorge to catch up.
They didn't until Zainal and Kris
entered Mitford's office.
"You got the message through?" Mitford asked.
"They come. Kris spoke like good Emassi." Zainal was grinning with obvious pride as he held the door open for her.
"I had to say it often enough to get it right,' she said gruffly
and, with instant solicitude, Mitford offered her a cup of the
herbal tea that everyone had come to enjoy.
Bert and Raisha came in and took seats, but sitting so tenta-I
lively that Kris knew they had no idea why they had been
summoned.
"Have you spoken to your team yet, Zainal?" Mitford asked.
"Not yet. They will do what needs to be done with no
problems."
Mitford grunted and scratched the back of his head. He still
did not look Kris in the eye, which somewhat appeased her.
"May I have paper?" Zainal asked and Mitford quickly supplied him with sheets and a pencil. With his usual quick, sure strokes, Zainal sketched what had to be the interior of the scout.
Bert's eyes grew rounder and wider, while Raisha watched with
avid fascination.
"The interior of a Catteni scout?" Bert asked, incredulous eyes
on Zainal's face. 'How?" he demanded, and Raisha sat right on
the edge of her stool.
"You said nothing to them about Phase One, sergeant?" Zainal
asked as he continued to detail the layout.
Kris covered her grin with her hand because Zainal had
suddenly turned pure-Emassi and Mitford reacted by sitting straight up,
exactly as a subordinate should. He did spare one
droll but respectful look in Zainal's direction before he spoke.
"Bert, Raisha, we mean to catch us a scout ship tonight,' he
ll
l said, and both gawked in disbelief. 'A few nights ago a Catteni ship landed four commando types on a field."
"Oho!" Raisha said and turned pale.
"That would have been their first mistake,' Bert said with a smug grin.
"Their second was in thinking it would be easy to find Zainal,' Mitford said. 'Fortunately nightcrawlers left boots and some other inedible pieces of equipment. So we can lure the scout back down." 'You mean, like tonight?" Raisha shifted forward on her chair, inhaling with deep delight.
Kris couldn't resist jumping in then. 'I told them to land silently, with no lights, to meet me and an unconscious Zainal.
That I needed help moving him as he'd killed two others trying to escape before I could zap him." Raisha looked slightly confused. 'One pair of boots was a lot smaller. Cherchez la femme." 'Oh, gotcha!' Raisha said. 'Only how do we avoid the nightcrawlers?" - Mitford went through the rest of Phase One and the two gave a small round of applause when he finished.
"Look, I did a lot of training but only one short shuttle flight,' Raisha began anxiously.
"I only had two, but one as navigator,' Bert said, though both were clearly dying to go on despite admitting their inexperience.
"You'll do good,' Zainal said, so convincingly that both demurred. 'A scout can carry six at most. Four were set down.
I think only two remain. Both can be told to come help Arvonk, the contact,' and he pointed at Kris. 'Maybe not. So, if we have to get in fast and kill, inside is like this." He walked them through the tight passageways of the scout ship and then, using the drawings he had also made of the control panels, talked them through the short preflight sequences. He mentioned the colours of the relevant toggles and drew diagrams of the icons above other controls. They concentrated so hard that Kris could almost see them absorb words and drawings into their heads.
"We take Leon who speaks Catten to give last warning of trick by Zainal and then . . ." Once again he used his finger across his throat and grinned. 'I will show you how to circle moon and glide to land." He turned to Mitford. 'We hide scout and then I work you hard to learn how to pilot Catten vessel." 'You will?" Bert's eyes were nearly popping out of theirI sockets, but Raisha assumed an aura of complete calm con-I fidence and gave a little sigh. i Zainal had certainly made two people very happy. 'Study hard now. Kris and I prepare our team."
-
For a plan that had been so hastily put together, it could not have gone more smoothly. Kris was shaking badly when the comunit buzzed, but Zainal had rehearsed her in two more phrases.
"Arvonk,' she said, hand on her windpipe, and added in harsh Catteni, 'See you. Glide in. Chouma." Which she added on her own.
They could just make out the ship in the gleam of the rising moon as it settled silently in the corner of the field. A brief glint of muted light was cut off as the hatch closed.
Zainal was pretending to be one of his own captors, Kris the other, while Leon, being tall, was plainly leaning against Zainal as if unconscious. Joe Marley, face blackened, hunched over the controls of Mitford's usual aircushion machine and eased it forward at a slow walking pace.
The first surprised burst from the Catteni was the signal for Fek and Slav to rise from their crouching positions and dispatch both with silent lances. Then Joe increased the power of the vehicle and they whizzed down the field to the scout. Zainal hit the exterior release and Bert and Raisha bolted through as soon as the hatch was wide enough. It was Leon's turn now.
"Stolix Zainal,' he called out, trying to sound triumphant but listening to be sure there was no sound of another person on board.
Zainal pushed past, knife at the ready, and strode with no stealth at all towards the bridge in the prow of the small spaceship.
Those listening outside heard him slide a panel.
"Were only two,' he called back.
"Permission to come aboard, sir?" asked Bert, not quite facetiously, as he adhered to protocol.
his voice.
"I just want a quick look,' she said and followed Raisha and Bert down the passageway. She wondered if scout crews were chosen because they were physically small enough to manoeuvre in such enclosed spaces.
Zainal certainly had to walk sideways.
Raisha was already seated in one position, with Bert running his fingers lightly across this and that panel as if confirming the briefing Zainal had given them. The look on his face made Kris gulp.
He was having a hard time believing that he was actually preparing to go into space again - not as an unconscious passenger this time. She envied them.
"Kris, one last message,' Zainal said, turning her towards the controls. 'Say "Arvonk icts, stolix Zainal. Escag. Klotink."' She muttered them over to herself and then Zainal pointed to the speaker grille and threw up a toggle. She almost forgot to grab her throat, but the fact that she could say the words with authority lent a certain vibrant triumph to her tone. 'What did I say?" Zainal ruffled her hair. 'Arvonk here, have Zainal. Return.
Out."
"Out sounds too much like Kotik, accept."
"Not to Catteni listener. Now, out. The satellite must record the
takeoff." He escorted her down the cramped aisle to the
l
hatch, one large hand on her shoulder. At the hatch, he put his cheek against hers, pressing hard against it before he hit the 'open' button.
Dazed as she was by the night's success and the prospect of being without him for a day or two, she remembered to step carefully down onto the aircushion platform. She lifted one hand to her cheek, feeling his against hers.
Joe drove off, and was picking up speed when Fek abruptly shouted, 'Stop!" Surprised, Joe braked so quickly his passengers had to grab at each other to remain upright and in the vehicle. Fek leaned over the side, peering down at something Kris was very glad she could not see as clearly as the Deski could. With a grab as deft as Whitby's fishing, Fek wrenched aboard something that clattered as it fell. She reached down again, arm at full stretch and her other hand clutching Joe, and got hold of something else. A ray of light illuminated a field that writhed and seethed, for it was a hand beam she had retrieved. Kris groaned and turned her face away. The nightcrawlers bumped in futile search at the floor of the vehicle.
"You see, Slav?" Fek asked, grinning the triangular Deski smile as she focused light on the other side of the vehicle, and the other victim.
"I see. I get." And Slav made two equally speedy retrievals.
One he held up for Kris to see in the light, and his smile was the broadest she'd yet seen on a Rugarian face. 'Stunner." And in a sudden, unexpectedly juvenile manner, he leaned the barrel across his arm and made the hissing sound of a stunner blast.
"Can we leave now?" Joe Marley asked in an edged voice. He didn't wait for an answer, pushing the control bar hard over.
"We could have waited until morning. Crawlers can't digest metal."
"I want tonight,' Fek said with uncharacteristic firmness.
"And stop shining that thing around,' Joe added testily as they sped up a field which writhed and glistened.
Mitford was waiting in the parking area, as if he didn't quite trust the participants to keep the night's event to themselves.
, so his presence
had a certain sobering effect on her. He gestured for them all to go through the silent Camp and up to his office, where he had thoughtfully provided beer and the salty pretzel-like snacks.
Rugarians and Deskis rather liked beer now and then but they were careful not to drink much or often. It had some sort of an effect on their metabolism - not a hangover, according to Leon Dane, but something similar - that they did not cope well with.
Kris took a long pull on her beer, to settle her stomach, and noticed that Joe did too. Mitford just waited, knowing from the looks of their faces that the hijack had been successful.
"I'd say by now I've been killed and Leon is dying,' she began.
"Otherwise it all worked out just as we planned . . . with a little diversion from Fek and Slav." She shuddered as the two now dropped the retrieved equipment on Mitford's desk.
He only glanced at the hand beams, which Kris thought would have been more useful than stunners. But, of course, weapons would come first with a military man. He picked up the stunner, turning it over in his hand, checking the controls and snapping something shut.
"That's the safety on - now - but you guys wouldn't have known." He almost patted it when he put it down and took up the other to render it harmless.
"Bert and Raisha looked as if they were having Christmas,' she went on. 'I had a peek around once Zainal said the coast was clear." Mitford nodded, and she went on. 'Rather cramped.
Good thing Leon isn't an inch taller." Mitford nodded again.
"He will be back, you know." Mitford nodded once more.
She finished off the beer, took a handful of the pretzels and stood up.
'I'm knackered,' she said. 'Good night - and thanks, Joe, Fek, Slav.
We're the best team on Botany!'
Mitford nodded.
It was only when she turned over in her bed that Kris realized she still had the comunit. A lot of good it did her, even if it was a link with Zainal up in the scout ship, faking the next step of Phase One. She slipped it up on to her shelf and then let herself fall deeply asleep.
\*
Mitford took her and the unit down to Drop Field the second day, when Zainal could be expected to return. Camp Rock had vibrated with rumours, although everyone connected with Phase One had done their best to act in a normal fashion. To keep out of the way and not unintentionally give something away, Kris had to pretend she'd sprained her ankle, so Sarah kept getting hot or cold water to reduce the swelling. Joe, Fek and Slav worked on servicing their big exploratory vehicle or writing reports. Leon Dane was reported to have gone off with Zainal, Bert and Raisha for some emergency at Shutdown Camp. But the rumours persisted.
"We'll still surprise them,' Mitford said as he pulled the little aircushion runabout up against the hedge. They'd seen a few of the avian predators on their way there, so he took what cover there was.
"I hope." 'We're alone, serge, so I'll give you a piece of my mind on that stunt you pulled . . ." Kris had the satisfaction of seeing Mitford flush with embarrassment. 'You had no right to insult Zainal that way . . . and even less right to use me as his surety.
I came awful close to hitting you . . ." She cocked her fist in demonstration.
"Goddamitall to hell'ntgone, Kris Bjornsen,' and Mitford recovered sufficiently to snarl at her, 'I had to! I do trust Zainal, quite likely more than I've ever trusted another human being . . . and he is human to me . . ." Mitford's response was as fervent as hers had been, and his eyes were sparking. 'But I can't take any chances. With him or you." He let out a deep snort, rubbing his hands through his close-cropped hair in a gesture of exasperation and, oddly, impotence.
"And I need him more. We,' and he meant the colony, 'need him more." Then, in one of his swift mood changes, he grinned at her, impudent and oddly melancholy. 'I would have liked to be where he is now with you .
. ." He held up both hands quickly in defence. 'Don't take me up wrong, Kris. But you're a fine woman and Zainal's the only man I wouldn't try to muscle out." It was Kris's turn to be embarrassed.
She had vaguely known that Mitford fancied her though, after he kept sending her out with Zainal, she had to decide that she had imagined it.
"I'm sorry, Chuck,' she said, all her previous aggravation dissipating.
'It sort of happened and you kept throwing me at him . .
. more or less." 'More,' and Mitford let a wry expression touch his rough features, 'because I shouldn't. And you were the only one I could trust to keep him alive until the rest of them figured out he was far more valuable alive than dead." 'We owe you a lot, serge,' she said and touched his arm lightly and gratefully. 'But you still made me real mad yesterday." Mitford laughed, stretching his legs out of the side of the parked vehicle.
"Yeah, well, sometimes I gotta do what I gotta do, and there was no time really to call in some of the brass we got around here now." "Ha!" Kris grinned back at him. 'You wanted this one to yourself without any brass involved. But I strongly suspect you'd really better let the others in on planning Phase Two . . ." 'And Phase Three,' said Mitford, turning his head slightly to gaze off down the field its ground cover matted down by the frequent landings of the transport ship and unconscious bodies. He scratched at his head again and looked back at her.
"I'd be stupid, real stupid, not to get the strategists in on Phase Two. But this first one . . . that,' and he jabbed his thumb into his chest, 'was for me! And you,' he added magnanimously. 'In fact, I'm sort of phasing me out."
"Oh, come now, Chuck . . ."
"No, I mean it, Kris. We've getting on to eight thousand here now. I knew what I was doing for five hundred and seventytwo, even two thousand, but . . . goddammit all, I want to be the one finding the good stuff, not leave it up to you and Zainal, or the Doyles or that Scandinavian crowd. Me, Chuck Mitford, wants to have some of the fun."
"Who'll you have on your team?" she asked, as much to cope with his
surprising announcement. She knew very well that
l
i the colony had trained men like Easley and Rastancil, and governors like Ayckburn and Chavell, but Mitford had made the colony work.
"It won't be the same without you in charge. Not at all,' she said with deep regret.
Now he touched her arm lightly and winked. 'You won't know I've been gone until I get back. Frankly, my dear, I'd rather someone else who really knows how to plan big pushes carried the can on Phase Two and Phase Three. But you can bet your last nickel, I'll wangle some part in it."
"You wouldn't be you if you didn't."
"Hell, Kris,' and he was serious again, 'I made a promise to the folks when I took command Day One that somehow we'd get free." He looked off into the distance of morning-mistshrouded fields. 'Free, yes. Leave? I'm not soø'sure about that now." He looked around him at a landscape that no longer seemed alien and unreal.
"I wondered,' she said, encouragingly.
"If we could come to some sort of an agreement with the landlords, either or both, this'd be a great place to build up without all those damned minorities on Earth messing up their own landscapes.
It'd be a fresh start for everyone."
"We've already made one, you know."
He nodded and knuckled his nose. 'That I do. But free. I promised that, and now we've got a chance to deliver." 'Phase Three might mean leaving here if the brass does buy Zainal's master plan and free Earth, and Catten, from those Eosi."
He gave her a narrow-eyed look of pure devilment.
"Hell, gal, there's at least one more war in this marine. I'm not at all sure of the combat zone or the weapons and you better believe,' he waggled his finger at her sternly, 'that I'm not going to be the only one to debrief that Zainal, article, clause and all the fine print. There's an awful lot we don't know about the Catteni, not to mention the Eosi."
And our landlords, the Farmers."
They both heard the faint rumbling sound from above, followed by a more vigorous rustling as Slav, Fek, Joe, Sarah, Whitby and Leila pushed through the hedgerows just beyond them.
Kris managed one startled glance at Mitford, wondering if their very private conversation had been overheard. He winked and pointed to the team, who were panting as if they'd been running a good distance.
"Fek hear,' the Deski said, grinning. 'Scout comes."
Slav pointed and they could see the speck in the sky that rapidly increased in size. The noise became not louder but clearer. Suddenly more avians that anyone watching had ever seen at one time swarmed around it: some bodies dropped as oak seeds might, flittering and twisting groundward: some dropped more quickly as disparate sections, while those left alive did astonishing aerial manoeuvres and flew away as fast as they could.
"That's handy to know,' said Mitford with an approving grunt, and climbed out of the runabout. He stood, arms crossed on his chest, his eyes narrowing as he watched the ship's steady approach.
Whoever it was made a very neat touchdown about twenty yards from the onlookers, with a fmal burst of steamy exhaust from the portside thruster. The hatch moved open and Raisha jumped down, grinning radiantly. She snapped a salute to Mitford, which-he returned.
"Mission accomplished, sir. All present and accounted for." Then she thrust her right arm in the air and let out an exceedingly unmilitary yell.
With everyone else, Kris moved towards her, trying to peer around for a sight of Zainal, and Bert too.
"That Zainal . . . he even let Bert land her,' Raisha cried, shaking
hands with everyone, including Fek and Slav who were now accustomed to
that odd human habit. 'You should see this place from outer space,
serge. It's even more beautiful than Earth. I know that sounds like
heresy, but it's true! And we know where the satellite is, so Zainal
says there'll be an easy
l
way to avoid it by taking different windows out because it's positioned geosynchronously for this area. No way of telling how long it's been up so it's possible that, even if it was in geosynch with this landing area, it might not have seen the Farmers' ships." Kris grinned at Raisha, recognizing the high she was on, but she also kept looking for Zainal.
"Oh, he's still explaining some of the timer points to Bert.
You'll have to drag them out of there,' Raisha said. 'Serge, we got good views of the other continents during our landing orbit. It looks like only one other one is being farmed as intensively as this.
It'd be smart to have a look and see if it isn't wiser to transfer everything to an unoccupied continent and just put the Farms back to the way they were before we got here. Just think how that'd confuse the Catteni."
"Easy, now, Raisha,' said Mitford, grinning at her babble.
"Oh!" She looked over to the others. 'I should just debrief to you, shouldn't I? But they all know about Phase One, don't they? It's . . ." and she stopped, took a deep breath, brushed sudden tears out of her eyes, '. . . it's just that once the Catteni took over, I never thought I'd make space in a real ship." She dashed the tears from her eyes and made an obvious effort to control herself. 'One helluva an astronaut I'm making!" 'You did just great, ma'am,' Mitford said in military tones, and that did the trick.
"Thank you, sergeant. I appreciate having had the honour to go." "'Where no human has gone before",' Kris heard herself repeating the Star Trek phrase.
Mitford inched closer to the open hatch, but Kris reached it first.
"Zainal?" she called, damning herself for acting like a possessive female.
"On the bridge!" He sounded elated, too.
As Raisha had said, he was still explaining to Bert about yaw and roll procedures and which toggles and handles were used in which situations.
"You landed her on a dime,' Kris said, looking from one to the other, and it was Bert who smiled proudly back at her.
"Zainal insisted. Damn near wet myself,' he said, but Kris only laughed at him. 'There seem to be only so many ways to arrange controls and panels that it wasn't actually that hard.
Not that Zainal wouldn't have taken over if I glitched . . ." He pointed to the righthand position at the bridge. 'Mind you, those predators coming at me like F-88s were scary . . ." 'I don't think they'll be back any time soon,' Kris said 'Those that lived to fly away."
"The scout makes a sort of whistle . . ." Kris suggested and he nodded. She wanted to do something more than stand there with both hands at her sides, something to show Zainal how very, very glad she was to see him. She wished Bert anywhere but on the bridge.
Then Zainal stepped to her side, pulled her so that their cheeks touched and his lips brushed her ear before he stepped back. 'I go debrief to Mitford." He turned back to Bert. 'Go through the sequences. We must put her out of sight before we close her down." Then he pushed Kris around and down the narrow passageway. 'We now know much more about Botany that is useful to know." All Kris could think of was that he was back and Phase One complete and Mitford was willing to go to Phase Two.
As she stepped out onto the field where she had lain unconscious and
vulnerable nine months ago, she could scarcely believe the change in
fortune. An(1 n11 hail A \_ r
Catteni.
· a r 4 ùi IJ/1 L:) UU Lamar salu As Kris discovered, while the curious - and they came In droves down from Camp Narrow - inspected the scout ship, Zainal's debriefing with Mitford dealt more with the details of what he had observed of the rest of the planet during the landing orbit than the flight. He had piloted in the initial stages, past the satelite, given the scout some rolls and yaws.
"To look out of control,' Zainal said with a grin, 'and then I went behind the moon and out of the satellite's range." Of Bert and Raisha, he said, 'They know more than they think they do.
Well trained. Able to drive while I looked. The scout makes fast . . . sketches . . ." He looked enquiringly at Kris who supplied 'photos'. 'Yes, photos, details of other continents. Got very close on last pass." Zainal grinned. 'Much better than what we were given." And he paused, twitching one eyebrow in irritation over the earlier reluctant handouts.
"Raisha said something about only two continents being farmed." Zainal nodded. 'One is empty but greening. Other not too good, I think. But I am not farmer." 'You want us to shift our living space?" and Mitford waved over his head to mean the campsites the colonists now occupied, 'and keep us out of trouble with the real landlords?" 'Land . . ." and Zainal separated the two words in puzzlement, 'lords?"
"The race which first claimed this planet."
"Ah, landlords. Yes. This is considerable. A people who could make a prison of that valley we explored do not act as Catteni or Eosi do. They kept something in there, or kept something from getting in.
That is not how Catteni or Eosi work." 'Nor even humans, if you look at history,' said Mitford in a droll tone, crossing his arms on his chest again.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, Zainal gave Mitford a long look.
Mitford chuckled, dropped his arms to slap his hands on his knees. 'You found weapons?" 'Enough to overpower stupid Drassi,' Zainal said almost contemptuously.
"Things are getting more and more interesting, aren't they?" Mitford said to no-one in particular.
shoulder at a group of men she vaguely remembered were formerly military and naval brass. Instantly she was alarmed for Mitford's sake. She didn't want him summarily replaced by newcomers who figured they knew more about running this world than Mitford. It was Peter Easley who had cleared his throat.
with you?"!
"More than a few, and your being here saves me sending for you." Mitford said, stepping down from the driver's seat. 'Have you met Emassi Zainal and Kris Bjornsen yet?" There was a formal shaking of hands all round, hands which Kris noticed were calloused and hardened by 'civilian' labours.
She noticed that everyone was respectful to both her and Zainal and told herself that she was imagining 'hostile takeovers'. The cordiality of all nine did not seem forced. Their comments ranged from 'Well done' to "A terrific boost to morale here'.
"What Earth rank is "Emassi" equal to, Zainal?" Mitford asked and winked at Kris.
'"Emassi" is captain,' Zainal informed Mitford, regarding him blandly.
'Emassi outranks sergeant,' he added and grinned.
"Beg pardon,' Peter Easley said, leaning forward politely, as if he thought he had missed something.
They all nodded and grins widened.
"Might we get filled in on the details?" asked one silver-haired man - one of the generals, Kris thought. His eyes travelled from Zainal to Kris to Mitford and then Easley. 'The implications of such a capture are staggering. Rastancil, Major General,' and he added with a rueful expression, 'retired." 'As I said,' Mitford began, 'I was going to send for you as soon as I could report that Phase One was successful." He gestured towards the ship, frowning briefly as there was a scuffle at the hatch. Cupping his hands over his mouth, he let out his paradeground voice. 'EASY DOWN THERE! OR NO-ONE GOES IN!
LATORE, DOYLE, MAKE 'EM FORM A PROPER LINE. Sorry about that,' as he turned back to the brass. 'It is successful, and I think it's time I turned the matter over to Tactics or Strategy or whatever you want to call an appropriate body." 'Sergeant, if you got this much done,' Rastancil said, 'you've more than earned the right to sit in on a Phase Two, if that's what I think you mean." Mitford nodded sharply. 'A Phase Two and a Phase Three." He gestured to Zainal again. 'Yeah, we do need to talk." More sharp yells of protest from the spaceship.
"Lemme handle this first,' he said and, slipping back in the runabout, his expression ominous, he circled down to the crowd around the hatch.
"Just what had you in mind for Phase Two, Emassi Zainal?"
lone of the naval men asked. He had a definite British accent, so
Kris placed him as Geoffrey Ainger.
"I am Zainal, no more Emassi,' he said. 'I will tell you about Phase One." 'Then do it up at Narrow, why don't you?" Kris suggested as yet more people swarmed across the field to set eyes on the space vehicle. 'I'll wait here for the sergeant." 'We will all wait for the sergeant,' said Easley, but he gestured to a point further up the field, well out of the traffic from Camp to the parked ship, where there was a slope up to the hedgerow providing seating.
If there were one or two men who cleared their throats or raised eyebrows of surprise at that firmly delivered order, Easley was so deft at easing them the way he wanted them to go that they all complied.
When they got to the spot, Zainal crossed his ankles and sank gracefully to the ground. Kris sat beside him and Easley on Zainal's other side, facing the others as they made themselves comfortable. He gave a concise report of Phase One, from the first report by Coo to the moment it landed. Kris was particularly proud of his English, maybe not couched in perfect grammatical English but concise.
weatherbeaten face and a fine scar from jaw to temple held up his hand. "Why would you have been the object of such a concerted kidnap attempt, Zainal?"
"More than I like, but not enough to understand why they'd hunt out one man,' was the reply.
"You are the American general, Bull Fetterman?" A nod answered Zainal's question and Kris gave him full marks for having sorted out names and ranks. But then Zainal kept himself informed of what sort of people had been dropped and knew from Mitford's report of the presence of military and naval officers. 'Then you will know that Eosi command Catteni manoeuvres." Fetterman wasn't the only one who nodded. 'They pick Emassi to make longer their lives." 'Say what?" Bull Fetterman assumed a posture and expression that had undoubtedly given him his nickname.
"They subsume the Catteni totally,' Kris said. 'Zainal would have become a zombie . . . or worse . . . he wouldn't be dead, but he wouldn't have any personality left. Like Heinlein's Puppet Masters' yarn." 'And the first scout came to take you back because you'd been chosen?" Easley asked.
Zainal nodded.
"I heard it was some sort of honour,' Rastancil said, though his expression suggested he didn't consider it so.
"It is." And then Zainal grinned. 'But I was dropped. I stay." He made a scissors motion with his big hands. 'I am off the honours' list."
Easley blinked and grinned. Rastancil did, too.
"But it was duty?" Fetterman said.
"Not once I was dropped here." And Zainal pointed emphatically at the ground.
"Someone has to take your place?" asked a black officer, lateforties Kris judged his age.
"Another male of my line. There are several,' Zainal said with a shrug.
"What about reprisals here?" another man asked. Kris thought
l
he was Reidenbacker. She'd been reviewing in her mind all the names and occupations on Drop lists and was putting them now to faces.
"The last place they will look is here,' Zainal said.
"You're sure of that?" Admiral Scott asked, his tone barely civil.
"He's got a point, Ray,' Rastancil replied. 'If you were deserting, the last place you'd go to is the place you deserted from." "I do not desert,' Zainal said with a slight frown. 'I was dropped.
I stay." 'Then that's some kind of duty or just a personal preference?"
Scott wanted to know.
"Zainal is referring to the fact that no-one placed on one of these trial planetary occupations is ever released,' Kris said firmly, trying not to glare at Scott. 'This is essentially a penal colony, you know. Which is why we called it Botany. Zainal refused the option to leave because that would break another rule: only because it suited his superiors. If they'd retrieved him before he was sent off with us dissenters, it'd have been another matter entirely. But they let him get sent." She added that, whether it was true or not, just to make sure Scott wasn't going to call Zainal a deserter or coward or anything like that.
"We concede the issue,' Rastancil said, smiling.
"So we can be sure we won't be in for any reprisals because you brought the scout here,' Scott added.
"I think we've established that that is unlikely,' said Easley, trying to end that topic, 'since Zainal deliberately took a course that would take him out of this system on his departure. Ah, here's the sergeant." Mitford cleared the look of irritation from his face as he stepped down from his runabout.
"Damn Aarens claiming he had rights . . ." he muttered to Kris as he hunkered down beside her. 'Finished discussing Phase One?"
"Indeed we have . . ." Easley began.
"Could we have a written report for the record?" Scott asked.
"One's all we got paper for, sir,' said Mitford with no
apology. 'Kris, can you do it for me? So, Zainal, if you'll describe Phase Two just as you told it to me three nights ago . . ." Zainal suddenly rose to his feet. Even though most of the brass were sitting on a slope, his new position required them all to look up at him, as neat a bit of strategy as Kris had ever seen.
"The transports that make the Drops come more often. Your planet is giving Catteni trouble they did not expect. The ships are not in good repair. We have weapons now. We can take a second ship." He held up one hand to forestall questions that goal provoked. The gesture was one of such dignified command that even Scott subsided, scowling. "We take transport.
Then scout takes load of metals from mechs and bomb and explode in space far enough up there . . ." He extended his hand upward.
"Satellite is geo-syn-chronous,' and if he sounded out the syllables, he had them in the right order. 'Can only see this side. Will see explosion." He made the scissors gesture again.
"Now don't try to tell me the Catteni will let that go without some sort of an in-depth investigation!" Scott said, making no attempt to disguise his scepticism and disapproval.
"Not if crew's last message tells of. . . system's failure." Zainal had had to find the words, but he also found the right ones.
"Two famous last messages, and each time a ship disappears?" Scott said, openly scoffing.
"Only Drassi are on transport coldly. 'Catteni . . ." and he laid not worry over small casualties.
know that by now." 'Does that mean you, a Catteni officer, are willing to let us kill Catteni?" Scott demanded, watching Zainal with narrowed eyes.
Zainal gave a shrug. 'War makes casualties. You know that.
I know that. Or,' and he let a wry smile play on his lips, 'do as Catteni do. Let crew go free, those that remain alive. If they are not found in one whole day,' and he lifted a finger, 'they live and join us.
They are dropped. They stay." ship. No big loss,' Zainal said an
emphasis on the word, 'do Ship or Drassi. You should
Kris hastily covered her mouth with her hand, but she scanned faces to see who understood Zainal's wit. More got it than didn't.
These guys were sharp enough. Scott seemed the only hard critic.
You did know about that Catteni rule, didn't you, Admiral?" Mitford asked very politely.
Scott gave him a curt nod.
"With respect, sir, in case no-one mentioned it,' the sergeant went on, 'Zainal was shanghaied aboard that ship in a contradiction to that rule. Just in case any of you wondered why he didn't feel he had to comply with any further orders from Emassi." 'Thank you for explaining that, sergeant,' Easley said. 'I think it should clear up any lingering doubts about where Zainal's loyalties now lie. To return to Phase Two, what good does it do us to have a ship that may not be useful? Even if Zainal believes we can disregard reprisals." 'I think of the Farmers,' Zainal said, and all eyes were on him again. "With two ships, we can send one with their transport . . ."
Scott dismissed that notion with a snort and looked away.
"Now, wait a minute, Scott,' said Fetterman. 'I'm not entirely clear on these Farmers or Mech Makers or whatever you want to call them." Then he turned back to Zainal. 'You want them to know we're squatting on their land?" 'Squatting?" Puzzled, Zainal looked down at Kris for an explanation.
"Slang for taking over lands or a place that you don't own,' she said quickly. 'Actually, that's Phase Three." Before they started arguing over Phase Two, Kris wanted them to have some grasp of the scope of Zainal's plans. 'Forming an alliance with the Farmers against the Eosi because if they can farm a planet without any sentient being in charge, Zainal thinks they may have a sufficiently sophisticated technology to help the Catteni get out from under the domination of the Eosi - and stop being made into zombies and do things because the Eosi order them to be done. Like take over Earth." 'Whoa, there, young lady,' Fetterman said, but he was grinmng and so was Rastancil, while Scott looked more annoyed than ever. 'Pretty ambitious, if you ask me."
firm but clear voice and gestured back over her shoulder at the spaceship. 'Step number one."I 'Kris has a point,' Easley said, once again taking charge as heI seemed able to do almost effortlessly.
"Until this morning none of us would have remotely considered the possibility of hijacking a Catteni ship . . ." 'Having a damaged transport's no damned good . . . for going after Catteni or Eosi or these Farmers,' Scott said, standmg up.
"But transport allows us to shift a lot of people to one of the other continents that the Farmers are not using." Mitford said, beginning to let his irritation show. 'It's another step to owning ourselves instead of being a goddamned Catteni colony they think they could just walk into and take over when it gets on its feet.
That's the usual plan, isn't it, Zainal?" Kris watched Mitford winding himself up and looked anxiously in Easley's direction, but the man was watching eagerly as if he wanted Mitford to sound off.
"Well, a scout's a start on our Botany Defence Initiative, and I'll back Phase Two with every man and woman that's been following me the past nine months." Then Mitford caught hold of himself, took a deep breath. 'If we pull that off, too, then we can reevaluate the situation. And there's more than just the Catteni to worry about.
There're the Farmers, and how they'll take to us being dropped here on their prime real estate without their say-so.
Now I know I've mentioned to you that most of us are beginning to think we ought to leave the Farmers' installations alone and find our own. That's why I have scout parties out all over the continent." 'Hold it there a minute, sergeant,' Rastancil said, getting to his feet. 'Thought you dismantled all those Mechanicals so that the Farmers would come and see who was vandalizing their planet?"
i
"That was the only option open to us then, sir. But we've been having discussions about that,' and Mitford gestured to Easley, Fetterman and up the hill towards Camp Narrow. 'I wasn't the only one who wanted to get off this planet then." He paused. 'I'm not so sure I want to leave now, And I know a lot of others have had second thoughts like me. But that,' and he pointed back towards the scout ship, 'alters everything. Or . . . hell, you should see that as well as I can." And he ended with his arms at his sides, waiting for reaction.
"Definitely the situation has changed,' Easley said and heard murmurs seconding that. He seemed to be appraising the moods around him. 'Phase Two seems feasible but, as Sergeant Mitford says, it's going to need some intense planning and good timing . . .
even with weapons at our disposal. I suggest that we adjourn and discuss ways and means."
"Scout hides,' Zainal said and pointed towards Camp Narrow.
"You're going to fly it in?" asked a man with a rather rakish mustache as he got to his feet, brushing off the seat of his coverall.
"I'd like permission to be aboard, sir. I was mission control on the last shuttle project. Trained as a test pilot. Gino Marrucci." Zainal looked to Mitford who nodded. Then Zainal looked at Scott.
"You come too?" Someone stifled a chuckle but Scott, controlling his expression, stood up. 'I would like to." 'Ship only holds eight at the most,' Kris-said, though she'd hoped to be one. 'You have to go, sergeant."
"Then you do, too,' said Mitford, jutting out his chin.
"One more,' Zainal said. 'Air force man?" 'I was air force,' the black general said and he stood, grinning.
"John Beverly." 'That's settled then,' said Peter Easley. 'Shall I drive your runabout back to Camp Narrow, serge? And be sure the garage's . . . or should I say, hangar's ready.
"Good idea,' Mitford said.
Zainal pivoted and, without looking back to see who followed, led the way back down the field.
"Always meant to go see the display at Houston but never found the time,' Mitford said conversationally to no-one in particular in the group walking in step with him. He grinned as Kris made a hasty leg change to match strides with the others.
"Happens all the time with us military types."
. .,
"Okay, okay,' Joe Latore was saying when he saw the phalanx moving m on the spaceship, and gestured for those in line to make way.
Grumbling started from those next to go until Mitford swung into view, when it was replaced by cheers for Zainal and Mitford.
"We're gonna fly this baby up to Narrow now,' Mitford said.
"You'll get a chance to look inside later." 'You mean, the Catteni are gain' to be lookin' for it?" a man asked m a nervous tone.
"Naw,' said Bert, appearing in the open hatch. He grinned when he saw the delegation and jumped to the ground, waving those behind him from the last tour to make a quick exit. 'Why would a Catteni in his right mind want to live on Botany if he could get off?" There was goodnatured laughter at that sally, as those still hoping to see inside the prize began to drift back up the hill.
"Gentlemen,' Bert waved the new group in. 'Shall I . . .?" he began to Zainal, as if he anticipated being replaced.
"You must watch me do it,' Zainal said. 'These watch, too."
"I'll bet they do,' Bert murmured low enough for only Kris and Zainal to hear as they passed him.
Kris stepped up, into the hatch, ahead of the brass. She wasn't going to be left behind this time. Mitford did give precedence to Scott, Beverly and Gino Marrucci. When they reached the bridge, Raisha was in the second seat and hastily got to her feet.
Zainal gave her a nod and then pointed to Bert to take her place while he folded himself into the pilot's chair.
l
"Secure hatch, Raisha,' Zainal said and looked at the arrangement of those standing in the cramped space of the small bridge. He nodded and gestured for them to stay where they were.
Kris inched closer to Mitford who was just behind Zainal.
"You watch good?" Zainal said to Bert, who nodded as Zainal's fingers moved in slow sequence over toggles and switches. 'Got that?"
"Yes, yes . . ."
A quick glance around and Kris saw that Bert was not the only one memorizing the sequence. Beverly and the test pilot were the most eager, but Scott's expression was less critical.
"Ve-ry smooth,' Beverly said. He was the first to be conscious of the vertical takeoff.
"It is extremely manoeuvrable craft,' Zainal said in an instructional tone, two fingers of his right hand on the grip.
"One of its biggest . . ." He tipped his head back towards Kris, for her to give him the word he needed.
"Assets,' Kris supplied.
"Ass-ETS, not asses?" Zainal asked, blank-faced.
"You pick up too much bad language, man,' she muttered as everyone else grinned.
"In space as well?" asked Beverly.
"Better in space,' Zainal answered, as he depressed a button on the panel in front of him and began a horizontal forward movement, skimming safely above the heads of those moving back to Camp Narrow.
"That satellite won't see the movement?" Scott asked.
Kris wondered if the Admiral would ever give Zainal any slack.
"Not that kind. Very basic and geosynchronous,' Zainal replied, twitching one shoulder. 'I use only . . . guide . . ." He craned his head about, for Kris's help.
Zainal made a gesture with his free hand as if pressing the Earth away from him.
move?" and he rocked his hand to indicate different positions.
Zainal, flashing a look at the signals, nodded. He was watching the landscape closely.
"Is there much fuel left?" the test pilot asked, looking over the gauges and dials. 'Which one?" 'This one,' Bert said and tapped it.
A needle point just a shade over a halfway mark.
"Reason two for Phase Two. Transport will have fuel,' Zainal said.
"How far will what there is take us?"
Zainal shrugged. 'Not back to your Earth."
"What sort of fuel do you use?" asked the test pilot.
Zainal rattled out some Catteni sounds and then grinned at the pilot.
"Can't make here." He made another correction, moved a toggle and the pilot gasped.
"No need to waste fuel,' Zainal said, and pointed his finger just as the entrance to Camp Narrow appeared in the hillside.
There were a lot of people watching now, waving their hands, mouths open though no sound penetrated the scout.
"Fraggit,' Mitford muttered, his face pale, as he grabbed for something to hang on to as the scout seemed to slide down a corridor that had once seemed much wider.
"Easy as pie, sergeant,' Beverly said, grinning broadly as they headed inexorably towards the target barn's wide-open doors.
"It'll fit?" asked Mitford, taking a firmer hold on the ceiling handle he had found.
"No problem,' Bert said.
Kris sympathized with Mitford. She tried not to hold her breath.
The flight vanes on the rear of the fuselage must be just clearing the sides of the alley. Then she noticed someone encouraging the forward motion with hand gestures as he backed towards the barn. Zainal held up one hand, caught the man's attention and gestured him to stand aside.
With the slightest possible touches on the thrust handlers, Zainal
lifted the ship above the cliff side and, with equally delicate
80a
movements, turned the scout around, lowered it and began backing it into the barn. The ground crew leaped in front and now made pushing gestures, as he stood to one side so he could judge when to wave-off.
"No rear mirrors on this thing, huh?" Mitford murmured in Kris's ear, but he had colour back in his face now that they were nearly parked.
The wave-off came and, with one final adjustment, they felt the scout ship settle to the floor.
To Kris's surprise, the observers clapped their hands, even Scott.
"You'd've been a great Atlantis pilot,' Marrucci said.
Zainal stood up, squeezing up against Mitford and Kris in the cramped space. 'Bert, show Marrucci how to shut her down."
"Can we watch?" asked John Beverly.
Zainal shrugged, looking at Mitford.
"Sure, why not,' the sergeant said, easing himself towards the passageway to give the others more space. But he looked over his shoulder to observe that Scott stayed as well.
"Did it go well?" Raisha asked from her position in the passageway. 'I couldn't see a thing with all the bodies in the way, but I felt it turn around." Zainal unclogged the hatch and stepped out into the barn, giving Kris a hand down first, and then Raisha.
"Can this be locked, Zainal?" Mitford asked in a low voice, because the man who had acted as ground crew was loping up to them.
"There are six of these,' Zainal said, showing Mitford the small grayish-brown rectangle in his hand. 'I have hidden three.
Bert and Raisha each have one. Is that right?" Mitford looked thoughtful, almost sad. 'For now, but I think the fly boys and the brass will decide who gets to use this baby." 'Baby?" Zainal asked, turning to Kris. 'Is that like boy-o-boy, and man-o-man?" 'Ships are generally referred to as "she's", female,' she said, grinning. 'And special ships are babies. Specially good ships!'
.
"That's a lot of baby,' Zainal said with suspicious laughter glinting in his eyes as he looked down the length of the scout.
"Hey, Zainal, that was some sweet job of piloting,' the crew man said, running up with his hand out for Zainal to shake. 'I used to be flight deck officer on the George Washington . . ."
"Aircraft carrier,' Kris explained.
"Boy, you landed that baby as sweet as if you'd been backing her into this hangar all your life!" Zainal gave yet another of his shruggings. 'I had to learn.
And pay for holes made." 'Didja?" and somehow that pleased the man. "Need any more help with her, I'm your man. Vic Yowell's the name." He gave Zainal's hand another shake and then went to prowl around the vessel.
"All that brass aren't going to take the ship away from us, are they?"
Raisha asked, keeping her voice down and her eye anxiously on Mitford.
"Listen up, you lot,' Mitford said, catching them with a stern glance, 'that ship makes this a whole new ball-game. I know General Rastancil by reputation - he has a good one. I heard good things about General Beverly . . . don't know about the navy, but I do know,' and he waggled his finger at them, 'that there'll be some changes and we gotta be flexible. So let's go with the flow. Right?" 'Where I flow, you go,' said Zainal, poking Mitford in the shoulder with one finger with each word. 'Right?" Mitford gave a short laugh, but Kris knew that he appreciated Zainal's statement of loyalty.
"I don't know about you lot, but I need some chow about this time of day." He walked out of the hangar.
The, too,' said Raisha. 'I didn't like Catteni ship-board rations. They tasted like cardboard wadding." 'Healthy,' Zainal said as he took Kris by the arm to follow the lead.
"Will we get to Phase Two?" Raisha asked over her shoulder.
"For fuel we muss,' Zainal said.
"So if I get a chance to learn to pilot the scout, I could pilot a transport vessel?" 'You can now,' Zainal said, grinning at her surprise. 'Drassi need very simple controls." 'Say, Zainal,' Mitford asked, 'how many ships do you think we can hijack before they stop landing here or your destroyers come to have a look?"
Zainal just grinned.
They had finished with the noontime meal when Bert and the others who had stayed on in Baby, as the ship was unimaginatively called, joined them at their table. Marrucci and Beverly were full of questions for Zainal about the performance levels of the ship, its cruising range, cargo capacity weaponry and maintenance requirements.
Kris translated terms as well as she could, with help from both Bert and Raisha when she bogged down over unfamiliar words and meanings.
Mitford sent someone for paper and pencil.
"Would you have such a thing as a manual?" Ray Scott asked at one point.
"What good would a Catteni manual do us?" Kris asked, almost defensively although Scott's attitude had modified considerably since the docking hop.
"Diagrams,' Scott said, as if that was obvious.
So Zainal told Bert where to find the service manuals in the pilot compartment, and the day became a session of terminology and translation. Engineers were sent for to decipher the schematics, while Zainal struggled to explain with his inadequate technical vocabulary.
For Kris, guesswork worked as well in some instances, but she came up with appropriate ones more often than the others did. Zainal did know the basic maintenance routines and checks required, since he had often flown this type and had had to make repairs.
Worrell arrived at one point and took Mitford off with him.
Reidenbacker left later on and took Fetterman with him, but Kris was far too occupied with spatial and aviation words to do more than register that there were other faces where those men had sat. There was also no question that the capture of Baby was the best thing that could have happened on Botany at that particular moment.
It was full dark before Zainal suddenly shook himself and stood up.
"I can talk no more tonight."
Then everyone became solicitous and grateful, and said that by all means he should get some rest.
"You, too,' he said to Raisha and Bert. 'No sleep last night.
Not good. Minds must be rested to learn how to fly Baby." He caught Kris with one hand, Raisha by the other, and gestured for Bert to follow them out.
There was a brief lull in the various conversations all over the barn but, by the time they reached the door, these had picked up again, including several arguments, with sheets of Zainal's meticulous diagrams and the manual being passed around.
All four walked wearily to one of the less crowded end barns.
A 'people' door had been cut into the larger one and a narrow entry area established before three aisles sectioned off the floor space. Screens of woven reeds divided areas into living spaces, affording a certain degree of privacy. Single pallets stuffed with fluff weed, spare blankets, a rough box to hold possessions and two stools comprised the furnishings of the one Zainal and Kris took. He moved two pallets together. Kris got her boots off, emptied her pockets of the comunit and items she hadn't realized she still had with her and lay down. Zainal covered her with a blanket before removing his boots and settling down beside her, reaching out to grasp her hand before he took one deep breath and fell asleep at the end of it. She wasn't far behind him.
Still unaccustomed to Botany's longer diurnal period even after nine
months, and despite the excitements and exertions of the previous day
and night, Kris found herself waking before
r
sunrise. Zainal was awake, too, lying on his back with hands behind his head.
"What's up?" she asked in a low voice.
He released one hand, curled his arm around her head to stroke her cheek.
"Thinking."
"Good thoughts?"
He nodded.
"Share them?" He rubbed his knuckles against her cheek: she could see his teeth in a smile in the dim light. 'I must out-think Catteni." She caught his hand, holding it against her cheek as she turned into him, her lips closer to his ear. 'Then there could be trouble over the scout." 'Not here yet." She could feel his cheek muscles lifting as his grin broadened. 'Lenvec may not be . . . fooled. Or is it joke this time?" 'Fooled. Why?" She tried not to stiffen against him in concern but he sensed it, far too aware of her body language now, and his hand flattened soothingly against her head.
"He does not wish to do Eosi duty."
"Is he the other male you meant yesterday?" She felt Zainal's shoulder twitch and the rumble of amusement in his chest. 'He is next, but may not be chosen." That seemed to amuse him even more. 'He has life-mate and several childs already,' Zainal added, as if that should be a consolation.
"Children,' she corrected automatically. 'Don't you?" she heard herself ask.
"No chosen has life-mate, but I have two males. Too young to be chosen."
"He did not say how soon the chosen must go. If there is time, maybe. He will be commanded where to search first." Then Zainal paused, and she sensed he deliberated on whether or not to continue as he stroked her head slowly. 'Maybe . . . he gets better satellite over Botany."
Zainal nodded. 'But even that will take time." And she felt his laugh.
Felt him stop, too. 'I must be very careful."
Zainal gave his head one shake. 'Not now. He has enough troubles with - what did you call them - the brass? Beverly, Scott, Rastancil, them?" 'Yeah, they're all brass, admirals, generals: Marrucci was a colonel, I think. Watch out for Scott." Zainal grunted agreement and surprised her by smiling. 'I like a good fight." "You mean, convincing Scott you're all right for a Catteni?
Or getting Phase Two and more fuel for the scout?" 'Both." He gave her hand a warm squeeze. 'This gets interesting."
"Don't get smug, Emassi Zainal."
The? Never. This Catteni bastard watches his step."
"Zainal! Where did you pick up that language?"
"Is it not correct?" She knew he was teasing and laughed. 'I'm damned glad you know as much as you do, particularly right now . .
."
"For the brassheads."
She giggled, ducking her head into his chest to muffle the sound.
"Brassheads' - she must remember to tell that to the sergeant.
At Lenvec's insistence, which was beginning to annoy Perizec both as patriarch and commander, he listened to the record tape and replayed the satellite's recording of the scout's takeoff, the suddenly erratic course which straightened into a dive towards the subject planet's second moon, disappearing beyond the satellite's visual limitation.
"But analysis proves that is not Zainal's voice. None of them are. What
has Personnel said about Arvonk?" That was the one flaw in Lenvec's
arguments. 'There is none of Arvonk, who was only a woman and not in
service as
Emassi. She was used because Zainal had chosen her several times for intercourse." 'There are no other Catteni down there. Who else but another scout could have responded?"
"Some of the Terrans have learned our language."
Perizec snorted. 'But not how to operate comunits." 'Zainal could teach them." Lenvec spoke through his teeth with aggravation, an unwise attitude to show his senior and parent but he had absolutely no doubts that Zainal had somehow escaped capture: had probably piloted the scout off the planet. And then, for reasons Lenvec could not understand in a Catteni Emassi who had been chosen to serve the Eosi, Zainal had returned to the planet. He had not taken refuge anywhere in Catteni space because everywhere he would be hunted; nowhere would he find asylum.
Zainal's taunt - 'I drop, I stay' - was like a pulse in the back of Lenvec's brain. What good did it do Zainal to go back to the planet, no matter what technology had been found there?
Could Zainal know the origin of the original occupants of that planet?
Was that why he took the scout? What good would such a move do?
"He has somehow made friends with the Terran dissidents,' Lenvec went on, desperate to persuade his father to believe him. 'Now he has transportation. He has some plan in mind." Perizec dismissed that consideration as he rose. 'For all the good it will do him." 'Sir, for the honour of the family, insist on a second orbital satellite.
Geosynchronous does not have sufficient capability to keep a watch on his next moves." 'Next moves?" Perizec regarded his son steadily and with such malice that it was all Lenvec could do not to recoil from such scrutiny. 'Your next move is to attend the Eosi Selection.
No further delay is possible. Is that understood?" 'Maybe the Eosi will not be so blind,' Lenvec said in a bitter tone, and when the nervewhip suddenly appeared in his father's hand he braced himself for the blow. Despite that, the agony rocked him to his knees.
He had to be helped to his quarters by his life-mate, where she disobeyed the protocol that required the recipient to endure a whip-lash by administering a nerve block. Clern stayed by his side until the medication took effect. Which was more than she ought to have done but it did not, as she had probably hoped, appease his bitter resentment sufficiently for one final sexual interlude. Lenvec could think only what he had been deprived of because Zainal had been the chosen of their bloodline: the opportunities and promotions that Zainal had enjoyed because he had been the chosen. Eosi liked their 'subjects' to have rich experiences to bring for them to enjoy, to use as guides in their manipulation of their subject species. Lenvec had had to be satisfied with a circumspect life, learning to manage the family estates and accepting simpler rewards than Zainal gathered.
Lenvec had even had to rear Zainal's children with his own, since being chosen kept Zainal from having a mate. That was the one privilege which Lenvec had had which Zainal did not.
And now Clern had to be set aside because Zainal had escaped.
During those long last hours of his single being, Lenvec toyed with suicide, but the dishonour would have deprived Clern of wealth and protection and his sons of their inheritance, which would be considerable. If he could have also deprived his father of honour by taking his own life, Lenvec might well have murdered himself.
His hatred of Zainal, his sense of betrayal, his keen awareness of the injustice done consumed Lenvec even when, supported by a blood pride he had not known he possessed in such depth, he was accompanied by Perizec to the vast complex reserved for Eosi. He entered with the three other Catteni being presented by their fathers, and Lenvec's resentment flared and deepened. They had been chosen: they had had the privileges Zainal had enjoyed and he had been denied. But he had as large a measure of Emassi pride as any of them and so he went, seething with hatred and the now deeply embedded ambition to somehow get even with Zainal.
That kept his back straight, his knees stiff as he faced the Eosi mental
who would engulf him, making him no more
r
l
l
Lenvec but all Eosi. A fearsome entity even to an Emassi who had seen what Catteni became when subsumed by Eosian mentats: that shining immensity in a giganticized Catteni form.
That one thought, of eventual triumph, sufficed Lenvec as the subsummation occurred. It kept him from screaming as two of the others, previously willing and proud young men, did as they were engulfed.
Certainly the intense emotion intrigued the Eosian as it settled into the strong new body as the shell that it had been using drifted like the dead thing it had been for centuries onto the highly polished floor of the chamber. Quite unusual, in fact, for the Eosian had made such transfers frequently and was delighted by a novel experience as the last of the personality which had once been Lenvec totally dissolved within the mental.
The shell, crumbling into dust, was swept into a receptacle and returned with proper ceremony to Perizec, who waited with other fathers to receive the husks of their greatgrandfathers. Of them all, Perizec was the most relieved. He had greatly feared that Lenvec would be found unacceptable and the dishonour to their bloodline would have been catastrophic. But honour had been served, and their family would continue to supply young men to the Eosi and reap more worldly rewards than other, less favoured families.
However, Perizec must still discover where the cowardly Zainal was hiding and make sure he paid the price of his evasion. Perizec smiled at the thought of a suitable execution.
Private, of course, but the event could be enjoyed by Clern who had been deprived of her mate, and should be seen by Zainal's sons so that they would have to live with his dishonour as their lifelong penance.
Perizec took the receptacle containing his greatgrandfather's dust to the family crypt and placed it in the niche prepared for it.
He looked at the array of ancestors who had done their duty.
Then did his final one: listing first Zainal and then Lenvec as dead.
Too bad he could do nothing punitive to the sons, but that would give a
lie to the reason why Lenvec had had to stand
.
in for his brother. But there were other, subtler ways to make them pay for their father's defection.
Quite a considerable galactic distance from the Eosi home planet and its expanding sphere of influence, the homing device arrived in the slot designed to receive it on the huge moon installation where such devices were processed. When no message was displayed, the container was routinely overhauled for the malfunction. Such homing missiles were rarely despatched without cause. No malfunction was discovered.
The device had been well engineered and had always operated within its design parameters. But the lack of any message was unusual and the container was sent to Processing to identify its point of origin.
Since that planet was not one in any sense critical, or even very important, the errant device was shunted to the agency that, from time to time, investigated anomalies. The appropriate galactic coordinates were tagged for investigation during the next regular maintenance circuit.
r
l
s
If those intimately connected with Phase One slept, it became obvious to Zainal and Kris when they quietly exited their quarters at dawn that others had not.
A weary duty-cook had propped her chair back against the wall, her head lolling to one side as she caught what rest she could while the knot of men and women at the table furthest from her murmured urgent conversations and passed papers back and forth.
Though Kris and Zainal had entered quietly, their arrival immediately curtailed the discussions. Almost every head turned to see who entered.
"Zainal! Kris!" Peter Easley half-rose from his seat and beckoned them over. 'Grab something to eat and drink, will you?
And join us?" The cook slept on, snoring slightly, so Kris and Zainal helped themselves to the food kept warm in the pans and the tea in the kettle.
but others' obviously called in from the other camps for this session.
"You started something, Zainal,' Peter said, rising and gesturing for Zainal to take his place, while he hooked over chairs from the next table for Kris and himself.
"Phase Two?" Zainal asked, settling himself and eyeing the mass of papers, charts and lists that littered the table. He sipped.
"You bet,' said Easley, while several men at the other end of the table resumed their interrupted debate. 'I sent Mitford off to bed at third moonrise. He couldn't keep his eyes open."
"How can you, then?" Kris asked.
"Oh, I caught a couple hours before we changed guard,' and Easley winked at her conspiratorially.
She was somewhat reassured, although she had not previously considered Easley, for all the help he gave Mitford during Drops, as a surrogate for the sergeant.
"We have discovered a lot of dropees have had military training, and more than enough have commando, SAS, or similar training in their own countries, so that we can have our pick of the force to make Phase Two successful,' Easley explained in a low voice. 'What is needed now is information from you on . . ." 'What weapons there are aboard the scout,' and now Scott interrupted, 'some idea of the interior of a transport ship and what weapons they'd have so we can properly train our personnel." Zainal took a sip of the hot beverage and gestured that he be given paper and a writing implement.
"Breakfast first?" Kris said in a caustic tone, lifting a spoonful from her bowl of porridge. 'Army . . . and navy, I'm sure .
. . still function better when fed."
"Miss Bjornsen,' Scott began ever so politely.
"Knock it off,' Zainal said in a very quiet voice, but he gave Scott a
brief, warning look before he began to sketch the long ovoid of a
transport ship outline, sipping as he did so. 'Twenty
crew, only Drassi armed with weapons. Others have nervewhips . .
." Zainal gave Scott a long look. 'You know about nervewhips?" Scott nodded slowly, and it pleased Kris no end to realize that he had had at least one incident of intimate knowledge.with that persuader.
"Crew carry on back,' and Zainal demonstrated tying the whip-lash to a handle and slinging the imaginary item to his back. "People unconscious no problem." He outlined the bridge area, the main crew quarters where they seemed to sleep stacked nearly as closely together as their passengers would be, and then indicated the engine room, air plant and other essential elements of the transport, including cargo areas that did not have oxygen.
That left an empty midsection across which Zainal now drew a series of parallel lines.
"Sleepers don't need much space. Empty one deck, remove, shift upwards, empty two deck . . ." 'We were crammed in like sardines then,' Easley remarked with a bit of a shudder. 'What do they use to keep us in suspended animation?" 'Asleep?" Kris whispered, because she knew Zainal would recognize those words." 'Eosi make. Not even Emassi know in-gred-ee-ents,' Zainal said with one of his indifferent shrugs.
"So we would have to get the guards, storm through here to secure the bridge . . ." Kris didn't recognize the voice, nor identify the slight accent, much less the long non-white finger that had done the walking, and looked up. The slender man had angled in beside Scott and Fetterman. He grinned at her and touched a nonexistent hat brim.
"Hassan Moussa, late of the Israeli forces,' he said.
"No,' and Zainal shook his head. 'First, they unload, then we do not risk lives. They will not expect attack. With dropping done, they are also tired. We stun those outside, maybe all will be. THEN we .
. ." Zainal grinned at Moussa, 'storm through to bridge and surprise Drassi."
.
Moussa wasn't the only one who chuckled at Zainal's suggestion to let the Catteni unload.
"I'm reliably informed that not everyone is unloaded with any caution,' said the British Ainger.
"I will be there, of course, to see,' Zainal remarked.
"Hey, wait a minute,' Kris said, and she wasn't the only one to see the folly of that.
"Not when the Catteni tried to kidnap you . . ." frowning.
"Drassi will not know that,' Zainal said, 'but they obey Emassi orders any time." Open disagreement broke Out and, after listening a few moments, Zainal began to eat his porridge, ignoring the dispute.
"He tells us he's a kidnap victim . . ."
"A transport was slated to pick him up the first time, wasn't it?"
"Can we really trust him?"
"If it's that easy to take the transport, why hasn't anyone tried?"
"You haven't seen bare hands against nervewhips, have you?"
"So, if Drassi and Emassi never mix, who would recognize him?"
"And the risk is better than the twentyfive percent casualties."
Kris identified Leon Dane's voice. 'Leon can make like an Emassi from the shadows,' she said, broadcasting her suggestion over the other voices. That stopped them. 'It's the tone they respond to, not the figure." 'Good idea,' Zainal said, licking his lips. 'He sounds Emassi.
Could . . . fool . . . me." And he cast a mischievous side glance at Kris as he continued to eat his breakfast.
"We can decide on that stratagem later,' Scott said firmly. "If you've finished,' he addressed Zainal, who had indeed just emptied both bowl and cup, 'let's go through the numbers . . .
of the crew . . . again." 'One Drassi captain,' and Zainal dutifully ticked off on his fingers, 'one Drassi navigator, one Drassi com, one Drassi engineer, four more to take turns, and twelve to unload."
"Rastancil said,
r
l
"That makes twenty. Do all unload?"
Zainal nodded. 'Off-duty help so sixteen unload. Others relax here,' and he pointed to the bridge. 'Not much security,' he added.
"Stand from here,' and he put his finger on the portal, 'and stun all."
"Stun?" The look on Scott's face was ludicrous.
"Why not? Killing weapons messy." 'And wasn't it decided,' Kris got in, 'that they'd at least have a chance to run for it?"
"Why?" The mood around the table turned ugly.
"Because then we're not the same as Catteni,' John Beverly said, raising his voice above the vengeful babble.
"General, I don't think the population here will appreciate leniency,' Bull Fetterman said.
"I don't see why not,' said Hassan Moussa with a vulpine grin.
"It could provide some sport." 'Now, wait a bloody minute,' and Kris felt her breakfast roiling about in her stomach. 'We are not Catteni. We are human beings . . ." 'They can be tried as war criminals,' Moussa said, still grinning, and he looked down at Zainal to see his reaction, but the Catteni was adding details to the sketch, apparently oblivious to the moral issue.
"Take a camp vote,' Yuri Palit said, standing up at the end of the table.
"That's always assuming that we take the damned transport in the first place,' Beverly put in.
"Now wait a minute, general . . ."
"Beverly, if we can't overpower twenty . . ."
"Referendum!'
"Everyone needs to know
"Those guys murdered . . ."
"We don't have to do the same . . ." Kris got up from the table, taking her dishes and Zainal's before she heaved up breakfast, listening to such vengeful talk.
She did, she told herself as she stalked to the clean-up area,
understand why they wanted to take it out on any Catteni they
...
could, but the slaughter still made humans no better than Catteni and polluted this new world, and this fresh start, with all the old hatreds and prejudices that bubbled just skin-depth and could be sublimated by attacking a new species-victim. So who hit the goat now?
She almost threw the dishes down, but spotted the still sleeping cook and slipped them quietly in the warm dishwater to soak. Possibly, if she had to, she could kill a Catteni in cold blood. She hadn't minded when Fek and Slav had killed the kidnappers, but her blood certainly hadn't been cold then - it had been frozen with fear that the ruse would be uncovered and Zainal taken. All the arguments were specious. It was the principle that was important. And more important here on Botany than at any other time in her life . . . even when she had feared rape by the brutish Catteni steward on Barevi.
"Kris!" Zainal's voice had not been pitched loudly but he stood at the exit and beckoned to her. The 'strategists' were so involved in arguing points of honour, law, principle and integrity that his departure had not been noticed. Except by Easley and Rastancil, who hurried towards him.
"Zainal?" Easley's quiet voice held a note of apology and Rastancil's expression was entreating.
"We will see what weapons and other useful junk is on scout,' Zainal said. 'That is next step to take to prepare for Phase Two." He exited first, turned to wait for Kris, Rastancil and Easley and added, "You are men of sense." Then he strode off at such a pace that even the long-legged Easley had trouble keeping up. Abruptly he stopped, staring ahead as the predawn sky outlined the hangar which Kris realized had acquired the most peculiar outline. Zainal snorted and walked on.
"What'd they do to it?" Kris asked, though she thought she knew the answer.
"Mitford suggested we disguise the contents,' Easley said.
"Just enough in case someone should scan. All they'd see is metal hunks. Rooftll take the weight. The engineers checked."
r
to its feet and challenged them: in Vic Yowell's unmistakable tones. He even had a lance at the ready. 'Who's there?" 'Zainal, Kris, Easley and Rastancil,' Zainal said, taking him literally.
"Oh,' and Vic let out a relieved sigh. 'More damned people poking their noses in,' and he changed his voice to a whine, '. . . I didn't get to see it when it landed . . ." He altered tone again.
"I want a lock on that damned door."
"No-one could get into the ship, Vic,' Kris said.
"I told 'em that, but they wanted to see the outside at least if they couldn't see in." 'Go get some proper sleep, Vic,'Easley suggested. 'We'll need you later on, and I appreciate your taking charge here." Vic gathered up his blanket and pallet and grinned as he passed them.
"Never thought I'd have a chance to land anything ever again.
Don't want it messed up." Rastancil gave him a genial slap on the back as he went and, when Vic had closed the door behind him, the hangar was dark again. Rastancil cursed, but Easley turned on a hand beam, which Kris recognized as one that had been lifted from the kidnappers' bodies.
"You're quick,' she said with a grin up at Easley.
"Spoils of war are meant to be used,' he said.
Kris wondered was the man ever out of sorts? He'd been up all night arguing with brassheaded types and his equanimity seemed not the least bit strained.
"You always this way?" she asked.
"Which way?"
She could see his so-innocent grin in the light.
"Zainal calls them brassheads,' she added since he wasn't answering her question.
"Brassheads?" He chuckled. 'Indeed, indeed."
"Lord, I can't even get you to commit yourself to a joke."
:'Oh, I commit myself, Miss Bjornsen. Believe me, I do."
The hatch opened and lights inside came up, surprising an exclamation out of both Easley and Rastancil.
"Do not,' Easley murmured, lowering his head to Kris's ear, 'let them get Zainal's control away from him." 'He isn't planning to let them,' she whispered back under the noise of Rastancil stumbling up into the ship. So Easley had committed himself-and to the right people - she thought, hauling herself up inside the ship. It had been easier from the aircushion vehicle.
A low noise started, and Kris felt fresh air drawn in past her.
"You can vent to the outside?" Rastancil asked.
"Air is . . . old,' Zainal said; he made a gesture of a spinning blade. Then he indicated for them to go towards the stern rather than the pilot's compartment. They'd only taken a half dozen steps when he stopped and pulled at handles set flush in the wall.
The closet he had opened was stocked with an assortment of ordnance, much of it unfamiliar to Kris but Rastancil sighed with unadulterated delight and, looking to Zainal for permission, picked up a rifle-type affair with a thick cartridge-case and a stumpy muzzle.
Zainal pointed and named what each knob or toggle did. 'Safety, power up is red, white is empty.
Make thin or fat spray of. . ." He turned to Kris.
"Bullets?" She made a space between thumb and forefinger.
"Metal? Kill?" Zainal closed the distance to almost very thin.
"Needle?"
He nodded.
"Oh, I heard about them on Earth. They started using toxic tips just before I was rounded up. Nasty." Rastancil carefully returned the weapon. 'Any single-shot, revolver-type weapons?" Zainal frowned.
Kris made her hand into a gun shape and enunciated a single 'pow!' "Stunner,' Zainal said and touched the rack of eight. Then he laid his hand on their neighbour, a thick long barrel. 'Groundto-air."Then nodded towards the bow. 'Space stuff up front." 'What sort of armament do you have?" Rastancil asked eagerly.
Zainal gave a little laugh. 'Space, air-to-ground, small satellite to mark places. Not much. This is fast, and moves well."
"So you count on its speed and manoeuvrability more than its ordnance?" Kris wondered which words needed translating, but Zainal was looking at Rastancil and then gave a brief nod. 'Yes, speed and .
. . other word . . ." He did look at Kris now, flipping his hand and fingers.
"Flexibility,' she supplied.
"Any telepathy in your family, Kris?" Easley asked.
"None, but I've been partnered with Zainal since we were dropped.
I know what words he has learned . . . and he's got a very good vocabulary,' and Kris stressed that, 'so it's less guess and more acting as synonym finder." Easley chuckled. 'I suspect he understands far more English than people think." 'I don't suspect,' Kris replied, and she mean' that as a tacit warning. 'I know." 'I shall keep that remark under my . . . hair, since my wardrobe does not run to a hat." Whether or not Easley might just be jollying her along, Kris sensed that Peter Easley was on Zainal's side and wanted to be considered a friend.
By the time Zainal had revealed the other goodies the scout contained, like very high-powered binoculars with thermal readings and nocturnal settings, a variety of comunits, emergency lights, beacons, maps, and the completed photos that he had taken on the way in, as well as hand cameras, Cattenistyle, exploratory equipment, compasses, ropes, backpacks, winter and summer gear, thermal suits, and a lot of other gear that would see the scouting teams far better equipped, her head was reeling with such riches. Mitford would go bananas! There was even diving equipment and two water craft, dismantled and packed for transport.
"Sail? Or powered?" Easley asked, coming alive with interest at their appearance. He diagrammed a sail in the air and made a put-put noise for the power.
Zainal grinned. 'Both."
"It's Christmas!" Kris said, wanting to clap her hands together.
"Well, to a degree,' Easley amended, but he was grinning too.
"You've done so well with so little, don't let all this stifle ingenuity. There isn't even eight of everything." 'There's eight of everything we'd need for Phase Two,' Rastancil said in a sober tone, eyeing the weapons cache.
Zainal nodded, but he was far more interested in Kris's reaction to the photos he offered her. She wasn't quite sure why she should be interested in mountains and valleys, until his index finger touched first one and then another point.
"Oh, more dead ends, like the valley we found?"
And he nodded. 'Many."
"All empty?" she asked.
Zainal shrugged one shoulder and grinned. 'We go see?"
"What?" Easley wanted to know, peering over her shoulder.
"Our scouting project,' Kris said, not wanting to go into much detail.
"Oh, blind valleys like the one your team discovered which Mitford told me about?" said Easley and his face wore a hopeful expression, soliciting their confidence in him.
"Is a thing kept in? Or gut?" Zainal said, giving it.
"Out would be my educated guess, considering the nocturnal horrors Botany has,' and Easley gave a little shudder.
He pretended a repugnance that was probably sincere. 'Don't care to, either, but then I never go . . . went . . . to horror pictures either." Rastancil craned his neck, nodding approval at the prints.
"Very clear! What sort of camera equipment do you have on board?" Zainal chuckled. 'I let experts tell me. Baxter says he was cameraman on films . . . no, Vellums."
"Films,' Kris said as clearly as possible.
Zainal grinned. 'Whatever. I push button and later,' he nodded to the slot in the wall, 'picture comes out. Show these to Mitford, Kris, please."
"We can both show him,' she said.
Zainal shook his head. 'My duty is here today, showing off."
l
l 'Show me around a couple more times, Zainal, and I'll spell you,' Rastancil offered.
"Many will want grand tour,' Zainal said, his eyes sparkling with such open amusement that Rastancil regarded him with surprise. 'I learn much from Kris,' he said, dropping a proprietary arm across her shoulders.
"Ah, yes, well,' Rastancil said, ducking his head in what Kris thought was as close to embarrassment as a brasshead was likely to get. "There wouldn't be an inventory of what's on board Baby, would there? I know it'd be in your language, but we've got a couple of personnel down here now who learned to read Catten." 'Come,' and Zainal beckoned Rastancil to walk forward to the pilot's compartment.
"You take a good look around, Kris, Peter,' he added, pointing to the other doorsalong the narrow hall. 'Familiarize yourselves." Easley was shaking his head respectfully as Zainal followed Rastancil.
"He's quite a guy. I'd never have thought a Catteni had an active sense of humour." 'Maybe they just never have the opportunity,' Kris said and slid back the first door. 'Phew! This needs an airing.
What slobs!" Clothing was thrown about floor and bunks, while used cups and plates attached to the surface of the table had not been collected for washing. There was a blank screen and a hand control unit which Easley picked up, examined and replaced as the markings meant nothing to him. There were four bunks, wide enough for Catteni bulk, and all unmade and messy.
Easley did look into the nearest locker, pinched his nose and shut it up. But he glanced in at the others. 'Some of the gear can be useful. Especially the uniforms for Phase Two . . . once they'd been washed." There were two more compartments, one with three bunks and one - the captain's, Kris thought - with one, which contained command equipment. A viewer plate like the one she'd seen the steward on Barevi use, and racks of the disks used in it. Easley homed in on that. He was familiar with such things, neatly inserting a disk and turning on the viewer. A Catteni voice in monotone added comments to whatever was printed in the glyphs.
"Well, very interesting, I'm sure,' he said, clicking it off and absently returning the disk to its rack. 'Now where did they eat and wash - if they did?" One of the doors in the captain's unit slid back to disclose what had to be a shower compartment, complete with what Kris thought resembled a urinal and another odd opening. Well, Catteni had much the same alimentary requirements as Humankind. Easley gave a mild grunt when he peered in over her shoulder.
There was another unit next in line down the passageway which would accommodate two at once. The galley was just beyond it, almost the last door in the passage.
"One-butt, at that,' she said, looking at the 'kitchen' side and its equipment. A table with padded seating around it was evidently where the crew ate, if not in their rooms. But the place was neat and tidy. Even clean. Ah, but Raisha had said that they'd eaten aboard the ship so she had probably also cleaned it up.
"Wonder what's back here, though,' he said after the briefest glance in the wardroom, turning his attention to the final, large door that took up the end of the passageway. It was dogged tight with large Catteni glyphs in white.
"If empty is white on Catteni guns, would it be caution on equipment?"
Kris asked.
The moment Easley put his hands on the toggles, an alarm sounded.
"Don't enter." Zainal's voice issued from an intercom right above their heads. 'Please,' he added.
"He's not totally assimilated, is he?" Easley remarked. 'Let's see what they're up to. Unless you want to clear out those lockers.
We might need clean Catteni uniforms." Kris gave him a stern look.
"We might, but I think it would count as a morale booster for others to see just what slobs the Catteni can be."
"What I really want to do is itemize all that lovely gear I hope we scouts have first pick of,' she said, rubbing her hands together.
"Damn, I've no paper." 'Voile!" Easley said, taking a wad of small sheets out of one thigh pocket and a pencil from his chest pocket.
"Hey, the comforts of home. Mitford can't operate without a pad and pencil, either."
"Where do you think I got them?"
Sharing a grin over that, Kris and Easley began to take stock.
They were interrupted by a clanging on the open hatch.
"Who's on board?" an irritated voice demanded.
"Scott?" Easley called back.
"With Fetterman, Reidenbacker and Marrucci,' and the four men climbed on board, crowding the passageway. 'Didn't see you leave, Easley." Easley smiled, ignoring the implied accusation. 'Decided to inventory what's here before the crowd gathers. Rastancil's forward with Zainal, doing printouts or something operational. I have six only of what looks like pack frames,' he went on to Kris and put the first one back in its slot.
When they heard the newcomers moving forward, Easley grinned at Kris.
"I wonder,' she replied, grinning back at him, 'if they ever reached any conclusion." 'Oh, probably not until they've gone over Baby with a finetoothed comb. The Catteni don't seem to stock such items, do they? Not even toothbrushes or soap."
"I found what looks like liquid soap, remember?"
"Oh yes, drawer nine."
The inventory turned out to be the pleasantest part of the day.
Once that was finished, Kris went to find Mitford. Easley, who had initially gone forward to see how Zainal was faring, ran to catch up with her halfway to the barn where Mitford held office in Camp Narrow.
"The compartment's jammed back with those who needtoknow. I'll wait for a quieter time,' Peter said.
Kris gave a-snort. 'No matter what he explains, they'll still need him to fly the thing."
"I expect so,' Peter replied equably.
Chuck Mitford's eyes bugged out when he spread out the.
pages of available equipment. He was flabbergasted when he saw the aerial photos.
"Clearest recon photos I ever saw,' he said, amazed, picking up one after another and scanning them.
"Look, here . . . here . . . and here,' Kris said, pointing out
spots on the various photos. One was quite close to Camp Narrow,
although it was in an area that had been lightly explored. 'More
ill of those dead-end valleys. Zainal thinks they have, or had, a purpose." 'If they didn't before, they may now. Especially as we've got enough personnel - AND the equipment,' and Mitford's voice rang with satisfaction, 'so a team could hang around, safe enough, and see what comes up." He tapped the near valley with his index finger. 'If we can secure this area . . ." He broke off as his shoulders convulsed in a shudder. 'I want us out of the Farmers' facilities. I got a hunch about 'em." He gathered the inventory sheets into one neat pile and the photos into another one. 'Anyone seen these yet?" 'No,' Easley replied, 'you're in charge of exploration. And were I you, I would secure these supplies for your teams and start sending them out." Mitford grinned crookedly. 'Appreciate the advice, Pete." He turned to Kris. 'The rest of your team's doing kp, but they should be finished by now. I'll just rev up the load-bed trundler and secure those supplies. Any weapons?" 'Some, but I'd leave them where they are until Zainal drills us in their use,' Peter said. 'Some of'em'll make right nasty holes in people. You know,' and he scratched his head, contorting his features as the sort of prelude that Kris decided was his way of leading up to an utterance of a diplomatic suggestion, 'we might take a page from the Catteni book of colonial administration and drop the next bunch of Turs into one of those valleys. Come back in a few weeks and see how they've got on." He paused. 'Oh, better still, dump any Catteni prisoners we take in them. A bit of turnabout's fair play." Mitford stared, frowning at Peter Easley.
"You a bleedingheart or something?" 'It was Yuri Palit's notion, actually,' Easley replied, slightly abashed. 'I mentioned that you'd discovered the one. I don't see the need for gratuitous violence or killing. There's been quite enough of that. I'd rather we Humans fell on the side of the Angels than the Eosi. Besides, it rounds things gut,' end he made a cage of the fingers in both hands, rotating one around the other, 'and they get back a little of what they've been dealng out besides supplying us with guinea-pigs for whatever might lurk in one of those valleys." Mitford was unconvinced. 'They want this referendum first, don't they?" 'I think you'll have trouble getting the notion of lenience across to anyone who's tangled with a nervewhip,' Kris said.
"I can see it for the Turs, Easley,' Mitford allowed. 'I've never liked just turning them loose. They're dangerous and, if there's enough of them, they constitute a menace." He rubbed his jaw.
"Actually, we could use them as a detention facility. That's less messy than staking a guy out at night for the crawlers." Then, with a shrug, he dismissed that topic and split his attention between the photos and the inventory.
"The print won't fade,' Kris said, pulling his sleeve. 'Let's go get what we need before someone else requisitions it." 'Damn well told,' and Easley and Kris had to run to keep up with Mitford.
Vic Yowell was back on duty, standing squarely in the inset door, his expression inscrutable until Mitford leaned out of the driver's side.
"Open up, will ye, Vic? I've requisitioned some of the gear on board to outfit my scouting teams." Vic took no exception to that and pushed the main door back. So Mitford reversed the vehicle right up to the hatch, the load-bed almost level with it. With Joe, Sarah, Whitby, Leila, Pete and Mitford working quickly and quietly, Kris checked off the items they were taking from the inventory list. Soon they had emptied the passageway lockers.
While the others were stowing the last acquisitions, Mitford took a quick look at the arsenal and closed that compartment firmly.
Temptation, step behind me, Kris thought.
Just then Scott appeared in the forward end of the passageway.
"What're you doing, Sergeant?"
"Looking at the arsenal, sir. Could be useful." 'Pete and I have just finished the inventory of the lockers, Admiral,' Kris added, holding up the pad.
"Good idea, Bjornsen. Carry on."
"We will,' she said jauntily and, stifling a giggle at her deception, she followed Mitford out.
"Get what you needed?" Vic asked as the flatbed silently moved out of the hangar.
"I think so,' Mitford said and elbowed Sarah before she laughed loud enough for Vic to hear.
They had their loot all neatly stored at the back of Mitford's office, covered with Catteni issue blankets. The rest of Kris's team went to get some lunch while Mitford called in Judy Blane, who'd been a cartographer; he wanted to match the photos to their appropriate areas on the map. Meanwhile, Mitford called in the recon squads he wanted, ordered travel food from the kitchen and was ready to equip them as soon as they reported in.
"Before the brassheads find out where it's all gone to,' Kris said when the sergeant paused briefly.
"Brassheads?" He chuckled. 'Zainal?" She nodded.
"Are you going to lead a group this time, serge, and get out of their way?" He shook his head with a rueful smile and grimace. "New, not this time. I figure I better hang around." 'I can't say I'm not happy you will, Chuck,' she said, tilting her head towards the hangar and the 'brassheads' occupying it.
"But you deserve to get out of here for a while and clear your head. You've done more than your share. You need some R&R." 'I'll go after Phase Two's complete. And don't you worry, Kris. No matter what they decide in their conferences and brassheaded strategy meetings, they need Zainal more than he needs them. Or us." Then he levelled a cocky grin at her. 'With the exception of you . . . Bjornsen.?
"Scott doesn't trust him at all,' Kris said, perching on the edge of the worktop.
"The Admiral doesn't trust anyone,' Mitfordsaid with a snort, folding his arms across his chest. 'For starters, he's stuck on dry land which isn't really where he functions best. But distrust's not altogether a bad habit." A knock on the door which opened without his permission disclosed the first of the teams he'd called in, Ninety Doyle's.
The Scandinavians arrived, breathlessly eager, before Mitford could brief Ninety's squad on the current situation. Kris left him to it and eased herself out of the now crowded office and went to get some lunch.
Part of the original strategy and tactics group were still busy at the end table, and those coming in to eat left a sort of noman's land of unused tables around the area to maintain their privacy. She picked up her lunch of soup and fresh bread and made her way to where Sarah' Joe, Leila and Whitby were sitting.
"Are we going to get to use some of that beaus gear?" Joe asked.
"We won't be going out . . ."
"Until the brass start believing Zainal?" Sarah asked in a caustic voice.
"Oh, I think they believe him,' Kris said.
"It's trust that's lacking,' Whitby added when she paused.
"I would rather wait until Zainal comes with us,' Leila remarked in her quiet but firm way, and sipped soup.
"Besides which, I wouldn't want to miss Phase Two for anything,'Joe added. 'Got any update on that, Kris?" She shook her head and gave a little snort, jerking her thumb towards the earnest knot of men at the end table. 'They have to make up their minds first." "Whaddya bet they'll end up doing what Zainal suggested in the first place?" Joe asked, looking around the table.
"Just so long as they make up their minds before the next transport gets
here,' Sarah said. 'It could come any day now, too, judging by the
frequency we've been getting Drops
said, entering the conversation, 'instead of a minor commando action." They had just finished their meal when the rumble of male voices was audible, heralding the arrival of Scott, Fetterman, Rastancil, Beverly, Marrucci and Zainal. He halted at the door, surveying the room, spotting Kris and, cocking his finger at her, indicating she was to join them at the Strategy table.
"I've been paged,' she said, cleaning the corners of her mouth of any traces of soup with two fingers and brushing breadcrumbs off her front with the other as she rose. 'Hang about, will you?" 'Over at Mitford's, dear,' Sarah said, also rising. 'I don't want to get sucked into another session of kp just because we're all sitting here, looking as if we're doing nothing." 'Which we are,' said Joe, but he got up, too, and, as Kris joined Zainal, they all left the mess hall. Peter Easley passed them on his way in, sauntering in that easy bent-knee gait, pausing to exchange a few words and a laugh.
As he came up, he winked at Kris.
"There you are, Easley,' Scott said. 'When can the next transport be expected?"
"Any time now,' Easley replied indifferently.
Everyone turned around to stare at him.
"They come when they have a full load, evidently,' he said and looked to Zainal who shrugged.
"Last one was eight days ago. Sometimes there's twentyone days between Drops." He dismissed that concern with a flick of his fingers.
"Deskis hear the best. Deskis spread out . . ." and now he waved his big hand, splayfingered, over the map that occupied one end of the long table. 'They hear. They report." 'And they have been using the same field they dropped us in?" Scott asked.
"Lately at any rate,' Easley said, grinning at Zainal, 'ever since Zainal had a little word with them."
"Can the Deskis be trusted?" Rastancil asked.
"With what?" Kris asked. 'Hearing or reporting?" 'Do they know how to use ermilnitc9' Pratt a her remark.
"The ones we have, even your grandmother could manage,' Kris snapped back, 'begging your grandmother's pardon,' she added, making herself grin at Scott's indignant reaction.
"Are they capable of giving a detailed enough report, though?" Beverly asked, slightly more respectfully. 'I mean, I've never heard them use more than one word." 'What more is needed? Hear ship. Comes down near. Comes down far. Your way,' Zainal said, and Kris was delighted to hear him effect the odd-tonality of the Deski voice.
"A Deski did all right warning us about the scout,' she added.
to use ';umumS! Scott asked, Ignoring
and telling Worrell exactly where it had landed."
"Point,' Beverly said. 'So we can count on their ears . . .
"And eyes,' Easley added. 'Deskis and Rugarians are also blessed with exceedingly acute night vision."
"Send a human along if you're worried,' Kris suggested.
"No need,' Zainal said, and then took out of his coverall a sheaf of pictures, evidently second copies of the ones now being examined in Mitford's office. He spread them on the table, while some of the other tacticians exclaimed and reached out for one to examine. Zainal found the one he wanted. 'This is hne I flew m.
It had been taken at an altitude of the descent well above the cliffs in which Camp Narrow was located, but showed the fields leading to what was now called the Drop Field. The scope of the photo included the third Drop area, and the boggy swamp where Zainal had lain, wounded by the toxic thorns.
"Drop made here, too." And he put his finger squarely on the little patch of field.
"But all the others have been made here,' and Easley pointed to Drop Field.
"Good cover for troops in those hedges. We can improve on it, though,' Fetterman said, indicating the three upper sides.
"And move forward when enough crates have been positioned,' and Rastancil tapped a pencil on where the supplies were usually unloaded.
r
"There are some spare Catteni uniforms on the scout . . ." Kris said.
'They'll have to be washed first, but I saw them in the lockers.
So guys stocky enough could actually get on board easily." 'Catteni don't talk much when unloading,' Easley said, having watched the procedure often enough in his official capacity as In-flow Officer.
"Most don't even carry whip or stunner." The whole procedure was then gone over and over until Kris felt her stomach roiling. She hated meetings where the obvious got repeated and repeated and no conclusions made. Once, when she shifted impatiently, she felt Zainal, who was sitting next to her, press his leg against hers and she settled for a little while longer.
Then orders were issued, for Deski teams - Easley, Beverly and Rastancil backed Zainal's assurance that the aliens would manage such a duty without a human counterpart - to spread out in a wide circle around the sprawling human settlement, equipped with comunits, to report the first rumble of an approaching transport ship. They were given extra rations and blankets and a translation in Deski by Zainal of their orders, in case they hadn't understood Beverly's. They had grinned broadly enough when they had listened intently to the black general, but they hiccuped with amusement after Zainal's remarks. Kris saw that he was grinning back at them, a grin which left his face as he turned back to the brassheads.
"Now, we wait,' he said.
"No, now we train the assault forces,' said Scott, and he marched off with those who were assisting him in that. The others drifted away, gathering up their notes, maps and papers and leaving, probably to get some sleep.
"You cleared equipment?" Zainal asked Kris as he guided her to the buffet table to get some lunch.
"Everything that looked useful - except the dirty uniforms."
She asked for a cup of the herbal tea and joined him at the table he took, set at the opposite end of the mess hall from the conference area, in an unoccupied corner. All day and night people drifted in and out of the mess hall, eating whenever their duties permitted. Kris noticed Aarens coming in, arguing with a man she recognized as a senior design engineer. However, Aarens had lost a lot of his arrogance though he still maintained a unique position as a clever adapter of useful gadgets from the Farmers' materials.
"By now the sergeant probably has sent most of it out with the scout teams he called in."
Zainal grinned slightly. 'Did he go?"
Kris shook her head. 'He's got the right to be in on Phase Two."
Zainal nodded. 'He is."
"Oh, was that decided in the scout?" 'I believe so." Something else about his morning amused Zainal and although she tried to get him to tell her, he shook his head.
"Probably." She stood as Zainal did. When they had carried their dishes to the proper place and the weary young woman who was handling that chore, they made for Mitford's office.
Although he called a cheery 'come in' when they knocked at the door, he was not alone. A rather officious young man with a receding hairline, holding a clipboard fashioned from a piece of supply crate, was jotting down notes as fast as he could write. Glancing to the back of the office, Kris noticed that the equipment - which had reached nearly to the ceiling when they had finished unpacking it that morning - was now down to a single level in most places.
"I'm in charge of recon groups and I sent all of them out, properly
equipped for the first time. You tell Admiral Scott that we took
nothing else." He flipped an indolent finger at the neatly stacked
inventory sheets Kris had made. 'All signed out or accounted for. Not
a damned thing he'd need for an assault force or training. Ah, Zainal,
come to brief me on the overall picture? Well, this in-die-vidjual's
just leaving. Aren't you'i son?"I
tone, stressing the rank, 'I was Admiral Scott's aide in the resistance . . ." 'And still no doubt an admirable aide in this one,' Mitford said, 'but, lieutenant, we're all dropees here on Botany, ain't we, Zainal?" 'We dropped. We stay." And Zainal held the door politely open for the lieutenant to leave by.
As soon as he was gone, Mitford dropped his chair on all four legs and whistled softly. 'Damn fool! Scott, too. Not a fragging thing he'd need, and my teams do." 'Good on you, serge,' Kris said, chuckling as she settled down on a stool. Zainal pulled one up closer to the desk and she let him tell Mitford what had happened so far.
As it occasionally happens with well-laid plans, and just about the time everyone in Camp Narrow started to get real antsy from the waiting, a Deski called into the command post in the dim light of false dawn five days later. Mitford happened to be duty officer on that shift.
"Comes now. Bad noise. Bad smell,' she said. 'Wrong noise."
"What could she mean by that?" Beverly asked. He'd jumped out of his cot in the duty of lice and was hunched over the handunit which Mitford had politely tilted so that he could hear the report which Mitford asked Tul to repeat.
"Let's ask Zainal." He rose and shook awake the runners who'd been stationed in the office for this contingency. Each of the youngsters knew who they were to waken and where they were bunked.
Then he turned to the diagram on the wall which showed the position of each Deski. 'Hmmm. Tul's here,' and he pointed. 'If it was coming in properly, we should have heard from Fek." He moved his finger, and drew it in a straight line down to the Drop Field. 'Off course?" Beverly ran a straight line from Tul's position and wound up Flicks away from the usual area. 'We'd better get vehicles ready."
had plenty of leeway to get to a different position, and still mount the rehearsed assault.
Narrow was not the only camp alerted. The Deskis followed Zainal's orders to contact Narrow first, and then their Camps.
Worrell called in to ask for instructions. Even Bella Vista Camp, up in the hills, had been included in the contingency plans that the brassheads had made. Well, it had been something to do to keep busy until Phase Two actually started. It had!
Fek's report came in a moment before Zainal, Kris and the rest of their team arrived.
"It comes. Noisy,' Fek said.
"Where is it headed, Fek?" Mitford asked.
"You,' she answered.
"Thanks, Fek. Keep listening. Tul said the noise is wrong." 'Is,' Fek agreed and Zainal nodded to indicate he had heard and understood.
"Kris, find Beverly and tell him it's headed here after all,' Mitford said. 'He'll be at the main garage. Why would a transport be making a "wrong noise", Zainal?" Zainal cocked his head. 'I told you ships not in good condition.
I must hear noise to make a guess. I go up!" And he pointed to the roof of the office.
A ladder had been affixed in one of the alleys between barns to reach the cliffs against which they were backed.
Mitford swore, but stayed on the comunit desk for any further reports.
Two more Deski listeners reported in, also remarking on 'wrong noise'. A runner came back and Mitford beckoned him to the desk and the comunit while he went outside to listen. There was so much noise now, with men and women running up and down, seeking their assigned vehicles and getting their gear on, that he gave up and went back inside.
His comunit went off again. This time it was Zainal.
"I hear wrong noise, too. Ship in trouble. Drive is bad." 'Fraggit.
· We need an operational ship,' Mitford said, hopes blasted by the news.
"Not to worry. Attack plan may need change."
"Not if Scott has anything to say about it, and he is in charge of Phase Two." 'Phase Two is my idea,' Zainal said, and the comunit went dead.
It wasn't long before everyone could hear the transport, wheezing and rumbling and giving off hoarse metallic shrieks, landing lights blazing and onboard sirens audible. The surface force made it to the Drop Field, and into their assigned positions, before the ailing transport came into view, barely skimming the ridge-pole trees and skidding to a stop rather than landing. As many landings as Mitford had already seen, some bouncing several times, others skidding toga stop, this was the worst. He dreaded to think of the unconscious bodies being thrown around inside the shallow decks.
hatch opened and Catteni - coughing, sneezing, staggering made a disorderly descent from the vessel. All of them. Mitford counted twenty, which Zainal had estimated was the usual crew complement. And they were running as fast as they could, away from the ship.
Zainal ran into the light, waving a stunner and barking orders.
He pointed to one of the faster runners.
"Get him!" he called in English and roared louder in Catteni.
The vanguard did not slow and Zainal let off a stun bolt, hitting the Catteni in the head - a mortal shot. The next two he got in the legs and they fell, moaning in frustration. That was enough to halt the others and make them turn around, hands in the air. He barked another order and they reluctantly retraced their steps, their eyes wide and frightened, darting anxiously from Zainal to the hulk they had somehow managed to land.
Zainal called out a question. He got a response and immediately gestured for those hidden in the shadows to come out.
out. Dane, Chavell, Rastancil, take control of them. Scott, we need every man you have." He raced up the ramp, Kris and the rest of their team right behind. He went to controls set just inside the main hatch, throwing open the lid which was hot. He was muttering or cursing in Catteni. 'Schkelk!" She felt herself go rigid with attention at his Catteni 'listen'. 'They will not breathe, Kris. No air. You pull down this type,' he said, pulling the flat lever, 'to open hatch. Push up to close. This one to change decks. Got it?
DOWDALL! Come with me! I go to bridge. Things can be done. I need engineers, any mechanics, pilots. AARENS!" Looking over her shoulder, she saw the deck part its horizontal doors and lights came up to reveal the pitiful mounds of people who had been thrown about in the landing. She didn't need to shriek for rescuers: they were already running up the ramp and ducking into the fetid level. The frightened Catteni crewmen were back, too, each encouraged by a settler holding a stunner on him to unload the passengers.
The evacuation began. Catteni managed to lift two or three bodies, while their captors managed one in a fireman's hold.
More help arrived as the ship trembled and shuddered and made the most hideous and frightening of metallic noises while steam hissed out from unlikely places. Kris's right hand was caught in a gush just behind the control board. Whimpering from the pain, she licked and then blew on it.
"Got them all out,' someone yelled at her.
"No, you haven't,' she yelled back. And switched decks. The smell that issued was appalling. Those going in to rescue coughed and gagged, but they kept at their grim task.
Men carrying tool kits hurried past her, kits bearing Baby's markings. Then a group raced aft, Zainal shouting instructions at them about gauges and controls. The heat and the smells were almost more than Kris could manage, even as close as she was to the outside, and her stomach heaved in rebellion. Her hand was really hurting, and blowing didn't much help.
Leaning around the open door, inhaling the fresher air outside, she
managed to filter some of the stench by drawing the front
of her coverall over her mouth and nose, hunching down in a cramped position to do so.
"Got that lot." Yuri stopped by her side, his face a dirty mask, his coverall blood-smeared. 'How many more to go?" 'Two more decks." She worked the controls, although with the noise the machinery made she wasn't sure if the mechanism would shift decks at all. The metal must have warped in the heat. But slowly the third deck level was accessible. 'Have many survived?"
"Others tend them."
"We should salvage the cargo, too,' Kris said.
"Cargo? The living first." Yuri dismissed her suggestion with a wave and ran into the newly exposed deck, ducking under the half-raised hatch.
Suddenly the levels of noise from around the ship seemed to abate, and some were silenced. More men and women ran around, both aft and forward, some holding tools, carrying hoses and other equipment she realized they must have found in the transport.
One more tremendous gout of steam erupted from the deck plates beneath her feet and she jumped and skipped about, trying to find some place not burning hot. As soon as she could get the machinery to turn to the last deck, she darted in to help unload. The heat was almost unbearable. How long had these unconscious people endured such temperatures? Or had they?
She slung an arm over her shoulder and hoisted a body, a woman's, and staggered out and down the ramp.
"That way. Make it to the next field,' she was told, a hand turning her in the proper direction. The sun was up and at least she could see where she was going. There were only two bodies in this field - one Catteni, one unidentifiable, and both dead.
She staggered along, more conscious now of the sting in her steam-burned hand and very tender feet. The hedgerow had been cut down and boards put on either side over the ditches.
This field was covered with bodies. Many of them, she thankfully saw, were moving and being attended: water poured over them or cups held to their mouths so they could drink. The field was one cacophonous moan, with weeping woven in. She staggered until she could find a free spot to lay her burden down. And seeing the awful stillness in the grey face, she felt for a pulse in the neck. There was none and with a cry of despair she curved in on herself, weeping.
"Easy, Kris,' a familiar voice said, and she looked up at Sandy Areson, who was holding out a cup of water to her.
"Drink." Sandy's gentle hand soothed the hair back from her sweating face and patted her shoulder. 'We've saved a great many.
Thanks to Zainal." Kris started to rise. Maybe they weren't all dead on that level. But Sandy's hand held her down.
"Oh no, you don't,' Sandy said and pushed her back. 'Hey, what happened to your hand? It's blistered." 'It is?" and Kris held it out and looked stupidly down at it.
"So it is,' she heard herself say as she slipped sideways into unconsciousness.
It took several days for the events of the momentous morning to be sorted out. Of the 728 left alive, many were injured: broken bones being the least of the problems for the triage teams that checked over each survivor. All were dehydrated, and that was almost the first need addressed. Internal injuries as well as concussions were more serious, due to a rough landing which had pitched the inert bodies of the passengers around the shallow decks, piling up and injuring those beneath them.
Severe heat prostration had caused twenty major and minor heart attacks, which had probably been the cause of many more of the deaths.
Deski, 12 Turs, 6 Ilginishs oozing green goo, and 14 Rugarians who had almost all their body hair singed off.
Even those who had suffered no major injuries needed reassurance, proper food and counselling in that order to recover from their ordeal.
The only true advantage the consolers had was that they had been through much the same experiences and really did understand how it affected people. Easley worked tirelessly in directing his teams, asking only for their names and their origin before turning them over to Yuri Palit's resettlement people, transporting the 'walking wounded' to calmer surroundings as soon as possible.
The injured were transported by the aircushion machines to Narrow for emergency treatment. 'Great ambulance service,' Leon Dane commented, 'nothing to bump or jar 'em!" The Tur contingent were unusually docile from their recent horrific experience and pathetically grateful for the water and soup passed out to them. The uninjured ones - forty in all were given such dire and terse warnings by Zainal in their own language about the dangers of the avian predators and nightcrawlers that they remained subdued as they were driven off to their new quarters. Joe and Whitby headed the expedition with a well-armed guard contingent. The first night out, Whitby also arranged a demonstration of what nightcrawlers did to a dead loo-cow, and that had kept them cowed the rest of the trip.
They did not even struggle when they were lowered, with cups, blankets, knives and generous supplies of the Catteni food bars, into the valley.
Zainal also won a second victory, aided and abetted by Easley, Yuri Palit and, surprisingly, Mitford. The nineteen surviving Catteni crewmen were sequestered in the nearer blind valley which Ninety Doyle's team had explored. They had also had an object lesson before their departure, when Zainal forced them to watch the nightcrawlers ingesting the bodies of those who had not survived the crash landing.
He had also required Scott, Fetterman, Rastancil and Reidenbacker to attend. It was a salutary lesson for each group.
"They expected to be thrown into the field last night, didn't they?" Doyle asked Zainal when the biggest aircushion vehicle was finally free of its ambulance duty and the Catteni crewmen were loaded aboard.
"They expected death,' Zainal replied. 'They did not expect an Emassi to be in charge."
"Catteni better learn not to underestimate us humans,' Doyle replied as he waved his stunner to speed up the loading process.
The two crewmen Zainal had stunned were still not very steady on their feet, but none of their companions lent any assistance.
"Mean sonsabitches even to their own, ain't they?" 'One of their most endearing traits,' Zainal said in such a facetious tone that Doyle nearly missed the sarcasm.
As the vehicle glided silently off, the Drassi captain gave Zainal a look, compounded of hatred, fear, and indignation that one of his own species was responsible for this total humiliation.
"He wanted to sear Zainal's skin off him,' Sarah told Kris, and gave her shoulders a shake to rid herself of that memory.
"Hope it doesn't turn out later that it would have been wiser to stake 'em out." 'No, we'd be no better than they are, doing an eye-for-an-eye bit,' she said and then inhaled sharply in pain. Sarah was checking the blisters on her steam-burned hand. There was nothing to treat it, nor the very tender soles of her feet. The soles of her Catteni boots had melted on the hot deck-plates and, had she waited much longer, the injuries might have been even more severe. Leon had seen her, rueful that he had nothing, even from the medical stores of the scout, with which to treat the burns.
"I think there won't be any lasting damage, Kris,' he said, gently laying her hand back in the sling. 'Once that main blister has popped, it'll ease off and your body will take over the healing process. We do have that salve Patti made up which the cooks all swear by, to keep the skin supple. Might ease the soles of your feet, too." 'I'm not complaining,' she said. 'Sarah was a little officious, taking you away from the ones who really need you." 'Oh, never fear, m'dear,' Leon said, grinning. 'We've got quite a list of specialists these days, you know. And a supply of the gas they use; it makes an effective anaesthetic." He gave a little shudder. 'Thank God. Some of the repair work would have been barbaric without it."
near the hub of activity, and Zainal, and very eager to hear how they had kept the ship from blowing. Sarah and Leila kept her informed and helped her down to the main mess hall where she could listen to the 'hourly bulletins' as Sarah called them, updating those not involved with various aspects of what was going on.
Zainal and the engineers had managed to jury-rig the control board, venting the build-up to an explosion. A pump was found, disconnected from the ship, and dropped into the nearby stream. By combining all the hose on the Catteni ship, the fuel tanks had been kept from exploding and the reduction in temperature had saved other systems from reacting to the intense heat.
"If they hadn't managed, the explosion would have altered the landscape considerably,' Sarah went on, talking to distract Kris from her tender ministrations to the raw sole of her right foot. 'But the fuel got saved and there's plenty for Baby now." 'So that's why the Catteni were running away as fast as they could,' said Kris through clenched teeth. 'Was the ship badly damaged inside? Can we make use of anything?" Granted all she had seen was just inside the cargo area, with bursting conduits and pipes and hot deck-plates, but surely something was salvageable.
Sarah grinned up from bandaging her feet with sufficient fluff to form a protective layer. 'You better believe it! The entire bridge!'
Sarah chuckled in a mock-malicious way. 'Well, what there actually is of it. Anyone who's ever flown anything is wondering how the damned thing stayed in the air, much less made journeys out into space. However, Scott wanted it where it can be used. And the interior of the transport still stinks to high heaven, so it was dismantled and it's been reconstructed in the hangar. They've even got the communications up and running.
And solar panels on the hangar to power it.
"Everyone's over the transport like ants, taking it apart. It's nothing
but a shell now - which still stinks. The mechanics and
l
engineers are having a field day with all these new treasures, even if most of the loot is secondhand, slightly damaged goods.
But it's more than we've ever had to work with.
"Then there's real competition over who can sound more Catteni than another. More learned the language than you might think." 'I suppose a knowledge that didn't make you all that popular on Earth,' Kris mused. 'But why is there a competition?
You said the crew was sequestered in a valley." She tried to concentrate on what Sarah was saying, rather than the painful dressing of her feet.
"Sorry, love, I keep thinking you've been in on all the briefings. The Drassi captain sent out a mayday, or whatever Catteni call an emergency, to another transport which said, and I quote, "they'd get around to picking up the crew when they were on their way back to Base." That is, if they survived the crash landing." 'So that's why Scott wanted the bridge operational,' Kris grinned, for it was easy to see what was likely to happen next.
"So, have they reported they survived?" Sarah nodded, grinning from ear to ear. 'Leon did it. He's still the best, but not for long."
Sarah shrugged. 'From what Zainal discovered in questioning the crew - the captain wouldn't say doodly to him - it's a bigger, newer ship, with a longer range, and so we have to wait for another message from them when to expect them. So there's plenty of time to prepare, rehearse and drill for their arrival." 'A bigger, newer ship?" Kris repeated. Then she chuckled to herself, thinking of Admiral Scott's bridge being run from a hangar. 'And we'll have three ships!" She was so proud of Zainal that she wriggled in the bed.
Sarah grinned fatuously at her. 'Scott's even acting as if Zainal's not
so bad after all. And he's got a committee working to find out
something that will add the necessary grey tinge to human skin. Those
loose uniforms they wear will camouflage who's in them, but they gotta
have grey skin. Leon's dying to
take part, but he's really too tall to play a Drassi."
"So is Zainal." Kris began to worry again. Zainal was taking so many risks. A bigger, newer ship would be better captained and crowed.
But then surprise was still on their side.
The dressings now complete, she glared down at her feet.
They'd better be completely healed; she had to be able to be at this second enactment of Phase Two.
f
Scott insisted on interviewing them first as to their Earthside activities. Once satisfied, he turned them over to Zainal who tested their skills by having them read out loud from log entries.
"They read Catten well,' Zainal said, passing all three.
Later, Easley asked if he'd spoken truthfully or merely to get.
out himself out of a very boring task.
"I said true. They can copy what they do not understand and I will translate . . . if I can,' and Zainal grinned from Easley to Kris.
Scott next had him interview every male who had listed some understanding and speaking knowledge of Catteni in their Drop interviews. With Kris's help, Zainal made a list in order of fluency and vocabulary of over seventy men. Scott then had his choice of those he felt would be most useful in the commando unit he was training to stand in for the transported stranded crew.
"You're certain they're coming back for the crew?" Beverly asked Zainal at the very beginning of this new venture.
"That was the message,' and Zainal had shrugged. 'They will not hurry to do so. The crew would be safe in ship, away from us who are dropped." Scott might not have been certain of Catteni altruism in collecting a stranded crew, but he was also counting on it as a replacement for the useless hulk in the Drop Field.
Zainal gave Kris a list of the most frequent commands, which she wrote down with phonetic translations, so that all could learn them and learn the proper responses of both Drassi and ordinary crew to commands. Rank had some privileges.
"Catteni crew don't talk much,' Zainal said. 'Just obey."
"They must also know what is being said so they can act on their initiative if that becomes necessary,' was Scott's reply.
"Not Catteni,' Zainal replied, shaking his head.
"So long as the real Catteni obey, there's no problem,' Scott said, a stubborn look coming into his eye.
"So the surprise will be even greater,' said Easley, smiling at Scott, 'and that will work in our favour, won't it?"
When Zainal spent more time explaining to the mechanics and engineers what the salvageable material had been used for, they could more knowledgeably adapt it to their needs. Once the bridge was sited and up and working again, Scott preempted him to translate the data on the transport's log files.
"Much is routine,' Zainal said, scrolling at a fast pace through the entries.
"But we need to know where they have been, how long it takes, the protocols they use . . ." Scott said, scowling.
"I think I've found someone from the latest Drop who can manage to translate routine reports,' Easley said, once again diplomatically inserting his presence. 'In fact, several someones who have a good working knowledge of the glyphs. Learned to help decipher Catteni documents captured during raids." Beth Isbell was the only uninjured member of the three 'someones'who were summoned. Sally Stofers, a petite brunette with an extremely innocent expression, arrived on crutches for a broken leg, while Francois Chavell had his left arm in a sling.
. .
i Zainal had contrived of what he 'thought' the interior of the new transport should be. He hadn't had an opportunity to inspect any himself.
"Designed to carry more with fewer deaths,' he said in summary.
"Just being newer is improvement."
The engineers and mechanics at the meeting agreed to that.
"Some of the controls were wired together, and I dunno what they used to keep the drive units operating,' Peter Snyder said.
He'd been a jet-engine propulsion engineer and was fascinated by the Catteni drives: especially how they kept working in the state they were in. By using the schematics in the manuals, he and the other aviation and space shuttle personnel were trying to reconstruct one working system from the remainders of four.
"To know how it should work, mainly,' Snyder had said with a grin. He was an amiable fellow, medium in build and neighs, and usually either whistling or humming, on key, as he and the team worked to rebuild the engine. 'We're in a sort of no-man's land here, with bits and pieces we know worked in a hightech society and should work if we reassemble them right, but we are working with the equivalent of early Iron Age tools. Aarens is miraculous; sometimes, if you tell him what you want a tool to do, he manages to provide one which does it.
The problem is knowing what tool you need next and how long you'll have to wait until he can contrive it." Kris, now hobbling on crutches with well-wrapped feet and a bandaged hand, accompanied Zainal to the various meetings as she still seemed to be the necessary verbal bridge for vocabulary for him. Half the time she was floundering for technical jargon even worse than he was, but she was not about to admit that failing to anyone. Probably Easley had guessed, but he was on their side. Kris would be very glad when she, Zainal and their team could get back to what they were best at: exploring.
Sometimes it seemed to her that Scott resented what Zainal had had no
reason to learn - as far as details of his own species' space-drive
technology included - and yet was forced to include the Catteni in all
major meetings because of the little he did
know and the insights he could provide on other details.
"Scott's got an incredible mind for detail,' Easley murmured to Kris one evening during a long session.
"He comes across ultra-suspicious and snide to me,' she whispered back.
"Suspicion is detail, too, you know, but I happen to know that he is impressed by Zainal." 'You could have fooled me,' Kris replied, glaring at the end of the table where Scott, Rastancil, Ainger, Marrucci and Beverly were crouched, heads together, in inaudible conversation.
"But I don't,' Easley said, his low voice vibrant with sincerity.
"He knows a man of integrity when he sees one, and he sees Zainal as one. I don't think many of us had any idea of the role the Eosi play in what the Catteni do. So he's abandoned the position of detesting the Catteni for what was done on Earth to come halfway to absolving the tool for the work it's been put to. Zainal's responsible for that adjustment, without losing either dignity or respect in Scott's eyes." Kris absorbed that speech, feeling a little better about what seemed like Scott's persecution of her lover. But she was only halfway there herself.
Once again, when the extra-acute hearing of the Deski sentries caught the first sound of the approaching vessel, they alerted the camps before the landing ship announced its imminent arrival on the communication band.
The 'bridge' accepted the message with typical Catteni stolidity as Zainal had drilled them, reaffirming the coordinates of their downed ship's position. Though Leon had prepared a report of what had disabled the ship, he wasn't asked for it.
Zainal had told him it wouldn't be required, but had helped him to learn the terms.
The camps in the line of the ship's descent - Bella Vista, Ayres Rock and Shutdown - cleared away any signs of orderly living.
All the aircushioned vehicles were stowed out of sight and there was some concern over people, scouts and hunters, who might be seen out and about. Narrow, particularly, must appear deserted from the air.
"They will know from heat signs people are on the surface,' Zainal had said, 'but not what they are doing or what they live in.
Wiser for them to see men out hunting."
"You mean they'll be counting noses?" someone had asked.
Zainal laughed at the notion. 'No, just the presence of sufficient life signs to suggest survivors down here."
"So they can send us more?" Mitford had asked in a sour tone.
"At this point, it's the more the merrier,' Easley had said, grinning so infectiously that Mitford had smiled back.
Guess you're right."
The instrumentation on the bridge in the hangar was now working with an efficiency it had lacked for many voyages, and the descent of the rescue vessel was easily estimated. The assault team, in position from the moment the first Deski alarm had come in, lounged about the downed transport: some were outside, others sitting on the ramp, while the "Drassi' would not appear until their counterparts called for them.
Camouflaged in the hedgerows and up the trees in strategic positions were sharpshooters with crossbows and lances. Zainal had had no information about the crew complement of the new transports. The Catteni to be rescued were armed with stunners, which might be all that was needed. Surprise was on their side.
It was, and the takeover of the transport ship was even smoother than the one hijacking the scout. The supercilious Drassi of the rescue vessel had been so eager to mock the stranded captain that he had been first down the ramp, the other Drassi staff following, while the crewmen began to unload what passengers they had remaining. They were laughing and chatting, pleased to be on the last leg of this journey and going home.
They were also looking forward to making the rescued Catteni work while they loafed.
Flat on her stomach in the next field - Zainal by her, chuckling softly
to himself - Kris watched as the Catteni
Drassi strolled arrogantly across to the damaged transport.
The mock-Catteni crew had, of course, jumped to an appropriate alert stance, calling out - in an excellent accent, Kris thought proudly - to those inside that the Drassi captain was coming aboard.
They followed in, a respectful distance behind, and one remained at the open hatch, leaning against it as the rescuers finished unloading the latest unconscious dropees.
They had no sooner finished than they were called to come aboard the wreck.
"Now what do we have to do?" one Catteni demanded of another as they made their way across the field - or so Zainal translated for Kris.
"Probably dismantle equipment the beasts might use,' the other replied.
"Beasts, huh?" Joe muttered on the other sideof Zainal. 'We'll beast them." Zainal translated the first part of the Catteni response: 'Let's hope it doesn't take too long, then. I need my . . ." And he refused to translate that rather long sentence to Kris. Considering the nasty way the two Catteni chuckled, she was glad he hadn't.
While the observers waited, nervous and anxious, for what seemed an interminable time, suddenly the mock-Drassi captain - actually Vic Yowell, who was not only the right size but had known enough Catteni to handle the necessary interchanges appeared and, with his men, strode purposefully across to the newly arrived ship and up its ramp.
There was a brief interval before he reappeared, waving his cap and showing the difference between his Catteni make-up and his own skin colour.
The hedges sprouted humans, cheering and dancing with glee at the success of the second Phase Two assault. Then they hurried to attend to the newly arrived, 114, all from Earth and in far better condition than many of the most recent arrivals.
The Catteni prisoners were sent off to join their compatriots in the valley.
its original shade, headed the guards who accompanied the prisoners. On the way they were given an example of nightcrawler activity and so descriptively warned of other dangers of Botany that they were thoroughly cowed by the time they arrived.
When the new transport had been gone over, Scott was actually smiling at everyone. This had been the maiden voyage of the KDT, according to its log and the look and smell of still-new equipment.
Zainal, Kris, Bert Put, Peter Snyder, Rastancil and Beverly were up all night, translating manuals and understanding the improvements incorporated in its systems.
Best by far was the discovery of two small airships, capable of short-range planetary flight, and one large well-equipped ground vehicle, suitable for rough terrain, with exterior plating to resist many corrosive-type atmospheres. Looking at its specs on its control board, Zainal said that it was also probably 'water-going'.
"Amphibious,' Kris had murmured, and they had locked eyes and smiled. They would not have to risk using the scout being seen in order to get to the other continents. This craft would hold twelve passengers and three crew, and would transport safely to at least the closest landmass. They'd better pick a day when the channel waters were calm because she didn't like to think of being seasick in such confines.
But that sort of exploration was not in their immediate future.
The next scenario to be played out was to take off in the brandnew transport and head back towards Barevi, its base.
As many as could fit aboard the KDL-45A - which is how the glyphs on its side translated - took off, and that took in just about everyone who had worked in NASA or on airforce jets from various countries.
The decks could be arranged in a variety of heights and ways, according
to cargo or passengers, awake or unconscious. Rather an ingenious
arrangement, Marrucci and Beverly agreed, when Zainal showed them how to
achieve various combinations. So the KDL could actually accommodate the
many who had some reason, or claim, to make the journey. Some were
going to have a chance in space; others because they had to learn how to
manage the transport; and all
l
would help jettison the traces of the sudden and complete destruction of a brandnew ship. Zainal had found log references to several minor incidents with the propulsion unit on the outward bound journey: one severe enough for the captain to shut down the engines and send an EVA team to clear the tubes.
That had been reported to their Base since it had delayed their touchdown at Botany to collect the transport crew.
Pete Snyder headed a team to figure out just what malfunction could now result in a fatal accident. They had plenty of debris from the damaged ship - fortunately the components were all constructed of similar alloys. With a little ingenuity in their messages to their Base, each describing further problems, and then . . . a delayed action explosion, sufficient detritus would be left floating in space to convince anyone who cared to examine it that the KDL had, indeed, exploded on her way home. An appropriate outer panel had been taken from the old transport, and paint found in the KDL's supply bay to duplicate her glyphs.
The bogus outward-bound voyage was scheduled for a week, since Zainal wished to get beyond the system's heliopause, beyond the satellite's range, before conducting the explosion.
Kris had remained behind, her hand insufficiently healed for her to be useful on the voyage . . . especially when so many, like Raisha and other space-trained women pilots, deserved the chance. Truth to tell, she was tired from late nights and long sessions of translating.
And then Mitford had asked for and got the land vehicle for his scouting teams. She'd be much more use familiarizing herself with that piece of machinery than being a supernumerary on a space flight.
They should be back by now, shouldn't they?" she asked Mitford, as they were storing their equipment on the land-sea vehicle, nicknamed the Tub. When Zainal returned Mitford was planning a trip, with himself as leader, to cross the channel that separated this continent from its nearest neighbour. He was combining two teams for the project, and happier than Kris had seen him since he handed debriefing newcomers to Peter Easley.
a
j: 'Yeah, in fact they're three days overdue. But the destruction went off okay. You know that." The link between the old transport's bridge and the KDL was open and all the mounting hysteria orders and counter-orders, as the propulsion system 'failed' - had been duly followed by those on the ground . . . including the final bang.
So that part had gone well.
The Deski sentries were ordered to keep their ears wide open since their senses were trusted far more than the obsolete and erratic detection system on the 'bridge' in the hangar.
Kris accompanied Mitford when they did a check on the Catteni prison valley and found them alive, but certainly not making any move to 'settle' in.
"No initiative,' Mitford muttered to Kris. 'Just like Zainal said. Not even that pair of Drassi captains." These seemed to be concentrating on a small space of dirt in front of them, but neither moved.
"Chess?" Kris asked, for they had that sort of concentration about them.
"Chess?" Mitford regarded her with surprise. 'They haven't the wits for checkers, much less chess." 'Well, there's someone trying to fish,' Kris said, pointing to the one man poised over the stream with a thin lance in his hand.
"So he is. Even Catteni get tired of those dry rations,' he said and turned away.
Yuri Palit, in his authority as head of Resettlement, had gone to check the Turs and came back with the information that they had already made a few shelters, chopping down the lodgepole trees. There also seemed to be several wounded lying in the sun: broken legs and arms, and one with raw wounds visible down his side.
"Trying to climb out?" asked Astrid.
"How stubborn can Turs be?" Yuri Palit asked of Mitford.
The sergeant shrugged. 'Damned stubborn. Leave 'em alone."
"And let them ruin that lovely valley?" Kris demanded.
Mitford jerked his head towards the photos that adorned his back wall,
those showing the other closed valleys Zainal had seen
on his way in. 'There are others as well as the other continents."
"Now, about them . . ."Astrid began.
Mitford held up one hand, grinning at the tall attractive Swede.
"Gotta wait until Zainal checks us out on the amphibian." Which reminded everyone that the KDL was now six days overdue. Kris tried to appear unconcerned but possible disaster scenarios kept her awake most nights.
"What could have happened?" Astrid asked the morning of the seventh day. 'Surely they should be returning now?" 'That bang wasn't for real,' said Mitford, avoiding Kris's eyes, but speaking as positively as if he had consummate faith in Zainal's return.
"There'll be a good reason, I'm positive,' Kris said so firmly that Mitford shot her a quick look.
.%
"Yeah, there would be kid. I just can't imagine what." 'Asteroids, some technical difficulty, or operational problem, there could be dozens of good reasons."
"Yeah."
"It would be a good idea for him to get in touch, either, and give it all away since the ship's been destroyed and that damned satellite would catch any message he sent." 'You're right there,' Mitford acknowledged and then went to do something else.
"New satellite,' Zainal told them as soon as the hatch opened to the crowd waiting so anxiously. 'We go . . ." and he gestured a circuitous course. He looked for and found Kris at the side of the hatch. 'Lenvec's work." He dropped down beside her, touching her cheek just briefly as the rest of the space-farers exited, exultant in their shouts to the welcoming committee.
The biggest smile was on Scott's face as he came down the ramp with Beverly, Rastancil and what were now being called the High Command following closely.
"Mitford, Easley,' Scott called out, and added other names,
'meeting at 19.30 at Narrow. Beggs,' and now the officious lieutenant Kris disliked so came running up to meet him, clipboard in hand. 'I want all these men and women to make that meeting if humanly possible . . ." And he continued giving orders while proceeding to the nearest aircushion vehicle and gesturing for it to take off towards Camp Narrow.
Zainal, taking Kris by the arm, steered her off to one side, away from the general jubilation around the hatch.
"Lenvec got them to put up a more powerful satellite spy?" she asked.
"Someone did. We had to time its orbits to sneak back in.
KDL is very good at glide."
"You glided? From where?"
Zainal grinned at her astonishment. 'Not hard. Your space shuttles did it. Catteni still better space jockeys." 'Jockeys?" Kris had to admit to herself that she didn't like him picking up slang from other sources. And she severely curbed her reaction.
"Bert brought her down. (food man, Bert. Now, where can she hide?" And Zainal frowned over that problem.
Kris looked up the field at the hulk still sitting there. 'Put it there. They expect a wreck in that place. How much detail will the satellite be able to make out down here on the surface? The name glyphs?" Zainal began to chuckle. 'Why not? The KDL masses more, but not that much more." 'Hiding it right out in sight always confuses a searcher,' Kris said.
Kris shrugged. 'That thing's too big to fit in any garage except maybe the one we can't get into at the seaside. Who will come looking for it? You had us all excited, listening to orders and counter-orders and all the hysterics . . ." Zainal chuckled louder now, his yellowy eyes reflecting his laughter, most unCatteni-ish.
"And if you guys avoided the satellite's eyes on the way in, surely we've succeeded in deceiving them." 'Some one of your wise men said once,' and he tipped his head back a moment, recalling the exact words which he carefully enunciated, 'that you can fool most of the people part of the time, but not all of the people all of the time."
]She had to smile at him, he looked so pleased with remembering the apt quote. And she was so pleased he was back, safe.
"You think Lenvec is that vindictive?" 'Not think. I know. When I was chosen . . ." He paused briefly and then went on, 'I was given privileges the chosen have, Lenvec was . . . jealous. If he is now to take my place as chosen, he will feel like he got robbed." He gave her a sideways glance, to see her reaction to his slang, and she grinned at him. He was also speaking with a less guttural tone to the English words.
Soon his accent would be indistinguishable from a native-born speaker.
"Hmmm, yes, if he's the jealous type he would feel robbed. But maybe he's been . . . chosen already. How much of him is left in the Eosi?" Zainal nodded his head slowly over that point. 'I do not know that. Fortunately,' and now he put his cheek down against hers, holding her tightly, 'I was dropped and I stay."
.%
Kris was not the only one who thought of leaving the KDL right out in the open. An artistically scorched glyph took the bright new KDL-45's place, but there were actually no other options, even if they could find a Farmer facility big enough to house it.
The ship was not just a trophy, gathering dust, although how it would be used was yet to be decided. Scott had approved Phase Two but who knew if the admiral, who seemed to have taken charge of the military aspect of the High Command, felt they should attempt Phase Three.
The KDL settled itself on the wreck, compressing its empty shell.
The Deski sentries would give enough advance warning of any landings .
. . should other transports be sent here . . . so that she could lift and settle down a few fields over, and camouflaged from casual inspection. The Catteni rarely looked around during the process of hauling out their passengers and what supplies accompanied them. A certain risk was taken, but Scott had come to agree with Zainal's assessment of the Drassi: do as little work as possible and get back to base.
"You know someone might just think it was odd that there have been three ships blown up in this area,' Leon Dane remarked at the end of the final debriefing, 'and decide it isn't worth visiting this sector of the vast Eosi-Catteni empire, and leave us alone." 'I doubt that,' Easley said with a sad grin. 'According to the latest arrivals, Earth's resistance is growing and the Catteni are still taking anybody they think might be saboteurs and ringleaders into custody. We had a troop of Sea Scouts in the last group, and all they were doing was holding their monthly meeting. We may end up with more of Earth's population here . . . and wherever else they've been dumped . . . than on good old Terra Firma."
'If we can maintain a good fresh start
approach on Botany and ditch the attitudes that made trouble back on good old Terra Firma,' Mitford said, with good reason to doubt the ability of people to forget ingrained intolerance and bigotry.
Serving time in the stocks right now were three men and a woman who had revived an old prejudice in an hour-long brawl.
The injured would serve their sentences when they had sufficiently recovered. 'The more people we get in, the more trouble we acquire." "We've got four continents . . . well, two, if we leave the Farmers theirs,' Leon said. 'There's enough space for everyone, isn't there?"
"For some types, there's never enough space,' Sarah said.
"Too right,' Dane agreed, exhaling tiredly.
Once the excitement of procuring and hiding the KDL calmed down, Scott and others of the High Command, military branch spent hours debriefing the latest arrivals from Earth, trying to figure out what had happened from reports which were necessarily incomplete. Not much news was broadcast any more in a world which had had twentyfour-hour news bulletin coverage.
"Disasters every time of the day or night,' Kris had said.
"Do they do that on Catten or Barevi?" Sarah had asked Zainal when they were all sitting around their table after the evening meal in Narrow.
"Tell everyone everything? No,' and Zainal chuckled at the notion. His grey hair had grown so long now that he was wearing it in a pony-tail, a style that suited him better than most.
Kris had offered to braid it - Amerind fashion, as she did her now much longer hair-but he had declined. 'Only need-to-know is told." Then he gave a shrug. 'And evenings of lies about new worlds and brave Catten."
Zainal considered the word, squeezing Kris's hand to indicate he was going to figure that one out himself. 'Yes, to join spacearmy." He got a thumb's-up for accuracy from the others at the table, their scouting partners and those from Astrid's six-strong team.
They spent a lot of time together, learning how to drive the amphibious machine so that anyone could. The mechanics had been all over it, too, familiarizing themselves with its equipment, engines, systems, communications and life-support. While Mitford was ranked a senior in the High Command Committee now governing the settlers, he still had to get 'proper clearance' to take such a valuable piece of machinery. He also needed Scott's clearance to take Zainal away when he might just be needed.
For something, any damned thing, rather than let us function as a team,' Mitford had ranted the previous night. They've got both bridges manned, and the KDL working off solar power, and we still have the Deski perimeter listeners, so little can sneak up on us down here. If they really needed him, Marrucci could fly over in one of those atmosphere planes now that he's learned how not to kill himself in it.
And it doesn't leave the sort of trail visible to the spy sat." Zainal wasn't exactly reassuring on that count because he didn't know exactly how sophisticated the new satellite was, just that it was on a full global orbit, checking the surface of the world once every thirty-four hours. He was positive that the reconditioned aircushion Farmer vehicles would not show up on the satellite since they ran on solar power. The amphibious vehicle might possibly be visible - since it was no longer supposed to exist - so he had plotted a course and they would move only when the satellite was at another point around Botany's globe. It might take slightly longer to reach the coast but once in the water, he thought that the Tub would be undetectable since water would not only cool its exterior but mask its emissions.
Kris's hand was still slightly red but her feet had healed, even if she
was careful to keep a layer of fluff as an insole. And she
dearly wanted to leave Camp Narrow for Mitford's sake as well as Zainal's. She tried to convince herself it was just the wanderitch that made her restless because she didn't think she had a trace of precognition in her, but she did very much want to leave.
To go explore the neighbour continent.
Fully accustomed now to its new form, Eosi Mentat Ix was bored.
It had returned to pleasures that its weakening husk had been unable to perform, and now these no longer satisfied its seeking for unusual experiences. The form had been relatively circumscribed, not having had the training of the young originally chosen from that Bloodline.
Catteni mind when it had been subsumed. And Ix accessed the memories.
A brief exploration would discover if the entity's suspicions had been valid. Ix was somewhat startled to discover that a more powerful satellite had been put in position around the subject planet. The entity's traces grew alarmed within the Mentat as the most recent report was mentally gleaned from those on duty.
The scout ship had disappeared, and no trace of it been found anywhere in Eosi space: it had not refuelled at any station, planetary or space. Nor could the satellite find that sort of metal shape on the subject planet. The matter of the wreck of the transport was resolved by the interchange of communications between the KDL and the downed ship. The KDL, the newest of the transport fleet, had taken off after discharging its cargo and been tracked out of that solar system . . .
by both satellites.
And the tape of its final emergency and explosion was on record.
Ix carefully reviewed that tape, the details of the final moments of the ship's life and the efforts of the crew to remedy the fault. It also reviewed the fault in the light of the KDL's sister ships now coming on line, and found that such a backsurge in the propulsion was indeed a possibility, however improbable.
The Eosi Mentat ordered a search for the log of the KDL which should be found in the space debris. It was. Within the tiny fraction of Ix's great mentality, an infinitesimal scream insisted that such events were suspicious.
Ix screened the orbiting satellite's records and found only the wreck that had been left where it had landed. Then Eosi Mentat Ix was called to a meeting of its peers, to determine what must be done with the increasing problems experienced by Catteni occupying forces on the latest planet they had subjugated. Such continued resistance was unique, even bizarre, and the Ix was caught up in deciding what punitive measures to take that would completely solve this problem.
However, all Eosi found themselves rather fascinated by the scope and originality of the opposition to their benign rule.
The general maintenance orb reached the target planet and found its near space occupied by two technological items: one orbiting in a thirty-hour, total global pattern, and the other geosynchronous. These objects were thoroughly examined before the orb descended to a level at which it could investigate why a homing missile had been despatched from the command facility without a message. The orb discovered some life forms resident in the facility, for what purpose it was not programmed to discover, but their presence was noted. It proceeded on its orderly inspection of the agricultural facilities placed around the more arable continents and discovered anomalies throughout a large area, suggesting malfunction of the indigenous equipment on an unprecedented scale.
Checking inventory against what should have been idle at this time of
the planet's growing season, it could discover parts of the equipment
but not in the usual form. This abnormality was duly noted. There did
appear to be more life forms than the natural propagation of the
indigenous
species would ordinarily produce. There was no possible way inI
which such a bovine species could damage, much less alter, the machinery that husbanded it. The orb was programmed only for mechanical devices, inventory and supply: it did not examine life!
forms; that was another department.| It completed the necessary circuits at the altitude programmed into it for the maximum efficiency of requiredI investigations, sent its findings back to its home world and continued on its scheduled maintenance cycle.
The Deski were covering their ears, cowering, but still managed to report in to their bases that there was the most fearful noise in the air. The boards on both bridges reported a spatial object, travelling at an impossible speed, spinning about Botany at what Marrucci stammered had to be damned near the speed of light. Its manifestation on the bridge boards was of a continuous pattern of light, encompassing Botany.
"Then it can't be Catteni,' replied Rastancil, watching behind Marrucci.
'They don't have that capability . . .
"Yet,' Marrucci added, sotto voce.
The team at the Command Post reported a terrifying moment.
"I felt like X-fles and being scanned by E.T.s.'reported the generally sanguine Colonel Salvinato in a voice that noticeably shook.
"Well, you're not alone. Something's giving us a real goingover,' Rastancil replied, which he hoped would reassure the colonel; his body still tingled from whatever it was that had touched him.
Salvinato reported in later that there were now two homing devices where recently there had been only one.
"Replacements by matter transmitter?" Rastancil suggested, condescendingly.
'"Beam me up, Scotty,"' Marrucci said, and this time he didn't lower his voice. 'The Catteni also don't have anything that can do that." 'That would account for how the Farmers' ships managed to load up so fast,' said Mitford when he was called in to give his interpretation of the curious incident. 'I felt it, too, like someone going over me with a mild electrical current." And then he smiled.
"The Farmers have finally noticed us."
"Do we really want them to?"
Mitford thought that over for a long moment and then shrugged.
"Beats me, general,' but he grinned because this was not his problem any more. And yet, it was. Anything to do with Botany was. 'It was the only option I had at the time. Still seems a good one. Only no-one hung around long enough to speak to us. So, what happens next?" Scott called an immediate meeting of as many of those from Camp Rock as had witnessed the fly-past of the Mech Makers'/Farmers' spaceship.
Rumours circulated, and each lap doubled in improbability, stupidity and frightfulness, especially about the scan. It was now variously supposed to have infected everyone with a deadly disease, and the entire population would die in twentyfour hours. Others included the fabrications that the Farmers had counted them and would shortly come and round them up, process them in the abattoir and ship them back as delicacies. All of them were 'marked' now and would be enslaved or converted into the sixlegged loocows or sentenced to turn into nightcrawlers.
There was certainly tension as the First Drop folk gathered in the mess hall at Narrow, late that afternoon. Benches (made of old machine parts, and these were the last places where the arrivals sat) and stools formed a semi-circle around a table at which sat Jim Rastancil, Geoffrey Ainger, Bill Fetterman, Bob Reidenbacker, John Beverly, Pete Easley, Yuri Palit and the former judge, Iri Bempechat, who had recently taken over the disciplinary duties for work evasion or inadequacy. Ray Scott, with his insufferable aide, Beggs, taking notes and counting noses, rose when it was evident that all who intended to come had arrived.
"I hope none of you have suffered any repercussions from those ludicrous rumours started after our recent visitation,' Scott began, with a rueful expression.
He looked directly at Chuck Mitford, who sat with Zainal on his right and Kris to his left, with Dowdall, Cumber, Esker, Murphy and Tesco - his original assistants during the retreat from the First Drop field - ranged along the row: defenders who had made very certain that no hystericals got near the sergeant.
Patti Sue sat just behind him with Jay Greene, Sandy Areson, Bart, Coo,
Pess, Slav, Bass, Matt Su and Mack Dargle. More from the First Drop
spread out behind them: Janet, Anna
Bollinger, the Doyles, Joe Latore and Dick Aarens.
Mitford, arms crossed over his chest, grinned. 'You and me both know the problem with rumours, admiral, but I'm not going into decline over 'em, scanned or not. Especially when everyone'll wake up tomorrow in the same shape they went to sleep in." 'Yes, that will solve that problem, but not the bigger ones we must seriously consider,' Scott said. He looked at Zainal. 'I take it that phenomenal display had nothing to do with either Eosi or Catteni spacecraft?" "Absolutely nothing. The satellites' reports are going to cause a big stir, I know that much,' and Zainal grinned broadly. 'The Eosi won't like to see what came. They will be very worried.
Finally." 'You were a scout, weren't you, Zainal?" Bill Fetterman asked.
"You ever encountered any traces of them in this galaxy?" Zainal shook his head. 'This is new solar system for Eosi and Catteni. Which is why we,' and he emphasized the plural as he glanced around to include everyone there in the pronoun, 'are colonizing it. What I know is that their technology is far superior to Eosi. I also do not fear them as I do Eosi." 'You don't?" Scott was not the only one surprised by that admission. 'How do you arrive at that conclusion considering what just happened?" 'Because of what just happened,' Zainal said, as if that should be obvious. 'No-one was injured by scanning. The homer was replaced. No, I do not fear the Farmers. A . . ." and he put his hand flat against his stomach, 'a . . . gut feeling." 'Does anyone else share this . . . gut feeling?" Scott asked, more amused than patronizing.
"After seeing that valley, I'm inclined to agree,' Kris said.
There was something about the ambience in the valley that she thought the entire team shared: its tranquillity, carefully saved and preserved by the blocked entrance. 'These are not killers, like Eosi.
They nourish this planet carefully." 'Why don't they get rid of the nightcrawlers, then, I'd like to know?" Dowdall asked sourly.
"Very efficient in clearing up waste and garbage,' said Kris.
"They made safe places to keep something in, or something out.
Eosi do not do such things. The Farmers are very different from Eosi .
. . and Catteni." Lenny Doyle raised his hand, grinning. "I'd be a bit more apt to believe him if the Mechs . . . the Farmers . . .
hadn't nearly chopped us up for the crates. But Zainal got us out before they could - and besides, the machines weren't programmed to know the difference between us and loocows."
Dick Aarens made a low disclaimer.
"Would that suggest the Farmers aren't bipedal?" Scott asked.
"No, it only suggests that the Farmers' machines were not programmed to differentiate between warm-blooded species,' said Kris.
"Could the Mechs have been made in the form of their makers?" Janet asked, her eyes flicking around for reassurance.
Lenny began to guffaw at the notion, laughter he tried to stifle when he saw how he offended Janet.
"C'mon, Janet,' Aarens said rudely, 'spare us that religious tripe . . . made in their image? Shit, no! Every single piece of equipment on this planet is a masterpiece of design, using renewable power sources and with easy access for selfrepair and maintenance.
No-one's been able to figure out what sort of alloy was used, but the machinery is practically indestructible." 'Until you came along,' Janet said angrily, stung by Aarens' snide manner.
"That does not, however,' and Ray Scott jumped in quickly, waving for both of them to sit down, 'give us any insights into what course of action the Farmers might take when that orbiting whizz-ball of theirs reports that all the machinery in a goodsized section of their farmlands is no longer in operating condition." Kris covered her mouth to hide her grin. She wouldn't have expected that sort of wry assessment from the admiral.
"Let us not digress into useless speculation,' Scott went on.
Will the Eosi do anything to Botany while they're studying the reports? Like a blockade?" 'Or at least stop shipping us more colonists?" asked Pete Easley in a plaintive tone.
"That is more likely,' Zainal said.
"What I had more in mind is sending a team to investigate a planet that has been the last point of call for a scout-ship and two transports." 'What about blaming the E.T.s for disappearing those ships?" asked Lenny Doyle with a bright grin.
"That would be too much to hope for,'Jim Rastancil said, but he grinned back at Lenny.
"The Eosi do not care what happens to a colony like this one,' Zainal said. 'But they will not like what happened today when they see the reports. The Eosi believe that their technology is best." 'And they'll find it hard to swallow that it isn't,' Ra'stancil put in, quite satisfied with that turn.
"So, it's the Eosi who are your inventors?" Ainger asked.
"Yes. They supply the plans. Catteni build." 'You're sure they won't come after Botany because it has attracted such extra . . ." Rastancil asked, pausing for the appropriate tem, 'stellar visitations?"
Zainal considered this.
"How the hell can Zainal answer that, General?" Mitford asked with some acrimony. 'The Eosi have been supreme in space so far - at least to hear Catteni tell it, and I heard all their tales when I was stuck in Barevi." 'There will be much worry and many meetings,' Zainal said, obviously enjoying Eosian consternation. 'You,' and he gestured to those around the table, mostly the newest to arrive on Botany, 'do not realize how low Earthmen are in their great minds and . . .
serfs." He looked at Kris to see if he had the right word. 'They will spend much effort and time trying to find out who sent that very, very fast space machine. Not,' and he paused for emphasis, 'why it should appear here around their penal colony."
"That's a relief,' murmured Anna in the row behind.
"That's some relief,' echoed Rastancil, sitting back.
ù ; 'So we can put the Eosi response to this in the slow lane, then,' Scott said, 'but I doubt we can ignore the response of the Farmers." 'He thinks by calling them "Farmers", they won't scare us as much,' Janet remarked to Anna.
Kris grinned over her shoulder at Janet, but the woman was whistling in the dark: her eyes were scared and her chin trembled slightly. Anna Bollinger, who had left her baby son with someone for this meeting, looked even more frightened.
"I hoped to get their attention, Admiral, as the one chance I saw - then - of getting off this planet and back home. Best scenario would be to make them notice the Eosi/Catteni combine,' Mitford said.
"A bit naive of you, wasn't it, sergeant?" asked Geoffrey Amger.
"Now, wait just a minute, Ainger,' said Kris, sitting up straight with the anger that bit of condescension roused in her. She was not placated by Easley leaning over to murmur something to the British naval officer.
"My apologies, Miss Bjornsen, I forget how little you had at your disposal in the early days,' Ainger said, elevating his butt off the chair, 'Sergeant Mitford, no offence intended." 'None taken,' Mitford said equably and waved his hand, accepting the apology. The hand came down on Kris's leg, a reminder that he was well able to defend himself.
"It was at the very least what any noncom should do,' Bull Fetterman said. 'Establish what escape route is possible to return to his regiment." 'We established a lot more than that,' said Dick Aarens, jumping to his feet. 'And we've done a damned good job of converting the Mech Makers' stuff to human needs. Give us some credit, damn it!" 'We do, I assure you, Mr Aarens, especially since you contrived so many of the improvements . . ." Reidenbacker began.
"We'd better stop congratulating ourselves,' Mitford put in, 'begging your pardon, sir, but I'd like to hear what Admiral Scott now has in mind." Kris covered her mouth quickly because it was obvious from Scott's expression that he had nothing in mind . . . yet.
"What I'd like to hear again . . . friends,' and Scott was having trouble finding an appropriately inoffensive group noun, 'is exactly your impressions of the arrival of the Leviathan you saw, collecting this planet's harvests." 'If you mean, were we scanned then?" Kris asked. 'No, we weren't." 'Hell, Admiral, the ship didn't even know we were there,' Jay Greene said. 'It just sailed overhead like some sort of . . ." and he waved his hand above his head, 'a monstrous dinosaur."
"Not that we saw,' Mitford replied.
"Zainal led a group of us back here, because we thought that's where it hovered,' Ninety Doyle said. 'We weren't that far behind it when it took off again. There wasn't a bloody thing left of the acres of crates we had to climb to get out of here." 'So there was nothing in it of the speed and flexibility of what buzzed us?" Beverly asked.
"Nuh-huh,' and Ninety shook his head emphatically.
"Different yoke entirely." 'We sort of thought at the time,' said Jay Greene, 'that it was pre-programmed to do its job. That there wasn't any life form aboard it."
Rastancil whistled, impressed. 'Totally automated?"
"And a culture which has patently invented matter transmitters .
. ." Scott said, clearing his throat.
"That would have been the only way all that stuff could have been loaded in the time it hovered,' Ninety agreed. 'Just like on Star Trek." 'Then it is entirely likely that today's scanner is also totally automated,' Easley said, quickly changing the subject from that awesome concept.
"We couldn't get any idea of the mass-of the scanner,' Rastancil said.
'I was on the bridge when it began its orbit and the transport doesn't
have much in the way of fancy detection
devices . . ." He looked over at Marrucci, who had been in the scout.
The pilot shook his head, holding up his hands. 'I couldn't figure out what to activate on the board." He looked at Zainal.
"The scout will not track such speed,' the Catteni said.
"So essentially, we must wait until the device sends its reports to the Farmers,' Scott said, 'and then await results." 'Isn't there anything we can do to save us?" Anna Bollinger's voice had a slightly hysterical note in it.
"We can't just sit still and do nothing." Janet added her protest.
A slightly supercilious expression crossed Admiral Scott's face and Kris, who had started to like the man, changed her opinion again.
"If he asks her what she thinks we should do . . ." she murmured to Mitford, who once again clamped his hand on her leg in restraint as he turned round to Janet.
"There's a lot we can do, Janet, and that's why we're here.
Now, we've done pretty well so far, haven't we?" he asked, and waited until she gave her head an unwilling nod. 'So just hold tight a bit longer, huh?" Then Mitford turned back to the front table. 'Since it's a fair bet that the scanner saw that we've altered all the machines that are supposed to be in the various garages and barns we've been using, why don't we start by clearing them out? I'd also recommend that we explore that nearer continent with the view of taking up our residence there . . . that is, if we find the Farmers haven't set up shop there, too." Scott was nodding acceptance of these suggestions; even Ainger looked less dour.
"There're all those closed valleys on this continent, blocked to keep something in, or something out. How many did we discover, Zainal?" Mitford turned to his right.
"Several dozens. We must ask the map woman, Sheila, for details." 'The
caves are ours,' Patti Sue said firmly, the last person Kris would have
thought would speak up in such a meeting. "We've made them livable." 1'
1'
"But we have trespassed,' Janet said to her.
Kris didn't dare look round at Janet; what she was saying was so weird from a woman who was considered basically quite sensible. Maybe the scan had done something to some folks after all. She shuddered, deciding she wasn't going to think there could be the least bit of truth in those asinine rumours. All products of insecurity and lack of self-confidence: certainly nothing with any factual basis.
"If we give them back what we took . . . ,' Janet went on and then, hearing Dick Aarens' contemptuous snort at that idea, she whirled round on him, pointing her finger. 'You're the one who started taking their machines apart . . ." 'Janet!" Once again Mitford called her to order, twisting round to face her. 'You're not thinking this through, and you're not a silly woman. You've been such a strength to so Many who got here confused and scared." Sandy Areson had discreetly moved to sit on Janet's other side and now put a comforting arm around her shoulders, nodding once to Mitford to indicate she would take over now.
"What was done, is done, and I doubt even the best of our mechanical geniuses could put all the parts back together again,' Scott said in a conciliatory tone, 'not that that would be even remotely feasible since we'll need every single thing we've contrived from their machinery to effect an evacuation of their premises. If that is one of our options." 'I think retreat in the face of overwhelming strength is usually considered a sensible course of action,' Bull Fetterman said at his driest.
He got scattered laughter for his attempt to reduce the tension in the mess hall.
"Furthermore we can prepare places for everyone,' Beverly said with a big smile, 'if what I've seen of some of those valleys is any indication." 'The other continent's a better idea, General,' Mitford said, rising from his chair. 'Especially as we now have the Tub to do reconnaissance. Which I had planned to do anyway."
"Positive action is always admirable, Sergeant,' said Scott,
'and I suggest you complete your plans and get them under way as soon as possible." 'Will Yuri's group start immediate evacuations, too?" And Mitford swung halfway round, indicating Janet.
"You better believe it,' but it was Reidenbacker who answered the question and he gave Janet an encouraging smile and a thumb's-up gesture. She made a pathetic little sound in her throat but managed a brief smile, still twisting her hands nervously in her lap.
"They'd better consider that there'll be a lot more newcomers reacting like Janet,' Kris murmured to Mitford, who nodded his head.
"Shouldn't we clear out all the things we've made?" Dick Aarens asked.
"We need everything to function with. And the scout? Where can we stash that now if we've got to clear the barns?" Scott held up his hands. 'Give us a few hours here,' and he gestured to the specialists sitting behind him, 'and we'll formulate the necessary plans and set up teams to implement them.
Now, I know some of you have been upset by the whizz-ball we had this morning . . ." His label for the orbital caught everyone's attention, and he grinned to see its effect. 'But we don't want to start another batch of rumours with those who still feel insecure here on Botany. Let's be careful how we discuss this meeting outside the mess hall, shall we? I ask all of you, by whatever you hold sacred, not to start a second wave of ridiculous rumours. We'll do as much as humanly possible to rectify our misappropriation of housing and effects. Certainly our first priority is getting people out of our landlords' buildings and to safer places, like the valleys. Equally important is preserving the equipment we need to conduct an orderly evacuation." Chuck Mitford turned round to those behind him. 'Keep in mind, folks, it's taken the Farmers more than nine months to discover we're here. I'd say we have plenty of time to get elsewhere and at least sweep the garages and barns clean before we leave. Right, Janet?
"That should be long enough,' Patti Sue said so staunchly that Kris, remembering how fearful the girl had once been, nearly cheered out loud at that vote of confidence.
Both Janet and Anna obviously responded to her remark and looked less despondent.
"Of course,' Patti threw them all by adding ingenuously, 'they might not come until the growing season starts and we don't even know when winter ends, if this is winter." Zainal got to his feet again.
"I like the idea of moving us all to the other continent if it is okay,' he said. 'I think we should go soon. The airships can look at the other landmass. It may not be as barren as it looks from space.
If it is, they can help us search." Ninety got to his feet as soon as Zainal sat down. 'There are a lot of those closed valleys, too, which obviously weren't used by the Farmers. Maybe we can put people in them." When he heard protests arise, he added, 'With stairs to get out when you have to. The valleys grow trees and bushes. We could transfer a lot of the stuff we've been growing to feed us to the valleys. And aren't the Turs and Catteni trying 'em out for us?" He grinned broadly, with a teasing glance at Zainal.
Mitford rose. 'I agree with Zainal, for what it's worth,' he said with an unusual touch of humility.
"Serge, you had the only idea feasible. Don't have a guilt trip over it now,' Kris said staunchly, and her remark was quickly seconded by many in the hall.
"We all helped,' said Joe Latore, and turning around in his seat, looked straight at Dick Aarens. 'Didn't we?"
Aarens noticeably ignored him.
"Yes, but what happens if we move to the other continent?" Anna Bollinger asked, her face crumbling with fear, 'and they come after us there?" Janet immediately put a reassuring arm around her shoulders and glared around.
"Hell's bells, missus,' Ninety said, 'there're caves all over the planet they'd never find you in. And probably caves across the channel, too, wouldn't you say, Zainal?"
it's your son you're really worried about, Anna, but why borrow any more trouble than we've already got?" 'Which brings me to the subject of the Catteni contribution to our present crisis,' Scott said.
"Zainal, what will your High Eosi do when the satellite reports that whizz-ball?" 'Worry,' Zainal answered succinctly, his yellow eyes glinting with mischief.
Scott allowed a slight smile at Zainal's facetiousness. 'Would they come back to inspect Botany or set up a blockade of warships or something similar?" 'First, it will be discussed. Second, the satellite checked for faults that what it reported is true. Third, they may send someone to see what happened to us." Zainal obviously doubted his third point was likely.
"Fourth, what if they send us more colonists?" Sandy Areson asked.
Zainal considered that for a moment, dropping his chin to his chest. 'I think no more colonists come for a while now, Sandy." "Especially since it's been unlucky for them to land on this planet,' Aarens put in, chuckling.
Zainal went on as if Aarens hadn't aired his wit. 'They will not believe the speed of the whizz-ball." 'And they will know that it did not originate in this solar system?" Scott asked.
Zainal nodded. 'They will think a long time before they do anything." 'Good,' Scott said, rubbing his hands together. "Then that will give us time to remove ourselves completely. As I understand Catteni colonial policy, Zainal, they might even abandon the planet as unsuitable. Is that right?"
Zainal nodded.
"So we might be all right after all?" Anna Bollinger asked, her tear-streaked face brightening.
"It is entirely possible,' Scott said with considerable and sincere aplomb.
the organization of scouting parties to check out every single one of what Ninety Doyle tagged 'lonesome valleys'. Small groups would quarter in the valleys to discover any unusual denizens, though none had been seen in either of the other two inhabited places. Once Mitford had organized the basics of those explorations, he left a sheaf of instructions with Easley as 'the manual' and roused the members of his combined team.
They set off before second moonrise since the amphibious vehicle had lights. It also had excellent suspension, because Mitford slept his usual six hours as Zainal drove it over surfaces rough and smooth.
The driver sat in the centre of this vehicle, with seating for two on either side and control panels across the width of the 'command' position. Zainal gave demonstrations to his relief drivers, Joe Marley and Astrid, conducting a running lesson on the vehicle's potential and what each control was supposed to show, what the various icons on the panel board meant.
"Have we got a periscope?" Marley wanted to know in a facetious mood.
"Third button on right, sun icon,' said Zainal.
"Why didn't I guess?" 'We can drive deep, cannot use scope. Says the manual,' Zainal replied.
"A man who will read manuals!" Sarah gave a sigh of exaggerated respect.
Joe gingerly tapped the 'glass' of the slit window beside him.
"How much pressure will this stand?" 'Enough. We will not go deep. Is more built for cor-ro-sive atmospheres,' Zainal added.
"Which is to close vents, Astrid?" he asked, testing her memory of the functions on the panel in front of her.
"This one,' she said, promptly pointing to it.
"Got it in one,' said Zainal and Kris, seated behind him, chuckled. He leaned back. 'I learn new ones every day, don't I?"
"I, too,' said Astrid proudly.
"You sure do, Astrid,' Joe agreed, grinning at her.
Sarah, seated behind him, tapped his shoulder. 'And what
have you learned today, Francis Marley?" she asked, teasing him with his hated Christian name.
"I'll tell ya later,' doe said, giving her a mock leer.
"Any time, cobber,' she replied.
The point at which they were headed was close to 500 miles from Camp Narrow, and the intention was to drive straight through to their destination with only brief halts to let air circulate through the Tub.
It was such a new piece of equipment that it reeked of paint, oil and other strong odours and needed to have its air system flushed out, especially before they submerged. So they stopped from time to time, to brew tea and relieve themselves.
By midmorning the next day, the sea sparkled ahead of them.
Visible without benefit of the binoculars was the irregular lavender coastline of the neighbour landmass. The water before them was calm, with gentle ripples curling over onto the beach.
"Further away than Dover from Calais,' Astrid said, for she had travelled extensively in Europe in her college days.
Zainal said something in Catteni, flicked up his left hand when the number he wanted refused to come to mind. 'Six or seven plus seven tens,' he said.
"Not as fast as on land,' he replied. 'Half the speed."
"That's far from slow,' said Joe, impressed, and he peered at the sloping shoreline. 'Shallow?" he wondered.
"We'll find out soon enough,' Mitford said. 'All aboard,' end he called in Astrid, Bjorn and Jan who had been searching for clams on the pebbly shoreline.
They had no sooner reached the flotation point for the Tub than a quick ping began to echo from Joe's panel. 'Sonar?" he asked and then saw the gauge that was lighting up. 'Or something like it. Are you taking us down, skipper?"
Zainal shook his head. 'Distance to bottom."
Water was reaching the slit windows now and covering twothirds of the main one, and the slight movement of the waves could be felt.
"I forgot to ask,' Mitford said, 'does anyone on board get seasick . .
. besides me?"
"Serge? You can't,' Kris said in mock-alarm.
Leila, who had watched as was her custom, now rose from her seat and went aft. She returned with a large basin which she offered to Mitford. He gave her such a disgusted look that she started to apologize.
"I was only trying to be helpful."
"He's teasing you, Leila,' said Kris.
"Maybe I'm not,' Mitford said, staring down at the basin.
"Are you claustrophobic?" Kris murmured.
He nodded.
"Oh,' she said, in as sympathetic a tone as she could manage.
No wonder he hadn't been so keen to fly in Baby.
"The way the Tub is moving, serge,' Joe said in a very cheerful tone, 'we'll be there in no time at all. No time at all!'
"Just think of it, Chuck . . ."
Mitford put a hasty hand on Kris's shoulder. 'Don't . . . use that particular word, will you?" 'Ooops, but you are first to cross this channel, or strait, or whatever it is. Can we name it after you?" 'Huh?" The sergeant regarded her with startled eyes; then he realized she was trying to divert him and managed a grin. 'I'll be all right.
There's still some view left . . ." But the waves washed up over the windscreen and he hastily looked away from their activity.
The crossing was completed in just under two Cattenistyle hours as marked by the timepiece set in the control panel. The Tub trundled out onto a sandy beach, dotted with the same sort of shrubs that grew on its neighbour.
"Clams, too,' said Astrid, pointing to the air holes as they all emerged from the Tub, once again flushing out the 'newness' smells.
"We get some?" she asked Mitford.
"There's plenty of time,' he said, shading his eyes to glance up the slope that led inland. Then he glanced down at the map he had taken from his pocket and unfolded it. 'We're about here,' he said, pointing and then cocking his finger due west. 'Should be higher ground this way. Zainal, Kris, Astrid, Bjorn, Whitby - let's have a bit of a recon." And he strode forward. 'Joe, you're in charge of the Tub,' he added.
When they reached the first height and had an overview, there were green-covered stretches in either direction and right back to the distant hills.
"Like loo-cow pastures,' Bjorn said, pausing to dig a toe through the vegetation to the soil beneath. Little many-legged things burrowed deeper, away from the air. 'Good dirt,' he added, pinching some between his fingers and letting it sift back down. Neatly, he stepped on the divot he had made.
"Think the Farmers'd notice if we rustled some of their steers?" Kris asked, wondering what else was hidden in the soil here.
"No such insects in loo-cow pastures,' Bjorn added. 'May be no nightcrawls, too." Kris looked around her. 'We should be so lucky." She tried to remember what she'd learned in geography about terrain.
"This looks exactly like the landscape over there,' and she pointed over her shoulder at the distant mainland. 'Could there have been some sort of subsidence to separate the two . . . or maybe the gap just hasn't closed as it did on Earth in prehistoric days.
Continents used not to be the way they are now, you know.
Maybe this is a young land . . ." 'No, this is an old planet,' said Whitby. 'No volcanoes on those space maps at all, and a lot of the hills are worn down. But this place does look like the same sort of terrain that we just left." 'Then why is it not farmed?" Astrid asked, her usually serene expression marred by a frown.
Mitford shrugged his shoulders and cleared his throat. 'Who knows, but we'll keep in mind that, if it looks alike, it could be alike and we might have nightcrawlers here, too. We'll bunk in the Tub tonight." Then he swung his arm in a wide arc. 'Let's move out and see if we can find a good place to park." In the four hours they searched, they caught only a glimpse or two of small aerial life forms but no rocksquats.
"They wouldn't be down here where there's no rocks, for starters,' Mitford said when Astrid grew worried about their absence.
"Not even any trees for the avians either; just bushes.
Let's split up into two groups. You head north, Zainal with Kris, Coo and Bjorn. You, Slav, and the rest, we'll go south." Several times, Bjorn stopped to check the soil again. It was good, black and moist, but not too moist, full of small creatures to keep it loose.
"Plenty good for farms." 'Then why aren't there farms here?" Kris asked, almost aggrieved.
"We will find the reason,' Zainal reassured her, touching her elbow briefly.
"They farm well enough on the main continent. Don't need this one,' Bjorn said but he didn't sound all that convinced.
"And the closed valleys?" Kris asked. 'They're even more enigmatic." 'Perhaps,' and Bjorn considered his words, 'they used them to keep animals in. Safe from the night crawlers."
"Where are the animals now, then?" Kris demanded.
"Eaten?" Bjorn asked, his eyes twinkling.
"We will ask that questtion also,' Zainal said.
They had gone north and now swung wide on their return to the Tub. Zainal had seen low foothills at a good day's travel to the north, but otherwise this coastal plain was covered in low vegetation and bush. Good smells wafted on the evening breeze as they neared the Tub's position.
Joe had wasted no time in digging for clams; Leila and Oskar had caught several varieties of fish and, having tested them in the Tub's small but efficient laboratory unit, found them safe for humans to eat.
Sarah contributed some familiar edible roots and greens found near a stream. Among the Tub's supplies were small cooking units which were occupied by boiling pots of clams. A grill had been laid across stones for the fish, and there was bread from Narrow among their supplies, so when Mitford broke out the beer everyone was in an expansive mood.
The report of the unusual orbiting device was forwarded to the Eosi Mentat Ix, who had registered an interest in vrvthino to do with the colony planet.
Ix snarled each time it replayed the record of the object, for the speed alone suggested a technology worryingly more advanced than the Eosi had. Ix demanded all records, especially those made by its new entity, for within the entity's fading mind was a memory of a visit to the planet. Ix drew forth all the relevant facts, including the presence of the Catteni it had chosen from the bloodline of its present, but not selected, entity. It examined what the entity had dismissed, the gadget that had been presented for inspection as proof that the planet perhaps had been or was occupied by another species.
Ix worried over all the little memories, having them repeated and repeated until every nuance was dragged out for inspection.
The Mentat was pleased that Catteni had set up a second, more flexible satellite around the subject planet. Unfortunately this satellite only emphasized the incredibly fast global search that had been conducted by the alien orb, and the anger of Ix increased at the implications of technical superiority over the Bosh Logic suggested that the original discoverers of that planet were reevaluating the world. What had it been programmed to discover? And why had this object, too, disappeared just beyond the heliopause of this solar system?
Ix summoned a meeting of those of its fellow Mentats who were sufficiently cognisant of their responsibilities to be useful in formulating a course of action. In lightning exchanges of information as unlike the torturous communications with their subject Catteni as the orbiting object of the Unknown was unlike their own satellite units - it was decided the matter must be investigated in greater detail.
All further shipments to the colony planet were suspended, and the great number of recalcitrant Earth people would be sent to the secondary colomal venture.
Since it was the Ix Mentat's idea that the matter must be investigated,
its peers decided that it must undertake the onerous
.., .e,.
journey, forgoing its usual pleasures and routines. Fortunately it could pass the tedium of the voyage in a suspended state, but that amenity required some alterations to the newest and fastest Catteni warship. The delay annoyed the Ix still further and it amused itself thinking of ways to punish those beings which had been instrumental in causing this discommodation.
The Ix Mentat had just been awakened by the high-ranking naval commander of this jewel of the Catteni fleet when proximity alarms jangled fiercely all over the ship, which went into attack alert. The mass approaching the Catteni vessel was so large, it was too large to be contained on the detection screen.
Suddenly waves of force rocked the AAI as if it were a pod in a pond. The Ix, in a manner inconsonant with its dignity and size, grabbed for support until the buffeting subsided.
"Report!" it said in its cold and vicious verbal communication form.
"Most High Eosi, an unknown vessel has appeared . . ."
"You keep no watch?" nt 1: .
Air:::
r
"It appeared on screen just as we passed the heliopause,' the commander said, not daring to raise his eyes to the towering Eosi, 'where other such devices have been seen to disappear." The commander had been well briefed on the problems of and connected with this colony planet, not to mention the extraordinary fact that the Mentat had not received its chosen of record but another in the bloodline.
The commander hastily called up on the nearest screen what had stunned his entire bridge crew. The monstrous ship was ten times the size of the AA1, which itself was three times the size of the next largest spaceship in the Catteni navy. The immense ship was obviously headed inward and at a rate of speed which would bring it to its destination thirty time units before the AA 1, for all its vaunted improved propulsion system and cruising speed.
"Can you not attach a tracer to its hull before it gets out of range?"
Even as it spoke, Ix realized that the ship was probably out of range.
"It is already out of range for such an attachment, Great Eosi." Ix fumed that the commander would waste its time stating the obvious.
How could another species have developed such technology without the Eosi being aware of their existence? The Eosi had not bothered lately with anything more complicated than the Improvement in propulsion and cruising range, its present navy having been deemed sufficient for all practical purposes.
Such an attitude of complacency was no longer permissible.
"Watch it and record it. Do not fail for an instant."
"NO, Most High Eosi, not for an instant,' and the commander, reheved to have escaped with his life, strode as quickly as courtesy permitted away from the Eosi and back to the relative safety of his own bridge.
No-one commented on his arrival, or moved an eye muscle from whatever panel their duties bound them to.
Several hours later, the captain was awakened from an inadvertent doze
by a stir of excitement, palpable on the bridge
"Sir, the ship is . . ."
Wide awake, and staring at the view screen, the commander watched, awed, as the strange ship - magnified many times to keep it on the slower warship's view screens - dipped briefly into the atmosphere of the subject planet, then bobbed up again and continued on its way to the other side of the solar system. Where, upon reaching the heliopause, it disappeared from even the most sensitive Instrumentation.
The commander reported to the Eosi, who was ensconced on a huge chair in the cargo compartment which had been altered to provide it with the maximum comfort. The chair faced a large screen which had already shown the Ix evrvthin the I: would have to report.
"The planet is of no importance in the face of this,' and the Lost paused. 'Return to Catten. At all possible speed,' and its tone was contemptuous of such a torpid rate now that it had seen a velocity that transcended the best of Eosi capabilities.
"This must be reported - and countered." If, as the AA I passed through the heliopause of the system, a famt shock, like a low voltage of electricity, was felt by those awake, only a nano-second blip registered the shock on the bridge and it was dismissed as an anomaly.
Deski ears felt the noise in the air long before the huge vessel was visible. But, while frightened people ran for the nearest cover in the caves they still occupied and the valleys they were presently making homely, the noise did not increase. To those with binoculars, it was visible more as a scintillating lozenge very high overhead. On the viewscreens of the bridges, the monster seemed to do no more than skim the very top of the stratosphere, skipping like a flat stone across a calm lake, before altering its course and flying off into space, taking its skull-shattering noise with it.
Scott blinked, cleared his throat and managed to unclench his fists. He had been in the KDL's bridge, his eyes glued to the incredible astronautic event delineated on the detection screen.
No-one cared to break the silence, for no-one quite believed what they had just seen until a comunit beeped, an almost impudent noise considering the enormity of the recent event.
"That's about the size of the first one, Admiral,' said Su. 'I think we're lucky it was so high up . . . What's that?"Scuse me, sir .
. ." and the connection was broken.
Dick Aarens came running full clip down the passageway to the bridge, catching himself on the door frame to stop, his face ashen and the expression in his eyes as close to awe as he was ever likely to come.
"They did it, Scott. They did it. They've replaced every last fri . . ." 'Watch your language on my bridge, Aarens." Scott recovered enough to reprimand him. 'What has been replaced?" 'All the Mech Makers' stuff, the farm machinery we disassembled. It's all back.
Back in the abattoir and everywhere . . ." Peter Easley, who had been just as flabbergasted as everyone else on the bridge, absorbed that news before Ray Scott or John Beverly did. 'Good thing we got the main garage cleaned out then, isn't it?"
"It would have been very messy if we hadn't,' John Beverly
remarked, then he and Peter burst out laughing.
"Yes, but did they take the parts back?" Scott demanded.
"The parts?" Aarens was confused.
"I don't think so, Ray,' Beverly said, holding up the comunit usually attached to his belt.
Aarens ran to the hatch but sauntered back to the bridge, a smug grin on his face. 'The air cushion's still there. Maybe the Farmers didn't recognize what I'd done to their material." The newly devised com board of the KDL lit up with other incoming calls from Shutdown, Bella Vista and the other three garage sites that had so recently been cleared of human occupation; then the caves and the valleys that were now human habitations.
"They don't know we're here, then,' was Worrell's reaction.
"And couldn't care less,' added Jay Greene. 'Hope the satellite caught that visitation!" 'You do?" and Worry began to fret over what trouble that could cause back in Barevi or Catten or wherever the Eosi hung out.
The machinery was back, replicas of every single model that had been disassembled by the colonists, in pristine condition and arranged in the appropriate order in each garage, barn or building. The solar panels that had been taken down and installed elsewhere for the camps' needs were also replaced and seemingly operational.
"Why aren't the machines moving?"
"It isn't spring here yet. Not the time to farm."
"Weren't we lucky to have moved out in time?"
"No messages with the unpacking?"
"As if we could have read them?"
"Was Kilroy here, or his E.T. counterpart?"
"WHAT do we do now?"
Chuck Mitford, having seen the huge spaceship on the Tub's screen as they made their way back to the Headquarters at New Narrow Valley to report, had one answer to that when John Beverly informed him of the arrival of complete replacements.
t:
"
,.
"Get into those garages and remove the anaesthetic darts from the launchers before those machines are fully charged."
"Won't such interference be noticed?" Beverly asked.
"I sure hope not. We took the first ones out when they were "down", but you'd want to do it before they get fully operational.
Fill the reservoirs with water - that anaesthesia damned near put paid to a lot of us on the First Drop. Lenny Doyle or Pess'll show you how; they've done it before." 'Any other suggestions, sergeant?" Beverly asked at his most respectful.
"Watch out for avian predators. Those machines can call them down on anything that moves where it shouldn't."
"If I think of something, I'll let you know. But check with Cumber, Esker, the Doyle brothers, Matt Su, any of the First Drop who scouted for me." Mitford had been sending back daily reports on their explorations. Now he turned back to his team.
"I thought for sure we'd have more than three weeks before anything happened,' he said, scratching his head in a measure of anxiety. 'Can we make a bit more speed on this thing, Sarah?" he asked, since she was the driver.
"Sure, but it's about to get bumpy again."
"We are not far now,' said Zainal, peering out of the front windows.
"How long would it take the Eosi to do something, Zainal?" Mitford asked, now drumming restless fingers on his knee with his free hand as he clung to a safety strap with the other.
Zainal shrugged. 'I do not think they can move as fast as Farmers. Eosi are not automated. Nor do they have matter transmission." He chuckled.
"I sure hope it galls their souls to hell'n'back,' Mitford said,
grinning. 'I sure hope it makes 'em squirm with envy and dismay." "Just
so long as they keep out of our hair,' Kris added. She knew that,
despite Zainal's assurances, she wasn't the only one fretting over the
possibility of Eosi reprisals on the colony. He
would know better than she, of course, but it didn't keep her from worrying. She daren't even think how the Farmers might react in a direct confrontation with their uninvited tenants, though Zainal's point about the valleys' protection barriers was comforting - as far as it went with an unknown species.
New Camp Narrow was located in one of the closed valleys, south and east of the original cliff installation and itself suitably narrow but longer than most. It had been opened up by the simple expedient of blowing the barrier down with ingredients taken from Baby's arsenal.
Zainal had instructed several miners and an ax-ordnance officer on the explosive capability of the different substances in her lockers. The original notion had been to use such combustibles for mining operations. The Farmers had ignored the mineral and metal resources of the planet.
Inside the appropriately long, narrow valley, Baby and the KDL were parked one beside the other; despite Baby's size in comparison to the larger, oblong transport vessel, she looked sleek, powerful and far more dangerous. Parts of the wrecked transport had been utilized to make a fair-sized shelter nearby, and the returning explorers had no trouble identifying it as 'headquarters' from the flow of people in and out.
Small tents of loo-cow skins dotted the other side of the usual valley stream, and the carcass of a loo-cow was turning on a spit over a firepit. The rubble from the opening had been lugged across the stream for use in constructing homes; several were as high as window height, with masons busy around them. A much larger building was already in use, its heavy stone pillars supporting a roof of slate that overhung to provide shelter from rains, while half-built sides of rough timber gave the edifice the look of a forestry preserve facility.
Tables, benches, stools, a few chairs and a neat pile of blanket rolls suggested it was providing several functions, unfinished as it was.
As the explorers swung round to park and dismount from their vehicle, they were hailed by many but no-one stopped working for more than a few moments.
"I wonder where they stashed the airplanes and all the aircushions,' Kris wondered, noting their absence.
"This wouldn't be the only valley in use,' said Mitford, stretching his legs. 'Okay, Kris, Zainal, Bjorn, Whitby, Coo, we'll make the initial report. You got all the maps, Whitby?
Yeah . . ." 'I have pictures,' Zainal volunteered, showing the mass in one big hand.
"I have soil samples,' and Bjorn showed the little case he had made for them.
"And I have the log printout,' Kris added, wondering why Mitford was so antsy suddenly.
"Sarah,' the-sergeant said, turning towards her and Joe, 'go see what the drill is here. Astrid, see if we can get some food.
Slav, put water in the tank. Oskar, Jan, Leila, air the Tub out good, and maybe even give it a good wash." He waved towards the stream.
% If the refinements of headquarters left a lot to be desired as they entered and looked around it, the essentials - including the yet again reconstructed bridge of the wrecked transport showed it to be in good working order and array. There svere even 'offices', cubicles with woven reed walls to afford some privacy. Old mech parts still doubled for stools, cupboards, shelving and benches.
"D'you suppose the Farmers didn't recognize their own stuff?" Kris murmured to Zainal.
"Bring your group over this way, sergeant,' called Scott, standing in the opening of one of the larger reed-walled compartments on the far side of the bridge.
"Even has a ready room,' Kris murmured, this time to Mitford.
"You're getting far too impudent, ma'am,' Mitford replied, though he was also peering at the equipment. The wreck which had once been operated from this bridge had never kept it in such good order.
"Mitford, Kris, Zainal, Bjorn, Whitby,' and Scott was solemnly shaking hands as he ushered them in. 'Saw you coming,' he added, 'so John, Bill and Jim asked to be in on the debriefing." i 1He sat at a desk that was really no more than several planks fitted together, rubbed smooth with some sort of polish to prevent splinters: two woven baskets sat on the surface. For'in' and 'out', Kris though irreverently but their presence was oddly comforting. 'Business as usual." The other brassheads sat on Scott's side of the desk.
"It'd be a super place to settle a lot, if not all, of our people General,' Mitford said, pulling the stool closer to his legs before he settled on it. Whitby was unfolding the map, indicating the scope of their explorations as Zainal arranged the photos of the sites that looked suitable for habitation. 'Though you look like you've settled in here well." 'Thanks, sergeant. It is indeed a pleasant place, and there've been no indications of undesirable elements in any of the valleys we're utilizing." Scott had taken up one photo, and Kris nudged Zainal because she'd had a bet on with him that it'd be the one that took his eyes. 'Now this is a magnificent setting,' he said, and passed the picture to John Beverly on his right.
"Thought you'd like the view of the harbour,' Kris said. 'It's deep enough for an aircraft carrier." 'What would you know about draught, Kris?" Scott asked, but he was clearly in a good mood.
"The water's real dark down there,' she said, grinning. 'Too bad we don't have any big ships. Yet." Mitford nodded to Bjorn to report now. 'The ground is fertile, though it has not been tilled in many years." 'You mean it was? Once?" Scott sat forward, dropping the second picture he had taken up.
Mitford pulled the telltale picture away from those overlapping it. 'The Farmers always put their facilities on unusable real estate, rocky or sandy, or plain non-arable. Look at the way this cliff has been hollowed out. We could damned near hide the KDL in here. For sure, it'd take Baby and all our converted equipment. This whole area shows signs of previous usage. And we found another section further along that ridge that reminds me of the way the abattoir was set up."
The four bent their heads to examine the suspect photos,
and it was obvious they agreed with him.
"We found two more garage-type installations further up here,' and Mitford indicated the positions on the map. 'We didn't concentrate on finding any more because they had so obviously been vacant a very long time." 'We think we saw some likely spots on the other side of the bay,' Whitby said, 'but the terrain was too steep for the Tub, so we didn't cross the bay." 'Is it possible that the Farmers have just allowed the land to remain fallow because they have enough here?" asked Scott.
"It has been fallow many, many years,' Bjorn said. 'But the soil is rich and would grow everything we needed. Especially if we used the land as wisely as the Farmers do,' and he ended on an admonitory note.
"All we need is another shipment of replacements,' Beverly said with a grin.
"Hell's bells, General,' and Mitford grinned, 'we saved everything we didn't use, so we've still got the ploughs and other farming junk. I'd heard none of the scraps were vacuumed up or beamed or whatever. We only have to mount ploughs and stuff back on the air cushions and use 'em for their original function. No big problem!' "That's true, though some will not want to give up their runabouts,' and he winked at Mitford, 'for ploughing. What about the scavengers?"
"Nary a sign of them,' said Mitford.
"And that's a puzzle,' Whitby said. 'We left out our garbage every night we were there - and found it still there the next morning.
But the terrain is very similar to what we have here."
"No nightcrawlers on that continent?"
"None we could find, at any rate." Mitford took up the recital.
"We did find rocksquats, whole colonies of them up in the hills and just as dumb as the ones over here. There were avians where the lodgepoles have grown up into forests. Perhaps the damned crawlers died of starvation." He grinned. 'We can always rustle a few loocows from here and see what happens.
There're none there that we could find." 'Many of the same root vegetables and berry bushes already grow there, and other vegetation is similar,' put in Bjorn, his expression glowing with pleasure. 'And fish and clams . . ." 'Roasted corn would have gone so well with them,' Kris said suddenly, and sighed. 'I'm sorry." Scott bent an understanding look on her and his lips twitched in a slight smile.
"You're not alone." 'We may yet find something similar,' said Bjorn, his wide face eager to please her. 'We don't really have a complete catalogue of the planet's flora." 'By the way, Mitford,' Beverly said, 'we disarmed the darts as you recommended. That's quite a powerful anaesthesia!'
"Indeed,' Zainal and Kris said in unison.
"That's right,' and Scott turned to them, 'you were caught and subsequently saved another, less fortunate group." He paused a moment.
"If there are truly no nightcrawlers . . . There are many valid reasons for shifting our operations to that continent." Mitford leaned forward, circumscribing the area they had searched with his index finger. 'It's great country, sir. It'd take quite a few trips in the transport, but it might be the smartest move we've done since we got dropped here." 'If we could be sure the Eosi aren't watching murmured and looked at Zainal.
"They will still be "considering", Scott,' Zainal replied to the unasked question. 'Eosi consider long and hard before acting.
Here, we use transport at correct times so the orbital does not see - short trip. If thrusters are used carefully, in short bursts, the geosynchronous one will not show enough to read." 'Besides which,' Mitford said with great satisfaction, 'they don't even know we've got those ships. And if they've any smarts at all, once they've seen reports of that monster, they'll stay the hell away from Botany." Everyone looked at Zainal, who looked right back around the table and then shrugged.
. . ." Scott
Not every valley being utilized as new accommodation was as far along in supplying shelter and other amenities as the headquarters establishment. Nevertheless, the thought of picking up again and resettling was met with a certain amount of resistance, especially from the technical and engineering groups who intensely disliked a second displacement because they were already involved in various projects and didn't want to drop tools - even the ones they were making. However, the availability of the massive caverns, when they were having to put together sheds from primitive substances, did cause them to reconsider.
Then, all of a sudden, they wanted to be the first to get over there and resettled.
The miners were less happy - especially Walter Duxie, the mining engineer in charge - since they'd already reached a good iron lode and wanted to continue working it. While the Catteni space mapping did show mineral deposits on the target continent, they were loath to leave one that was already showing results. So it was decided that they could continue where they were: they had an adequate workforce which could take turns hunting and supplying their needs, and the nearby caves were already habitable. Judicious use of the KDL would bring ore to where smelting and fabrication processes would be handled.
"What about the fuel situation?" Beverly asked Zainal at one meeting. 'What happens if we run out? We've scarcely the technology to make it even if the natural resources are available."
Zainal grinned. 'I know where more supplies are kept."
"You pirate,' Beverly said with a laugh, and then had to explain the tem.
"I will make a very good pirate,' Zainal decided, pleased with the definition. 'Not the only one, too." 'Hey, what else could you lift at the same time?" Su asked. He was head of one engineering group that found themselves constantly having to invent the tools that had once been always available.
"Depends on what you went,' Zainal said.
"Hey, can I go with you and see what's on display at the store?" Su asked, and Zainal pointed at Beverly.
"Ask him. We will not need to go soon. Not much fuel is needed for short hops." Nevertheless, Zainal kept a close watch on the gauge on the first trip and, having decided on the minimum amount of fuel he could use and still reach a safe trajectory, tried to shave minutes off thruster use to preserve every ounce possible.
Mitford had taken a full load of passengers in the Tub to start up the new location, leaving Zainal and Kris behind, helping to organize who and what would go in upcoming KDL transfers.
The farming community wanted to be among the next wave, as it was essential to plant as soon as the danger of frost was over.
So far 'winter' on Botany had consisted of cold, damp days interspersed with sunny cold days and a lot of earlymorning frosts.
No real storms, no snow despite cloudy days when the sky suggested blizzards to many who came from cold climates.
The temperatures dipped very low occasionally, hampering work outside, but there was always something to be done in what shelter was available from the cold. The people who suffered were those used to tropical conditions, and they were given extra clothing and first priority when rugs and long vests of rocksquat pelts were available.
Not long after Mitford had left on the first of many Tub trips, Sandy Areson - who ran Headquarters Valley Canip - came over to Kris where she sat, eating a quick lunch in the Big Building.
"Been trying to catch you alone ever since you got back from the other continent,' Sandy said.
"Alone? That sounds ominous,' said Kris.
"It is and it isn't,' Sandy told her, 'and I have to agree with the basic logic of it as far as spreading the wealth is concerned." "What wealth?" Kris asked, puzzled. Wealth on Botany meant hours of work applied to what 'extras' might be available, above and beyond essentials like food and shelter. Even she and Zainal had done stints of kitchen duty.
Although they were the only ones at the long table, Sandy leaned closer to Kris and said, 'Us,' pointing to her chest.
"Us?" Then Kris shook her head as she caught on. 'Us as in women . . . of child-bearing age?"
wryly. 'There are far more men than women on Botany, and as there hasn't been a Drop in four weeks, we're not likely to get more. So, if we want to keep up a decent genetic pool . . ."
Sandy gave her an astonished stare. 'We're dropped, we stay,' she said, 'or don't you listen to what Zainal says?" Kris gulped. "I guess I've been naive after all . . . I mean, we have the KDL. We could get off." 'And go back to Earth?" Sandy looked even more disgusted with her. 'You been away from the camps too much, gal, and involved with that hunk of Catteni. Not,' and she hastily put up one hand, 'that I blame you. I didn't know they came in any variation of "nice" . . ."
"Hey, spare me the sarcasm, Kris Bjornsen - and yes, lots of people have got it through their thick and intolerant skulls that Zainal is a lot more Botanical than Cattenical now. "I drop, I stay"." Sandy snorted in amusement. 'Especially the brassheads. But you two can't procreate. You do know that?" when Kris nodded, she went on, 'And you're of an age to do so." Feeling a total rejection of what she knew would come next, Kris leaned away from Sandy. She couldn't, she really couldn't go with anyone else, even to increase the genetic pool of a colony she was working very hard to make secure.
"Now don't get all silly about it,' Sandy said. 'We've got enough doctors here now, so you can just get inseminated with sperm at the appropriate time in your cycle. I did. I was one of the first,' and now Sandy patted her abdomen. 'Mind you, I chose the father."
Kris gulped again, feeling distinctly queasy at the prospect.
"Anna Bollinger's preggers, too, but she got formally handfasted to Matt before she did. Janet's too old. Patti Sue also did it the oldfashioned way, but I just wanted to warn you that you're on the list. It won't be like being unfaithful to Zainal at all." 'That isn't my problem,' Kris said in a weak voice. 'How can I possibly get pregnant until we're all settled and we know what the Eosi and the Farmers are going to do? What'd happen if . . ." 'Calm down, Kris,' and Sandy captured one of her waving hands and held it firmly in both hers. 'You're one of the last on the list, I should say, because your talents are more valuable elsewhere than in the lullaby line." Kris couldn't suppress her agitation. She hadn't planned on having kids for years! She was barely twenty-two, or thereabouts, since she'd lost a lot of subjective time on the way to Botany and hadn't a clue what sort of month, day or year it was.
Then she didn't think she'd make a good mother anyhow. She'd never liked baby-sitting jobs in high school or college, unless the kid was asleep. When any of them woke up and screamed at her, she never went back to that family. She didn't think she had an ounce of maternal instinct in her.
"Anyway, we're going to set up creches and mincers who are maternally inclined so once a baby's here, you can ignore it completely if that's the way you feel about motherhood." 'That is just the way I feel,' Kris said, trapped. Which she didn't add. 'When did this get decided? This is the first I've heard of it." She was starting to get uptight now. She hadn't minded or complained about any of the duties she'd been asked to perform on this-alien planet; she'd welcomed the opportunities to show her flexibility and stamina and develop skills she'd never have used in a normal life on Earth.
Sandy kept grinning at her. 'In case you're interested, you're going through the same phases that others have - including Astrid before accepting the inevitable." That jolted Kris; she hated reacting in a predictable way.
Sandy chuckled now and patted her shoulder.
"It won't be soon and it won't be as bad as you expect. But I figured you mightn't have been told. You've been out on scouting parties, so you missed the great debate and no-one's had the courage to tell you about it."
"I volunteered. Mitford was too chicken,' Sandy said, grinning.
"Look at it this way, Kris. We've made Botany our own and we're going to keep it ours, and that means having a next generation to bequeath all our hard work to. I like this planet . . ." 'Now!" Kris reminded her wryly, feeling a bit sheepish over her outburst.
Sandy shook her head. 'No, I did from the start, because I could be myself here and what I knew was damned helpful, where back on Earth,' and she jerked her thumb over her shoulder, 'I was considered "fringe", or "weird" and "antisocial", nonconformist and definitely an odd-ball. Hell, here I'm running generals and admirals through my hoops as a town manager. Sure beats the hell out of being "tolerated".
And I'm not the only one who has found a real home on Botany. I think you have, too, even if it means giving up nine months to producing a baby." 'I hadn't thought of it all quite like that . . . I mean, your situation. I mean, back there as opposed to all the things you've done here. There's one matter that hasn't been taken into consideration, though,' Kris went on. 'The Farmers." 'Yeah,' Sandy said in a thoughtful drawl. 'But we'll-worry about that when we need to. Right now . . . cops,' and she stopped, looking in the direction of the entrance.
Zainal was there, looking around, and he spotted Kris and Sandy.
Sandy got up. 'Good luck,' and she left with a wink and a grin.
Kris wasn't sure she was ready for Zainal to join her just then.
Sandy's disclosure had really shaken her, and she'd have to sort all this out in her head. Disregarding the unsolved and unknown Farmers, she had to admit that having kids on Botany would give the colony stability, not to mention a morale boost.
Especially if someone who'd experienced the abuse Patti Sue had had could now contemplate getting pregnant.
Kris found very little consolation in knowing that she wouldn't have to have physical contact with the male parent, although that route struck her as cowardly, if not downright cheating some guy out of . .
. could she call it a 'good time'?
Isolated from whet 'society' was available on Botany because of the scouting expeditions, she'd had little contact with other guys.
Mostly she and Zainal had worked with other pairs, like Sarah and Joe, and Whitby who had attached to Leila although they seemed an odd couple.
She had known, kind of peripherally, that the Sixth Drop had contained a group of women who had at first been totally ostracized by the other women in the camps to which they were assigned. She had noticed and commented on it to Sarah, who took some relish in telling her that these were 'ladies of the night' who had been picked up in one of the German cities along with the actual demonstrators. Apparently, Germany tolerated brothels but insisted that the occupants have periodic medical examinations to be sure they did not transmit sexual diseases, so these 'girls' were 'clean'. With a larger ratio of males to females on Botany, there'd been endless requests of the available women for sexual favours, on any terms. Some of those terms put the offenders up in the stocks to cool off. The arrival of the professionals had been greeted with considerable enthusiasm by Camp managers, so the women had been given the option of continuing their previous profession if they so chose. When assured such practices would be considered 'work hours' for community benefit, all but two had decided to continue. It was stipulated that they would still have to take their turn at the less glamorous chores of the camps, like kp and latrine, though they were excused from sentry duties. But they in turn had laid down strict regulations about how they could be treated by clients and the number they would be willing to accommodate. Proper respect was the first requirement - from the female population as well as the male.
The puritanical among the Botany women refused to admit that the oldest profession had a place on this planet. But they could not refuse to admit that a lot of guys went around camp in much better humour and with fewer snide remarks directed at the so-called 'prudes'.
There were a few intolerant women, like Janet and Anna Bollinger who studiously avoided them, but the rest did as requested and treated them with due civility.
"You look worried, Kris,' Zainal said as he straddled the bench before
settling down beside her. 'Isn't the soup good
today?" he asked, noticing her unfinished bowl.
"Yes, it's good,' and she hastily picked up her spoon, though it was now only lukewarm.
"Sandy says something to worry you?" He looked concerned.
"Woman things,' she said, avoiding an explanation.
"Mitford says you will have to bear a child for the colony.
Maybe two." 'What!" Kris dropped the spoon in the soup, splashing it, and then becoming furious at such sloppiness, mopping hastily with a wad of fluff.
Zainal regarded her with a very level gaze, one corner of his mouth twitching as he leaned closer to her. 'Was that what Sandy was saying to you?" She hid her face from him. 'So Mitford had nerve enough to tell you? And not me?" 'Man-o'-man stuff,' Zainal said, and she could just see him grinning at her out of the corner of her eye. "You know you cannot have a child by me. Is that why you stay with me? So you do not have a child?" She glared at him. 'I stay with you because I'm in love with you, you . . . you . . .
brasshead,' she replied in a low and intense voice.
He covered her hand briefly with his, squeezing her fingers.
"You are young and strong. You will be a good mother." Kris gulped. "No, I won't. I'm not in the least bit maternal motherly!' She blurted out the denial, daring him to object. 'I'd make a lousy mother. I'm not ready to have kids, I'm too young." He gave her a long look. 'It is not something all Earth women do? Have babies?"
"Not all, by any long shot,' she told him grimly.
"I see,' he said slowly. 'It is not because you don't want to offend me?" 'I'm the faithful type, I don't want any man but you.
Even if we can't have children,' she replied in a tight voice, looking down at the soup which now had a thin haze of congealing fat on it.
"You do not need to sex another man. Mitford explained it to me."
'That's even worse,' she told him with gritted teeth, rolling her eyes.
"WHAT?" Kris half-rose from the bench in agitation, and those by the hearth looked over at them. She dropped back to her seat, one hand over her face, as close to tears as she had ever been since coming to Botany. The trouble was she did like Chuck Mitford, very much, and if she hadn't gotten so incredibly tangled up with Zainal, she might have tried to come on to the sergeant. She had never once done so, nor had Mitford come on to her at any time: maybe she hadn't been mistaken in thinking that he'd have been interested in her if she hadn't paired off with Zainal. Of course, he had kept her so constantly in Zainal's company that finally sexual tension had been inevitable.
Zainal put an arm around her. 'Do not be this way, Kris. It is no big deal." 'No big deal ?" She whirled on him, pushing his arm away, and had the satisfaction of seeing him recoil slightly from her expression. 'No big deal!" She started to get off the bench but he held her down, exhibiting far more of his strength than he had ever used with her before.
"You are not a silly woman, Kris Bjornsen. When it is time, you will have the child and I will help you. Do not make it such a big deal." Then he got up and so startled her that she grabbed for his hand. Had she lost face in his eyes because she was, indeed, being somewhat silly? If he didn't mind, why should she?
"Your soup is cold. I get you hot."
Kris was nearly lightheaded with relief and nodded acceptance of the courtesy. She was relieved, too, that she had a little time without him beside her to sort out incoherent reactions and irrational emotions. When she put her hands to her face, they were icy cold. Or were her cheeks burning hot with outrage and embarrassment? Whichever, she needed to cool down and stop acting so stupidly. She started at the point where Zainal had said that he did not mind her having sex with another man; he even wanted her to have a child. All Catteni women had children whether they wanted to or not? Then she coped with him choosing for her the man she respected above all the others.
That suggested a sensitivity in the big Catteni most unusual for his species. Or was Humanity contagious? She knew he admired Mitford, too. Or had he and Mitford discussed a putative father of Kris Bjornsen's compulsory child? Which she doubted.
Mitford wasn't that sort of man. And she couldn't really see the sergeant and Zainal exchanging man-o'-man topics.
He returned with a bowl of steaming soup and a watchful expression on his face and, oddly enough, sympathy in his yellow eyes.
"Thanks, Zainal,' she said, spooning up soup and blowing to cool it. 'I did overreact there, I think." 'I love you, you know,' he said in a sort of off-handed manner which would have exacerbated her already jangling nerves if her remnant of common sense hadn't realized that such an admission was also very un-Cattenish. He covered her free hand with his. 'It is not an emotion I thought I would live as a man to have." And that caught her hard, right in the guts. She dropped her head to his shoulder, weeping as quietly as she could. She knew he had had two children; even the chosen had the right to produce heirs on Catten. But he'd never said a word about the woman, or women, who had borne them. So he had not allowed himself to love? Because he knew he was chosen and would not live long 'es a man'?
"Why do you cry . . . now?" He was utterly puzzled.
"For you. Because you can love me."
"It is not hard to do."
She could hear the ripple of amusement in his voice and, dashing the tears from her eyes, looked up at him with as good a smile as she could present.
"Eat your soup. We have work to do soon,' he said very gently, and she loved him even more deeply than ever.
l
The Eosi Mentats had deliberated; had examined the reports from both satellites with infinitesimal attention to detail. With each fresh review, their agitation grew. Two separate concerns were identified: firstly, the Eosi were not, as they had assumed, the only highly intelligent species in the galaxy, and why had they never encountered the Others when they had been assiduously exploring this arm of the Milky Way? Secondly, how did the Others arrive at a technology so far superior to their achievements, and how soon could they match and then surpass it?
Mentat Ix called to their attention the brief glimpse his shell had had of a comunit. Logically, an investigation should be made of the extant equipment for insights into the construction of the machinery situated on the colony planet.
Mentat Ix was assigned, with two younger Mentats which had technological skills and inventiveness, to inspect and analyse the installations. The warship AA 1 would take them there and also provide guards against any demonstrations by the indigenous population, who were known to be volatile.
As the superb new warship reached the ionosphere of the subject planet, its new propulsion system developed a fault, an oddity indeed, which resulted in a shock wave passing over the vessel from bow to stern. Gauges on detection equipment went off-scale for a nano-second, then returned to normal positions, and the engines resumed operation as if they had never faltered.
System analyses were run and damage reports undertaken, but no fault was found in any department of the AA 1. Even the Ix Mentat was confounded. It liked that no better than the other shocks this wretched backwater system had given it.
The captain activated every safeguard provided by this latest example of Eosi/Catten engineering and technology as he continued into the atmosphere of the third planet. There were no more life-forms detected than there should be, according to the numbers of prisoners sent there and the numbers Of lesser creatures previously assessed.
There were 2003 fewer humans than the records of removal, but there would have been some casualties both in transport and since landing.
The Eosi had stipulated that they land at the point where most of the Drops had been made, easily identified by the wrecked transport vessel.
Teams of guards trotted out of the AA1, to make a quick surveillance of the immediate area and the wreck, and were halfway across the field when they were suddenly attacked by aerial creatures.
Shot down with the accuracy for which such crack troops are famed, these were identified as indigenous life-forms, previously recorded by the original survey team.
Reaching the wreck, they reported signs of intense heat and fire damage in the propulsion section. That, of course, was consistent to the reports from both the Drassi in command of the transporter and the rescuers who had subsequently lost their lives in the second accident.
"Third,' Mentat Ix corrected the captain.
'lord?" the captain asked nervously.
"The scout ship also disappeared after landing on this planet."
"My pardon. I didn't know of that incident, Lord."
"I do." And that was that.
skiff, which was commodious enough for three Mentats and necessary crew. They saw nothing impressive in the facilities built into the cliffs, or in the machines that dutifully awaited the timely resumption of their pre-programmed duties. In fact, the machinery was almost depressingly simple in design and function when compared with the orbital and the massive ship that had stunned the Ix on its first trip to this solar system.
"None of this suits our purpose or forwards an understanding of the mentality of the makers,' Mentat Ix said, although it found no fault with the sun nor the freshness of the air. 'When the colony is established, I may even take control of this planet." Mentats Co and Se exchanged discreet glances and followed their senior back into the ship. Despite the failure to find anything of technological significance, Ix did not issue any immediate orders, but retired to its own quarters to meditate.
Eventually Ix sent orders to the captain that the skiff must be readied for a second exploratory trip. It took the other Mentats with it, showing the pilot where it wished to land. It also required the pilot to hover when the glyphs carved into the hillside were noticed.
"The message is in Catten,' Mentat Co said.
"Yes, the renegade Zainal was here." The Ix Mentat gnashed the teeth in its host's mouth in a most unusual fashion, then peremptorily gestured for the skiff to be landed where once, as Lenvec, it had settled to remind a brother of duty owed.
There was nothing on the site, merely more fields with hedgerows; nothing certainly that would have accounted for the chosen's escape.
And only faded traces of where the scout ship had landed. The Ix Mentat turned its head in the direction from which the humans and Zainal had come.
"Take us there!" and it pointed.
The skiff took off and shortly came to the deep ravine which, at a low hover, showed not only visible evidence of human occupation but easily detected a considerable number of life-forms in the intricate cave system. Several emerged to observe the aircraft. The skiff's detection equipment picked up the use of comunits, but on a frequency which could not be directionalized before the signal cut off abruptly.
"They have more of those hand units,' the Ix Mentat said superciliously.
"Does the Mentat wish to land and speak to the humane?" the pilot asked, as more emerged from the caves.
"I have no interest in pests." But the Ix had been more closely observing the signature of the humans than anyone realized.
Primarily it searched for the unmistakable signature of a Catten life-reading, and that was not visible outside or inside the caves.
Deep inside the Ix's mind, one pathetic whimper trembled.
"The humans appear to have moved about a great deal,' said Mentat Co, 'if these,' and it flicked a long nail at the screen where more clusters showed at different locations, 'are indeed human pulses."
"On the smaller continent adjacent to this one. Many human life-signs registered there as we overflew it." 'Return,' Ix Mentat said and sat back, impatient to reach the ship and order it to the second continent, where the Catten signature might be found among the other conceritration of humans.
As the AAI lifted, having left a substantial declivity across most of the field with the weight of its visit, the Ix Mentat entered the bridge and stood behind the officer responsible for the life-form detection.
"Set for Catten sign,' the Ix said, clicking its long nails together in a tattoo that had the Catten of fleer cringing with nervousness.
The AAl made the next continent in a shallow curve. It had not yet reached even the intended altitude when the screen gave off a brief blip - registering the presence of a Catteni. It vanished so quickly that the duty officer wondered if it had been a legitimate sighting, but the Mentat was taking no chances and ordered the vessel to circle the point, a prong of land extending into the narrow channel between the two landmasses. But again nothing registered on the screen.
sufficient time had elapsed to have done several orbits about this wretched planet.
"Perhaps,' the Ix replied irritably and signalled to continue across the water.
The greatest concentration of the lesser, human signatures was found around the northern bay. 'They've infested the place,' the Co remarked as the 'babble' was screened for any sign of Catten.
The Ix pondered a long while as the AAI held its position, using great quantities of fuel to do so. Then, with an abrupt gesture, the Mentat Ix ordered the captain to return with all possible speed to Catten.
The captain wished to do so as well, anxious to be rid of his Eosi passengers, and he gave the necessary orders . . . and was nearly bounced from his command chair as the forward Notion abruptly ceased.
The engines were still running, their pulse beginning to reach up to a whine of frustration as the ship met an impenetrable obstacle.
"There's some sort of barrier, captain,' the helmsmarr said, looking at the opacity which held them motionless. 'It's all around the planet." 'Destroy it,' the Ix ordered with an agitated wave of its long arm.
The captain ordered a full barrage of all forward weapons, certain his fire power was sufficient for the task. The ship rocked and crewmen covered their eyes at the resultant flashback.
"I see a lessening in the opacity directly ahead,' the navigator said, trying hard not to think how futile this brandnew ship's much-vaunted artillery had been.
The captain called for more power and the ship moved slowly, slowly, slowly, pushing through the barrier it had been unable to destroy. Then, all of a sudden the ship plunged forward through the obstacle, knocking to the deck many who were not holding on to something, including all three Mentats.
Although several officers sprang forward in an instinctive effort to assist, the Mentats snarled away any help and slowly got to their feet, glaring around them.
"Turn!" the Ix ordered the captain. 'I want to know what that barrier is and how it could impede this ship." The captain gave the order to the coin-board to switch to the stern view screen. Nothing happened.
"I asked for the view astern,' he roared but, while the communications officer cringed from his captain's anger, all his attempts to access the rear views came to nothing.
"There is no response,' he said.
"Damage report,' said the engineering officer, 'indicates problems with the arrays, sir. It is an external problem." 'Fix it!' the captain said, bringing his fists down on the armrests.
Orders were forwarded, and the Ix rattled its long nails with far more irritation than the captain dared show.
"Well, then, turn the ship around so that the forward viewscreens can enlighten us. I must examine that obstacle,' Ix said, making a small tight circle with one finger.
In getting free, the full power of the AA I 's engines had carried them a considerable distance before that manoeuvre was completed. The captain muttered unhappily when he saw how far they were from the misbegotten bubble, and an unhappy silence ensued in the bridge until they had returned close enough to examine the phenomenon.
During that time, a damage report suggested that every protuberance of more than twenty centimetres and all the more delicate arrays had been snapped off.
And indeed, as they neared the opaque bubble, it was obvious in the forward viewscreen that every last one of the missing parts was embedded in the bubble, outlining the less fragile silhouette of the AA1. And the bubble completely enclosed the planet, just short of the two satellites. The orbital continued its programmed circuits, but there would be nothing on its tapes but an endless view of the bubble.
"It admits sunlight,' said the science officer, relieved to find something positive to report for he had to add that its composition was totally unfamiliar.
"Examine it thoroughly,' the Ix said, looming over the technician, expecting answers.
The Catten, one of the top men in his branch of the service, used every technique available to him at a station that was supposed to be the latest improvement for its duties, but could find nothing further to report. Finally he spread his hands to admit defeat. He dared not look above his head at the Mentat, so he did not see the blow that crushed his skull like a melon.
The Ix stormed from the bridge with its juniors behind it, and the captain told the helmsman to return to the original course back to Catten. Then he gestured for the corpse to be removed from the science station.
"Hell, I don't know what it was,' Marrucci told the others gathered in the bridge of the KDL. 'Never seen anything like it pushed all the gauges off-line and it looked . . ." he paused, 'for a split second, as if deep space got lit up." 'Now let's not lose perspective here,' Scott began and then stopped.
Beverly whistled under his breath. 'I know it can't be technologically possible,' he began slowly, 'but then a lot of stuff we've been seeing recently is so far beyond what we'd generally consider science-fictional that maybe we can stretch that little bit further and think that it's possible to put a barrier around an entire planet." "There's something out there now that wasn't there earlier,' Scott said, leaning on the edge of the scanner board and staring at it.
"Even if it only shows up like a mist or a veil or an opacity." 'There Alas a Star Trek episode I saw as a kid,' Marrucci remarked almost apologetically, 'called the "Tholian Web", and it was building a lattice to keep the Enterprise in." 'So how did the Enterprise get free?" Beverly asked without a trace of irony.
Marrucci thought for a long moment and then shrugged. 'I can't remember. But I can see the web being spun around it, and they knew they only had so much time . . ." he trailed off.
"So, are the Farmers keeping us in? And why did they let the Eosi ship in and then out?"
"It blew a hole in the web and got out?" Marrucci asked,
looking around the bridge for any other explanation. 'That might explain that flash, the Eosi blowing it open." 'There's no hole in it now,' Scott said, standing up again but not taking his eyes from the screen. 'And why was the Eosi ship here in the first place?" 'Looking us over?" Fetterman suggested. They'd all been alerted by the Deski sentries here at Retreat Bay when the ship had over-flown them. Then the group at old Camp Narrow had informed them that the ship had landed in the Drop Field.
Discreet observation had followed, and reported, every move, including the skiff arriving at the abattoir and the subsequent removal to the field near Camp Rock, and Worrell had reported the skiff hovering over Camp Rock. And, in detail, what he had seen in the skiff.
"I saw three . . . giants . . . in the skiff,' worry said, his voice shaky. 'They were staring down at us, and I've never seen such nightmares. They were . . . sort of Catteni, but no Catteni is that big and glows. The heads are all distorted and the features sort of caricatures of Catteni. Not even Catteni deserve that sort of fate.
I'm glad Zainal missed out if that's what he was avoiding!" 'I concur with what Worry says,' Leon Dane came on line.
"I've never seen anything like that, not in Sydney nor in any of the material that we commandeered during our operations in Australia.
There's a disease - elephantiasis - that causes something that looks similar. But the gross enlargement of the head isn't at all like an encephalic abnormality . . . No wonder ordinary Catteni are frightened by the Eosi. They scared the shit out of me just now." Shortly after that report, the warship was seen to pause just over the channel, where it circled for a long time. But time enough for those at Retreat Bay to complete the camouflage around the KDL and Baby, which were now housed in the big cave.
"You don't think they've been looking for Zainal, do you?" Mitford asked. 'He'd've been about there,' and the sergeant pointed to the area that had attracted the Catteni hover, 'in the Tub." 'What effect does several fathoms of water have on Catteni detection scans?" Marrucci asked those around him.
"Zainal might know, but let's not call and ask him, huh?" Mitford said.
No-one could, anyhow, since that was when the Eosi warship met the immovable opacity and the brandnew worry about whether they were sealed in or others sealed out.
Having completed its programmed task, the bubble-drone assumed its monitor facet and observed the approach of a small spaceship which had just taken off from the subject planet. It had, of course, observed the arrival and landing of the same craft earlier but, as it was not programmed to take any action at that point, it continued its primary assignment, extruding the material that would form the protective barrier. However, when the spaceship did not heed the initial resistance of the barrier, it accessed its emergency instructions. In that brief period of time of adding scope to its activities, the spacecraft displayed force which had to be disseminated quickly through the barrier to diffuse the effect. The further efforts of the spacecraft to pass its confines weakened the barrier. Then the instructions were available and the barrier assisted the expulsion of the hostile craft. The substance of the barrier caught on and held protuberances and smaller exterior parts of the exiting body. But the overall integrity of the bubble remained intact and the subject planet was now safe from external dangers, of which the spacecraft could now be considered one.
Since there had been an attack, the orbiting mechanism initialized its message segment and programmed it with a full report of the proceedings. Once the message segment reached the point at which its hyperspace drive could safely function without a backlash affecting the integrity of a solar system, it made its quick passage back to its home base.
This time its purport was quickly examined by entities able to deal with the subject matter.
they were aware of the excitement of those they passed who waved vigorously at them as they made their way to Headquarters in the big cave. That's where they found Mitford waiting for them in his little runabout.
"The consensus of opinion is that they might have been looking for you,' Mitford told Zainal. 'Get in, the pair of you. Let the others unpack the Tub." 'We just made it into the channel when the ship passed overhead,' Kris said, taking a seat. 'We were well started when we heard the reports about the landing in the Drop Field, and Zainal here,' she gave him a little grin, 'put the pedal to the metal and headed towards the channel as fast as the Tub would go. It wouldn't have done for them to spot it when it's supposed to be shards in space with the rest of the KDL." She glanced at Zainal.
She'd said nothing to him about her other suspicion, which Mitford had voiced, that the ship might be looking for him. At least, not until the skiff was reported landing where Lenvec had and where they had hijacked the scout vehicle. That's when Zainal started driving faster than was safe over the terrain they were on.
He was racing to the channel, to get as deep as the Tub could safely go. That's when she knew he was really worried. But now he seemed amused by the incident and shrugged off Mitford's report.
"Worry saw three Eosi?" Zainal asked, his yellow eyes sparkling with an almost demonic glitter.
"Yeah, and they scared the shit out of him and Leon Dane."
Zainal's smile widened with irony. 'They are frightful. It was only with great effort that I did not embarrass my father and all my line by losing water." Then he gave his big shoulders one of his characteristic shrugs. 'But only the first time." 'Is that what you would have become if you'd gone back?" Mitford asked, not quite meeting Zainal's eyes.
The Catteni nodded once, slowly. 'So they came back? And looked at the machinery in Narrow, and at the field and at Camp Rock, and didn't find Catteni life-signs. But they have gone. There was nothing on the screen when we got out at the Bay.
· Vt
I What happened? I wish to hear more." 'There is more to tell, too, that you wouldn't have seen underwater. The brassheads are waiting for you,' Mitford said with a big grin, stopping the aircushion by the stairs at the KDL's open hatch.
They climbed in.
"Good news, serge?" Kris asked, remembering those last few klicks before the Tub immersed itself. Zainal's expression had been so grim, so . . . frightened . . . she didn't like to think of anything frightening Zainal, even if she knew very well that the Eosi did. Did he suspect the ship might be searching for him . . . still?
Especially if the others did.
Could his brother, Lenvec, be still conscious enough to make an Eosi search him out and take revenge?
"Well, sort of good news,' Mitford said with an odd twist to his smile.
"Tell me, Zainal, could that warship scan underwater?" 'I hope not,' Zainal replied and Kris, watching him closely, saw his jaw muscles tighten.
"If it's any consolation, I don't think they can because otherwise they would have found you - if you're what they were looking for,' Mitford said. 'They did spend a lot of time circling the channel on the other side, about where you would have submerged." 'We cut it pretty close, I think,' said Kris, her eyes on Zainal. 'But they have gone away,' Zainal said with a satisfied nod.
"They've gone. With a bang,' Mitford agreed, grinning broadly, but neither Kris nor Zainal had time to question that because they had reached the bridge where Scott, Beverly and Marrucci waited for them.
"Glad you made it here safely, after all,' Scott said in welcome, but he gestured for Zainal and Kris to join him at the big screen.
"Gino, replay the Catteni ship's departure, will you?" Marrucci, grinning from ear to ear, tapped in the necessary keys as if he'd handled Catteni equipment all his professional life.
Zainal echoed the gasp Kris gave when she saw the blip of the Catteni vessel stop, short.
"How could it hit a wall in space?" she asked. Only then did she notice the barely visible skin of the bubble. 'That's what stopped it?" She turned first to Beverly, then Scott and Mitford, and finally to Zainal.
He was shaking his head, but his eyes were gleaming with intense satisfaction. 'It circles the planet?" he asked.
"We have reason to believe so. But watch,' said Scott, holding up one hand, fingers wide to give his eyes some protection from the flash.
"Wow!" Kris exclaimed, blinking to clear the after-image from her eyes. 'What was that?" 'The forward blasters of the ship firing at once,' Zainal said in a very odd tone of voice. 'And it isn't enough." He continued to watch, but a half-smile turned the corner of his mouth and he began to chuckle. Now he folded his arms across his chest and, still chuckling, watched as the Catteni warship slowly pushed its way through the obstacle and became invisible. 'Ah!" He dropped his arms.
"That is very interesting indeed,' he said, turning to Scott.
"Yes, we think so,' and Scott settled himself on the edge of the screen control panel. 'We think they were looking for you . . ." "I told them,' Mitford said, seating himself at the next work station.
"For what purpose?" Zainal lifted one shoulder negligently. 'I speeded the Tub so they would not see it out in the open. They might have seen it submerging, if they had the scanners in the right direction. If they came, it was to see what their orbital saw.
It was in place when the whizz-ball came over, and it was also there when the big one sent down all the new machines. The Eosi looked at those, did they not?" Mitford's expression was one of relief and Scott regarded Zainal with a look close to embarrassment.
"They come to see what's new on Botany,' Zainal repeated, showing his teeth in a full grin. 'Not for me." Kris allowed herself to relax a trifle. She'd forgotten all about the fact that the Catteni orbital would have sent reports back.
Of course that's what they had come to see! Zainal didn't enter into the matter. He was dropped and he stayed.
"So, do you think the Farmers erected that space barrier?" Scott asked, his eyes fixed intently on Zainal's face.
"Who else? Since the warship had to blast its way out, Zainal said. 'The watch did not report anything happening in space?" 'Just that the Catteni orbital seemed to have developed a shadow,' Marrucci said. 'I was watch officer when the Catteni arrived. There was nothing, nothing there then."
Marrucci grinned. 'Can't see that far any more." But he did call up the log for that period and showed them the tiny shadow behind the orbital.
"If that's the gadget that did the trick, why didn't it move fast enough,' Mitford said in a low grumble, 'to keep the Eosi from getting in at all?" 'Maybe it just took time to spread out,' Beverly suggested.
Then he turned to Marrucci and added, 'Even that Tholian Web took time, didn't it, to enclose the Enterprise?" 'The Enterprise?" Kris exclaimed in surprise. 'The Tholian Web? Oh, I remember that episode." 'D'you remember how the Enterprise got free?" Marrucci asked hopefully.
"No,' she replied sheepishly.
"You're no help." 'Enough,' said Scott, making a cutting gesture to stop their levity. 'This episode has no happy ending. This planet is now enclosed." 'To keep us in?" Kris asked softly, and knew the others had the same question in their minds. Then, because she couldn't bear the tension, she added facetiously, 'Maybe they want to be sure their machinery stays intact. If they can't differentiate between us and loocows, they surely will look at a warship that big with some uneasiness." 'But the Catteni ships were coming in and out of here like yoyos,' Mitford said.
"But the Farmers weren't alerted to the change in . . . tenants, shall I say?" and Scott gave a mirthless smile, 'until that homing device was sent off." 'By the way, whose bright idea was that?" Beverly asked, frowning.
"It got a reaction, which is what we wanted,' Mitford said, declining to name a name. Which, Kris felt, was more forbearance than Dick Aarens deserved.
"Not for - how many months was it . . ." Beverly asked, 'before the whizz-ball arrived?" 'Seven,' Zainal said, 'and then only three weeks until the big ship arrives to replace the machines." "What I can't understand,' said Kris, 'is why that scan of theirs hasn't apparently taken any notice of the existence of a new type of life-form on their planet? Loocows have six legs, noticeably, and we have only two. Surely that was noted somewhere?" She raised her hands in a puzzled gesture.
"And the barrier did let the Catteni warship out,' Beverly said in a puzzled tone.
"For which I, and I'm certain Zainal, too, is very grateful,' Kris said in an undertone. Beverly shot her an understanding smile, his eyes flicking over Zainal beside her.
"Indeed,' Scott said, clearing his throat nervously.
"Very grateful,' Zainal added in a low, fervent tone, leaning back in his chair, stretching out his long legs and giving a sigh of relief.
"But why did it?" Scott asked, pursuing the puzzle.
"Because the ship used weapons against it?" Zainal asked.
"That is a possibility, of course, if the Farmers are pacific by nature,' Scott went on. 'But we don't know that, do we?" 'We know by the valleys,' Zainal said, 'which were to keep something in or something out. But not to kill it. Only now we are kept in and danger is kept out." He pointed to the screen where the Catteni ship's departure was on replay. 'I think the Eosi have been given much to think about." 'But where does that leave us,' and Scott glanced around those on the KDL's bridge, 'in relation to the Farmers?" 'Remember that we all felt that we'd been scanned?" Mitford began, making sure he had everyone's attention. 'Okay, so the whizz-ball orbital did an inventory and the supply ship dropped off what was needed to fill in the gaps. Let's say that, like all the Farmers' stuff, it was programmed to expect certain life-forms and recorded a great many more of an unidentifiable sort.
Maybe that's why there's a bubble around us, until the Farmers can come have a closer look at something that isn't programmed." 'You're just hoping that's the case, Mitford,' Scott said. 'It would vindicate everything you originally aimed to do. Attract their attention and their help." When Mitford nodded, he went on, 'Only your plan's gone agley, as the Scotsman said."
"Not much agley, sir. Not yet, at any rate."
"It would if the Farmers decide that we're some sort ofnalignant life-form which has contaminated their planet." Kris glared up at Scott, appalled that he'd say such a thing.
Then she paused and amended her thinking: that he'd say what possibly everyone else feared - but his expression gave no apology for his blunt speech.
"No,' Zainal said into the dismayed silence his observation caused. 'No,' he added in a stronger tone and sat forward, clapping his big hands to his knees to emphasize that denial. 'The Farmers are cultivators, a race that protects; the valleys prove that to me. The scan could have killed a malignant life-form but did not. The barrier could have destroyed the warship. It did not. But it let it out. We will prove we are cultivators, savers, protectors, too. When the Farmers come . . ." 'You think they will?" Marrucci asked, his thick eyebrows raised in hope of a negative response.
"I think they will, but I will not wait until they do,' said Zainal with a wry grin on his face. 'I will not worry until they do.
I will live well until they do."
"I think I agree with you on that, Zainal,' Beverly said.
The, too,' echoed Marrucci.
"I may have reservations, Zainal,' Scott said, 'but worry is futile,
especially,' and now he flung out both arms in a gesture
of resignation, When faced with a far, far superior force."
"This planet has a great potential,' Beverly said in a quiet, affirmative voice. 'Let us make as much of it as we can, and hope that the Farmers see us as cultivators and, perhaps, useful tenants." 'Amen to that,' Marrucci added and made the sign of the cross.
Kris ducked her head respectfully even as she reached for Zainal's hand. He did not mention Phase Three but, by the way he returned the pressure of her fingers, she knew that he had not forgotten it.
While the brassheads, with Peter Easley, Yuri Palit and Chuck Mitford, visited the various communal mess halls set up around Retreat Bay and further inland to counteract rumours and explain what had happened, Zainal and the fly-boys discussed a quick run in the scout to examine the bubble. Bert Put, Marrucci, Raisha, Beverly and Vic Yowell were dying to see the phenomenon. The argument had been that, if the satellites could no longer see what they were doing on the surface, there was no harm in making use of the aircraft for exploratory purposes.
And one of the first things to be explored was the bubble: 'As close as one could get to it." 'Or in it,' Kris had added, staying in the background but determined to go along for the ride for a variety of reasons.
She'd learned all she could about the new equipment, and had driven the Tub often enough to have got the hang of the Cattenisize finger pads on the control boards. She might never learn to pilot, but there were always other duties during a flight for which she felt herself well able.
She also had a feeling that Zainal had no intention of giving up his plan to 'hitch a ride' on the next Farmers' vehicle that darkened Botany's skies. How he could achieve that goal, she hadn't a clue and he was giving her none, though there were times when he stared blindly out at nothing, with unfocused eyes, and she knew him well enough to be aware that he was turning over ways and means of achieving a hitch.
Considering how quickly the supply ship had made its deliveries, would he have time enough to reach it before it took off again at its incredible speed? The scout and the KDL were equipped with a tractor beam, and she suspected that's what he hoped to use to secure himself to the exterior. But what if he got knocked off when the Farmers' ship accelerated or activated whatever it used to travel the immense distances they were now convinced it traversed?
She kept hoping that when his plans were completed, she'd be part of them. For all the good friends she now had on Botany, she did not wish to be left here by herself. Especially since Zainal's presence protected her from importunities. Already she'd had several distressing interviews with men who wanted to be on her 'paternity' list. They professed themselves willing to forgo a natural conception but they would like to have her bear their child.
She had managed to thank them for their interest - when she really wanted to clout them as hard as she could - and told them she would consider their offer. And made sure to stick closer to Zainal's side than ever, even though it meant stopping work on the quarters they were building. She did what she could without his help - until guys started showing up with offers of assistance . . . and the 'paternity' requests.
Then Raisha discovered she was pregnant, and deferred to whoever wished to take her spot.
"I've been up and it was wonderful,' she said, her eyes shining with the memory, 'but I don't want to whoopsie in free fall, thank you." That condition was becoming widespread, Astrid, Sarah and the three girls who had been Catteni decoders all announcing pregnancies.
Kris kept as close to Zainal as she possibly could, even sitting through repeated instructions at the scout's control board to avoid the 'infection'. No wonder so many individual quarters were being built in the Bay area.
There was no problem filling in Raisha's place, and Bert magnanimously offered to step down too. Beverly and Marrucci went over the credentials of all those who volunteered for the flight and selected Antonio Gedes for Raisha's spot, but Zainal insisted that Bert remain - having had some experience with the craft and in space - while two other pilots, Alejandro Balenquah and Sidi Ahmed, were added to the flight list.
"Not that we're ever likely to go far,' Balenquah said gloomily.
He was swarthy, with deep-set black eyes that surveyed his surroundings with reserve. Kris wasn't sure she liked his noncommittal posture, when here he was being offered what half-a-dozen less qualified men and women would have killed to get. Well, not 'killed', but definitely envied.
"Look at it this way, mate,' said Bert Put, also displeased by the man's attitude, 'you never know, do you? Did you ever think you'd drive a ship in space again? Well, you're doing it now, and here." 'I guess . . ." and Balenquah altered his attitude. He was actually the quickest of the three new men to become easy with the unusual equipment and the finger-pad boards.
The flight had been planned in spite of severe reservations from Reidenbacker and Ainger. They were ground personnel, Marrucci had remarked privately to Kris, and suspicious of air and space manoeuvres.
If the satellites were no longer visible on the screens of the KDL and the scout, then it was two to one that the SATs couldn't see inside within the bubble. It was therefore not only safe, but a wise precaution to see what the barrier was like up close.
"Not to mention the fact that you're dying to go up again,' Kris said and he grinned, more boyish than ever despite having reached the rank of colonel in the Air Force.
"You got it, Bjornsen,' and he cocked a doublejointed thumb at her, making the rest of his hand into a mock pistol before dropping the thumb. He also had a habit of cracking his knuckles when he was nervous, a routine which fascinated Zainal who could not, to Kris's relief, duplicate the action.
Having one person do it in the confines of a pilot compartment was enough!
Zainal also wanted to see if he could locate a Farmers' satellite, or whatever was controlling the bubble.
"If they spy on us, it is good. They want to know more before they come."
"That's your interpretation,' Kris said.
He regarded her with his yellow eyes and a slight smile on his lips.
'And what is yours?" She thought for a moment and then laughed.
"Yeah, we could very well be a mouse run." 'A what?" Zainal asked, puzzled, so she suggested they take a break from house-building while she explained about laboratory mice and labyrinths to test intelligence and learning ability.
"To add to whatever that scan of theirs discovered about us."
"But we do what we want,' Zainal said, still puzzled.
"Maybe we just think we do,' she replied, just now identifying that possibility.
"Scott would not like to think someone else commands him,' and he chuckled as he got back to his feet and reached for another brick.
"No, he sure as hell wouldn't,' Kris agreed, and laughed as she \*\*\*\*\*rose to join him. 'We've got just enough mortar mixed for another course,' she said, scooping up a trowel-full. 'I'm getting quite adept at this." Then she remembered Sandy Areson'sremark about plastering being like feeding an infant, and that she'd use the same skills when she had one of her own. She tapped the next brick in place with such force that it split in half.
"That's the fourth one tonight,' she said irritably. 'Maybe they need to bake them longer or something." Sandy was in fact in charge of the brick-firing, so Kris knew it was no fault of the manufacture.
Brick-making was another chore shared throughout the community. But there was something soothing about shovelling the wet muck into the moulds and knowing you were building your own place from scratch including the ones on your arms, hands and legs, collected from the process of building.
Still, it would be a nice place when it was finished. She and Zainal had picked the spot together, on that first trip. They had a splendid view of the Bay, with enough clear ground around to plant vegetables and berry shrubs, and a stand of 'young' lodgepole trees behind them. After months of barracks living, nearly everyone on Botany wanted privacy and the Bay area certainly afforded that.
The Narrow Valley mess hall had been disassembled, loaded aboard the KDL and reassembled on a height above the Bay.
Smaller offices' clustered around it on the natural terraces and levels below and above. The hospital was the only other large single structure, and Leon Dane announced that the medical staff did not have time to build a separate maternity wing. He was, however, training midwives for home births since he was certain all the babies would decide to be born at the same time.
Private accommodations spread out around the Bay in all directions, at first built from the lodgepole tree timber before the brick manufactory got production up to a useful level. Those involved in cutting timber made the interesting discovery that even the smallest of the lodgepole trees which had grown down into the plateau were at least a thousand years old.
"They have rings, just like trees on Earth,' said Vigdin Elsasdochter, the environmental specialist in charge of responsible logging, ready to show the section she carried around with her. 'And tight rings to indicate the climate has not changed much throughout the millenium: no drought, no bad winters, no hot summers. Some of the larger trees may be ten thousand years old." Once again the question of how long the Farmers had been in possession of the planet was brought up. Especially since the 'new forest' of 'young trees' had been seeded by the much older ones. Even Worrell refused to worry about it.
one night in the mess hall. 'Like allocating glass to people who want to have picture windows and stall showers! Of all things,' and he'd flung a hand towards the Bay, 'as if we don't have a great big bath-tub out there!" Those who had been in the building trades on Earth, like the Doyle brothers, were kept busy - offering advice, showing novices how to do things he'd learned, Lenny said, 'at me da's knee, so to speak'. Some of the Asians had the most trouble, since they had been accustomed to different building materials.
After assigned chores were done and the evenings gradually lengthened, everyone worked on their homes, and lent a hand to neighbours for jobs that required a gang.
While some of the brassheads were living in the cliff hangar, and bunking down on pallets in their offices, all of them had picked out sites, but keeping track of work assignments for nearly ten thousand people and aliens took most of their time.
"Someone has to do it,' Mitford remarked when Kris complained that the admiral seemed to be the unelected head of everything. 'And, hell, Kris, I might have run the battalion to all intents and purposes, and managed to whip us into some sort of order there at the first, but he had an aircraft carrier and they carry ten thousand; he's used to dealing with those kind of numbers, I'm not. I was only too glad to hand him the can, you know." Mitford remained in charge of exploration and mapping, attempting to fill in the spatial map with the details necessary for further expansion of the farming and ranching. 'If you can call loocows ranch animals." Knowing that the sergeant was truly happier on reconnaissance in the Tub, Kris decided not to harbour any ill-feelings towards Ray Scott. There was no question that he wasn't working all the hours God gave the day here on Botany. And some days he seemed almost agreeable, as if Botany was mellowing him. At other times, she was certain he disliked and distrusted Zainal - and her, by virtue of her association with the former Emassi officer. He vacillated between extreme cordiality when deferring to Zainal's knowledge of some matters and total dismissal of Zainal's opinions. He didn't have command all his own way, which somewhat mollified Kris; and she supposed that, having run an aircraft carrier, he had the requisite experience. She had occasion to be grateful it was Scott who issued most of the orders rather than Geoffrey Ainger, whom she didn't like at all. He was so Brit that he was almost as much a caricature of the serving officer as Colonel Blimp had been, and she knew he considered Zainal a dangerous commodity.
She got along well with Rastancil, Fetterman and Reidenbacker; John Beverly was the nicest of the lot, because he always looked straight at her when he asked or answered questions.
And Easley, but then he was as his name - easily to get along with. In fact, when he was involved, meetings seemed less tense and often more productive. He had such a knack for gently redirecting tensions and making suggestions that kept discussions going around, instead of stopping at Ray Scott all the time.
Which brought her back to the present and the meeting Scott and Rastancil had called them in for. They wanted Zainal to check the more mountainous terrain that had not yet been explored during the flight.
The number of orbits had expanded from a quick flight up to the Bubble and back down, to five days of circumnavigating the planet.
"See if there are any blind valleys here on our continent, or deposits of minerals. We could use more lead, copper, zinc and tin, if this continent has them." 'I believe it does,' Zainal said. 'The miner, Walter Duxie, has copies of the original spatial survey maps." "Duxie? Do I know him?" Scott asked over his shoulder at his ever-present aide.
"Yes, he agreed to leave the other place and supervise mining here,' Beggs murmured. 'Stocky man, balding, forties, English." 'Ah, yes, get them for me to see,' and Scott turned back to Zainal and Kris.
idea, especially with those families which were increasing. 'I think it looks well." 'Does at that. I can help hand out nails, too.
Brought you my handy-dandy nail apron, as well." She handed over the object and, laughing, Kris tied it about her waist while Sandy started herself. He never seemed to meet anyone's eye, but then he was so seldom asked questions: he just answered Scott's. Then she decided she didn't want to know.
Two days later, Zainal was satisfied that those accompanying him on the Bubble Mission, as its participants named it, were sufficiently trained to put what they had been learning into practice. He announced a dawn takeoff and dismissed them, suggesting that they all relax for the rest of the evening. Not that he intended to follow his own advice, because they were ready to put the shakes on the roof of their two-roomed cabin. Kris decided she needed to be so thoroughly tired she couldn't stay awake, because she was far more excited about the trip than she let on.
Zainal had just finished setting the piles of shakes in order and was steadying the ladder against the gable end when Mitford, Worry, Tesco, Sandy Areson, Sally Stoffers and the two Doyles arrived, hammers in hand and with a second ladder.
"Can't have you breaking something the day before the Bubble,' Mitford had said gruffly.
Kris grinned gratefully, because Zainal might have patiently learned the rudiments of construction but she was terrified that he'd fall through the rafters, or break them, and he wouldn't let her go up on the roof by herself to nail the shakes.
"You can't help,' Kris said flatly to the two women.
"Heard about your design with my buff bricks,' Sandy said.
She was puffing a bit from the walk up the hill, and had brought along her own stool; she put it down facing the front of the cabin and nodded approval. 'Didn't realize we had so much colour variation . .
.
batches."
"I liked the buff so that's what I made, and then added more buff to the red ones,' Kris said, observing the effect objectively.
They'd put the darker bricks around the door, window-ledges, corners, the chimney and the hearth surround. They had a back door, too, out of the smaller room, so they had easier access to the latrine.
And a sleeping loft which had become a popular
. Maybe it's all you novices mixing your own
."
idea, especially with those families which were increasing. 'I think it looks well." 'Does at that. I can help hand out nails, too.
Brought you my handy-dandy nail apron, as well." She handed over the object and, laughing, Kris tied it about her waist while Sandy started filling the three commodious pockets with the nails. 'Is Zainal going to fill that big mouth of his with nails?" Kris chuckled. 'No, Lenny already warned him about swallowing nails; even a Catteni gut couldn't handle a mouthful.
He's got a pail." Zainal had the ladder in place now and, before he could pick his pail off the ground, she was up the ladder, a bundle of shakes and the hammer in one hand and the other helping her up the rungs.
"Hey?" Zainal protested.
"You'd never know he was Catteni,' Sandy said conversationally to Sally, 'unless you had to look at him." Sally smothered a giggle as Zainal made as graceful a climb up the ladder as Kris had. Mitford and Lenny Doyle appeared on the roof from the other side and then the hammering began, echoing in the little dell, and picked up by the rat-tat-tat of other hammers on other roofs.
With so many to help, passing shakes and replenishing the supply of nails, the cabin was roofed by the time the sun went down. Then Zainal passed around 'beer' while Kris served up tea from the kettle in the fireplace.
"Looks bigger somehow, with the roof on,' Kris remarked, glancing up at
the rafters and taking a deep breath of the fragrance of the new wood of
the shakes. They could have had slate, but Mitford thought shakes were
nicer and easier to put
up.
They lounged about outside until first Moonrise and then the guests left.
"We'd better hike to the hangar and get to bed in the scout,' Kris said, moving towards the doorway. They had no door yet.
Zainal stopped her. 'I want to stay under my own roof, which I have built . . ."
"Helped build,' she said, teasingly.
"Tonight,' he finished, and gestured towards the pile of blankets which she hadn't noticed in the rush to get the roof done.
"That would make the evening complete."
"Not quite,' Zainal said in a low voice, drawing her into his arms. 'It is Rood to have our own place. Very good, indeed." And that should have been an idyllic time for them. Except that when she got up in the night, between moons, she didn't want to disturb the soundly sleeping Zainal and, on her way back from the latrine, tripped over the leftover bundle of shakes and broke her right arm.
She was furious with herself for being so clumsy and for losing her chance for going on the mission.
"Why Couldn't I have broken the left one? I'm righthanded,' she said, weeping more from disappointment than pain as Zainal carried her to the nearest available air cushion, one of the flatbeds, arid drove her the rest of the way to the hospital. Both bones had been broken, although Leon Dane comforted her with the thought that it hadn't been a compound fracture which would have been nasty with their limited facilities.
Then he poured her a tot of the grain alcohol that was currently in use as a painkiller. They hadn't quite got a decent smoky taste to it, but she wouldn't complain.
"This is quite nasty enough,' she said as Zainal held her against him while I eon manoeuvred the bones back into place. She fainted after' not during, and regained consciousness while he was fixing the last of the bandages into place around the splints.
"I would lake to have immobilized it in plaster, only we haven't got that kind yet,' Leon told her. He poured her a smaller tot, 'to help your sleep,' he said.
Then he led Zainal, who carried her, to an otherwise empty ward.
Final set her gently down next to the window and then moved the retest bed against hers.
"Let's not make a practice of that,' Leon said, caught between severity anal amusement at Zainal's preemptive rearrangement.
But he put out the solar-powered light and closed the door quietly behind him.
Kris could almost have wished that Zainal had let her suffer on her own, but the whisky had dulled the ache in her arm and the warmth of his body, and his concern, comforted her so that soon enough she was asleep.
He was gone in the morning when the noise of the scout's takeoff woke her, and the bed had been put back in its proper position. It was dawn and he had blasted off on time. She wondered who had taken her place, and then didn't want to know. She tried to go back to sleep but couldn't with the ache, so she got out of bed and, with a blanket wrapped around her, went in search of someone and preferably a hot cup of herbal tea. Maybe that would help the ache in her arm. What actually helped her arm was a more judicious shot of the grain whisky in the tea.
"I can't spend the next few weeks drunk as a lord,' she said to the attendant in the hospital's kitchen.
"Ah, the ache'll ease off,' Mavis, the duty nurse, told her, grinning. 'At least we've got a decent tipple to help. Now, let's get back to your room and I'll help you dress. Can I bring your old coverall up to your cabin when it's clean? And have a look round it while I'm there? Cumber and I are building, too, and I like to get a notion of what others have done. Did you use bricks or timber?" Mavis was deft in the dressing and kept Kris's mind off her awkward and painful arm as she helped.
"Stop at the pharmacy and they'll give you a bottle - for medicinal purposes,' Mavis said with a grin, pointing towards the right door. 'I'll call for a ride, but you may have to wait . . ."
"I can perfectly well walk . . ."
"You can perfectly well not,' said Pete Easley, coming in the hospital at that moment. 'I promised Leon I'd collect you. Got your bottle of medicinal? Sit there while I grab one. I know where they stash it,' and he went into the pharmacy and was out again before Kris could take a seat. Then, with his hand under her left elbow, he escorted her out to the runabout.
"For you, crippled as you are, Mitford is ready to do a great many things. Besides,' and Easley looked down at her with a devilish grin, 'he promised Zainal he'd look out for you." 'Hmmm, how kind,' she said in an acid tone, knowing just what might be going through Zainal's mind in asking Mitford to be on hand.
"You could take another day in the hospital, you know,' Easley suggested, his eyes intent on her face.
"I'm not sick,' she said peevishly, and walked ahead of him to climb into the runabout.
The space on the driver's seat was not very wide, though it usually accommodated two people easily - but not one with an unwieldy cast and a brown bottle of hooch. Easley ended up sitting slightly canted so he wouldn't inadvertently bump her.
She felt clumsier than ever and definitely out of sorts. She couldn't be hung over from what she'd had last night, but she'd have given her eyeteeth for an aspirin. Then she remembered how Zainal laughed at all the eyeteeth she'd given away, and somehow her mood improved.
"He got off all right?" she asked.
"Right on time. Laughrey took your place." 'Laughrey, the former Concorde pilot?" Her good humour increased. She liked Laughrey and he'd be in heaven, literally as well as figuratively. 'At least it wasn't Scott's little pipsqueak . . ." She would have hated it if Beggs had gotten the empty chair.
Pete Easley laughed. 'The guy's good at what he does, but Scott only tolerates him because it keeps him out of other people's hair.
He's a natural yes-man, but he's got an eidetic memory." Early risers
waved a greeting at Kris and Pete, some of them pointing to her arm and
signalling 'tough luck'. Not sure how to respond to the sympathy, she
waved back, smiling. She glanced skyward, knowing that Baby was
probably
over the other hemisphere about now.
"Could I sneak onto one of the bridges, d'you think?" 'Only when you've had some breakfast. You're white as a sheet,' he said, pulling in to park at the mess hall.
So she had breakfast, which Pete Easley brought over to the table at which he had seated her, one not visible from the door.
"Don't think you need condolences right now,' he said, sitting so that he blocked her from casual glances.
"Is news of my accident all over the Bay?" she demanded, swinging back to annoyance again.
"Well, there had to be an explanation when Zainal showed up with Laughrey, and we all know how keen you were to go on the mission,' he said, adding, 'and you know how news goes through Retreat." 'Hmmm, yes, indeed I do." She grimaced then becauseeven to her she sounded cranky.
"Don't worry about it, Kris,' Pete said. 'I'd be a lot crankier." And he escorted her back to the runabout without too many people commiserating with her.
"I think I'll take you home, Kris,' he said, making the turn towards her cabin where he should have turned towards the hangar. 'You still don't look like yourself."
"I'm not,' she agreed. 'I am definitely not myself."
But also she didn't want to go to a cabin that was empty of Zainal. She tried to think of the things she could do onehanded and came up with very few. Even dish-washing required two.
"Look, Kris, they won't reach the Bubble for a couple more hours.
How about I drop you off at your cabin and come get you in time for that? Okay?" 'Yeah, that sounds pretty good,' she said as he slowed the runabout right at her front door. She was getting out when she realized the doorway was no longer open. 'Hey, how did that get there?" and she pointed to the brandnew addition.
Pete grinned. 'Lenny Doyle brought it down at first light. He thought you might prefer to be miserable in privacy." Delighted with the surprise, she worked the latch up and down.
"If you pull the string to the inside, it's like locking it,' he told her, and demonstrated.
"Like the pioneers used to do,' and she grinned as she experimented, pulling the latch-string in and out.
Pete gave her a gentle push inward. 'Get some rest now. And I'll be back for you." He shut the door and she pulled the string in again.
"Thanks, Pete,' she called and heard his cheerful 'No problemo' and then the whispering sound of the air cushion driving off.
Someone had also tidied up the bedding and increased the fluff content of the mattress. Kris blessed whoever had done her that service. She nudged one of the stools across the flagstone floor with her feet, knocked it over and kicked it into place by the bed, uprighted it, placed the bottle on it within handy reach, and sat down on the bed to take off her boots. She wouldn't sleep, she knew that, but she took a pull on the bottle before she lay down.
A determined knocking and someone calling her name roused her and she sat up, knocking her arm painfully.
"I'm coming, I'm coming,' she called, discovering it's not as easy to get to one's feet with an arm in a sling. When she opened the door, Pete Easley was leaning on the frame, smiling broadly.
"You did sleep and you look one hundred percent better,' he said, but he took out of his pocket a comb, one of those carved out of loo-cow bones, and ran it through her hair. 'That's even better.
C'mon. We've just time to get to the hangar before they make the Bubble." When they entered the KDL's bridge, it was crowded with an avid audience, but Scott made peremptory gestures for her to be let through and then installed her in one of the seats.
"You'll be interested to know,' Beverly was saying from Baby's piloting compartment, 'that the Bubble does not register on any detection equipment. But it's visible . . . as you can see."
see the scout-ship on the KDL's screen, with its nose a scant ten metres from the barrier.
"We will poke it,' Zainal's voice said, and Baby drifted into the opacity of the Bubble and bounced slowly backwards.
"Here, let me adjust the screen a bit so they can see what the warship left behind,' said Marrucci, laughter rippling through his voice.
"We'll need a touch of reverse for a proper view,' and that was in Laughrey's amused baritone. He chuckled openly as the viewscreen of Baby slowly swung to starboard and then equally slowly reversed.
"See what we mean?" Bert Put asked, and Kris could just imagine the grin on the Aussie's face. 'Lost every array they had, and every mast they had." 'Outlined for ever in Bubble,' said Balenquah. 'Cadre de digs, the Farmers make some clever stuff!'
'(ban you make any analysis of it?" Scott asked.
m: At.
· 1:
"Can't if sensors can't pick up anything,' Bert Put said. 'Not unless we go out and see if we can cut a patch of it." 'No,' said Zainal. 'If you wish, someone will go outside, but we will not take sample." 'Affirmative to defacing it, Zainal,' Scott said. 'But I'd like an EVA inspection of it." 'I go,' Zainal said, and immediately there was protest from both Baby and the KDL observers.
Kris discovered her left hand on her lips, to keep from adding her protest. Then she conquered her fear.
"He's the one to go, Ray,' she said firmly. 'He knows the gear and the ship. No-one else has checked out for a space-walk, have they?" 'I have,' said Bert Put, 'but not with this equipment.
Zainal'll be just fine, Kris. He's already suiting up." Zainal's EVA suit also had its own camera so, after a nervous wait, the view was transferred to his helmet eye and they saw the shimmering veil of the Bubble as he slowly approached it. They could see his hands reaching out to prod it gently, and the reaction of even that light touch as he floated away from it.
"Can you put your helmet on it, Zainal?" Scott asked, receiving a note from the engineers watching the space-walk.
Slowly the Bubble filled the camera screen and was placed right up against the material. Nothing of the black space beyond could be seen through the fabric, and it was smooth.
"Like a balloon's skin,' Kris murmured under her breath.
"That's how I'd describe it,' Scott agreed.
Then Zainal pulled back. 'There are no flaws, even around the debris from the warship."
"Could you make it to that spot?" Scott asked.
"He's at the end of the tether right now, Ray,' Beverly said.
"We've got all the photographic material you need for examination of that flotsam. No need to risk Zainal for it." 'Agreed,' Scott said indifferently. 'Thank you for your effort, Zainal." 'No problemo,' said Zainal's deep voice as his helmet turned and took in Baby's bow and the windows into the pilot's compartment.
Kris's mouth went dry. He was a long way from the ship, even if he was slowly returning to it. Feeling someone's hand close reassuringly on her shoulder, she glanced up at Pete Easley. She gave a sigh and controlled the flutter in her stomach. The break began to throb again, but she decided to ignore it: the pain wasn't there, she had no time for it.
Then Zainal was back inside the scout and his camera turned off.
She breathed a sigh of relief, oddly echoed around the crowded bridge.
Which, she realized, was just a bit too crowded for her and she rose from her seat, glancing appealingly at Pete.
"Thanks, Admiral,' she said, nodding to the others she knew out of those on the bridge.
A way parted for her as Easley conducted her off the bridge and then off the KDL. Her knees were near to buckling as she stepped down the ladder, hanging on with her left hand. And her arm ached despite her efforts to make it stop.
"There're sandwiches and tea,' Pete said, showing where a trestle table was burdened with lunch items. 'And I know where they keep the hangar's hooch,' he added.
"This isn't like me,' she protested, peevish again.
"No, it isn't,' Pete said equably. 'But you're allowed. Sit.
I'll be right back." He doctored a cup of tea and brought more sandwiches than she thought was fair, but she polished off two and had two cups of hooched-up tea. The ache in her bones subsided.
"D'you want to go back in and see the next show?" Easley asked.
He was really being very nice, Kris thought, but she shook her head.
"Then I'll take you back to the cabin,' and he cupped her left elbow, though he parked the runabout very close to where they'd been sitting.
He was really quite a nice guy, she thought, wondering who'd snap him up as the father of a child, or children. He wan a good head taller than she was, and rather more athletic than you'd think with that pose of indolence he usually affected. Not badlooking, either, though nothing as toy-boy handsome as Dick Aarens was.
Or Yuri, with his Slavic cheekbones and snapping black eyes.
Neither of them was a patch on Zainal though.
The comunit buzzed and Pete answered it. 'Oh, you have?
That's great. I'm taking Kris home. She needs to rest. Okay?
Fine. See you. No, they don't know what the Bubble's made of .
.
. except it's the biggest damned balloon ever made. Over." 'Yeah,' and she giggled, 'it is the biggest damned balloon ever made, and we don't know who blew it up." Pete grinned at her and she knew she was acting silly, but it was better than being peevish.
"I love that door,' she said as the runabout stopped in front of it.
"It's the best front door I've ever seen. Zainal will be so pleased.
Say, how much hooch did you pour in my tea?" 'Only enough to stop the ache in your arm. It has stopped, hasn't it?" She looked down at the clumsy white extrusion. 'You know, it has." Pete swung the door inward and she had taken the first step before she realized that the inside was different.
"My God, what's been happening with my back turned?" she demanded, swaying a bit as she turned towards Pete.
He took her good arm and led her inside. 'Well, we were going to wait with the shivaree until Zainal could be here, too, but with you hors de combat, as it were, Sandy, Lenny, Ninety, Chuck, Sarah, Whitby and Leila thought maybe now would be the right time to bring the stuff in." 'Stuff?" She blinked, trying to focus on first the table, with six glasses almost symmetrical in manufacture, and a pottery set which looked like Sandy's best designs - two pots, one large, one small, and a cast-iron skillet. There were benches around the table, and at one end a chair big enough to fit Zainal. She put her hand to her mouth in surprise. But when her startled gaze flicked past the opening to the smaller room and saw the wooden bedstead with carved posts and the huge puffy fluff mattress that covered it, she burst into tears.
"Now, now, Kris,' Pete said in consternation and, pulling her against him, began to stroke her soothingly, saying a lot of things that she didn't really hear because the generosity of her friends and the team was so overwhelming.
Then he was holding one of the glasses to her lips and urging her to drink. She did, because she hated to be such a baby when everyone was nemg so nice to her. And then her knees seemed to give way and Pete picked her up - as easily as Zainal could and deposited her on the bed, arranging the pillows behind her and urging her to finish the drink.
"The bed - it's so marvelous. . .and they all know I've wanted a really, really, truly thick mattress . . ." and she clung more firmly to Pete, as the only steady thing in a rapidly whirling world.
She felt arms around her and, out of habit and forgetting that Zainal was off in space, she put her face up to be kissed. And it was.
And so were her cheeks, and her neck, just where she liked it, and she was kissing the masculine face, slightly stubbled, which surprised her because Zainal didn't grow a beard but she needed comfort right now, and the kisses were very nice indeed, and she couldn't resist returning them . . . nor protest, even with her right arm feeling so heavy and not quite hers, when the coverall was slipped off and she felt the warm skin next to hers. This was all somehow inevitable and, in the end, quite enjoyable.
Kris woke up with a terrible hangover and discovered - the hard way, by accidentally banging her right arm as she tried to sit up that it was still in a splint, though the throbbing was muted. The struggle just to sit only made her head worse.
She remembered being in the KDL's bridge, and coming back and seeing all
the lovely gifts and crying, and sitting down on the bed and Pete Easley
. . . She sat bolt upright, collapsing almost immediately with the
headache and trying to remember
more.
And she'd enjoyed it far more than she should have. In fact, she could almost - not quite but almost - regret that her scruples required her to honour the bond that had grown between herself and Zainal as if it were a legal one. And that meant no jumping in the sack with anyone. Well, there were extenuating circumstances involved last night that would never recur.
Furthermore she'd keep far away from any of that 'medicinal', inhibition-destroying alcohol. As much because of the headache she had as to what it did to her self-control.
Well, she thought philosophically and chuckled. At least I remember enjoying it. Then she sighed. She hoped their next meeting wouldn't be awkward. Or that she'd have to explain to Pete that last night was it! She wasn't about to two-time Zainal.
Even with someone as good in bed as Pete Easley. Some girl was going to be very lucky! She made another injudicious movement and thought longingly of a cool compress on her forehead and maybe the back of her neck.
Maybe a hair of the dog? She pushed back the blankets, and noticed that Pete had neatly laid her coverall on the stool in easy reach, her boots beside it.
Yes, the bottle of medicinal spirits was on the table, and the glass he poured for her, with a good inch in it. Had he had some before he left? Whenever he had left, and she did briefly worry that his departure might have been noticed. Well, if it had, it had. She lifted the glass and knocked it back shuddering at the taste. It was remarkable she'd been able to drink any of it.
She made a slow way to the hearth and, holding her head very I ;
still, lowered herself, spine-straight, to light the fire laid there.
Another considerate touch by Mr Easley. And the kettle was full
of water.I
One of these days, they'd have water piped in to houses, but that was in the future . . .
She went back to the table to inspect the gifts she remembered vaguely having seen earlier, now sunlight came from the small side window above the bed. Its slightly wavy glass sent a prism of rainbow light onto the table. Then she realized how the sun was shining in, from the east. For they had faced the cabin south! Good Lord! She'd slept the rest of yesterday and an entire Botany night? No wonder her arm didn't ache as much.
The headache had begun to ease off by the time the kettle had boiled. She took herbs from the little pot on the mantel and made a cup which she took to Zainal's chair to drink. It was a comfortable chair, and her butt eased into the contours. It'd need a cushion or two . . . no, she couldn't see Zainal sitting on a cushion but the wood, when she felt it with her left hand, had been rubbed smooth, smelling only vaguely of the vegetable oil that had been used to give it lustre. She wondered who had made it.
Then she absorbed the construction of the table - a three-inch slab of the slate which was quarried nearby, set on sturdy, slightly tapering rounds of lodgepole trees, with notches which spiked through the slate at the corners, keeping the top firmly m place.
There was a tentative knock on the door.
"Coming,' she called and saw that the latch-string was inside.
So she must have come to long enough to do that when Pete left.
She opened the door to Mavis Belton from the hospital, a clean coverall in her hand.
"Oh, do come in,' said Kris. 'Kettle's just boiled. I was having a cup to get over my hangover."
"How's the arm?" asked Mavis, with a grin.
"Not as bad as yesterday, that's for sure. Come in, come in."
l
Mavis did, but only after a careful look into the main room of the cabin. Then she saw the furnishings and exclaimed with surprise, running her finger over the surface of the slate slab and admiring the sturdy lodgepole legs that held up such a weight.
"Not something you could tip over easily,' she remarked, stroking the chest and then Zainal's chair. 'Big enough even for him, I'd say." 'He'll be delighted with it. He looks so uncomfortable on stools, with his legs sticking up like Arnie Schwarzenegger on a kindergarten chair. Here's your tea, and I'll just steal Zainal's chair. I can rest the splint on the arm." 'I just ended my shift, but I thought you'd like to hear that Baby's doing fine in her orbitals." 'I saw them reach the Bubble, and Zainal's space-walk,' Kris said. 'That was before Pete Easley plied me with so much liquor I must have passed out." 'I think we're going to have to alter the recipe. That particular distillation is double potency. I told Leon and Mayock they'd better cut it more." 'They should,' Kris agreed, rubbing the back of her neck. 'My hangover's hung-over for fair." 'Sit out in the sun; it's a lovely day." Mavis rose. 'May I look around? Inside and out?" 'Sure, but watch that pile of shakes on the way to the latrine, will you?" By dinnertime, when Mitford came by in the runabout to take her down to the mess hall, Kris had completely recovered. But she took him to task and demanded to know who had done the furniture she'd found in the cabin on her return from the hangar.
"Whose idea was that table? Not even Zainal could tip it over and how'd you get it down here?" she asked.
"We were going to do it while you and Zainal were gone, surprise you on your return,' Chuck Mitford said with a sly grin at her. "But with you on the sick list, seemed a good idea to put up the bed . . .
and then what was a bed without a table and the chairs!" 'Well, it was very, very much appreciated. Especially that thick mattress on that wide bed! Drunk as I was, I appreciated that!" Then she caught Mitford's odd expression. 'Oh yes, Pete Easley got me high as a kite just in case you hear rumours that I was drunk. I was. I slept through an entire Botany night without so much as moving. Mavis came by this morning and said they were going to cut the last batch. I said they'd better . . .
bed?"
"Oh, the Doyles and me. I cut the timber, and Lenny did the posts and showed me how to make the joints and stuff. He and Ninety did the table and the chair. Said it was the least they could do for the guy who kept them from becoming frozen steaks in a Farmerst freezer. Joe and Sarah did the mattress and pillows; Sandy Areson the pottery and glassware, of course; Whitby the benches. Coo traded for the pots and the skillet. No big deal." 'No big deal?" she exclaimed, and a faint reminder of her hangover made her head ring with the loudness of her voice. 'You furnish our cabin and it's no big deal.
It's a real big deal to me,' and she leaned over and kissed the sergeant on the cheek before she knew she was doing it. 'There! And don't blush like that, Chuck Mitford. I do appreciate what you all did and, besides, no-one saw me kiss you." She giggled when the sergeant lifted one hand halfway to his cheek and then dropped it quickly back to his lap. He was still red-faced.
"You finished your cabin first, so you'll have a chance to help others furnish theirs when they've built,' he said in a gruff voice.
"By the way, stood a tour on the KDL, and the mission's going a-okay.
Not a wrinkle on the balloon as far as they've gone.
Seamless. All the tech heads are scratching their arses over what was used." 'What's the general feeling? Or is it too far away to bother the claustrophobics?" she asked, trying not to resent her absence . . .
and Zainal's.
"I think people are glad. The Deskis evidently had a wild night
it was damned near lethal. Who made the of dancing, singing . .
. if you can call that warble singing . . . and Coo says there are giants protecting us."
"No,' and Mitford shook his head. 'And frankly, I'm just as glad I didn't. Worry's still having nightmares, and I think that's why Leon made the latest hooch so strong. Hoooo-eee!" He let out a long whistle. 'You can blame them for getting you drunk, not Pete Easley.
Which reminds me. Officially you're on sick leave, Bjornsen, so don't get any ideas about doing anything with that busted wing until Leon gives you the okay. Got me?" 'Yes sir, sergeant, sir,' she said, saluting repeatedly with her left hand.
The makers and donors of the furniture were saving spaces for them at a table in the mess hall. Kris lavished praise and gratitude on all for making a cabin into a real home, promising to do as well by them, when their cabins were up. Then the conversation devolved to Baby's mission and Mitford, sipping what he assured Kris was a well-watered jolt of hooch, brought them up to speed.
The monitor also tracked the small vessel in its exploration, especially the examination at the barrier, and followed its progress until it landed safely again on the western continent.
Baby returned safely and with sufficient masses of information to keep all the brassheads, engineers, miners and Aggies busy.
The mission crew took a longer time to get themselves back down to the surface, they were so high on the experience.
Carnal s course had used a minimum of fuel and won the plaudits of the aviators and astronauts. Everyone on board had had instruction from him on how to fly Baby and a little chance at manoeuvring.
"We may not have flight simulators, but what're they against the real thing?" Balenquah demanded. 'Too damned bad we can't go anywhere in the KDL. Zainal says it's much easier to pilot - had to be since Drassis flew that series. That whole caper of capturing the KDL was a waste of time." 'No,' said Bert Put, evidently rather fed up with Balenquah's opinions, 'it got us extra fuel, a new bridge console and a lot of tools we'd have a hard time duplicating." 'Oh, yeah, forgot about them,' Balenquah replied. 'Well, if we have to shift population, it'll be handy enough."
- .
.
.
.
.,
"There'll be flying in the KDL,' Marrucci said, 'maybe only mine and grain runs, but we're not totally grounded, you know." 'We are for any real space work,' the man went on, talking himself into a morose state.
Zainal rose then, muttered something about having to see the admiral and took Kris from the table. Glancing back just as she and Zainal left the mess hall, she saw that others were departing from the table, leaving Balenquah on his own.
Zainal had been gob-smacked, as Lenny Doyle would say, when Kris who had kept quiet about the surprise until he got into their cabin saw the gifts. The door - which he admired even before he opened it, with Kris barely able to contain her excitement at what lay beyond it had required his attention, admiring the detail, the latch-string, which gave him great amusement pulling it in and out.
Then he entered the room and saw the table and the chair, the pottery and glasses which Kris had put on the mantel, having no other place to store things - yet. Lenny had promised to teach her how to do mortise-and-tenon joints in wood and make herself proper chests and drawers. But the table and the chair shocked him, with one knee raised for the next step, and he stared and stared and then inarticulately tried to ask her who, how, where these things had come from.
As she replied, interspersing the explanation with giggles for the surprise yet in store for him, he examined everything, even to trying to lift the slate-topped table. He sat in the chair, got up, turned it upside down to see how the legs had been fitted in, and the stringers, and then righted it to sit in it again, stroking the armrests with his big hands.
Maybe Catteni didn't have tear ducts, or never cried, but Zainal's eyes were certainly full of fluid and, though he tried to speak, he kept shaking his head, speechless.
"I've saved the best for last,' she told him and, taking a hand that was attached to a body reluctant to leave the chair made to fit him, she led him to where he couldn't miss the bedstead.
in his full eyes as he swooped her up into his arms and carried her, for all the world the way John Wayne had treated Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man, and demonstrated how much better he could perform on a resilient surface.
Mitford took her off the sick-list when he wanted their team to find a pass through the western hills to the far shore; he let her go along. He knew very well that she'd be better employed marking klicks, which she could do with her left hand, than left at Retreat fretting that she was useless.
While that was being organized, she spent some time making bricks since she could fill the moulds lefthanded. She owed Sarah and Joe for their hand in the 'Great Furniture Surprise'.
When some loggers were injured - two badly - she sat in the ward with them, checking pulse and temperatures; there were no blood-pressure devices and no thermometers, so it was all hands-on.
She also fed Boris Slavinkovin, who had broken both arms and most of his ribs when the rolling log had gone over his body for a short-cut.
Being fed by a onehanded aide didn't embarrass him half as much, he told her because it didn't tie up a whole human who could do other jobs than feeding him. Then he asked her if she could teach him better English, since he was now stuck in bed and had to do something.
Ex-teachers had gotten together with an ax-cartoonist and created a language primer for those who wished to learn English. There were fifty copies in print, thanks to supplies on the KDL, and they were well-worn by the time Kris snagged a copy for Boris.
Leon and Mayock managed to dilute the potency of their distillations so that it not only had the faint aftertaste of a Botany nut variety, but did not cause such speedy and legless inebriation.
The only person whose metabolism could cope with the previous grain
whisky was Zainal so, rather than water down what was left (which Leon
felt was a crime), the remaining keg was given to him. The first time
he sampled it, Kris told him - l
about Pete Easley getting her drunk on barely two half-glasses of it, and the hangover she'd had the next day. That reminded her that she hadn't seen as much of Pete as usual. But she thought nothing of it, going to her stints at the hospital or the brick factory.
Then they were ready to leave on their exploratory mission, and it was a great relief to all the team to be back together again and out on their own.
"One can get too accustomed to the comforts of home,' Sarah announced, settling back in her seat on the big aircushion truck.
"Though I wish we could have started the cabin before we left.
And thanks again, Kris, for all those bricks. Worry's put his name in for a hundred, and so did Jay Greene. We should have enough by the time we get back." 'We do appreciate the ones you did for us, too,' sai4Leila in her often inaudible voice. She was holding hands with Whitby, while hanging on to a strap with the other.
Leila looked a bit white, Kris thought, and wondered if she too was pregnant. Sarah was, and very cocky about it, taking it in her stride like any modern woman.
"Sure thing, Leila. Kept me out of mischief,' said Kris.
And actually, kept mischief away from her, for any of the importunate men who tried to charm her found themselves also making bricks, if that's where they caught up with her, or feeding a bed-bound patient, which was scarcely a romantic setting for the sort of offers they hoped to make.
Boris Slavinkovin put in his bid and she had to threaten him with her absence at mealtimes if he kept it up.
"You'll have to some time, you know,' Sarah said bluntly.
"Oh, I will, I will,' Kris said airily, and did not meet Zainal's eye when he glanced at her beside him. 'Ah, that's another klick, isn't it? We've gone one thousand pleas again." She added a slash to her sheet.
They found a way through the hills, through twisting but connecting ravines, separated by banks which the air cushion could manage easily.
They marked the more accessible routes
with Os in the blue, almost luminous paint that was a recent innovation.
(Red and yellow had already been produced from local vegetable dyes.)
The cur-de-sacs were marked with an X.
For some reason, Zainal found the procedure very amusing but wouldn't tell her why. They did not find any blind valleys nor nightcrawlers, but they did find a new variety of rocksquat and some avians that were almost as good eating as chickens, though some caught closer to the sea left a fishy aftertaste in the mouth.
They made their way down the coast until the rocky terrain was impassable even for the remarkably manoeuvrable vehicle.
They were headed back up the eastern coast two weeks later when Kris experienced some fleeting nausea first thing in the morning. For a couple of days she was sure it was caused by the ripe soft fruits that flourished in the almost tropical weather this far south, and she ignored the minor discomfort until one morning when Joe was replacing the splints and bandages on her arm. The bandage material came from the legs and arms of Catteni coveralls, cut in strips, softened slightly by much washing and use and adequate for their purpose. Her arm was sweating so much in the heat that she was glad to change the wrappings with the extra roll of bandage that Joe had in his medical kit.
"Arm's healing well,' he said, feeling the breaks with careful fingers. 'I can feel the thickening of the bones where they've knitted." 'Doesn't hurt any more either,' she told him, though she sighed as he replaced splints and bandage strips.
He gave her an odd sideways glance. 'Trip's done you good.
You were looking a little off-colour before we left." 'Which reminds me? Anyone else having trouble digesting that pink-fleshed fruit we had last night?" she asked.
Joe was not only medic but botanist.
"No, but we didn't gorge on it either. Why? Got the runs?" 'No, a
touch of indigestion, I guess,' and she shrugged it off, but Sarah had
overheard her query and joined them, peering into her face with an
intensely disturbing grin on her
i
face. 'So?" Kris demanded when Sarah didn't explain.
"Breasts hurt? Had your period? How long have you noticed the nausea?" Defensively, Kris crossed her arms over her breasts, and as if Sarah's comment had been a curse they were tender. She didn't dare change the position of her arms as her mind raced to the conclusion Sarah had obviously just reached.
"I can't be pregnant,' she said, jerking her chin up. 'I've never . .
."
"Never what?" asked Sarah with a sly expression on her face.
Kris closed her eyes, remembering the potent hooch she'd had for her arm, remembering Pete Easley offering her more, and more, and enough so that she had . . .
"I'll kill him,' she said, meaning it fervently. No wonder he had kept out of her way. Just wait till she got back to Retreat.
She'd . . .
"Is something wrong with Kris's arm?" Zainal asked, and Kris wanted to seep into the ground like a nightcrawler.
"Nothing, nothing's wrong with my arm,' and she shot to her feet, glaring at Sarah and Joe.
"No, but she's pregnant,' Sarah said gleefully.
Kris hauled back her left arm to punch Sarah, but Zainal caught her around the waist.
"You had to go blab it!" she shouted'trying to reach Sarah who had nimbly danced out of her way, with the grinning Joe moving into position to protect his mate, with hands out in a placatory move.
"Now, Kris, don't go off half-cocked,' he said as Leila and Whitby came running over to see what could possibly have happened.
"Kris is preggers, too!" Sarah crowed.
Then Zainal was holding her so tightly to his chest, leaving her feet dangling above the ground, that she had to hang on to him for balance.
"Thank you, Kris,' he murmured into her ear and all the fight went out of her. She hung limply against him as his arms around her assumed a kinder hold, a loving one. There couldn't be many males on any world who would thank a woman who got pregnant by another man.
"You're welcome, I think,' she added and squirmed to be released.
When he put her back on her feet, she apologized to Sarah and Joe with as good a grace as she could manage. 'I wanted to be sure,' she said mendaciously. 'It could have just been the ripe fruit." 'So, tell us who the lucky guy was?" Joe asked with the familiarity of an old friend.
Kris chuckled, deciding on an entirely different course of action which meant she couldn't publicly go after one sweettalking lothario of a Peter Easley, but neither would she confirm it to him or anyone . .
. unless of course the newborn gave some clue to its paternity. That would serve that . . . so-and-so right.
Taking advantage of a girl in her condition . . . and yet . . .
she suppressed any recollection of what she hadn't been able to remember of an incident that would result in a lasting and visible proof.
"That's for me to know, and you to guess,' she said, delighted to be able to pay Sarah back for blurting out what Kris would rather have kept secret.
The long trek up the eastern coast went well, all other events considered, and everyone settled down to the fact of her pregnancy. At night Zainal held her against him with a tenderness she certainly had not expected of him: enough to make her eyes water and wish, with all her heart, that she might have transcended the barriers of species' biology and been pregnant by him.
By the time they got back to Retreat Bay, she had never felt better in her life. She had to see Leon about her arm and he was very pleased with its progress, but wanted her to keep the splints on anyway, since she insisted on working, though she could use her right hand now. He also confirmed her pregnancy and had the grace not to enquire further.
"Actually, you're lucky you're here on Botany. Doesn't take as long,' Leon said with a wry grin.
"Average pregnancy is 260 280 days. But it'll only take you 212.8 Botanical days to gestate." When she blinked in confusion at him, he grinned and added, 'Thirty-hour days don't change the development rate of a foetus, but it sure alters the days you stay pregnant."
"Oh!'
"Most of my o.b. patients find that comforting."
"I'll remember that."
Word of her pregnancy got around, and she could find additional comfort in the fact that her 'admirers' went elsewhere with their persuasions. And when she saw Pete Easley across the crowded mess hall one evening, she merely gave him a cheerful wave and left him wondering. She did like the man. He'd been drinking, too. Maybe she was assigning his solicitude that day to exterior motives because he'd been drinking as much of that hooch as she had. How could she fault him for getting drunk and doing what was natural enough? Pregnancy was also mellowing her.
The temperature was definitely warming up and bushes were blossoming, spreading a heady smell that the inland breeze wafted down to the Bay area. The agricultural teams had ploughed during their absence, and sowed the fields with seed purloined from the now deserted Bella Vista camp in a special trip of the KDL. As no ship had come to collect what was left of the grain, the KDL did, for the supplies brought across the channel were low.
The silos were swept clean for this year's storage.
On the continent that had been evacuated, the machines had been ploughing, too, and many of the fields were sown. Some wit among the Aggies set up a competition, onesided though it was, as to the growth and health of their crops versus the Farmers' and the resultant yield per acre. The Aggies had already elected to use fields the same size the Farmers had, since the arable land seemed to divide into such sections: another clue that this continent might once have been farmed too. The rustled loocows grazed the less desirable fields and the hillsides.
About the time the crops were a good six inches high and thriving, a most unpleasant discovery was made: there were nightcrawlers again.
Not many, but enough to know that there was a resurgence of the menace.
Astrid put forward the theory that it was the loocows, excreting internal parasites that had a second cycle as nightcrawlers. There were enough to agree with her, but it made for an interesting argument in the evenings and had those with wooden floors in their huts replacing them with thick slate or flagstones. And many of those who had not sited their dwellings moved nearer the better-travelled areas.
No-one walked out at night on any field, and the sentinel positions were either made of stone or set high above the ground on stilts.
This was, however, a very minor setback. Compost heaps were hastily shifted to stone tubs, and the disposal of noxious wastes was no longer a problem. Not that anyone wanted nightcrawlers in a latrine. Since such facilities no longer had to be dug, it became a punishment chore to do the late evening dumps, far enough from the rapidly expanding community to reduce the hazard of nightcrawler infestation to the populated areas.
Spring lasted months, but the fine weather assured the Aggies of excellent crops, as good as or even better than what the Farmers were cultivating. The varieties of tubers and pulses occupied half as many fields as the grain crops, and caves were found to store the harvests rather than having to search ever further afield for the edibles. The nightcrawlers were not attracted to vegetable matter unless it was mixed with bloody substances, so these crops were not disturbed. The rocksquat compound flourished, and it was discovered that baby rocksquats were far more delicate in flavour and meat than the adults.
Evening classes in various skills were given, although the nights when
Admiral Ray Scott threw his first successful pot, or Bull Fetterman
completed a set of six dining-chairs, and Marrucci managed a creditable
mortise-and-tenon drawer for his chest, remained landmarks in the
assimilation
of the disparate ax-professionals into true Botanicals.
There were failures, as Mitford put it: people who refused to do their share of work, or felt themselves put upon by 'authority' to always having to do the less glamorous tasks. Judge Bempechat gave each offender three chances to redeem himself or herself in the eyes of the community. Then the unrepentant had a one-way trip back to the Old Continent where they could fend for themselves, with cup, blanket, knife and hatchet. After the expulsion of the first dozen or so, delinquency reduced significantly.
Once a month, the two valley prisons were visited. The Turs disappeared one by one until the valley was empty. The Catteni eventually put up shelters and, when they asked for supplies like nails, or meat as a change from a fish diet - these were provided. But nothing that could give them any assistance in escaping, though Zainal doubted they would try.
"They are Drassi and Tudo. They have enough to eat, a place to sleep, and that is sufficient." 'I can't imagine anyone not wanting to better conditions,' Marrucci had said, for he was often in the pilot's seat in one of the two small airships that did the run. 'I mean, when you consider we're damned near city size with our own distillery . .
." He was hoping to add wine to the spirits and had already been south for the soft fruits as a basis for his 'cordial'.
"They like it the way they have it now,' and Zainal shrugged.
"D'you think the Turs did escape?" Marrucci asked.
"Who cares?"
"You gotta point there." The Tub went regularly to the mines with supplies for the men and women working there, to rotate change personnel and bring back ore. The judge often gave a month's sentence at hard labour for misdemeanors, and only one ever found mining an enjoyable occupation; he stayed on.
For evening entertainment, those with any talent provided shows, managing to remember enough of a musical comedy or even a play to put on abridged versions or invent dialogue and action to add to what they remembered. Decks of cards were manufactured from the heavy wrappings on stores in the KDL and Baby. The cards didn't shuffle well, but that didn't keep the players from betting an hour's work or a special bit of scrimshaw to make it interesting.
Gold had been found but it was decided - not without heated debate - that barter made a better system for a small community like theirs where everyone was expected to work communityhours, not pay to get out of the labour. Among the diverse trades of the colonists there were several jewellers. They would contract to produce jewellery for those who found gold, and even a few gemstones, and decided among themselves what was fair payment in grams of the metal.
Iri Bempechat had taken on several assistants as legal advisers in disputes, most of which could be settled by compromise.
However, the ax-military personnel formed lower court, but their decisions could be appealed, leaving Judge Bempechat to give the final verdict on an issue.
"We don't need a formal government,' Beverly had said one evening when the topic came up again in a mess hall that was more crowded than usual due to an unusually heavy and long fall of rain. (It was the beginning of many such rainfalls which limited themselves to nighttimes.) 'Why complicate what has been working rather smoothly?" "If it ain't broke, don't fix it,' Mitford called out, and got a good laugh out of the old army axiom.
"We have a form of government, actually, though most of you don't realize it. We just don't have elected officials or a nominal head of state. Nor do I believe one is required,' said Iri, his cultivated and mellifluous voice reaching to the furthest corners.
"Those of us with special expertise have taken on the duties required to ensure peace and tranquillity. Community hours handle public services, such as they are, and the rest of us work where we can be useful and at our previous professions for the most part, even in the limited fashion due to the constraints of supplies. I suppose we should thank our lucky stars that we have so many skills among us.
Practically every walk of life is represented. Our alien associates,' and he gestured to the Rugarians sitting in their usual group, and the Deskis who were more apt to mix in with humans, 'have supplemented us in many ingenious ways. I think some of us may have a chuckle, comparing what we used to do with what we're doing now, but frankly, I think it's been beneficial as well as instructive. We're all doing very well indeed. And able, for the most part, to do what we do the way we want to. Certainly without any bureaucratic interferences, and certainly without a thread of red tape.
Goodnatured chuckles greeted that sally.
"Why indeed should we fix something that isn't broken?" he added, raising his hands in appeal.
"Yeah, but what happens to our pleasant utopian dream when the Farmers come?" Balenquah asked, glancing around.
"Leave it to Balenquah,' an anonymous male voice said.
"What does that mean?" the pilot asked, rising from his chair and staring round, trying to discover the source.
"It means,' Marrucci said, reaching across the table and hauling Balenquah down, 'you're out of order, off course, and being a pain in the arse again. You're alive, you're sure kicking, you're even flying, and if that isn't better than starving in a Catteni prison for blowing up their freighter, you're gone in the head." 'Don't say another word,' Beverly put in from a nearby table, 'if you want to fly again." 'That's just what I mean,' Balenquah complained. 'We need a formal government, so you know who's got the right to give orders." "That's enough out of you, Balenquah,' said Scott, seconding Beverly's admonition.
"You're not an admiral of anything here, Scott,' Balenquah said.
"Oh, boorrring,' drawled one of the 'ladies' from two tables over. And she yawned ostentatiously, which made the others at her table howl with laughter.
Balenquah who had coloured with such open ridicule, 'a real bore with
all this gloom and doom and I'm obviously,' now he turned to look at the
'ladies' table', 'not the only one who thinks
so."
Balenquah rose, with his right arm cocked but, even before Marrucci could rise to defend himself, Scott had nodded to the man beside him and they had risen, captured Balenquah's arm and were hustling him out of the mess hall and into the rain.
Add bouncer to my list of new-world occupations,' Scott said to Beverly as the two returned to their seats.
At their table, Kris found herself sharing a bit of Balenquah's pessimism. The problem of the Farmers was just beneath the surface of everyone's thoughts, despite the way most people carried on as if there were not that threat hanging over them.
Zainal kept insisting that the Farmers were benign. He could give no other reason for that than the way this planet had been tended for thousands of years, if the 'new forest' of lodgepole trees was an indication.
"And it has been months since the Balloon was blown up,' he reminded her as they walked back to their cabin when the rain had stopped. Flagstone pathways had been laid around much of Retreat Bay now, to hinder nightcrawlers, although walkers automatically stamped hard every third step.
Kris let Zainal do it for them both as she didn't like jarring the baby she could now feel move, in little flutters, within her: normal activity at five months. Sarah kept complaining that her little dear kicked like a soccer star, but she was eight months along. By now, almost every female of child-bearing age, including the Deski and Rugarians, was expecting - which meant that Retreat Bay would have a baby boom of 2,103 new souls. Anna Bollinger might have given birth to the first human baby on Botany, but there had since been thirty-four born to women who had been captured pregnant. Now the new crop which had been ploughed on Botany, as someone had remarked in a biblical fashion - were reaching tem. Patti Sue was first, and prideful about producing a son for Jay Greene.
and not too much resembling its sire. Somehow she couldn't ask Zainal what his preference would be. And yet, he would act in loco parentis to whatever she produced.
Most of the pregnant women carried on in their speciality as long as possible: and Kris, Sarah and Leila were no exceptions.
In fact they had arguments with the sergeant that he was assigning the team the 'easy' trips. So he organized Zainal to take Baby to the smallest continent - really more of a very large island than a continental landmass - to circumnavigate it, the coastline being the only part that was green.
"Bit like Australia outback,' Sarah remarked as Zainal guided Baby cries-cross the interior. 'Like Nullarbor. Nothing for Flicks!
Not even mulga or brush . . . sand and rock,' she added in disgust.
"Hmmm, yes, I see,' Joe said, without explaining his cryptic remark as he gazed out the starboard side in the pilot's compartment.
"Real rock!" He pointed now to a rocky ridge that ran obliquely across below them, like vertebrae, with dips and spires. 'Dinosaur bones."
"Hmmm, that's what they do look like,' Kris agreed.
Whitby insisted that they land and spend one night at the base of that range, where the spatial maps indicated one of the ore deposits.
"We should know where copper and zinc are, and that's what's down there. If the lodes are near the surface, it might be advantageous to take a week or so to work up a cargo."
So they landed, and it was hot.
"Just like home in the dry,' Sarah said ecstatically, throwing her arms back, with her gravid belly out and turning her face up to the sun.
"Good way to get sunstroke,' Joe said as he slammed her reedweave hat on her head. 'We are not, I repeat, we are not delivering you prematurely in the confines of Baby." 'Having a baby in the Baby?" Sarah was off in a fit of the giggles.
Whitby, Leila, Joe and Zainal went off to try and locate the ore, laden with bottles for samples and soil. Sarah and Kris, who found the heat especially enervating, found what shade they could in the lee of Baby by digging out enough soil under the landing vanes to sit on blankets. Kris dozed off while Sarah dragged her hands through the scattered rocks, trying to find interesting ones.
Sarah, too, dozed off, and they were both awakened by the laughter of the returning prospectors. Each carried some sort of dead animal, resembling a large rat.
Kris recoiled when Zainal plunked three brace beside her. The pelts caught her attention because they were mottled in soft sandy shades.
"Camouflage? From what?" she said, venturing to touch the nearest. It was rough with dirt and sand.
"Burrowers,' Joe said succinctly, 'but they test edible. We thought we'd give them a try. They eat the insects of which this continent has a multitude. I saw twentyfive varieties and caught,' he held up several bottles tied together to prevent breakage, 'only a few for closer examination. You never know what might be useful." He grinned wickedly. 'Or tasty. And nutritious." 'How would you know?
You never hunted out back with the aborigines,' Sarah said.
"Neither did you."
"But I did a paper on the ones the aborigines favour,' she replied hotly and they were off again.
The desert burrowers - Kris declined to think of them as 'rats' were skinned and, after Joe did further tests with the equipment in Baby, were cooked in the galley and served as part of the evening meal.
The flesh was different in texture and taste from anything else that Botany had provided: sort of nutty and sleek. Almost difficult to bite into.
Twilight brought out their natural predators, bat-like creatures who
swooped on long triangular wings from rocky eyries to catch the
burrowers. The cooler air encouraged a different set of insects to
appear, ones that bit and itched and forced everyone to take refuge in
the scout-ship. But not before they saw the desert burrowers in action,
making incredible leaps
into the air to catch their meal on tongues that elongated to make the capture and seeming to disappear from sight the moment they heard bat-wings above them.
"We've some like that on ol' Earth,' Joe remarked, watching from the scout.
The men were in general pleased with their prospecting and had marked the areas with the blue paint, though Whitby and Joe argued about its durability in the unremitting sun.
"Well, we'll wear test it good, then,' Joe said, shrugging. "And we've the coordinates anyway." Zainal made for the coast in the dawn-light the next morning and, keeping Baby at a low altitude, made a touchdown in those spots that looked different. This tropical area displayed fruits and nuts, not unlike citrus and coconut, and samples were gathered of everything, including a different variety of insect life.
Kris found the smell of rotting vegetable and fruit unsettling, but said nothing until the reserved Leila murmured a complaint.
"There're sort of plateaus up ahead,' Whitby pointed out.
"Maybe cooler up there, with an off-shore breeze to keep the gnats and nits away." Kris disliked using pregnancy as an excuse to avoid any task, but she was glad enough to let the men rig a shelter of the thick fronded vegetation on a height overlooking a rather lovely white-sanded bay. (On inspection, the white sands contained particularly vicious biting insects, so the charm of the area was considerably diminished and Sarah and Kris could lounge in comfort above that nuisance). There were even smaller fronds to use as fans, and the breezes were cooling and pleasantly scented with whatever was blooming further inland.
Leila took off exploring with Whitby, but she came back with her face and bare arms blotchy with contact to plants they had had to cut their way through.
"The sap which zapped me,' Leila said as Kris and Sarah washed her arms and face, 'is very sticky, and Joe is hoping we've found a rubber substitute." 'The hard way,' said Sarah in a droll tone of voice. 'Is this helping?"
r
Leila gave a little sigh. 'Only as long as the wet's on me." 'What wouldn't we give for a decent antihistamine!" Sarah said fervently.
"We've chemists enough . . ." said Kris.
"And only the one microscope, which evidently isn't strong enough to do much, so it's back to old trial and error." So, since trial wet compresses helped, more were made of bandage strips in the first-aid kit and wrapped around her arms and laid on her face and neck.
That was when Sarah's baby decided to arrive. In fact, he did before his father and the others returned, though Kris immediately called a mayday for Joe over the hand unit.
"I must've miscounted,' Sarah said apologetically lo her midwives when she realized her labour had begun. 'This business of thirty-hour days and seven-month pregnancies!'
as if we don't know what to do,' Kris added, though her mind I was revolving in a panic over all the things they didn't have on board the scout that might be needed.
None were, as Sarah's fine lusty baby took the minimum of time in arriving so that both mother and child were all cleaned up when the father leapt into the clearing, red-faced with exertion and badly scratched in his effort to get back in time. Then Whitby and Zainal were congratulating him and Sarah, and admiring the baby. Kris had her eyes on Zainal, wondering if human babies were in any way different from Catteni newborns.
"Small,' Zainal muttered, knowing some comment was needed.
"Small?" exclaimed Joe indignantly as his son squirmed in his arms in reaction to the sudden loud noise.
"He's not small at all,' Leila said emphatically, startling the rest of the team since she rarely contradicted anyone. 'He's eight pounds and a few ounces. And healthy!" 'And I feel fine,' Sarah said, 'and it's so good to do this,' she added, for she was sitting up with arms around her knees, a position she hadn't been able to assume for several months.
l l 'How big are Catteni babies, if you think this one's small?" Kris asked, deciding she'd better straighten him out before he could be disappointed in what she produced.
Zainal measured a distance with his hands.
"I pity the females who have to carry that much around,' said Sarah, shaking her head.
"Bigger head, quite likely, and bigger bones,' Joe said sagely.
"He's healthy, that's what matters,' Whitby remarked in a definitive tone.
But young Anthony Marley caused the team to leave the insalubrious area and head back to Retreat Bay. Sarah tried to talk them out of an early return, because she and Anthony were Me and the reconnaissance could continue as far as she was concerned. But Joe was having none of it, wanting both wife and child checked over by the medics.
Leon Dane pronounced Sarah in excellent post-natal condition and Fawzia Johnston, the paediatrician on duty when they returned, said that young Anthony was as healthy and normal as any mother could wish.
The Doyle brothers, who now spent more time as carpenters and joiners, instructing others in the art, presented Sarah and Joe with a cradle for the infant.
"Working all the hours God gave Botany to keep up with the demand,' Lenny said, after duly admiring young Anthony and congratulating the parents. 'You know, this place is getting more like home all the time, with the babees arriving." He looked melancholy.
"You miss your own?" Sarah asked, putting a sympathetic hand on his arm.
Lenny's face brightened into a grin. 'Sort've, but who's got time to think of what we left behind with so much to do where we are?"
days after conception. He was a long child - in that he did resemble his father. He came with fingernails that had to be cut soon after his birth, or he'd have scratched his fair face, and a mass of very dark hair.
He was not, as Anthony Marley had been, red, wrinkled and an object only his mother could love.
"Zane is a perfectly good name,' Kris had told Zainal. 'One of
my favourite Western writers was Zane Grey. And I admireI
Chuck Mitford."
"But he is not the father." Zainal did no more than raise one eyebrow at her, tacitly asking the question she had refused to answer.
"No, but I see no reason I . . . we . . . can't do him the honour of being godfather."
"God father?" Zainal's lips twitched. 'O God, o God . . .?"
"Not that sort. The deity that Father Jacob reveres, the real God."
"There is one?"
Zainal had trouble believing in the Almighty, though the several ministers who had been dropped were trying to establish services. The Protestants had no problems, but Father Jacob did since he had none of the accessories properly required to say Mass, and fretted about their lack and how he should manage without them.
Marrucci proved to be a devout Catholic, and did his best to console the good Father in one of those role reversals which continually happened on Botany.
"If God is everywhere, then He's here, too, padre, and He'll accept the worship of the sincere, dedicated to Him. The earliest Catholics had no altar or relics, and communion was bread and wine. We got them. We got the dedication. You say the words and I'll be altar boy." Mitford was both pleased and alarmed to have a child named for him. 'Everyone will think he's mine, and he isn't,' the sergeant said at his gruffest. 'Not that I wish he weren't, Kris,' he added hastily.
"I mean, I'd've been honoured if you'd wanted to, but . . . well, hell, you know what I mean."
"Yes, I do, Chuck."
"So who is the lucky guy?" 'Remember that hooch Leon and Mayock made, about the time I broke my arm?" 'Yeah, I do,' and Mitford looked surprised, then he scowled deeply.
"You mean you got raped and never reported it?" His fists clenched as if he held the neck of the offender within them.
Kris patted one such fist gently. 'I don't know about any rape.
But I do know I was very, very drunk." Chuck frowned. 'Pete Easley took you back to your cabin, didn't he?" 'He may have, Chuck, but I don't recall a thing - and perhaps that's as well, don't you think?"
"No, I don't."
"Can't do anything about it. But maybe when Zane grows up, we'll know for sure. Zainal couldn't care less."
"NO, he couldn't - and you know, the way he's taken this hasn't lost him any points." Zainal was at that moment changing his foster son's fluff diapers. The reeds which produced the useful material were being cultivated everywhere they would grow around Retreat Bay.
The sticky sap that had been such a problem on their last reconnaissance
trip had been harvested and, poured into a mould, made a reasonable
facsimile of waterproof garments for baby use. They could be washed and
re-used four or five times but gradually dissolved, often at the wrong
time.
Mitford grinned, watching the anomaly of a Catteni Emassi acting the nursemaid.
Of the 2,103 new lives expected, all but five made it: two human babies were stillborn; one of the Rugarian young lived three days and died, but even the one Rugarian who understood his species' needs could not give a reason; a fourth was unfortunately strangled by the umbilical cord during delivery, and the fifth, a Deski, was malformed when it hatched and did not survive.
The promised creches were opened, and every female had the right to leave their youngling in the general care for her day's work or whatever community service she performed. Sometimes it was creche duty. Kris started the fad of the papoose board, dredging that up from reading Westerns and historical novels about Indians. It worked well for babies up to three months, and for shorter periods after that.
"I said you will be a good mother,' Zainal said with a touch of smug pride when she showed him how she could carry Zane around.
To Kris's astonishment, she didn't find caring for Zane as onerous as she had expected, and that had little to do with Zainal's enthusiasm for the child. She had never had anything so completely dependent on her, so trusting, and so precious to her. Once or twice, she wondered if she was being unfair to Pete Easley by not telling him.
.
had made bricks together, which was equivalent to becoming engaged on Botany. If Kris caught him looking very carefully at her son, she ignored the query in his eyes and babbled on about how good a father Zainal was until even Pete Easley got bored.
The baby boom sparked a lot of investigations and experiments - a fine powder for talcum, an ointment for diaper and other minor rashes, a way to weave some of the vegetable fibres into cloth for proper baby-clothes, and a spinning-wheel to make knitting yarn out of the loo-cow hairs. The creatures had grown longer coats for protection during the colder weather. These were collected - before the nightcrawlers could - and spun, then washed and/or felled.
The crops grew lush and green on both continents. The Catteni continued to do nothing in their valley. The miners excavated tons of iron, copper, tin, zinc, lead, gold andsilver - and occasionally some unusual clear stones which the jewellers thought a variant of tourmaline. But then, no-one was looking for gemstones or in the places where rubies, emeralds, sapphires or diamonds - which would have been useful for their hardness - might be found.
Bone was more useful, and the heavy bones in the four rearlegs of the loocows were scrupulously cleaned and dried for carving.
Zane was just five months old when the Deski sentinel startled everyone on the south side of Retreat Bay with a warning warble. For such a slender species, with no great lung space, they could make a godawful amount of noise. The baby was teething so Kris was awake, trying to soothe him. Zainal's comunit buzzed and he shot straight up in bed, alert, unit to his ear before she could take a single step to intercept.
"WHAT?" He was on his feet and hopping about on one foot, listening as he pulled on his coverall. Even in such a ridiculous pose, Kris admired his physique. If only Zane could have osmosed a single gene from his foster father . . .
"It's down,' Zainal added, as he closed the handunit and concentrated on dressing himself as fast as possible.
"What's down?" 'The Balloon." He had both boots on now and was starting for the door.
"I'm coming, too,' she said.
"Not like that!" He raked her with a disapproving look, for she was draped in a blanket.
She thrust Zane at his father and dressed as quickly as he, retrieved the blanket and two spare reed-pods and was inserting the baby into the sling she usually carried him in even as she settled into a passenger seat of the aircushion truck. Zainal spun the control wheel and the vehicle charged off into the crepuscular light of dawn towards the hangar. Lights were coming up throughout the settlement and occasionally someone called out, 'What's the matter?" when Zainal was identified at the wheel.
"The Balloon is just down?" she asked as they sped along.
"Desk) heard something, not like anything else they have heard,' Zainal was saying, 'and warned the bridge. The bridge watch had already seen something on the screen, but couldn't make out what." 'The Farmers?" Kris asked, scared to the pit of her stomach as she jiggled her son. Motion always put him to sleep, even upset with teething as he was, and even this short trip worked its magic on him.
Those alerted were arriving on air cushion, running as fast as they could and often faster than the basic push-bikes which had been developed for short-distance transportation. Pneumatic tyres were still to be perfected, but the iron rims did well enough on the flagstone and dirt tracks and were speedier than walking.
All the lights in the hangar were on, and the hatches on the KDL, Baby and the office were open. Runabouts were parked helter-skelter.
there would show just as much as the ships' would, and there'd be more space for her and the baby. In such little matters, Zainal always considered her and Zane.
Scott, Beggs, Fetterman, Yowell and Coo were in the office and Scott waved Zainal over urgently.
"A full orbit already, and it's not large. Not small enough to be a programmed orb, but moving too fast for us to get an accurate picture of its dimensions or shape." 'That,' and Coo pointed to the trail left by the orbital, 'is not heard. Something landed." He spoke with more force than a Deski usually did. He'd probably been repeating it to Scott.
Now Coo stabbed his spidery finger at the Farmers' Command Post, the one which Kris, Zainal and the others had investigated well over a Botanical year ago: where Dick Aarens had deliberately activated a homing device.
"Then what . . ." and Scott irritably followed the course of the orbital with one finger. Just then its track shifted to a north/south orientation. Even as they watched, it completed several whip-rounds the large globe of Botany. '. . . What is that?" 'We will know . .
." Zainal paused, eyes watching the progress of the orbital on the screen '. . . about now."
They felt the tingling zap of a scan and he chuckled.
"Oh migod,' said Fetterman, sitting down as if his legs had given out.
Kris had felt it course through her and Zane squirmed slightly against her in his sling. She stroked his cheek, wondering if the scan could have been too much for so small a body, and then felt Zainal's reassuring touch to her back.
"I will volunteer to go,' Zainal said.
Kris barely prevented herself from saying, 'Oh, no, you won't,' before Scott lifted both hands in a refusal, his eyes not moving from the screen. The comunit bleeped and he toggled it open.
"We were just scanned?" It was Beverly's voice.
"Coo says they landed at the Command Post."
"Nothing's showing up there,' said Beverly.
Coo nodded emphatically, reaffirming his report.
"Fek agrees,' Beverly went on. 'Haven't we established they use matter transmission?"
on the nearest stool, his face a study of conflicting emotions: hope, fear, anxiety and confusion.
Coo's head turned towards the office door and he rose to his feet, lifting one arm to point straight ahead.
"They're here?" Scott asked.
Kris gulped, her arms automatically tightening on Zane. But, as soon as Zainal moved she was right behind him, ahead of the others who had hesitated just that split-second longer before acting. If their destiny was coming to them, she wanted to see it.
As they left the office, she glanced over at the KDL and saw Fek's unmistakable shape in the hatch, then Balenquah's stocky frame silhouetted briefly in the hatch light, followed by Worrell's slightly stooped figure, the tall erect one that was probably Rastancil, the slight frame of a woman whom she didn't recognize, and Slav. From Baby came Mitford, Easley, Yuri and Judge Iri.
They converged, forming a semi-circle facing outwards.
What happened before their eyes did not resemble anything from a Star Trek programme. No coloured lights, beams or columns; nor any other special effect Kris remembered from just about all the science fiction films and videos she'd seen. And yet it was. Something was out there, forming a solid mass which moved towards them, a nimbus around a darker interior. Something which even by the dawn light looked larger than the tallest of the waiting humans.
Then it wasn't taller and seemed to spread out, and she recognized the distinctive spider-legged form of a Deski. Beside her, Coo gurgled once and stiffened. With her free hand, Kris reached for Coo's long fingers and gripped them; she had Zane's face shielded with the other. Zainal had shifted his body so that he overlapped her in partial protection. But most of the forms that coalesced out of the mist - only it wasn't mist - were human in appearance as the details of face and appendages became obvious.
Defensive? Kris tightened her grip, not knowing if she was giving or seeking support.
"Shape-changers?" Scott hissed, eyes never leaving what was in front of his as he leaned slightly in her direction.
"There's a Deski and a Rugarian, and the rest are humans. But not as many of them as there are of us." When the transformation was complete, and there was no doubt that these visitors showed representations of the three species facing them, each group regarded the other.
"There's no Catteni." Kris's comment was barely audible, but the omission caused a little giggle to escape her which she hastily suppressed. If these were the Farmers - and every evidence pointed to that assumption, for who else could have lifted the Balloon? - then they weren't all-seeing and perfect. Somehow that gave her a lift of confidence. But no-one was saying anything and the tension was mounting.
So, if the visitors weren't showing immediate aggression, maybe they should be treated like visitors, all eight of them. We outnumber them, she thought, though 'outnumber' is all we do, considering what they just did. It was so silly to just stand there, looking at each other.
"Hello,' she said, making the word friendly and inquiring. She stepped around Zainal and inadvertently pulled Coo with her, just as Judge Iri Bempechat took a step forward. She knew she had a silly smirk on her face as she looked at the Judge for what to do next.
Whether she was impertinent or not, she never did find out, but the judge grinned fleetingly at her - so she felt she hadn't done anything really wrong - and he held out both hands, the galactic indication (she hoped) of being unarmed.
"We have hoped that we would meet you, and explain our presence on a
planet which you have clearly used for many thousands of years,' he
said, inclining his upper body slightly forward in a gesture that was as
dignified as it was hospitable. 'I realize that you do not understand
what I'm saying, but I hope the sincerity with which I speak will be
apparent. We do realize that we have trespassed on your property, but
we were brought
-
here against our volition and cannot return to our own worlds." As the judge spoke, Kris felt the very slightest of pressures against her forehead, and at the back of her neck. Zane gave an odd little movement and she jiggled him gently, stroking his back m a reassurance that usually quieted him.
"We moved to this continent because you are not farming it now.
We did not wish to interfere with your installations here.
We wish to stay . . . with your permission, if it is at all possible, because we do not have sufficient transportation to leave here.
Can we try to make you understand? Somehow?" He opened his hands towards them again, with dignity and entreaty.
"It is understood,' said a voice remarkably like the judge's.
Whoever had spoken had done so so quickly that Kris hadn't seen any mouth moving. Then she realized that no-one had spoken; the voice was right in her own head. Zane moved restlessly again.
"We have come to meet with you. I30 not be afraid. We do not injure.
We do not kill. We do not inhabit. You are very young, all of you."
"Young species?" Iri Bempechat asked, amused.
"Yes,' and one of the males used his mouth to enunciate the word, though she still heard it more in her head than her ears.
"Very young." Judge Iri smiled. 'We humans are. I believe the Deskis,' and he gestured towards Coo, 'have lived much longer than humans,' and he pointed to himself and then to Kris.
"We have seen the Deski and passed them by. They do well as they are.
Why are so many here? Why are three . . . no, five species . .
. here on this planet?" 'We were dropped here. We have to stay,' Judge Iri said in a wry voice, flashing a glance at Zainal.
"Because the others, like this one,' and now the spokesperson gestured a well-shaped hand towards the Catteni, 'have put you here against your will to make a colony of this world." 'I see that we will not have to tell you much,' said Judge Iri.
"You read the thoughts in our minds."
condescension in his tone that was sounding less like an echo of Judge Iri and more obviously reflecting this speaker's personality.
"We try to improve,' Judge Iri said, inclining his upper body respectfully.
"A very long, hard process that is eternal. But you are not.
"And you are?"
"In essence."
"Not as the Eosi are,' said Zainal.
The entity turned its head to the new speaker. 'We are not familiar with either the name or your mental image of these Eosi." "That's the best way to be,' someone remarked softly and, for a moment, Kris thought it had to be Mitford. It sounded like him. Or maybe Yowell, since the sergeant was in the central group, and Vic much closer.
"We seek your help to escape from the domination of the Eosi over my people, the Catteni, and these other species,' Zainal said, gesturing urgently at those around him.
"Such a process includes species' injury, which we do not condone." 'Even if injuries continue to be perpetrated on innocent species who have no protection against the superior force?" Judge Bempechat asked.
"If force is used, there is no reformation of the desires which caused force to be used,' and the entity's face now reflected a gentle reprimand.
"How do you avoid force, then?" Scott asked, speaking for the first time.
"There are ways. Learn them.
The figures began to dissolve.
"How are you called?" the judge asked, taking a quick step forward in an effort to prevent their leaving.
"You have named us Farmers. It is appropriate." The spokesman smiled in the most benign way.
Kris mused that this entity would have been well cast as Jesus Christ.
l
l
Lid
r
"He is not among you?" was the thought inserted in her mind.
"Don't leave,' Zainal said, also stepping forward, one hand upheld, 'not yet. How do we avoid force when it is used against us?
How do we free ourselves and our friends from Eosian domination?" 'Are we allowed to stay here? On your planet?" And Kris jumped forward, startling Zane awake. He let out a yell.
One of the Farmers glided forward. The legs moved but the female - because she appeared subtly feminine to Kris as she approached - did not make contact with the ground in an actual walk.
"They observe well,' and again a thought was inserted in her head as the being reached her and looked down at Zane. Despite Kris's attempts to soothe him, the first yell segued into soft, fearful crying. Not that she blamed Zane for reacting to the tension, the disappointment and the fear that clogged the air around him. Certainly those were her own feelings.
"We have so much to ask you. So many questions,' Easley said beseechingly.
"This is your child!" the female said, and she turned back to Kris.
Kris could no more have refused to display her son than she could have resisted the contractions that had expelled him from her womb.
She turned Zane, his face reddening in baby distress, towards the entity. The entity bent over him, slid one graceful, almost transparent hand over his face and he instantly switched to smiling contentment, burbling charmingly up at his newest admirer.
"There are many new young here,' she said, and Kris thought she sounded envious. 'We are!'
"Then we may stay?" Kris asked earnestly.
"You stay. We will observe but we do not interfere."
"May we leave?" Zainal asked, making a sphere with his hands.
"It is for your protection,' the first speaker said.
"We are grateful,' said Judge Iri, shooting a warning look at Zamal.
"That is more than the others were,' the thought crept into
Kris's mind, and the female reversed her glide to rejoin her group.
The instant they were all together again, they disappeared.
Like zap! Kris thought, as her son gurgled happily in her arms.
Everyone started talking at once then, the main argument being that they had learned very little, and who had made the Judge the spokesman, and why hadn't more questions been asked while they had the Farmers' attention? And who did Zainal think he was, demanding assistance from obvious pacifists?
Scott called for quiet. Judge Bempechat said in a humble tone that he had certainly not intended to speak for everyone but he suddenly found he was speaking. Balenquah railed at Kris for her stupid 'hello'.
"Well, we couldn't ask them to take us to them leader, could we?" she responded. 'And keep your voice down around my baby!'
:'Were you going to give him to them?" Balenquah demanded.
"Don't be such an idiot. She wanted to look at him,' Kris said and walked away from the egregious pilot. She'd thought Aarens was obnoxious, but Balenquah opened up a whole new category of insufferable.
"NOW LISTEN UP,' Scott said, raising his voice over the babble.
"We are allowed to stay. That was the most important fact we needed to know, wasn't it?" As he spoke, the sound of excited voices and the hum of aircushion vehicles nearing the hangar could be more clearly heard.
"Hey, they came. We can stay,' Lenny Doyle was shouting as he jumped from the air cushion and ran into the hangar. 'They just appeared outside the mess hall and . . ." He broke off, being close enough to see expressions. 'We can call them Farmers,' he finished, his words trailing off. 'They were here, too?" Worrell, Leon Dane, Mayock and two nurses were next, piling out of the aircushion flatbed that doubled as ambulance.
Their faces were wreathed with the elated grins of persons big with news, which faded as they too realized that their experience was by no means unique.
Al 'How many shape-changers came?" Kris said into the silence.
Then the main comunit was buzzing as all lines into the office seemed to go off at once.
"Rather unusual mass hallucination then,' Dane said wryly.
"Should we compare notes? We can stay, or so they said, and we can refer to them as the Farmers . . ." 'Since that is appropriate,' the judge added in a tone much like Leon's.
"Did we all ask the same questions?" Leon asked, looking at Scott and then Zainal.
"We'd better compare notes,' said Scott, 'after we've answered those calls. Kris, Yowell, Zainal, help me with these . . ." and he gestured to the busy com board.
"How many were there?" Kris asked when there was time to review the astonishing simultaneous manifestation of Farmers to all major groups on Botany. Even the miners had had a visitation of ten.
No group of Farmers had been larger than those they had confronted. The five people on watch at the Command Post had been approached by three: those at the mess hall where the majority of people had been having breakfast had counted thirty. The hospital had been favoured with fifteen.
"All at the same time?" Leon asked, astounded.
"Fifty at least, and they could not all have fitted in that orbital!"
Beverly said.
"That depends on how much space shape-changers need,' Kris remarked.
"If they appeared to all of us, why didn't someone find out more about them?" Scott demanded, exasperated. 'We all had the chance to make the confrontation substantive." 'We all had the same chance,' Rastancil said, grinning, 'but I sure couldn't get my wits to work fast enough, nor did I notice you asking leading questions, Ray." Despite the way Rastancil phrased it, Admiral Ray Scott took umbrage.
third-kind encounters than we have. We're young, we are,' and she giggled. 'Did you really think we'd get direct answers from a species that has the technology they have? We're far too young to deserve more than the few minutes they spent here with us." 'Let us look at the positive aspects of that confrontation,' Pete Easley said, holding up a restraining hand to Scott who seemed to be the one most offended by the lost opportunity. 'We now have permission to stay. I got the distinct impression,' and he turned to Zainal for confirmation, 'that we may even be able to get through the Balloon but others, like the Eosi, won't be able to."
Zainal nodded.
"I'd like you to organize a flight to test that, Zainal. Today, if at all possible,' Scott said, grasping a point he could understand and react to. 'I don't know if that advances yourPhase Three plan but . . ." and he shrugged.
"What did they mean about "that is more than the others"?" Kris asked.
Scott, Zainal and the judge regarded her with surprise.
"When you asked to have the Balloon removed, Zainal, and the judge said we were grateful for the protection, one of them said, "that is more than the others were". Didn't you hear It?" Kris glanced around. 'Was I the only one?" 'What else did you hear, Kris?" Judge Bempechat asked, smiling at her in a way that suggested that he might have had private thoughts inserted in his mind too.
"They envy us having children,' she said, looking around. And caught Pete Easley's eyes. He smiled at her and then she remembered the female's remark. 'This is your child!" And the female had been looking at Pete, not at Kris.
The truth will out, won't it, Kris thought to herself and nodded.
She had been mean not to tell him before: depriving him of that knowledge out of spite. He smiled back at her, a really happy smile, before pointing at Scott who was repeating a question aimed at her.
"I'm sorry, Ray, what did you ask me?"
"What else did you "hear" that we didn't?"
l
"I dunno,' she said with a shrug. 'I never thought I was telepathic. I thought we were all hearing the same things. Did anyone else beside the judge and me get special treatment?" 'I heard plainly that they will be examining this quadrant for sentient species which have developed since their last visit,' Zainal said, looking around.
"Last visit?" Pete Easley exclaimed. And whistled.
"They have been at Deski world,' Coo said, rather proudly.
"You come off better than we humans do, then,' Judge Bempechat said, grinning broadly.
Kris noticed that Scott had been about to speak but the Judge had forestalled the admiral with a much more diplomatic comment. Scott closed his mouth.
"I think,' the judge went on, reaching for pen and paper, 'we had best organize that astonishing interview as best we can recall it. And insert whatever we individually may have heard with the public comments."
"Good idea,' Leon agreed.
"We might have more in the composite than we got individually,' the judge said. 'We must ask the miners to do the same, and those at the Command Post - everyone who met our shape-changing Farmers." Zainal left midmorning, with Marrucci, Balenquah and Beverly, to fly to the Balloon and see if it permitted them to pass.
"More importantly, come back,' Kris said stoutly when Zainal told her they were going.
It took most of the day to transcribe the various interviews, and more information had been exchanged when it was all written down on paper.
"I wonder. Are they doing this sort of re-hash on their way back home?" Kris said at one point during the painstaking reconstruction of who had said what, when and where.
"I doubt it,' said Rastancil. 'They picked our brains quite easily, so they'd probably all know what went on everywhere else.
uncharacteristically, he had a distinctly unworried expression on his face.
Almost everyone - or at least those who worried about special problems - had been given 'private' information. Leon Dane, fretting over medical problems for which he had no treatment and waiting for a chance to ask for advice, had been told which specific plants to find and, 'like some sort of a super blast into my head', he got the method of refining and the beneficial dosages to use.
"We've already tested most of the plants as either noxious or damned well fatal. But, of course, minute and diluted dosages of dangerous substances have often had therapeutic value if properly administered. I just got a short, hard course in the local botanical resources. Seems there's a shrub, located on that dry continent, that can provide a general anaesthitic, but they would prefer us to use our one lone acupuncturist. She's to teach others her skills." 'They liked us making bricks,' Sandy Areson said, 'and I now know where to get five different varieties of clay .: ." 'And I was told what other bushes have seed-pods like the fluff which we can use to spin into cloth,' Janet said. 'He was so like Jesus Christ."
"Who is with us,' Kris added.
"What did you say?" Janet was indignant.
"'He is not among you?" was what I heard,' Kris said.
"And you will note,' Janet went on, drawing herself up with great
dignity, 'that they appeared to us in human form. So we now have
confirmation of the Almighty's appearance. Human!" 'That's because you
had neither Rugarians nor Deskis in with you at the time,' Sandy Areson
said, but she spoke without her usual irreverence for Janet's overt
religiosity. 'We had both Deski and Rugarians, because that's who were
having breakfast with us humans." The sentries at the Command Post had
been kindly informed that their presence there was no longer needed. The
miners had been assured that the Farmers did not object to the use of
mineral and metallic resources. The loggers had been asked not
to cut down the
oldest trees, and were given permission to thin the other varieties grown on the second farmed continent as these were softer woods, more suitable for 'the making of useful artifacts .
Universal had been the permission to remain on the second continent, acceptance of the tem 'Farmers', and the fact that they did not condone 'species' injury'.
'and?" Judge Bempechat prompted, when it was obvious Coo had been told more than that. 'Did they suggest returning you 'Not now,' Coo said. 'We are better here." Then he had smiled n his fashion. 'Much better here." 'We too,' Slav added. 'No-one safe with Catteni." He drew his brows together and managed to suck his lips inside his mouth, ndcatmg great displeasure. 'Farmers not see danger?" he added, looking from the Judge to Scott, Worrell and those still left m the office.
"Not if it causes species' injury, which they do not seem willing to commit even on territorially aggressive races like the Catteni . .
." the Judge began and when Kris cleared her throat, 'I stand corrected, my dear . . . like the Eosi . . .
who command the Catteni subordinates to do so without compunction."
"Hey, he's there, and I think he's doing it,' shouted Bert Put.
Everyone in the of rice crowded around the screen to watch the minute speck that was Baby. The speck disappeared, and most cheered and clapped at this verification of the tacit Farmer permission. Kris, however, held her breath.
"I wouldn't,' said Easley, who was standing next to her. 'He could be out a while." Inadvertently Kris met his eyes and exhaled with a weak smile.
She had been trying to avoid any conversation with him.
"So much hooch that day, I honestly don't remember what I did, or that I did,' he continued in a low voice. 'He's a good baby for you?"
sleeping Zane. 'Thank you." And then she added, to keep him in his place, 'I think." Pete Easley gave a wry chuckle at her amendment and gave her shoulder a squeeze before he moved away. She would almost rather that he had stayed because the wait was a long one. She bet anything that Zainal was making sure the Eosi knew he'd been outside the Balloon, probably spinning the scout on its axis around the orbital as well as the geosynchronous satellite. Just like him! Although what she thought he could accomplish, she wasn't sure. She was certain, however, that he did have some sort of a new Phase Three plan.
And cocking a snoot at the Eosi was part of it. Of course, that blew the painstaking false trail he had laid to get them to believe he was elsewhere in the galaxy.
But wasn't he taking an awful risk for all of them? What if the Balloon would give way to the Eosi warship now, In her arms, Zane sighed and snuggled closer to her. No, she thought, he would do nothing to jeopardize his son.
"Ah, he's back inside!" Bert let out another loud crow which caused Zane to stir uneasily. 'Heading home!" Relieved that Zainal had succeeded, Kris decided that she could now leave discreetly. Zane would need to be fed when he woke this time, and changed, and she'd run out of fluff pods.
She was tired, too, with all the excitement of meeting the Farmers, and then the re-hash of who had heard what and where. Once she'd fed her son, she'd have time for a rest before Zainal touched down.
The orbital duly recorded the emergence of a small vehicle from the protective veil: its emergence, its brief run around the fixed satellite and then its insertion. Nothing could be recorded past the obstacle, but this brief flight was enough of a phenomenon for the orbital to send an immediate message to its Home Base.
The report, when it was received, went immediately to the Ix Mentat who was enraged. Very quickly the vehicle was identified as similar in design to the scout-ship in which Zainal was supposed to have exited the system.
· r l
scout with limited power can penetrate that obstacle in both directions, so can we!" The warship, the AAI, plus its sister ship which had just passed its test flights and been commissioned, were supplied and crewed for the fastest possible return to the system in question.
Twice the firepower of the previous visit would certainly punch a hole through whatever it was that had impeded their exit and then refused to readmit the AAI.
"This time Zainal will return for appropriate punishment,' the Ix Mentat said, turning over in its mind the kinds of physical abuse that would wreak the worst pain and humiliation on the chosen who had failed to present himself at Eosi command. It savoured scenes of dismemberment, of flaying alive, of the application of noxious substances to the few tender portions of Catteni anatomy.
Meanwhile, the impetus to reach new heights of technological development extended to every single Eosi. They had been idle too long, complacent in their mastery of seven solar systems, their exploitation of the riches available to them, but with so many worlds still to be discovered and turned to Eosian advancement and enjoyment.
They were on the threshold of a new era in Eosi domination! Let no one curtail their pleasure in achievement. The galaxy would eventually be theirs!
When attacked by the might of Eosian naval strength, the barrier remained impervious to any combination of the missiles, beams and force available. The attack was useless against the barrier, and the bombardment of weapons of all kinds provedI insufficient to pierce it.
Only those on the planet remainedI
unaware of the attempt.
Throughout the Eosian-dominated systems, captains and governors were
apprised of this unexpected insult. Word filtered down to the
suppressed on Rugarian, Deski, Iginish, Turs and Terran home worlds, and
on the compulsorily colonized planets. Hope was reborn! Reborn and
thwarted by the savagery of Eosian frustration which now focused on
extracting some means of penetrating that barrier from whatever source
that
l
might come. The Eosi had been unpleasant at any time; now they turned vicious. All effort was aimed at combating the first real test of Eosian supremacy since the Mentats had sloughed off their corporeal forms to find a type of mmortahty by usmg the strong Catteni bodies.
And still the barrier remained impregnable.
So the Ix Mentat sent out every available scout, far beyond previously explored sectors, to find any trace of those whose advanced technology prevented it from achieving the revenge it now craved.
- ,F
"Baby slipped through like an eel,' Marrucci said, grinning broadly as he wiggled his clasped hands in demonstration.
"Mind you, Zainal had us at dead-slow and that might be the trick.
Come charging at it and it bounces you, back as it did the first time we nosed around." 'I think we were a little speedier reentering,' Beverly said on consideration.
"We could have blasted the Eosi orbital. Baby's armed. Blown t out of the skies as a warning,' Balenquah said, sullen as ever.
"We should have, you know! Proven we can do something positive against their surveillance! And we didn't get so much as a whisker sensor stripped off." He added a 'Ha!" of satisfaction before wandering off to grab some of the sandwiches set out on the table, then left the office.
"Glad you were along, General." Marrucci said softly, 'That guy grosses me out." 'He is a good pilot,' said Beverly, but without much enthusiasm.
Scott leaned across his desk, gesturing for the other two to do the
same. 'Is what Balenquah said accurate? You weren't beyond the Balloon
long enough to be seen by the orbital?" Beverly grinned. 'Of course we
were. Zainal even booted us past the geosync sat. That was his main
object in seeing if he could breach the Balloon, to get the exit and
re-entry noticed."
"Frankly, I hope so. With Farmers protecting us . . ." 'Now, wait a minute." Scott sat bolt upright. 'What makes Zainal think they will if we pull damn-fool stunts like that?" 'If you're on the top of the pile by many light years, you don't need to do "species' injury" to maintain the position - not with the technology the Farmers have. But the Eosi don't. That'll piss them off, according to Zainal, and I think he's right. If they keep trying to storm Botany, won't the Farmers object?" 'Damn Zainal. He's going to get that Phase Three of his started one way or another,' and there was a touch of admiration in Scott's tone. 'But damnation, he should take us into his confidence on such decisions. We have the good of the entire community. And where is Zainal? I need to do more than debrief him now." 'Oh, he dropped us off and went on to check the Catteni valley, to see if the Farmers visited them. I thought you knew." The? I certainly didn't suggest it." Scott's frown deepened.
"That damned Cat!" 'Frankly, Ray, I'd like to know if the Farmers did appear to them. Mind you, I'm comfortable enough here on Botany, but there were a lot of things left undone on Earth and I'd expected to have a major part in their doing,' Beverly said, giving his head a final nod of emphasis.
"A soldier's first duty is to return to his unit if at all possible?"
Scott said with a slightly condescending smile.
"You got it! As far as I'm concerned,' Beverly folded his hands together, 'I'm not stopping until Earth is free of the Eosi. A lot of us here feel the same way, and I suspect more than you'd guess would back Zainal in an attempt to get active Farmer support."
altogether different voice and with a rueful smile, he added, 'Not that I haven't learned some very valuable lessons here on Botany." 'We all have,' Beverly agreed with a wry expression, and he looked down at the callouses on his hands.
When Zainal returned, he immediately reported to Ray Scott that the Farmers had appeared to the Catteni and scared them so badly that two were still in shock. The others refused to believe that they had not been visited by Eosi, and pleaded with him to take them to a safer place.
"I told them these were not Eosi but the true owners of the planet, and
if they tried to leave the valley
"What would be worse than Eosi?" Scott asked with a snort.
"What they do not know is always worse,' Zainal said with a shrug. 'They will never leave the valley."
Zainal gave another of his shrugs. 'No. The Drassi has authority over them only on the ship. They will do nothing." 'You stayed long enough outside the Balloon to let both satellites have a good look at you?"
"As John told you,' Zainal said.
"Tell me, Zainal,' and Scott made himself lean back, as if totally at ease, 'is it wise to aggravate the Eosi this way? How can we be sure the Farmers will protect us if we taunt our enemy?
We know very little of their philosophy and society, or their
technology, except that it is superior to everything any of us have
seen." Zainal grinned, and the look in his eyes was menacing. 'Right
now, the Eosi are very worried. Some other group is more advanced than
they are - they will not stand for that. They will be doing two things:
searching for the Farmers and trying to take as large a technological
leap forward as they can." 'Yes, but are they capable of it? I mean,
matter transmission such as the Farmers used is a. have
Scott said.
"Wars have a habit of improving technology,' said Beverly.
"We should know that better than most, Ray." 'A lot of good our improved technology did us when the Catteni landed,' Scott said with a bitter laugh.
"Did they ever track down the subs?" asked Beverly.
Scott glared at him, tilting his head at Zainal.
"Whose side is he on, Ray?" Beverly said.
"My own,' Zainal said with a grin. 'I go home now." Kris was asleep and she roused briefly when she felt him slide under the blankets beside her.
"You've planned Phase Three, haven't you?" she murmured and, before he could admit that he had, she was asleep again.
Zane woke them as night was falling, ready to eat and play awhile.
"Well, you have, haven't you?" she said as she was nursing the baby by the fire while Zainal sat in his big chair, watching the process as he idly stroked one chair-arm.
"Planned Phase Three." He grinned at her. 'It is only logical to complete what Mitford started. To get the Farmers to notice us and come to see what we have done to their world. That Eosi came is very good. We upset their plans, and that has needed doing for many generations." "Don't tell me other Catteni have wanted to do away with the Eosi?" That surprised her.
"It has been talked of, privately,' he admitted, and the stroking turned to a drumming of his fingers. 'I was on Barevi to speak to . .
. a group about a plan." 'You were? And I ruined all that for you?"
Kris flushed with chagrin. 'Did you mention that to Chuck? Or anyone?"
Zainal shrugged. 'No reason, until now."
"Is that why you wanted to be able to leave the planet?" 'I am thinking that to have a base for those who resist the Eosi would be a very good thing."
people who would object to that. Or maybe they wouldn't, now that it was pretty well established in people's heads that it was the Eosi who were masterminding Catteni activities. The problem with that was that so many Catteni enjoyed far too much what they did to subject races.
"That would cause trouble if it was known,' Zainal agreed, instantly following her thought. 'There is that desert continent.
No-one goes there." That's true. And if folks didn't know there were Catteni . . .
but you can't keep something like this from the brassheads, Zainal. They trust you now, they wouldn't . . ." 'Do not worry. I respect their trust. I will tell them if I think I can do what I wish now to do. I would need much assistance from Beverly, Scott, Easley, Yowell, Bert, Raisha. We must rescue more from Earth, too." 'The transport ship?" She startled Zane and had to comfort him.
Zainal nodded. 'On board the KDL is much we would need.
The star maps, the codes . . ."
"Wouldn't the Eosi change codes? Just in case you get loose?"
Zainal shook his head, his yellow eyes dancing in the firelight.
"Drassi learn too slowly to do that quickly."
"So you must move more quickly, and soon. Is that right?"
He nodded. And her heart pounded in fear for him.
"You're planning to infiltrate Earth?" He gave his head a quick shake. "Barevi is safer for me. Many coming and going, and we can find out much information from new prisoners. And "transport" those we need." "You, Emassi Zainal, can just walk in and demand the worst of the prisoners, and they'll be handed over to you?" Anxiety made her sarcastic. 'You with a crew of . . ." 'Desk) and Rugarians, and friends hidden from Emassi and Drassi eyes."
"I didn't know Deski and Rugarians crowed for Catteni."
"They will not be the entire crew, only the ones most seen,' said Zainal. Then he rose, in a smooth graceful movement for such a big-boned man, and began to pace. 'We are not transport ship.
We are from mines at K'daskt Nik Sot Fil,'he said as he paced.
"We need certain workers, strong, with perhaps some mechanical experience. We get what we need - and certain things Botany needs . .
."
"The grey skin stuff ? How long will it last on a man's face?" 'I don't know,' she said, though she was beginning to see just how he would be able to cope, 'but you can take as much as you need with you." She ran over in her mind those who had been fake Catteni when the KDL was captured. 'But won't the Eosi be watching everything? What if they've already seen the scout getting in and out?" Zainal chuckled, pausing by her chair to stroke her cheek and looking down at the hungry baby.
"I hope that they have."
"Yes, but you can't meet them sneaking out the back door, can you?" 'Bert Put goes up and takes a quick look to see if . . . the shore is clear?" He lifted his eyebrows in query.
"Coast is clear . . ."
"Good, and I take Catteni speakers, too." Now he started pacing again, rubbing his hands together as he thought out loud.
"Have you forgotten all Barevi?" he asked in that language.
Startled, she replied in the Barevi affirmative. Could she go with him?
Did she want to go with him? She certainly didn't want to stay behind.
But Zane?
"Chuck would be useful,' she added. 'And Jay Greene . . ."
He had paused by her and looked down at Zane who had nursed himself to sleep. 'I need you, too." She almost burst into tears, her heart so full of love for both.
her responsibilities pulling her in two directions at once.
"Sandy has more milk than a cow,' she said, not daring to look at Zainal just then. She added more briskly, 'And this is the sort of situation we set up the creche system for, isn't it?" She heard Zainal tap out call numbers. 'Chuck? Are you free to talk over an idea this evening?"
\*
Chuck Mitford immediately said they had to talk this over with the brassheads.
"Only a few of them, at that,' he added, grinning and rubbing his hands together because Zainal had included him as the crew foreman.
Chuck hadn't even taken that as a slur, because he was indeed the build and height of many Catteni. Handsomer than most, however, as Kris could not resist saying.
Scott had to be consulted - especially as Chuck wanted him to play Catteni, too. John Beverly, Gino Marrucci, Ninety Doyle, Dowdall; Matt Su for his electronics knowledge; Yuri Palit and several others who had been in the original commando group because they had some knowledge of Catteni.
"I don't see why we can't go straight to Earth,' was Scott's first objection.
"I do not have codes for Earth . . . KDL is Barevi-based. I figure that we speak with latest transports from Earth . . ." 'What about stealing another ship with the right codes?" Marrucci wanted to know, flexing his fingers as if already settled in a cockpit and about to take off. 'I sure would love to get back to good ol' Terra Firma!' Zainal grinned. 'That is also a possibility. If one just happens to be ready to fly."
"You can't leave the crew around . . ." Scott began.
"There are other valleys here,' Zainal said. 'The KDL can get in and out of Barevi without difficulty. That is important. I know I can get supplies that we need with no problem."
"We get to make a wish list?" Rastancil asked, brightening.
"No, a "need" list." 'Medical supplies?" Chuck asked hopefully, taking his pad and pencil stub from his pocket.
"If we can find any,' Zainal replied, reminding Mitford that Catteni medicine was rudimentary at best. 'Good steel we can get,' he added, knowing that the fabricators needed better materials to form proper surgical instruments.
Chuck wrote 'steel' and underscored it.
"This time, can we have clean Catteni uniforms to wear?" Yuri Palit asked, wrinkling his nose.
Zainal shook his head. 'You must smell like Catteni, too, and you don't." Yuri made a grimace and sighed. 'Wear what you have on voyage, then change at Barevi,' Zainal added with a grin. 'Now,' and he took out the sheets of the Barevi Spaceport and its environs which he had worked on, to show Chuck. 'We must know where to go, and you must learn what to answer to questions. If you walk fast as if you know where you're going, that you are taking a message, no-one will question. So you must knower!" They readily agreed to that but, along with the language lessons, came questions, especially from those who had not been enslaved on Barevi and were unfamiliar with it. That was where Kris came in, because she had flitted all over the city with her owner.
"Can't we just steal flitters and not walk everywhere?" Dowdall asked.
"You may rent flitters,' Zainal corrected him. 'We must fit in or be noticed. If we fit in right, we can come back again." 'Hey, I like that,' Ninety Doyle said, grinning. 'There're a couple of Tudos .
. ." Zainal pointed his pencil at Ninety. 'You will be good Tudo and follow your Drassi's orders." 'Yeah, sure, boss, gotcha, boss Drassi,' Ninety said goodnaturedly, tugging at an imaginary cap and nodding agreement.
"Chuck, can you remember the exact layout of where slaves were held?" 'Can do, have done,' and Chuck took out a sheet on which he had earlier drawn an outline. 'We better learn some Catteni symbols, too, you know . . . to follow hall markings . . ." Preparations took ten days, with long learning sessions for those who were chosen to take part. The selection was restricted to those whose physical appearance was closest to Catteni, who had already had some knowledge of the language and some experience with Barevi. Scott, Marrucci and Yuri did not, but they could be paired with those who did like Chuck, Ninety Doyle, Dowdall and Matt Su. Coo, Slav and Pess were a bit nervous about going, but they would be required to contact their own ethnic groups for what news they had. Kris was an essential addition for her knowledge of the city and familiarity with the flitters. The legs of one Catteni uniform had to be lengthened to fit her but, with her hair skinned back with the grey mud that would disguise Terran locks and the grey powder make-up, she passed well enough. She also knew enough Catten and the Barevian lingua to hire flitters and bargain properly.
Someone not bargaining with Barevian shopkeepers would immediately be suspect. On both the KDL and the scout, enough Catteni script and coin were found. Zainal then told them that the habit was for ships to charge to their number, and the charges would be sent back to a central bank to make payments.
"And we'll be long gone before the reckoning,' Doyle chuckled, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
"What happens, Zainal,' John Beverly asked one morning during the planning sessions, 'if someone recognizes you?" All at the table - and Sandy Areson was sitting in that morning to explain about the grey 'make-up'- turned towards him.
"I am dead,' Zainal said, shrugging off that consideration.
"No-one will expect to see me, especially in Drassi uniform,' he added.
Sandy tilted her head and then, rising and reaching across the table, turned him by the chin from one profile to the other.
"No problem,' she said. 'We add cheek pads so he looks fatter, another in front and some lines down his face to make him look older and his own mother wouldn't recognize him."
"What is this? Pads?" Zainal asked, somewhat dismayed.
"I used to do make-up for our theatre group, Zainal. Trust me.
You won't recognize yourself. I'll bring some over to the cabin and show you,' and when she saw other sceptical expressions Sandy added, "You won't know him either. Trust me." When she demonstrated to Kris and Zainal later that evening, it was remarkable the change those few alterations made.
"I'd slump were I you,' Sandy remarked. 'Drassi are small men and don't walk proud like an Emassi, you know." Zainal grinned as he thanked her, a grin that was substantially altered from his normal one with the pads in place.
"Take them out,' Kris said when Sandy had left. 'I'm not sharing this cabin with a total stranger. A very unattractive total stranger, I might add." And she gave a shudder of dismay until he had removed the pads and looked himself again.
The arrival of the Ix Mentat and its two juniors at the Catteni
.
ù:
main Earth spaceport in Texas, near what had been Houston, caused major security problems. Its reason for coming caused consternation, since the military governor was somehow sure that he would be forced to honourably end his life because he had not been able to reduce the rebellion of the indigenous population, despite the severe measures he employed. He had scrupulously followed orders sent to him by the Mentats on Catten, but seemed no further towards solving the tides of revolt and producing the wealth available from the planet than he had been in the first months of occupation.
When High Emassi Bulent learned the sort of equipment the Mentats had brought with them, he turned ashen, until he also heard that the mind-probes were to be used on humans, not ineffective Emassis.
Therefore he listened intently to the Ix Mentat's wishes, organized the search and rounded up as many of the required subjects as could be found. Some could be proven dead; others might well have been already transported, since they had resided in the fifty cities originally depopulated in the first wave of Catteni suppressions.
Bulent could almost feel sorry for the men and women rounded up and crammed into the open slave-pens, for the summer heat was intense, though he himself revelled in such temperatures. There were casualties from the heat and the crowding. He had the unenviable task of explaining to the Ix Mentat that humans could not endure the solar rays that Catteni hides could, particularly humans in this upper age group as were most of the new prisoners. So they were moved to a huge shed that had been cleared of its exhibits.
Bulent's staff then had to assign numbers to the types of specialists the Ix wished to interrogate in order of rank within the science the humans had practiced.
The Ix, Co and Se made trial examinations on lesser-known individuals
with varying results. After four deaths with little information
retrieved from the bursting brains, the instrument had to be
recalibrated. It had originally been used to upgrade Catteni mentality
by expanding cerebral and cortical areas and stimulating certain centres in both lobes. The result had been the intelligent Emassi subset of Catteni who had originally been primitive and little more than upright animals. But what could be enhanced could also be withdrawn; that was the purpose of using the equipment on the humans.
The actual examination could take up to half a day, if the initial information plucked from the more accessible areas of the mind looked interesting. That is, if the subject was worth treating carefully. Otherwise an hour's viewing would suffice, but the subject rarely recovered much personality and memory.
Incontinence was a frequent problem, and some retained insufficient intelligence to feed themselves. These were quietly disposed of.
In more judicious use of the mind probe, the Ix and its juniors gained the codes to private files in research laboratories, but much of the material dealt only with human concerns. The Mentats found top security codes but they weren't interested in the politics, finding them very commonplace and predictable in the extreme; though there were one or two ploys that the Ix might use if the need arose.
Among its victims were the remaining heads of state who had not met with either transportation or execution, revealing the names of more important officials whose brains were full of sometimes amusing if petty details. Some investigations were more fruitful, leading the Mentats to find out what particular scientific studies were in progress and where. This was what the Ix had been searching for and it gave the High Emassi a inst.
.,
these people. Often they returned empty-handed, with stories that the named persons had died or had possibly been transported, but certainly could not be found. Several of these, the Ix decided, must be found unless proof of death could be established beyond doubt. So Bulent despatched his best people, including several of the renegade humans, with instructions and promises of titillating rewards for success, to make a thorough sweep of known hiding-places and refuges.
The Ix exhausted all avenues to discover what little the humans had learned about the galaxy, the universe, and their incredibly primitive methods of star travel, as well as theories that, over its millenium of existence, it had already investigated, implemented or discarded.
The resultant human chaff that remained alive after these sessions was loaded on transports and sent to Batevi, to be sold as slaves for whatever use could be found for the near-mindless.
Then the Ix closed itself in its vessel and began to sift carefully through all it had learned, in the hope that perhaps there might be even one theory that would spark its high mentality towards a viable line of research.
On the off-chance that they could hijack another ship, Bert Put and Balenquah would come along as auxiliary pilots. It fell to Raisha, then, to pilot the scout to the Balloon and see if the coast was clear.
Beverly and Marrucci had plotted the next five windows available that would avoid the orbital satellite, so it only remained to check on the absence of any Catteni ships in the general area.
Kris found it both hard and easy to leave Zane in Sandy's charge.
She had been able to partially wean him, and he was already eating pureed foods. But Sandy promised that she would not stint him, and Kris could trust her. Pete Easley put in an appearance when she brought Zane to the creche, feeling treacherous and unnatural because part of her was dying to go on this adventure and the other part would miss her darling son terribly.
\_ b
particular as Kris started to hand him over to Sandy. He was awake and in one of his giggling moods, the kind that are hard to ignore. 'Here, give him to me,' he said and gave Kris no chance to refuse.
Being the adaptable personality he was, Zane had no problems with being passed around and gurgled up at Pete Easley as happily as he would have done at Zainal.
Kris, watching the transfer, suddenly realized that Pete was telling her he intended to watch out for his natural son during her absence. His proprietorialness was both welcome and disturbing. But should the unthinkable happen, Kris knew that Pete Easley would assume responsibility for Zane - and, she had to admit, he had a right.
With a cheery wave at him and a farewell hug and kiss for Sandy, Kris left the creche, her conflicting emotions gradually easing as she focused all her attention on the Mission.
Raisha took off in the scout to test the space beyond the Balloon just as Zainal aimed the KDL at the 'back door'. She poked the prow through the obstacle long enough to get a reading that there was nothing immediately visible in space. Zainal eased the KDL through the Balloon just above the southern polar region.
He wasn't the only one to expel a gust of relief that the manoeuvre was unrestricted and the KDL allowed to exit. Then he aimed the ship towards the nearest of the five moons and, using that to hide his trajectory surveillance, made all speed to that point. Once there, he plotted the course out of the system and to Barevi's.
Even at the speed the KDL was capable of making, the Journey would take three weeks. So there was more time in which to perfect their Catteni roles, and automatically respond to orders and queries.
The meagre library of the KDL did contain spaceport plans for those
planets under Catteni domination, and these were enlarged for study,
especially by Bert and Balenquah if the chance of a second hijack
l
was feasible. Scott was not yet committed to that objective.
"He wants a warship,' Mitford confided to Zainal and Kris.
"Firepower." Zainal considered that. 'It might be possible to steal weapons, but even Catteni keep guards on warships. We don't have enough for crew. Maybe another time." Chuck and Kris gawked at him in surprise and he grinned back.
"Dick Aarens?" Kris suggested.
There were also maps of Barevi which augmented the memories of those who had spent time in it - and how much a flitter should cost to such and such a destination. How to argue with cheaters, how to act if accosted for a fight . . .
"Catteni always fight,' Zainal said. 'Work off anger that way.
Avoid at all costs." 'Hey, it's easy enough to topple a Catteni,' Yuri said, proceeding to demonstrate a jujitsu manoeuvre on the unsuspecting Zainal. One moment the Emassi was on his feet, the next flat on his back on the deck, looking both surprised and annoyed.
When Yuri offered him a hand up, he ignored it, but he was smiling when he got back on his feet.
So jujitsu, karate and other forms of martial arts were included in the daily training sessions.
"It is better we do no . . ." and Zainal grinned, 'species' injuries."
"As if the Farmers would know or care,' scoffed Balenquah.
"We will know and we will care that harm has been done,' said Zainal, making his position plain to the surly pilot.
"You're a fine one to talk,' Sev Balenquah replied at his most contentious.
"I am finer than you know,' was Zainal's retort.
At this point Mitford, who was sitting next to the man, jabbed him so roughly in the ribs that he was winded.
"There's a brig on this ship,' Beverly said. 'D'you want to spend the rest of the trip in it?"
"Have it your way,' Balenquah said and, pushing away from the table, stalked off.
When Beverly would have called him back, Scott shook his head.
"We'd better watch that one,' Marrucci murmured to Beverly.
Both the general and Scott nodded. 'Can't figure out what's wrong with him. And he's even got to fly again." Everyone took turns in the galley, leaving the Catteni food stores alone since they were even worse in taste than the bars supplied to transported prisoners. The KDL had originally had three freezers: two medium-size and one large storage type that was now in the mess hall, while one of the mediums was in the hospital. But the remaining one was adequate for the journey since Zainal expected to restock perishable goods from the markets at Barevi. Surprisingly enough, the Catteni galley had the equivalent of a microwave heating device, so that the prepackaged soups, bread and meals that the mess hall had contributed to the Mission could be reheated.
By the time the first contact was made with Barevian planetary authority, they had each perfected their skills to the best of their abilities. Even Balenquah could spit out appropriate answers; despite his more glaring personality defects, he was a natural linguist and Zainal hoped to use him to accompany Kris on her buying missions.
"He glowers just like my old boss,' Kris said, 'typical nasty Tudo.
Whoops, not Tudo, Foto,' she said, correcting herself.
She had known 'Foto' before she was aware of the distinction between Emassi and Drassi.
When hailed by the Barevian perimeter guards, Zainal, posing as Drassi Kubitai, barked the responses and Kris understood every word he said and every word the duty officer said. The KDL was officially the KDI, since the KDL would be listed as missing. There was no problem in the code.
"Sloppy,' Zainal muttered under his breath, thankful though he probably was that this was the case.
He elected to overfly the town to give everyone the aerial aspect of it
and help orientate them, giving a description
of each area on his way to their appointed docking facility.
Matt Su was the putative navigator and Yuri the engineer.
They both had immediate work to do, checking in with the port authorities: Matt to handle the 'paper work' and show the log which Zainal had created for them, while Yuri organized refuelling, watering and the usual docking procedures. Zainal paced about the dock area to be sure they encountered no immediate difficulties, while the various teams disembarked for their assignments.
Coo and Slav went off first, pretending pathetic eagerness to be away from the Drassi, while Pess stayed on board with Matt, Bert and Beverly - the latter two not to be seen. Pess and Matt had basic Barevi and some Catteni, so they were the best ones to stay behind and prevent unauthorized entry. Ninety and Dowdall would see if there were any humarts in the slave markets. Zainal, Mitford and Scott would go into the centre of Barevi to have a meal and some drinks, and hear what there was in the way of gossip. Then, when Matt and Yuri had finished their details, Yuri and Marrucci would combine with Kris and Balenquah to get supplies in the market. Some could even be charged to the ship, so they could use what Catteni money they had for other things like the 'plursaw' additive the Deski needed.
The original shipment was running low and there were new Deski babies in need of it. Zainal had made up a shopping list for them to display, as most Tudo couldn't read or write more than their own names, and signed it 'Drassi Kubitai'. He also made her practice the glyph for 'Kubitai' in case she had to sign chits for orders.
Kris was scared to the nails on her toes in the heavy Catteni boots. They were a bit large for her, although that only made her plod in a more authentic Catteni gait. She'd probably get heel blisters in spite of fluff-padding the toes, but she marched as smartly as the others did out of their berth and onto the main dock staging area.
There were a few Catteni lounging about, watching Rugarians and Deski
shift crates, load and unload material at other berths. The ship,
berthed three places beyond the KDI, looked like another of her class,
still so new she had
few meteor pockmarks or dinges on her hull, and all of her paint looked fresh.
Marrucci caught Kris in the ribs with his elbow, grinning at the ship as a possible hijackable victim. She grinned back and mouthed, "No way, Jose!" at him. He kept grinning.
They saw no Terrans at all once they were out of the main facility and looking about for flitters. Zainal had said there were always a few waiting for possible passengers. They approached the first, its driver a wizened old Catteni whose face was badly scarred.
Balenquah gave the orders, as sullen as a Catteni, and shoved everyone on board, his fingers lingering a little too long on Kris's hip as he did so, grumbling about wanting to get this duty over with. He squeezed himself next to Kris on the hard wide seat, his thigh pressing against hers in a way that made her want to prang him good. She could do nothing now but sit there and endure his attentions. Had the man no wits about him at all? Didn't he know she'd never let him get away with such nonsense? Wait till they got back to the KDL . . . no, KDI, she must keep that alteration firmly in mind. With the manoeuvres of the flitter in and out of traffic, Balenquah must be enjoying the ride, rubbing constantly against her leg. Marrucci caught her eyes once and gave her a look that meant he had not missed Balenquah's ploy.
Then they were over the open market area, their driver skilfully avoiding ascending arrogant flitters in the fashion that had always caused Kris near heart failure in her slave days. They got down safely enough, the driver grabbed the fare Balenquah offered and then flung his craft aloft, out of the way of incoming craft.
"Don't push me around, Balenquah,' Kris said in an undertone as they moved off.
Marrucci prodded his back, telling him in Catteni to talk right, then asked Kris, also in the language, which direction to take.
"Here is food market for Deski additives. We buy enough they deliver."
"We buy plenty,' Marrucci said. 'Where?"
Kris had been looking around and spotted a crowd of Deski.
"There!" 'Deskis! Huh!" and Kris wasn't sure if Balenquah was acting m character or just being his charming self.
On their way, they passed a booth selling the alcoholic beverages only Catteni could stomach, but Balenquah insisted on stopping to sample one, saying he was thirsty.
"Not good,' Kris said, frowning because that was the best way to prove to Balenquah that he should try one. All were swill, but let him find that out.
Laughing and jostling her, he pointed to the amber bottle and a large glass. Even the stall-owner looked surprised. Guffawing, Balenquah clapped Kris so hard on the back that she nearly lost her balance but, knowing what was to come, she stood,,firm and waited.
Balenquah was even stupid enough to try to knock back the entire portion; he should have watched another Catteni, who was sipping cautiously. As the raw liquid began to burn down his throat, his eyes bulged and his greyed skin turned red enough to startle her, but somehow he got most of it down.
"Told you not good,' Kris said, deepening her voice. 'Better over there!" And she pointed to the corner where her master used to take a drink on market days. She left Balenquah to recover from the pilth - ah, she remembered the name of that particular poison - and strode on towards the Deski. She was also keeping on the alert for any bands of Catteni, swaggering around the market area just looking for trouble. Marrucci waited with Balenquah while Yuri moved out in step beside her.
"Good on you,' he muttered in English and she elbowed him.
"Agreed,' he added in Catteni.
They could both hear Balenquah hawking and spitting behind them, and gasping as his system tried to cope with the Catteni equivalent of anti-freeze. It certainly smelled like it. The pilth had also affected Balenquah's vocal cords, and he was reduced to gargling unintelligible words when he and Marrucci joined them at the Deski plursaw stall, for that was all this merchant sold. She argued over delivery charges, but then added more for an immediate delivery to the KDI. This was actually the most urgent of the supplies they were after. The next was salt: enough to use to preserve meats. Sugar was not a commodity known to the Catteni, so she was to get enough vinegar for pickling. These were easy, since she'd dealt with kitchen supplies and knew where to find them. At the same stall, she was astonished to discover what looked like rolls of cinnamon bark in a sack and a keg of nutmegs: the spicy scent of them was so familiar. She lifted a piece of curled brown bark high enough to her nose to be sure that it was indeed cinnamon - though what it was doing on Barevi was beyond her.
Then, in the gravelly voice she affected for Catteni words, she asked, 'What's this?" of the stall-keeper, dropping the bark curl indolently back into the bag and brushing her hand off on her uniform as any Catteni would.
She understood only half of what he said, catching that it was from Terra and used in cooking; she should try some. She pretended indecision until Marrucci tapped her shoulder and came to her rescue.
"Drassi Kubitai likes new things. Try it."
That's when they lucked out, because the two commodities were so unusual and suspect that the stall-keeper had been unable to shift any and was feeling he'd made a bad purchase.
So the bargaining began in earnest, but in the end she got the spices, the full keg and the sack, and had him throw in a large bag of peppercorns which he also hadn't been able to sell. Kris had no problem getting him to deliver to the KDI and could barely contain her delight in finding the seasonings; the mess hall would bless her for ever. She also got gallons of vinegar of a good quality.
In the next rectangle over, Kris found fabrics of all kinds, colours, patterns and materials, some of which she recognized as Terran manufacture which both pleased and upset her. The Catteni must be looting the Earth right, left and centre. She suppressed resentment and went about bidding for whole bolts, in different shades and weights, for children's clothes. The local weaving industry would suffice any females who wanted something to wear that wasn't made over from Catteni coveralls, but the kids' needs were different. Kris bought enough to make the shopkeeper ask if she was a trader.
"Drassi is,' she said as if she thoroughly disapproved, pointing with no real attention to what she was buying. The last shop also sold needles, and indifferently she threw a handful of packets on the counter and made the shop-owner scrawl a receipt for her.
"Drassi requires." Which was all she needed to say. 'Deliver by sundown and will get extra,' she said, winking as she had seen her steward master do from time to time.
Then she looked around for her shipmates and found them near a fruit-seller's stall as Balenquah tried to restore his throat lining.
"I told you no good,' she said and took a goru peafrom the display pile. She turned her head slightly so the stall-keeper would not see that she did not have Cattenisize teeth as she tore off the tough peel as any good Catteni soldier would do and spat it out on the street. One thing for sure, she never thought she'd be eating these lovely winey fruits again. My, she'd come a long distance from that forest. She pointed to a net of the pears, asking the price.
"Four,' she said and then began haggling for a discount, just like in the old days. She got them at a good price - enough for everyone to enjoy on the way back to Botany - and tied the nets together and slung them over one shoulder. Yuri and Marrucci were watching her. "Tell you later,' she said in Catten. 'This way." They went through another arcade, doors open to display the wares of the more permanently sited merchants, to where she thought she'd find ironmongery. The mess hall had also asked for some big stewing pots and cooking sheets. That sort of thing would be there and, sure enough, she acquired five cauldronsized kettles and some huge baking tins. She also saw other items that were definitely Terran in origin, like the fabrics. If there was so much looting on Terra going on, maybe they'd be lucky enough to find medical equipment; Leon Dane had patiently r T drawn out the tools he especially needed. If she did, they'd basically filled today's list, and she wanted to be out of the market area soon. Once the guard changed, there'd be all kinds of gangs of them off-duty, drinking and looking for trouble: any trouble.
So she wanted to get away from the area before the guards arrived.
Knives of the fine size and shapes Leon Dane had wanted were indeed available in one of the arcade stores, but at a price higher than Zainal had estimated. She bought what they had funds for bundles of scalpels, lancers and the retractors, small-headed hammers and surgical saws. It looked from the display as if Earth hospitals had been thoroughly looted. Still, she bargained so hard that the trader wanted to know why she needed such Terran things.
"Terran? What's that?" and she pretended to try to find the name on the scalpel's handle.
"There and back,' she said with an indifferent shrug.
"Make it fast,' Marrucci said in an irritable tone and jerked his head over his shoulder at a gang of Catteni entering the rectangle at the far end, six abreast and brushing past everyone and everything in their way.
"Pack them. We have other business today,' she said and managed enough saliva to spit into the gutter with. Turning her head, she was able then to gauge the speed at which the gang moved. 'Get Bal to a flitter,' she told Marrucci. 'Yuri stays." She didn't trust Balenquah if those Catteni muscled him out of the way.
"What takes you so long, Foto?" she snapped at the storekeeper who was making quite a job of packing the tools, but then the blades were very sharp.
Marrucci did get Balenquah out of the way: thanks to the pilth, he was in no condition to argue much. Kris had just got her hands on the packet from the shopkeeper when Yuri was bowled into her, knocking her into the shopkeeper's cabinet, causing half his stock to tumble about and several pieces - since the cabinet was open on his side - to stick into him. He was howling with pain and rage as he plucked sharp objects from his thighs.
Yuri reacted, ducking under the first swing of a squat Catteni guard and then kicking out at the assailant's kneecaps with a double strike that had the guard howling with pain and dropping to the ground.
The shopkeeper shouted for help and grabbed at Kris, almost tearing the precious package from her hand; but she twisted her arm down and up and freed herself.
When he came round the cabinet, bleeding from the cuts, she got him square in the guts with a karate kick, thrusting him backwards and into another glass-fronted cabinet. She heard him scream as a shard of glass penetrated his backside, but she didn't stop.
"Out of here,' she yelled in good Catteni, fright thickening her voice as she grabbed at Yuri's uniform just as he flipped another Catteni to his back.
Several of his mates, reacting to his groans and curses, started after them, but Catteni are not good runners and Yuri and Kris had very good reasons to run as fast as they could. They nearly ran over Marrucci who had come back for them, and so they all made tracks to the flitter where Balenquah slumped, victim of the pilth.
However, the state of him - or rather the smell that emanated from him - added to the bruised goru pears that had split open in the nets Kris had been carrying over her shoulder - made the flitter-driver waste no time in getting them back to the dock.
When they arrived, the merchandise had too, with Pess, a cloth bolt in each arm, dealing with the loading.
"Did the plursaw come?" Kris asked, racing up the extruded gangway.
Pess grinned and nodded, speaking Barevi. 'First thing. See me, ask questions. I say Drassi orders. Don't know what he orders." Well, she could hope no-one heard her speak in English.
Marrucci and Yuri were angling the unconscious Balenquah out of the flitter as she went back to pay the driver.
l
l l 'We the first?" she asked Pess as she helped him stow the cloth away, making sure that the needles had been included.
"He drank Filth,' she replied, then grinned as she added, 'I told him it was no good." Pess smiled broadly and she managed to look away from that yawning cavern of greenish gum without giving him offence.
Beverly and Bert Put came out of hiding and, though they seemed somewhat distracted, listened to their adventures, chuckling over Balenquah's mishap. They approved her purchases, especially the spices, salt, vinegar and pepper.
"We had to quit because there was a roving band of Catteni looking for trouble,' Yuri said. 'We'll go for the electronics tomorrow,' he added, looking at Kris for confirmation.
Kris shared out the goru pears and explained how this particular fruit had figured heavily in her first trip to Barevi. They all agreed that the fruit was very tasty indeed.
"We can keep the pips and start our own bushes back on Botany,' she said, and was looking for something to store them in as she asked if there was any word from the other parties.
"Zainal reported in when he and Mitford reached the restaurant.
So did Coo and Slav,' Beverly told them. 'But they had upsetting news."
"How upsetting?"
Beverly and Bert exchanged anxious glances.
"It's not going to get any better waiting,' Kris reminded them, but a sick feeling started in her stomach.
"There are large numbers of Terrans here now, waiting to be shipped out."
A pause.
"What's new in that?" she asked.
"Coo says they're damaged,' and Beverly tapped his skull.
"They sit or stand and do not speak."
She, Yuri and Gino reacted simultaneously and stared in horrified consternation at Beverly.
"Coo says he heard their minds were taken from them."
"The Eosi have mindwipes?" she whispered, appalled.
"Does Zainal know?" Marrucci asked, equally shocked.
"Coo says everyone talks about it - quietly. Even the Catteni.
Zainal will also hear." Marrucci swore inventively and without repeating himself.
Yuri looked pale under his grey face-paint; it was cracking around the
natural creases of his face and, absently, she reminded herself to tell
him to powder up before he went outside
again.
"Zainal won't do anything drastic until he can check with you, will he?" Kris asked Beverly. 'WHAT do the Eosi intend to get out of minds? They wouldn't know about us."
"Coo said they are older men mostly, some women . . .
"Scientists, I bet,' Kris said and Beverly nodded sadly. 'Oh God, what did we start?" Beverly covered her hand with a reassuring grip. 'We started a rebellion, Kris, as we wanted to on Earth and couldn't. But Zainal knew how and has." 'But the cost!" She gripped her hands together, holding in the pain of guilt.
"When was there ever a war without casualties?" Yuri said in a bleak voice, absently doodling with the water spill on the table until it was spread out in a Rorschach blob.
"They say the pens are full of humans. They also heard about the zombies,' Beverly said. 'They're on their way back, too, before the guard changes." 'Dowdall remembered that, did he?" Kris said, nodding with satisfaction.
Zainal, Scott and Mitford returned in a silence that spoke more profoundly of the tragedy than words. The first thing Zainal did was remove the cheek and chin pads that disguised him.
"We managed to get into one compound,' Scott said, slumping in a chair
and taking the glass of hooch that Kris immediately poured for all
three. 'I recognized a few faces from articles and
newspapers. You'd probably recognize more, John, Gino. The ones I could identify were top people in quantum physics, organ transplants and laser applications."
"Lasers can be used as weapons,' Kris murmured.
"Eosi have such already,' Zainal replied, also speaking in a low voice.
"Will they . . . recover?" Kris asked.
Zainal shook his head but added, 'It depends how long they were subjected to the probe. The Eosi have little pity." 'Other news is good, though,' Scott said, shaking off that dispiriting vision. "Earth continues to rebel, and Catteni are looting on a massive scale." "I wondered about that,' Kris said. 'I bought nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, salt, bolts of Earth-made fabric and needles, surgical equipment: no doubt part of that loot. I hadn't enough money with me to buy everything Leon said he needed. Do we have more to spend?" she asked Zainal, who nodded.
"No electronics?" Scott asked, perturbed. 'We need them more than surgical tools." 'If the Catteni have looted as thoroughly as it looks like they have, we'll find all the Terran electronics we could possibly want. But we encountered an off-duty squad,' Kris said and Zainal grunted. 'And left." 'We did, too,' Dowdall said. "The spaceport's full. We were lucky to get a berth."
"Any damage?" Zainal asked.
"Not to us,' Kris grinned. So did Dowdall.
"Where's Balenquah?" Scott asked, looking around.
"Sleeping off a full glass of pilth,' Kris replied, grinning maliciously.
Zainal roared with laughter.
"I told him it was no good,' Kris said, still grinning as Yuri and Marrucci chuckled.
"Serves him right, too,' said Marrucci, but Kris gave him a look and he didn't elaborate.
"Did you get the Deski plursaw?" Zainal asked.
She nodded. 'At a good price, too. I got as much delivered as I could;
Pess has most of it already stored away. "Drassi says",' and she grinned at him for the efficacy of that cryptic explanation.
Coo and Slav returned then, Slav with a cut over one eye and Coo with visible abrasions down one side of his slender frame.
"Trouble?" Zainal asked, on his feet.
Coo held up one hand reassuringly. 'Catteni gang. Hate aliens." 'They hate anyone,' Dowdall said forcefully. 'Here, femme fix that cut for you, Slav,' and he took him over to the cabinet containing the few medical supplies they had. Slav endured the ministrations though the brown Catteni antiseptic stung like fire, even a Catteni.
"Bad news,' Coo said, joining the others at the table.
Mitford fixed herbal tea when Coo politely refused.to drink the hooch already set out.
"They're after your people, too?" Scott asked.
Coo shook his head. 'We do not make machines." 'My people must work in noisy places,' Slav said, scrubbing his chest hair in agitation. 'We are strong." 'You Earth no good working,' Coo said, grinning. "Too much trouble." 'We make trouble,' Slav said, 'if word is given." And he looked pointedly at Mitford.
"All suppressed minorities rebelling at one time would be difficult for the Eosi to handle,' Scott said, immediately savouring the notion.
Zainal, however, snorted and shook his head. 'More species'
. . ù .
nurles.
Scott slammed one fist onto the table so hard that the hooch bottle jiggled. 'Damn it, Zainal, there're already species' injuries on my people. You saw the state of them. How many more will be put through the same torture? Then sold off as mindless zombies and die who knows where!" Kris had never seen Scott so emotional but then, she could only imagine the horror of seeing brilliant people reduced to imbeciles.
"The Eosi look for ideas from your people,' Zainal said, and there was no doubt from the perturbation on his usually inscrutable face that he felt for the victims and agreed with Scott.
"When they find none they can use, they will stop." 'When . . ." demanded Scott, stretching the in' out to stress the urgency, 'will that be?" 'I heard nothing today. Tomorrow we can go elsewhere and listen, and maybe ask." 'And all those . . . those desecrated people?" Scott asked, grieving so keenly that Kris saw tears in the admiral's eyes.
"We can do something about that,' Zainal said firmly. Then he turned to Kris and Marrucci. 'Tomorrow, early, get the wire the plastic, the electronic supplies needed. Be ready to move if I arrange . . ." 'What are you arranging?" Mitford asked, though the look on his face suggested to Kris that he already had a suspicion.
"What can be done to help. The Farmers do not like,' and Zainal emphasized that word, 'species' injuries. We show them what can happen." 'We'll bring them back with us?" Scott began, his expression brightening for a scant second before common sense overruled that possibility. 'How can we possibly care for so many damaged people?" 'We will somehow." Kris spoke so fiercely that Scott recoiled.
"Hundreds,' Scott said, waving a despairing hand about.
"Not all are damaged,' said Zainal. 'But they will die in mines and fields with no care given." 'We can't leave them if we can take them,' Dowdall said firmly, glancing around the table for agreement.
Even the two Deski and Slav were in accord.
"Zainal, did you notice the other ship of this class a few berths down from us?" Marrucci asked, his eyes sparkling.
Bert Put, who had been silent through most of the discussion, sat up with an expectant look on his face, watching Zainal.
He nodded, a grin turning his mouth up in one corner. 'I maybe go see guard tonight, drink a little Filth." 'No,' Mitford said with an evil grin, 'he'd be used to that. Take some of the hooch." The next morning as they breakfasted, Zainal had good news from his evening's interview. Most of the KDM's crew were on shore leave, having just completed a wide swing which had included Earth. In fact, they had brought two decks full of the brain-wiped humans to the slave marts, and loot that would soon be available in the Barevi markets. Only two crewmen were on board, taking turns on watch; they were not happy about that duty but expected to be relieved in another two days. As was standard practice with Catteni ships, the KDM was already refuelled and stocked. The crewmen said they were slated for another trip to Earth: to collect cargo, as the Catteni invaders were systematically clearing warehouses and storage facilities, whether the items were useful or not.
"Whatever the Eosi hope to find on Earth, they have not,' Zainal said.
'Not even information. They may even be pulling out."
"What?"
"Leaving Earth?"
"Hurrah, we socked it to them and they couldn't take it."
"No rush,' Zainal said, raising his hands to indicate caution.
"Your Earth may never be the same." 'Then we improve it when we get back home,' Beverly said, a fierce expression on his face.
Zainal pointedly said nothing. 'I also learn that the port manager is very busy with so many ships going in and out." 'Which means he's not checking on individual ones?" Beverly asked.
Zainal nodded. 'We come at a lucky time."
"Let's leave lucky, too,' Mitford said gruffly. 'If we get all the stuff we need, can we like leave tonight? I got a gut feeling we're crowding what luck we've already had. On our way back, I spotted just too many of those roving gangs charging about drunk. Glad we weren't on foot."
Everyone looked at Zainal, who hesitated and then nodded.
"Sooner is better than later, but first,' and he held up one finger 'we do not go back empty." 'Hey, if there's only two crewmen aboard the KDM, couldn't we hijack it?" asked Gino eagerly.
Mitford made a disgusted sound, dismissing the notion, but Scott leaned forward eagerly. 'Could we?" 'I think it would be very easy.
Gino can be captain Balenquah . . ." and Zainal looked around for the man.
"He was sick all night,' Mitford said sourly. 'He's no use to us at all. I never did have more than a sip of pilth'and that was enough to make me avoid it." 'I told him it was no good,' Kris repeated, with an innocent expression on her face.
"Which made him all the more eager to try it, huh9' Mitford asked, giving her a dirty look.
"He deserved it . . ." Gino Marrucci began, but Kris kicked him under the table. 'Sullen bastard that he is,' the pilot said, in place of what he had started to say.
"All right,' said Scott, getting back to the jobs at hand, 'we find out what we can about the . . . disabled? Right?" He looked at Zainal, who nodded. 'You got yesterday's list, Kris? So today escort Matt Su, Ninety and Marrucci for whatever electronics we can acquire .
. ." 'We'll find plenty,' Kris said, scowling. 'I only had a quick glance, but everywhere I looked I could see things that had to have come from home." 'Good,' said Matt, 'that means we'll have a good chance of finding what we need. We've done as much as we can with the Farmers' material. But we could do a helluva lot more with familiar components, couldn't we, Dowdall?" 'Also get more handunits,' and Zainal tapped his Catteni comunit. 'We need all we can get, or make." Kris shoved pencil and the thin plastic that the Catteni used for notes towards him. 'Make us out another shopping list, Drassi Kubitai!" Zainal grimaced. 'I do not know the Catteni shapes,' he admitted wryly.
"No word for spare parts in Catten?" Matt asked, grinning.
"Ah, yes,' and Zainal deftly created the glyph, adding tails and squiggles to it. 'That means anything to repair electronics." He peered at it. 'I think." 'Have we completely contaminated an upright Catteni lad?" Matt asked with one of his displays of whimsy.
"Absolutely,' Zainal agreed heartily. 'Let us make . . . con .
. .
con-something plans . . .
"Contingency plans?" Kris asked.
"Them. In case there can be two shipments of humans to mines or colonies or wherever they plan to send them. We are ready to go and take the problems with us,' Zainal said. 'I call in to Chuck, I tell him where to bring KDM. Then, sergeant, you will take more hooch to guard on duty. The other will be sleeping. You will know what to do.
Then Gino, Beverly, Coo, Pess and Slav get aboard as crew. Bert, Gino, be ready to bring the ships where I tell you." He flipped through the pile of maps and charts and found the one he wanted. 'Here are slave pens, but you must go round the city, not overfly." 'Don't we have to clear take-offwith the port authority?" Gino asked.
Zainal slapped his forehead and sucked in breath between his teeth.
"After we secure the KDM, I can come back and do that, Zainal,' Mitford said. 'Give me the words for slave compound in Catten. I only know Barevi." 'Use Barevi if you need to,' Zainal said, rocking one hand to indicate that the port authorities would know both. Then he rose in a decisive manner. 'Good luck." And he gave the thumbsup signal, grinning when his eyes fell on Kris.
"Right back atcha,' she said as everyone else got to their feet.
"And watch your face paint if you start to sweat, you guys. And, for godsake, remember to keep your caps down, shading your eyes. No Catteni I've ever seen has blue ones, much less brown." 'Slav, Pess, Coo, you guard ship,' was Zainal's final order as he made for the hatch.
\*
Kris, with Dowdall, Matt and Ninety, got the last remaining flitter outside the port. The driver grumbled that the market wasn't open yet.
"Shop I go is,' Kris answered in Barevi. 'Drassi says so."
That ended any further enquiries from the Catteni. He had no left hand, a hook attachment replacing it, but a flitter was easily driven with only one. Did only disabled Catteni get taxi licences on Barevi?
As the craft made its way to the market area, they all noticed smoke rising from various places.
"Many fights?" Ninety asked in Barevi, grinning but remembering to keep his lips over his teeth.
"Many,' replied the Catteni in his own language and in a sour tone. 'Nine ship gangs. Biggest fights in weeks." Which meant the survivors would likely be sleeping off pilth as well as any injuries from the fighting - or hiding out for the requisite twentyfour hours.
Luck was again with them, she hoped, but didn't dare hope too loudly.
Much of the first marketplace they overflew - the one they had shopped in the day before - was a wreck of tangled stalls debris, and shopkeepers sorting for what might still be saleable.
As they crossed over the line of apartments separating the two, she saw that streamers of fabric, probably from some of the shops she had visited, festooned the area.
"Boys had lots of fun,' Ninety muttered and got Kris's elbow in his ribs for speaking in English. He rolled his eyes in apology, but the driver had not heard.
There was not quite as much damage in the third rectangle, the one they had directed the flitter to - possibly because there were fewer drink and food stands in this one. But one section seemed to have been levelled. Kris just hoped it wasn't the very one they needed the most.
"Another ticco if you wait,' she told the driver in her gravelly Catteni voice. She was getting so she could do it whenever she needed to, though her throat was a trifle sore from all the roughvoiced bargaining she'd done yesterday.
"Just one ticco?" he complained.
'.
.
.
"Wait and see,' she said, leaving it to him. She handed him a smaller coin and pointed to the stand selling hot drinks and the almost indigestible bread Catteni baked.
That sweetened him sufficiently and she walked off with the others to find the 'spare parts'.
Four shops which displayed boxes spilling loose chips in their grilled windows were not open. They came upon a fifth on the long end of the rectangular market area where the shopkeeper was sweeping up components, 'and', 'or' chips, with total disregard for the damage done. Matt and Dowdall winced and Kris hissed at them for falling out of character.
"You selling?" she asked, acting the stupid Catteni Tudo.
"What does it look like?" the shopkeeper replied angrily, gesturing at the havoc within and without. He ranted on, switching from Barevi to Catteni in his fury.
The shopkeeper paused long enough in his description of what he would do to the gang who had smashed and kicked his stock into garbage and, eyeing her suspiciously, then turned his attention to Matt and Dowdall who were lovingly picking up this and that which had not been damaged.
"Got everything needed for repair. And then some . . . if it hasn't all been smashed." He put down the broom and led them through the shop, palmed open a rear door and showed them unopened cardboard boxes, all bar-coded and listing the contents in English, French, German and either Japanese or Chinese . . . Kris couldn't tell the difference.
"Ah, many unhurt,' she cried. 'Drassi wants."
"All?" The shopkeeper was both delighted and suspicious.
"Drassi Kubitai trades,' said Dowdall, winking as he began removing boxes from the shelves and stacking them in the centre. His eyes were so alight with success that Kris yanked furiously at her own cap to warn him. 'Kubitai pleased with us,' he said in Barevi, turning his face away.
"Not all, but samples to show. How much?" Kris began, tapping the boxes Dowdall had chosen and to which Matt was adding selections, breathing heavily with excitement but remembering to keep his head down. "You deliver?" 'Ha! When I must clean this and lock up before they come back again?" 'Kubitai wants comunits, Drassi?" Matt asked, returning from a back shelf with a crate.
Kris pretended to look at the list. The shopkeeper pointed to the right glyph. 'Here, stupid,' he said, his yellow eyes turning crafty as he suspected he might be able to do her on the prices.
"I count well,' she said, jerking her cap to shade her eyes but looking fiercely at him. 'I be Drassi soon. You see." 'Ha!" was his reply, but he began to move the chosen boxes towards the front of the shop. 'You got transport?"
"Flitter,' she said. 'I call it over."
She had to fetch the flitter driver, who had indeed been treating himself to a meal on her coin. When he saw how much was stacked out in litter in front of the smashed shop, he shook his head.
"Call another,' she told him, pointing to his control panel.
"Drassi Kubitai very happy with us. We get long shore leave." She strutted back to the shop to find Dowdall, looking anxious.
"Won't he suspect when we order so much? And check out the KDI?" He spoke in a barely articulated whisper.
"He probably has and, if the port authority has time to answer him, will know which berth the KDI has,' she murmured back and then, seeing the shop-man out of the corner of her eye, punched Dowdall in the arm. 'Work! No work, no leave!" However, greed - and possibly the call to the dock to verify that a KDI with a Drassi Kubitai was in port - moved the shopkeeper to encourage the large order.
Kris bargained in earnest with him, as part of her character as not-so-stupid-Tudo messenger. She had no idea what the parts would have cost on Earth, but Matt was slightly agog at the range of the merchandise. There were even laptops still in their packing-cases.
Now what possible use would the Catteni have for such items? They
couldn't even read the manuals, much less
, A---r
figure out what the icons meant. She'd had enough trouble with her 286 IBM clone at college. Noticing a dozen units along with all the other parts, plus tool-kits and several cases of flopp'P arm she wouldn't have to explain why those were among her purchases. She only knew so much Catteni and Barevi.
Kris haggled, and finally made her mark on the collection of glyphs that spewed out of his electronic equipment. She also added the glyph for 'Kubitai' that Zainal had shown her, grateful for his forethought.
Then they all loaded the boxes into the flitters. Their driver had
estimated the cargo space required and called in two, not
one.
All the way across the city, Kris forced herself to cheerful thoughts, terrified that something might happen and they'd be caught by an army trap or port patrol or some other unexpected glitch. But they made it safely back to the berth, and started unloading. Mitford, Gino, Slav, Coo and Pess hurried out to speed the process along, Gino whistling under his breath at the range of their purchases.
"Catteni can't whistle,' Kris said inside the safety of the ship.
"Ooops!'
"Any word from Zainal?"
Gino shook his head, trotting back down the ramp, muttering unintelligible noises that could be muffled Catteni curses and adding, "Drassi says,' in a grumpy tone.
They had nearly finished the unloading when Balenquah staggered into the open hatch, his grey face-paint smeared with rivulets of sweat, his hair mud rubbed off overnight on the pillow, looking not at all like any Catteni.
Mitford recovered first. 'Sick! Get back! Dow, Nin, get him back!" The two hauled the pilot back out of the way and he had time for only one muffled protest before someone knocked him out. Mitford rolled his eyes at Kris, who was facing the stunned flitter drivers.
Taking her cue from Mitford's remark, she shook her head, feeling quite ill suddenly too.
"Very sick. Terran sick,' she said, still shaking her head and making her wobbly legs carry her back down the ramp. There were only a few more boxes to be stored.
"Dockmaster knows?" the onehanded Catteni asked, his murky yellow eyes suspicious.
"Dockmaster says keep him on board and take him back to Terra,' Mitford said, keeping his face away from the Catteni.
"Leave him there." 'Drassi say we leave today,' Kris added for good measure. 'I take shore leave back here! Told Bal no good there." She gave the drivers just enough to satisfy them, not too meagre a sum to annoy them yet not enough to be considered a possible bribe.
Mentally she blessed those awful shopping journeys with her Catten steward for knowing the difference.
With them safely off the dock area, she marched herself straight to the bottle of hooch and poured herself a stiff one.
Dowdall and Ninety joined her, silently taking the bottle from her hand.
"We tied him in,' Dowdall said, 'goddamn stinking arrogant bastard nearly blew the whistle on us!" 'He might still have,' Mitford said, holding out his hand for the bottle. 'I'm not sure the onehanded guy bought the explanation." 'Yeah, but why would he suspect Catteni-dressed soldiers to be anything but Catteni?" Kris said, reaching for reassurance.
"There is that,' Mitford agreed.
"Is it safe?" whispered Beverly and Bert Put from their compartment.
"For now,' Kris told them, sitting down because her legs had never felt so kneeless. She buried her head in her hands. 'I never want to go through another moment like that." An urgent buzz from the com board on the bridge startled all of them. Beverly and Mitford tried to get through the door at the same time, with the sergeant twisting his torso edgewise to allow the general through first.
"Schkelk?" Beverly asked in proper Tudo response as he keyed open the ship's unit. 'Oh, thank God,' and, craning her head towards the bridge, Kris could see him visibly relax. For just one moment . . .
then he straightened and urgently beckoned the others to come in.
"Yes, yes, I got you. What does fortyseven look like in Catteni, for God's sake? Oh." He had grabbed up a pad which Mitford now held firmly for him since he had the hand unit. 'Thick upright, two cross bars, three down strokes and a small righthand square within the end two righthand down strokes. Got that. That's for the KDI?" Beverly began to smile and heaved a sigh of relief that seemed to permeate his whole frame. 'Thank God,' he whispered. 'Okay, so there's just a change in the final figure, a circle rather than a square between the two righthand down strokes? Got it. Be there as fast as we can get permission to quit the dock. Watch for us."
He toggled the line closed.
"Contingency plan is now in operation. Mitford, grab another bottle of hooch and go visiting. Gino, Coo, Slav, Pess, Ninety, lounge outside like you're bored. We're going to rescue us some folks. And God grant there's some spark of mind left to them.
We're clearing the prisons." 'I know how to work the levels,' Kris said and grabbed Ninety by the hand. 'I'd better show you. Let's hope they're the same as the wreck's." The controls were sited in the same place by the hatch, although they looked in far better working order.
"And will they be drugged and all?" Ninety asked anxiously.
"I hope so. They'll survive better if they are,' Kris said, deliberately not thinking about that process and the bodies that would shortly inhabit the four levels of shallow deck. 'Take a peek outside, Ninety, just in case we have unexpected visitors,' she said, shoving the comunit from her belt at him.
What now? That glitch she had been expecting all along that was going to betray them? She fretted, knees getting wobbly again.
"Sick?" Mitford exclaimed in Catteni, and swore with unexpected fluency in the language for emphasis. 'Yes, Terran sick." He sounded disgusted. 'We dump him with others. They not see,' and he managed a very evil chuckle. 'Kotik. Ten." He whistled when he closed the switch. 'That driver was suspicious. Let's get out of here before anyone comes to look at our Terran-sick soldier. Take her no higher than a thousand pleas, Bert. That's our assigned level." He gave Kris a good-luck sign and, grabbing another bottle of hooch, leaving only two left for the journey home, he sauntered back to the recently hijacked vessel.
Bert initiated the undocking procedures, starting thee siren to warn the crew back inside, closing the hatch when they reported all in, starting the engines, just as if he'd done it all his professional life. The KDI lifted easily, Bert made the course correction and they could see the spaceport steadily receding.
On the small thrusters that were permissible in such crowded air space, it seemed to take a long time to circumnavigate Barevi town, strewn before them, and out into the nearby forests and fields. They could see where big land-moving equipment was knocking down trees and scooping up great mountains of rock and dirt to clear more space doubtless, Kris thought bitterly, for the masses of products they were importing from a pillaged Earth.
Flitters darted in and around, and each one that seemed to choose a trajectory in front of Kris made her catch her breath.
"They can't see in,' Bert said, to reassure her. 'And I'll turn this seat over to you immediately if we are hailed. Wouldn't you like to drive this beauty for a while?" His banter made her relax, but she stayed right beside his position in case they had to execute a quick shift.
They did have a little trouble deciding which platform they should dock at, since there were only minor changes in the basic glyph that Zainal had given them. But as they cruised at the For a contingency plan, hastily organized and speedily executed, it went very well. But there were other Catteni around on the dockside now, shifting cargoes or watching the Rugarians do so. Bert Put's height would make him stand out like the proverbial sore thumb. So he got wrapped up in blankets and Dowdall and Slav carried him over to the KDM, grumbling about Drassis and their crazy tracings back and forth.
Then they returned to the KDI.
"Piece of cake,' said Mitford when he returned to the KDI.
"Front and centre, Bert, General. We're about to shift ass off this sinkhole."
"What about Zainal and Scott?" Ninety asked.
"We meet them at platform fortyseven and forty-nine when we pick up our passengers. Now I gotta log on to port authority and get clearance." While Bert settled into the captain's chair, Beverly took the engineer's place as Mitford made contact with the port authority.
Kris watched as his shoulders stiffened and he rolled his eyes.
slowest possible forward speed, everyone on the bridge identified the number at the same moment, and could even see the KDM's platform just beyond.
Below were the slave pens, similar to the ones Kris had been in when she'd been forced aboard the transport that had landed her on Botany so many months ago. There were acres of pens, spreading out from a huge rectangular building. However, not all the pens were full or in use. Only four. She couldn't see who inhabited the ones beyond platform forty-nine, and hoped she wouldn't ever know who or what they had had to abandon that day.
Bert neatly sidled into the platform, cut the engines and opened the hatch. Kris took her station at the controls and suddenly Zainal strode up the ramp, spitting out the disfiguring pads, muttering under his breath and snarling up at her but winking as he passed on his way to the bridge. Kris managed a very subservient 'Yes, Drassi,' and saw the first of the pathetic transporters.
She nearly burst into tears at the sight of the expressionless faces, the dead eyes, the automatic motion that no intelligence motivated. She did manage to alter the decks to the lowest one as the loading process began.
Half the time, she had all she could do to keep from bawling out loud, getting some relief by snarling at the Catteni who drove these poor wights up the ramps. Most had their blankets slung over their shoulders, and one hand held the packet of ration bars to their bodies, the other held the treacherous soup cup now emptied of its contents.
She told herself over and over that she was rescuing them: they'd soon be safe, they'd soon be cared for - and wondering how on earth they would manage all these walking dead at Botany where there was so much hope and life and a future.
She shifted blindly when the first level was filled. Several of those trudging like sheep up the ramp staggered and fell. It was all she could do to keep herself at the controls and not go to help them up, but that would have been out of character for the Catteni Tudo she was pretending to be. She was not going to cause a glitch; she was rescuing these people, she was doing all she could.
She shifted to the third level and then it was filled up. So was the air around her, with little sobs and cries for pity from those in the lower decks. The drugged soup couldn't put them out of their immediate misery - and hers - soon enough.
It was Zainal who carefully removed her hands from the controls when the ramp retracted and the hatch clanged shut.
He helped her back to the wardroom and poured her another shot of hooch.
"We're almost out of it,' she protested.
"You need it now, Kris,' he said. 'I hadn't realized what you were in for. I'd have done it myself . . ." 'No, no,' and she shook her head, 'not a Drassi captain." Then she put her head on the table and began to weep. 'They're all asleep now,' Zainal said, gathering her up in his arms and against his chest, stroking her hair.
"Zainal?" she cried, raising her tear-marked face. 'Did we get them all?" 'All we can cram on board. A few spare Deski, Rugarians, half a dozen Ilginish and some Turs for good measure." 'We need Ilginish and Turs so badly, don't we?" she quipped, trying to control her weeping.
Ninety and Beverly stood in the doorway. Zainal nodded at them to enter and both poured a hefty tot from the bottle.
"We don't have much left,' Kris said inanely.
"It's medicinal, my dear,' said Beverly, and she thought he looked awful under his coffee-coloured skin. 'Dowdall says the KDM's on a parallel course. There's incoming traffic, but we're cleared to leave the system and doing it with all possible speed." He let out a long sigh and knocked back the rest of the hooch.
"You're relieved, Bjornsen. I don't want to see you on deck for two full shifts." 'Aye, aye, sir,' she said, managing a weak smile and limp salute.
Zainal helped her to stand and guided her back to her compartment. He had to lift her up into the upper bunk but his hands, as he covered her with the rough Catteni issue blanket, were very gentle.
They answered several challenges over the next two weeks, until they got to the less trafficked area leading to the Botany system.
Most were more or less standard ship-talk, which Zainal handled on the bogus KDI and Mitford on the KDM.
They also talked about how they could integrate the people they had rescued into the Botany colony.
Kris found herself regarding Admiral Ray Scott with amazement: under all that naval braid and command training there was a man with unexpected compassion. And a high moral integrity. She wasn't the only one who kept reassuring him that there was no way those folks could have been allowed to depart on Catteni slave ships.
"Hell, Ray,' Beverly said the second evening, 'it isn't as if there are more of them than there are of us! So we'll need to hunt more often and plant a few more fields. If we have to, we'll form a creche situation for the ones who can do nothing for themselves.
We don't even know just how badly some of them were mindwiped.
There may be something there that some of our pysch people can revive.
For all that, maybe just being among humans again . . . begging your pardon, Zainal . . . and good food and attention will bring some around." 'Almost everyone's got some kind of house now. We can give them shelter, food and . . . a lot of caring,' Dowdall said, clearing his throat. He was another one who didn't let emotions overwhelm him.
"And we shall inform the Farmers,' Zainal said.
"You think they can perform some sort of psychic whammy and replace what got wiped?" Dowdall asked.
Zainal shrugged. 'It is possible since their science is so much better than ours. Why not such healing?" 'I think that's asking for too much of a miracle,' Ray Scott said, although the brief flare of hope in his eyes at the mere suggestion of a possible restoration was not lost on anyone at the table.
"We shall inform them,' Zainal repeated.
"Speaking for myself,' Kris said, 'they can't be any more trouble than a baby and we can handle one more in our house, can't we, Zainal?" He nodded. 'If he or she doesn't get too upset seeing a Catteni around." 'Well, I think,' Kris went on staunchly, 'it's important for everyone to know that there is at least one good Catteni in this universe!" They were nearing the heliopause when Zainal mentioned quite casually, Kris thought, it was just possible that they might have a little trouble getting the second ship through the Balloon.
"Why?" Kris asked. 'They're alike as two peas in a pod."
"There are two, and only one went out." 'The KDL was pregnant when she left. The KDM is her daughter,' Kris said, surprising herself with such a whimsy. The others around the wardroom table laughed politely.
"It is a problem,' said Beverly.
"Why?" Scott wanted to know. 'If we proceed slowly as we did getting out, just nudging past the Balloon."
Zainal was not convinced.
"Too bad we can't call downside and get Raisha up in the scout to poke a hole for us,' Bert said. 'We could go piggyback, maybe,' he suggested, and then cancelled that notion with a whisk of his hand.
"Too risky."
Zainal agreed with a sceptical twist of one shoulder.
"Fine thing if we get these folks right up to the door and can't wedge 'em in,' said Dowdall.
"There has to be a way,' Scott said, looking at Zainal for inspiration.
"If there is, we find it,' the former Emassi said.
But it was obvious that everyone on board the KDL worried about it for the rest of the journey through the solar system to its third planet.
"Engines,' said Kris as she sat on the bridge watching their approach to Botany.
"What?" Scott demanded. He looked up from the final course plotting that would escape both the satellite and orbital observation.
"Would there be such a thing on board as a tractor beam?" she asked Zainal.
"A what?" He frowned, unable to find those words in his now very large vocabulary.
"Something to pull another ship along, a ship with no power."
"She's got it!" Scott said. 'Does the KDL have one?" It took a little time for Zainal to understand exactly what they meant, but when he did his grin was broad.
"Not a tractor beam but is possible to connect,' and he jammed both fists together. 'One ship hull is negative, the other positive.
Very easy to do. I tell Bert." They had not allowed themselves many inter-ship broadcasts on the off-chance that they might be overheard.
But now, so close to Botany, they could risk it. The orbital might pick up some of what was transmitted, but not enough to give any alert.
Not unless there were Eosi hiding behind the moons.
"Oh, he means magnetize the hull,' Bert said, catching on.
"Okay, give me the procedure." The light bump as the KDM magnetically sealed itself behind the KDL was felt by everyone. There was also a certain tingling in the air. The KDL would be pushed through the Balloon first, propelled by the KDM. All watched nervously as the Balloon's smooth skin got closer and closer and behind it, a luminous half-moon, was Botany. Bert had slowed to the barest possible forward motion while Zainal, in the fore, guided him. The nose of KDL prodded the Balloon, which gaped wide enough to admit the ship. All of the KDL was shortly inside the Balloon and they felt no resistance, nor sudden disconnection of the KDM.
"We did it!" crowed Bert on the open line. 'We did it! Now how do I separate us? Just kidding."
they all right? What was the other ship doing on his screen?
"What have you guys been up to?" 'Well, we needed it to complete our . . . rescue mission,' Scott said, suddenly dropping from the high of successfully penetrating the last obstacle to home. 'We couldn't just . . ." and his voice faltered then continued firmly, 'leave them there on Barevi."
"You'll see,' Scott said almost angrily. 'Some of them are pretty bad. Have all the medics on hand and anyone else we've got with any nursing experience. Especially the psychiatrists.
We've some more Catteni prisoners to go to the valley. So have Raisha stand by to fly 'em out. Then we'll need another valley for a bunch of Turs we had to bring along, too. She ought to have guards with that lot in case any wake up prematurely." 'Medics?
Psychiatrists? What sort of casualties are they?" Rastancil sounded alarmed.
"You'll see soon enough,' Scott said in a terse voice, 'and we'll need a good nutritious soup or someting easy to eat."
He disconnected, a brooding expression on his face.
"It'll work out, Ray,' Kris said, laying a hand on his arm.
"You'll see." 'Botany can take on any challenge,' Dowdall added with the pride of a First Drop survivor.
When the two ships landed in the big field in front of the hangar, Rastancil had mobilized transport, medical staff and enough personnel to assist in unloading the sleepers. Jim Rastancil, Geoffrey Ainger, Bob Reidenbacker, Bull Fetterman - in fact all those who constituted the Council, waited patiently for Scott, Zainal and Mitford to descend from the KDM which landed slightly ahead of its sister ship.
"This should have been a unanimous decision by all Botanists,' Scott began, nervously finger-combing his hair back from his forehead and rubbing the back of his neck.
"It was sure as hell unanimous with all the Botanists there,' Beverly said firmly.
"Hell, yes,' Dowdall, Kris and Mitford added in unison.
"Who? What?" Rastancil asked, surprised to find Scott hesitant.
"The ones the Eosi mindwiped,' Scott said flatly. 'They were about to be shipped off God-knows where as slaves." 'Jesus! Of course you had to bring them here,' said Rastancil.
"Leon, Mayock, front and centre and let's get them out of there,' and he charged up the ramp with the medical personnel.
Kris slipped ahead of him to her post at the deck controls.
"All right, now, let's do this efficiently,' she heard Bull Fetterman roaring. 'Move that big sled up, stretcher-bearers up front.
Someone get blankets ready as makeshift . . ." The cargo hold doors parted and, although several people choked over the rancid body smells that wafted out, they walked on it and stopped.
"God in heaven . . ." Rastancil whispered, staring at the human debris, crumpled in small heaps, though some had managed to lie flat before the drug overcame them.
"And I thought we had it bad,' Leon murmured, kneeling beside the first unconcious body, feeling the neck for a pulse, his eyes ranging around the deck.
Kris had turned on what lighting there was.
"Stretcher here,' Leon said, pointing to the man and then moving inward, to the next prone body. 'Mayock, we'd better do a triage."
And the operation began its final stage.
Sixteen hundred humans, fortunately not all of them mindwiped but many with abused bodies and minor injures, were disembarked from the two ships. And two hundred Deski, one hundred and fourteen Rugarians, ninety Ilginish and twelve Turs.
The Turs were left on a lower deck which confined them should they wake before Raisha returned from taking the Catteni to their new accommodations. The two crewmen from the KDM had been secured in its cheerless brig throughout the trip, seeing only Coo or Mitford in his Catteni role. They were told that their ship had been commandeered.
One of them protested such treatment every time food was brought: even protested the good food he was served because it wasn't what he was accustomed to. The other Catteni slept almost the entire time, rousing only long enough to take care of natural needs and eat. They were blindfolded before they left their cell so they would have little to add to what information the other captives might have.
With so many hands to help, Leon's triage team separated those who needed the most attention from those who needed only rest, good food and reassurance. By then, quite a few were regaining consciousness and could be offered water and soup, hastily brought from the dining hall.
Even without, formal orders, there was suddenly a carer with every victim in a response that certainly gladdened Kris's heart. Scott should have had more faith in the community's generosity. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen examples of it with every new Drop the Catteni made.
Some awakened and were utterly passive: their empty faces expressionless. They had to be helped to drink, though they could manage to swallow or eat once food was put to their lips.
Others woke, screaming or sobbing helplessly and that was nearly as heartbreaking even if it gave an indication that some vestige of the original personality might remain.
"Just keep talking to them, folks,' Leon called out. 'Let them hear English, see human faces around them. Feed 'em, but don't let them gorge." 'Who knows when they've had a decent meal,' Anna Bollinger muttered, trying to keep the bruised and battered woman beside her from gulping down the entire can of soup. 'Just sip it.
There'll be all you need." 'Gawd, it's like a disaster scene, an earthquake or something,' Joe Latore said, helping his male victim to his feet since the man was trying so desperately to stand.
"What'nthell are you doing, Zainal? Taking pictures of people right now."
Farmers what humans do to help,' he said, bringing the taper in close to the vacant eyes of Joe's man.
Then Zainal turned the camera to include the woman Leon was treating for body lacerations that covered every inch of her torso. He went from her to a group of three whose faces were devoid of any expression, eyes dulled and unfocusing.
Those who could be classified as walking wounded, were sent to the homes of volunteer caters, with instructions for basic care.
"Like a bath!" someone remarked loudly. 'Wonder what I'll find under all that dirt and . . . yuck." Everyone volunteered to help almost to the point of being disappointed when all the victims had been assigned a place.
Leon and other medical staff gave general directions for emergency care. 'Keep them warm, give them plenty of fluid, but limit solid food until their bodies can adjust. Let them sleep all they want. But don't let them go off on their own. We'll set up evaluation conferences and see which might respond to rehabilitaion."
"Can you manage, Leon?" Scott asked earnestly.
"You better believe it, Ray,' Leon replied sharply. 'In fact we can and have managed it,' and he swung his arm in a broad gesture across the all but empty field. 'Who knows? Good food, fresh air, plenty of friendly faces . . ." he added with a wry grin, 'and good trauma skills, we may even effect a significant number of complete recoveries." 'You really think so?" Scott looked ready to accept any reassurance for the responsibility he had offloaded on the colony.
"Sure do!" Leon said in such a positive tone that Scott finally relaxed. 'No way you could have left them! Any road, they're better off with us."
"They are, you know,' Kris said. 'You look beat, Ray."
"I should take one in with me. My house is finished,' and Scott stared after the last couples leaving the field.
"We'll switch people around, Ray. I'll make sure you take your turn,' Leon said ironically. 'Now, my prescription for you, Ray Scott, is get some rest. You too, Kris. You left your baby in the creche or does that seem years ago?" 'It does, you know,' she said. She'd been too busy to give much thought to Zane. But he was happy where he was: one of the creche girls had told her that he'd been just fine.
"I believe it. Get on up to him, now,' and Leon gave her a little push in the right direction. Then, when he saw Kris glancing about her for Zainal, he added, 'he was following the final load on the sled that last time I saw him." To her delighted surprise, she met him just short of the creche, with Zane in his arms. He shrieked with joy on seeing his mother and, almost overbalancing himself out of Zainal's arms, reached out both hands for her. Zainal let the exchange be made, one hand holding the recording camera tight against his side.
"I saw you filming,' Scott said, altering his direction to join them. He even managed a tired smile at the enthusiastic way Zane was hugging his mother. Zainal patted the camera, nodding. 'Such evidence is needed to show the Farmers how the Eosi treat humans. You will help me write a report, Ray?" And when Scott nodded wearily, Zainal added, 'What words do not say, the film will." 'You'll use one of those homing capsules the Farmers have in the Command Post?" 'The Farmers do not approve of species' injury. Once they see what Eosi do, we will hear from them again." There was considerable discussion about whether or not the Farmers would be able to play the pictorial record when Zainal, Kris and the former movie cameraman had finished making it.
Baxter, however, did still photographs that were indeed worth a thousand words of explanation, and these were carefully inserted in the message tube.
The homing device had no trouble penetrating the Balloon on its way to its destination. Its departure was once again noted by the orbital and the geosynchronous satellite, as well as its abrupt disappearance just past the heliopause. The event was immediately sent to Eosi headquarters for distribution.
The Ix Mentat, just returned from its almost futile investigations on the rebellious planet, was so contorted with rage that its juniors feared it might lose connection with its host. It had only just received a report from Barevi, citing the disappearance of one of the new transporter vessels as well as over 2,000 slaves, destined for the mining colony at The Sot Fac Set which had been expecting replacements for unavoidable casualties in a major shaft collapse. When the report came to the composition of that shipment, the Ix Mentat came closer to self-extinction than any of its peer group in their long history.
Its recovery from such a seizure was slow: its host had suffered bodily injury and had to be repaired, an almost unheard-of complication in an Eosi/Emassi symbiosis.
To calm their senior, Mentats Co and Se issued orders that an installation was to be built on the innermost moon of the subject planet: a second orbital, programmed for a slower rotation, would provide constant surveillance and prevent the recalcitrant population from effecting another covert exit since it was now obvious that they had two or more spaceships.
When the Eosi Ix recovered fully from its incapacity, it began to organize the largest expedition ever mounted by Catteni forces. It would wreak the most horrific vengeance on that recalcitrant planet that had ever been mounted by Eosi Mentat.
Afterwards there would be no opposition left in the galaxy that could subject an Eosi to such humiliation. But first, they must find weapons or the method to breach the barrier around the colony planet.
A planet the Ix Mentat stoutly told all its colleagues, which was undoubtedly the cause of all the problems recently encountered by Catteni and Eosi alike. Once it was destroyed, the Eosi could resume their normal activities and enjoy their conquests unopposed.
Chapter One.
WHEN ZAINAL HAD ORGANIZED THE data he wanted to send to the Farmers via the homing capsule, he let Boris Slavinkovin and Dick Aarens fly it down to the Command Post for dispatch.
"You have a nasty sense of humor, Zainal," Kris said when the hatch of the scout vessel Baby closed behind the messengers. She had been surprised by his choice of Aarens, considering the man's behavior on their first visit to the Command Post.
"Well," and Zainal gave a shrug of one shoulder and an unrepentant grin, "Aarens has had experience sending one off. Let him do it official this time. As a reward for his improvement."
"What improvement?" Kris still had little time for the self-styled mechanical genius who had deliberately launched a homing capsule without authorization on their first trip to the Command Post.
They both stepped back from the takeoff area, as much to avoid the fumes as the wind, although Boris lifted the little craft slowly and cautiously.
They watched as it made an almost soundless vertical ascent before it slanted forward and sped off, disappearing quickly in the dusk of what had been a very long and momentous day.
The wide landing field that stretched out level with the immense, Farmer-constructed hangar could accommodate a half dozen of the K-class ships that had arrived today. They now were out of sight, within the vast hangar. At the far end of the landing area grew small copses of the lodgepole trees: young ones in terms of the age of the mature groves above and beyond the hangar. In the nearest of those groves the cabins of the colonists were being constructed, out of brick or wood, in separate clearings to allow the privacy that everyone preferred. Further up the slope were the infirmary, which today was crowded, and the huge mess hall, which served food all day long and well into the long Botany night. The largest building that faced Retreat Bay was the administration, where Judge Iri Bempechat held court when necessary, with the stocks just outside as a reminder that offenses against the community would be publicly punished.
The building also held the living quarters for the judge and other members of the body known as the Council, which included those with experience in management and administration to run the affairs of the colony. In the earliest days, when Master Sergeant Charles Mitford had taken charge of the dazed and frightened First Drop colonists, he'd kept records on pieces of slate with chalk. Now the admin building posted weekly work rosters and the community services that all were required to perform. (It still shocked Kris to see Judge Iri washing dishes, and he did it more cheerfully than many.)
Ex-Admiral Ray Scott had elected to live in a small room behind his office in the hangar complex. It was he, disguised as a Catteni Drassi, who had insisted that the Victims be rescued from the fate to which the Eosi had condemned them: working until they died as mindless slaves in the appalling conditions that existed in the mines, quarries, and fields. There had been no way that those of his crew who had been among the first dropped on Botany would have allowed those battered people to be transported to their deaths.
Considering the excitements of the day, the unloading of the victims of the Eosian mindwipe experiment, which had occupied a good third of Botany's settlers, the field was now abnormally quiet, peaceful. Kris sighed and Zainal gave her a fond look.
"ZAINAL? KRIS?" Chuck Mitford's parade ground voice reached their ears over the muted sounds that Baby was making. They looked back to the hangar and saw Chuck urgently waving to them. He was talking to someone who had just pulled up in a runabout.
"Oh, now what?" The testy demand left Kris' mouth before she could suppress it. She was tired and she earnestly desired a shower and a long sleep. She'd even arranged with the crche to keep Zane overnight since she knew herself to be stretched to the limit after the tense voyage home and the stress of landing all the pitiful mindwiped people.
"We'd better see," Zainal said, taking her hand in his big one and pressing it encouragingly.
"Don't you ever get tired and just... have too much, Zainal?"This was one of those moments when his equanimity bordered on the unforgivable.
"Yes, but it passes;' he said, leading her to where Chuck Mitford waited for them with the passenger of the runabout.
It wasn't a long walk but long enough for Kris to get her irritation and impatience under control. If Zainal could hack it, so could she. But when would she get a shower? She stank! Well, maybe her body odor would encourage whoever this was to shorten their errand.
"What's up, sarge?" she asked, noticing that he was talking to a woman she vaguely recognized from the Fourth Drop: as much because she managed to look elegant in the basic Catteni coverall. Kris wondered if she'd taken it in at crucial spots to make it look so fashionable. She was fleetingly envious of such expertise.
"Dorothy Dwardie who's heading the psychology team needs some of your time, and right now," Chuck said and had the grace to add, "though I'd guess another meeting's the last thing you two need right now."
"It is," Kris said without thinking but she smiled at the psychologist to take the sting out of her candor.
"It is important?" And Zainal's question was more statement than query.
"Yes, it is, quite urgent," Dorothy said with an apologetic smile. "We need to know more about that mind-probe before we can proceed with any sort of effective or therapeutic treatment."
"Why don't you use the small office?" Chuck said, gesturing to that end of the immense hangar.
Zainal squeezed Kris' hand and murmured: "This won't take long. I know
very little about the probe;'
"I was hoping you'd know something, if only the history of its use among your people," Dorothy said ruefully and then looked about for a place to park the runabout.
"I'll take care of it for you," Chuck said so helpfully that Kris smothered a grin.
Dorothy Dwardie gave him a warm smile for his offer.
"We've had a bit of outrageous luck," she said as they walked to the righthand side of the enormous hangar where other small offices had been constructed.
"We could use some," Kris agreed, struggling for amiability.
"Indeed we could, though I must say that hijacking all those poor people
out from under Eosi domination is certainly their good luck. And you
deserve a lot of credit for that act of kindness:'
What she didn't say rang loud and clear to Kris. There were some who weren't sure she and Zainal deserved any credit? As well for them that Ray Scott had loudly declared that he took full responsibility for the decision to save the damaged Humans so no one could blame that on Zainal or her.
Actually the guilty were the Eosi but too many people failed to make a distinction between overlord and underling. Kris' mood swung back to negative again.
"But until we..." and Dorothy's hand on her chest meant all the psychologists and psychiatrists on Botany who would now take charge of the mindwiped, "understand as much as possible about the mechanism... ah, here we are..." and she opened the door to the small office and automatically fumbled for a light switch on the wall.
Kris had seen the cord and pulled it.
"Oh . . . I suppose I'll get used to it in time," Dorothy said with an apologetic grin.
"You're Fourth Drop, aren't you?" Kris replied as neutrally as possible while Zainal closed the door behind them. There were several desks against the long stone wall but a table and chairs made an appropriate conference spot by the wide window. There was nothing but darkness outside, since the hangar faced south and there were no habitations yet beyond the field.
"You said you had a bit of outrageous luck ?"
Kris asked when they were seated.
"Yes, not everyone in the group you brought had been mindwiped."
"Certainly the Deskis, Rugs, and Turs weren't," Kris said.
"Nor all the Humans," Dorothy said, smiling over such a minor triumph.
"They weren't?" Kris asked, exchanging surprised glances with Zainal.
"Yes, some faked the vacuity of the mindless . . ."
Dorothy smiled more brightly. "Clever of them, actually, and they got away with it because those in charge weren't keeping track of who had been... done."
Kris let out a long whistle. "All us Human look alike to Eosi? Proves, though, doesn't it, that the Eosi aren't all that smart after all. Clever of us Humans to run the scam."
"They're also able to give us names for many of the people who no longer remember who they are." Dorothy gave a little shudder. "I've dealt with amnesia patients before, of course, and accident shock trauma, but this is on so much larger a scale... and complicated by not only emotional but also physical shock and injury. We have established---thanks to Leon Dane's work with injured Catteni---that there are more points of similarity than differences between our two species since both are bipedal, pentadactyl, and share many of the same external features, like eyes, ears, noses. We can't of course cross-fertilize," and to Kris' surprise, Dorothy ducked her head to hide a flush.
"As well," Kris said dryly.
Dorothy flashed her an apology and continued. "Internally, though the Catteni have larger hearts, lungs, and intestinal arrangements, Leon says that the main difference is the density of the brain matter. It's also larger though similarly organized as ours are, as far as the position of the four major lobes is concerned. Leon was amazed at what damage a Catteni skull could take without permanent injury. I think," and she paused, frowning slightly at what she did not voice, "that the initial injuries to the prisoners were attempts to recalibrate the instrument to human brains."
"Initial injuries?" Kris asked.
"Yes," and Dorothy seemed to wish to get over this topic very quickly, "though they would have been dead before their nervous systems could register much."
"Yes, and leave it at that, Kris," Dorothy went on briskly. "Will Seissmann should not dwell on the details although he seems to want to... a part of his trauma."
"Will Seissmann?" Kris asked.
"Yes, he and Dr. Ansible ..."
"Dr. Ansible?" Kris shot bolt upright. "But he's---was, rather---at the
observatory. Only I think he was away on some sort of a conference when
the Catteni took Denver:'
"Yes, he was and took refuge at Stamford," Dorothy replied, nodding.
"He tried to argue others he knew to follow Will's example. I don't know whether or not the dogmatic scientist has an innate martyr complex but only a few would resort to the trick to save themselves;' She broke off with a sigh. "At any rate, we are able to put names to most of the Victims. But I need to know whatever details you may have, Zainal. They will be so helpful in correcting the trauma... if, indeed, we can."
Zainal shook his head. "I know little about such Eosi devices." Then his expression changed into what Kris privately termed his "Catteni look," cold, impassive, shuttered. "I do know---it is part of the Catteni history---that they have a device that increases and measures intelligence."
"Oh?" Dorothy leaned forward across the tame in her eagerness. "Then it could possibly extract information, too?"
Zainal blinked and his expression altered to a less forbidding one. He gave a slight smile. "It would seem likely since I only know of the one device.
The Eosi used it on the primitive Catteni to make them useful as hosts."
"Really?" Dorothy's expression was intensely eager as she leaned forward, encouraging Zainal to elaborate.
"Yes, really. Roughly two thousand years ago, the Eosi discovered Catten and its inhabitants. We were little more than animals, a fact the Eosi never let us forget. About a thousand years ago, my family started keeping its records for our ancestor was one of the first hundred to have . . . his brains stimulated by the device. Each family keeps its own records---how many males it has delivered to the Eosi as hosts and details of children and matings."
That's impressive," Dorothy said.
"Humans did it without such assistance and that impresses me," Zainal said with an odd laugh. "But that's how the Emassi were developed. To serve the Eosi."
"They didn't use the mind thingummy on the Drassi?" Kris asked.
"To a lesser degree," Zainal replied and turned to Dorothy. "There are three levels of Catteni now... Emassi," and he touched his chest, "Drassi who are good at following orders but have little initiative or ambition: some were rejected for the Emassi ranks, but are able to be more than Drassi---ship captains and troop leaders. Then there're the Rassi, who were left as they are."
"Rassi?" Kris echoed in surprise. "Never heard of them."
"They do not leave Catten and are as we all were when the Eosi found us."
"So you, as a species, did not evolve by yourselves? But had your intelligence stimulated?" Dorothy asked. She turned to Kris. "The Eosi evidently never heard of the Prime Directive."
"The Prime Directive means an advanced culture is not supposed to interfere with the natural evolution of another species or culture/' Kris explained to Zainal.
"The anthropologists will have a field day with this/' Dorothy added, jotting down another note. "Was one... application sufficient to sustain the higher level of intelligence?" she asked Zainal.
He shrugged. "I do not know that." Abruptly his expression again changed to his "Catteni look/' impassive, expressionless, shuttered. "When I had my full growth, I had to be presented to the Eosi, to see if I was acceptable as a host. And what training I should be given."
"And?" Dorothy prompted him when he paused.
"I was passed, and I was to be trained to pilot spaceships;' Then his grin became devilish and his "Catteni look" completely disappeared. "My father and uncles had worried that Eosi would find me too curious and unacceptable."
"Too curious? Why would that make you unacceptable?" Dorothy asked.
"Eosi tell Emassi what they need to know. That is all they are supposed to know."
"Before you start training? Surely you had basic schooling?" Dorothy asked, surprised.
"But didn't you learn to read, write, and figure before you were fourteen?"
Dorothy was having difficulty with this concept. "Surely you've had to learn mathematics to pilot spaceships?"
Zainal nodded. "Emassi males are taught that much by their fathers..."
He grimaced.
"The hard way?" Kris said, miming the use of a force whip.
"Yes, the hard way. One tends to pay strict attention to such lessons."
"And yet you were curious enough to want to know more?" Dorothy asked.
"Because it was forbidden," Zainal said, again with the twinkle in his eye. He must have been a handful as a youngster. Kris was also immensely relieved that his intelligence, which she suspected was a lot higher than hers, was natural, rather than artificially stimulated.
Zainal looked down at his clasped hands as he organized his response.
"I was taken into a very large white room with a big chair in the center and two Eosi, one at a control desk. I was strapped into the chair and then the device came down out of the ceiling to cover my head."
"Could you see what it looked like?" Dorothy asked, and Kris realized how eagerly she awaited details.
Zainal shrugged. "A large shape/' and he made a bell form with both hands, "with many wires attached to it and dials."
"It covered your head or just your face?"
"My head down to my shoulders. It was heavy."
"Did you see any blue lights?" Dorothy asked, scribbling again.
"I saw nothing."
"And the sensations? What were they like?" She turned to Kris as Zainal once again considered his answer. "We're trying to establish if any invasive probe is used: Needles or possibly electrical shock. We need to know whether the brain itself has been entered and damaged: whether or not there has been physical damage---rather than just memory, emotional, and fact erasures."
"There aren't any scars on the Victims?" Kris asked, and Dorothy shook her head.
"Not visible ones, certainly. Which is why Zainal's recollection is so vital to us."
"Like electricity," Zainal said, putting his hands to his temples and moving them up to the top of his broad skull. "And here;' and he touched the base of his cranium. "But no blood. No scar."
"Oh, yes, that's interesting, very interesting;' and Dorothy wrote hastily for a minute. "No pain in the temples?"
"Where?" Zainal asked.
"Here," and Kris touched the points.
"Oh. Not pain, pressure."
"Isn't that where lobotomies are done?" Kris apprehensively asked Dorothy.
She nodded. "Anywhere else? Pressure or pain or odd sensations? I'm trying to discover just which areas might have been... touched by this device.
If they coincide with what factual, emotional, and memory centers humans have," she added as an aside to Kris. "There are more parallels than you might guess."
"A sort of stabbing, very quick, to the..." and Zainal put his hand to the top of his head, "inside of my head."
"Quite possibly a general stimulation," Dorothy murmured. Then, with a kind smile, went on. "So you were assessed and passed. Then what happened?"
"I was told who to report to for training." Then he grinned. "I know that my uncles were disappointed that I was acceptable. My father was relieved.
More glory for our branch of the family."
"How old are you now?" Dorothy asked, a question which Kris had never bothered to ask.
Zainal hesitated and then with a grin and a shrug, "Thirty-five. I have
been exploring this galaxy for sixteen years:'
"Sixteen?" Kris was surprised.
"That would make only four years of formal training? Of any sort?"
Dorothy asked, surprised.
"Three. I have been here two years now. Two Catteni years." And he grinned at Kris.
"I learned what I needed to know to do the job which the Eosi ordered for me. I worked hard and learned well," Zainal said with a touch of pride.
"Amazing," Dorothy murmured as she made more notes.
"But you know a lot about a lot of things," Kris protested.
Zainal shrugged. "Once I am officially a pilot," and he gave Kris a mischievous look out of the corner of his eye, "it was no longer wrong for me to learn what I wish so long as I pilot well. The Eosi," and his face slid briefly into Catteni impassivity again, "require their hosts to have been many places and seen many things."
"Then you don't have any knowledge about your own body? No biology?"
Dorothy asked. '.
"Bi-o-lo-gy?" Zainal repeated.
Dorothy explained, and he laughed.
"As long as my body does what I need it to do, I do not ask how it does it."
Both Dorothy and Kris smiled.
"When I compare what our astronauts went through to qualify as space pilots..." and Dorothy raised one hand in amazement.
"The earliest aviators flew by the seat of their pants," Kris remarked.
"Seat of their pants?" Zainal asked, frowning so Dorothy and Kris took turns explaining the meaning.
"I did that, too, when training did not cover all I needed to know. So I made those who build the spacecraft show me how everything worked," Zainal said.
"And those... engineers... were also trained by families who were engineers?"
Dorothy asked, and Zainal nodded. "Very restrictive educational system.
Only a need to know. However did they manage?"
"The Eosi do the manage part;' Zainal said in a caustic tone. "Emassi
follow orders just like Drassi and even the Rassi:'
"It's amazing even the Emassi can do what they do," Kris remarked, regarding Zainal with even more respect.
"Yes, it is," Dorothy agreed, "and we tend to rely on the educational process . . . or the genetic heritage," and she gave Kris a look. "Depending on which school of thought you adhere to." She gave another sigh and then said more briskly, including Kris. "Are there any special aptitudes which Catteni have which Humans do not? For example, the way the Deski can climb vertically and have extraordinary hearing?"
"Night vision," Zainal said promptly. "Our hearing is more acute but not as good as the Deski. We can last longer eating poor food... or is that body difference, not brain?"
"Metabolic differences certainly," Dorothy said, having written "eye" and "ear" on her pad. Kris could read such short words backwards. Then the psychologist spent a moment doodling. "Could you possibly draw me a sketch of the device used on you?" She turned to Kris in explanation.
"Those that got a good look at it can't talk, and those who can talk didn't see it."
"Zainal's very good at drawing devices," Kris said, with a touch of pride.
"Yes," and Zainal complied, using the pen with the quick, deft strokes that Kris had seen him use in delineating the mechanicals. "There!"
Dorothy regarded the neat sketch and hmmmed under her breath.
"Hmmm, yes, well it looks like something an evil scientist would create."
She sighed. "Considering who the Eosi chose to brainscan, they seem to have been on an information hunt. But why? Their level of technology is so much more sophisticated than ours. Or were they just trying to strip minds that could possibly help foment riot and rebellion? Or maybe reduce humans to the level of your Rassi?"
Zainal made a guttural noise and his smile, while it did not touch his eyes, was evil. "Ray Scott said that he recognized some of the people as scientists.
So the Eosi are looking for information. If they were wiping minds to make you like Drassi, they would start with children and block learning."
He grinned. "The Eosi look for ideas. They have had very few new ones over the past hundred or so years."
"Really?" Dorothy remarked encouragingly.
"Maybe they need to stimulate their own brains," Kris said. "Or would it work on them?"
Zainal shrugged.
"Will Seissmann and Dr. Ansible felt that the Eosi were taking a vicious revenge on humans by destroying minds in a wholesale fashion/' Dorothy said in an expressionless voice. "There seemed to be no reason to include some of the individuals---TV reporters and anchor men . . . and women...
"Really? Who?" Kris asked in astonishment.
"Who? Anchor men and women?" Zainal didn't understand the term.
"Oh/' he said, when Kris explained, and added, "information would be the first thing Eosi want to control. All your satellites and communication networks were destroyed in the initial phase of the invasion."
"Did you know they were choosing Earth?" Dorothy asked.
Zainal shook his head with a rueful grin. "I am exploring on the far side of this galaxy. I had stopped at Barevi for supplies and fuel when..."
And then he shrugged as if both women knew his history from then on.
"Zainal picked a fight/' Kris said, answering the querying look on Dorothy's mobile face, "killed a Drassi and went on the run. I saw his flitter crash and went to see whom the Catteni were after this time. I had no idea what I was rescuing. If I had," and she gave Zainal a mock dirty look, "I might have thrown him to the wolves. Then I decided I'd better get him back to Barevi. Only we both got caught in one of those gassings the Catteni spray to quell rebellion." Kris knew that Dorothy would be familiar with that tactic which was often used on Earth. "And ended up here on Botany."
"For which many of us are exceedingly grateful/' Dorothy said sincerely.
"Will, Dr. Ansible, and a formerTV reporter, Jane O'Hanlon, were able to bring us up to date with the situation on Earth, by the way. Which I can give you without benefit of sponsors or commercials/' Dorothy said in a droll tone of voice. "I think there was probably more than one reason for the Eosi to resort to extracting information from human beings. Not only have we here on Botany produced a new wrench in the works with the Bubble but resistance is increasing on Earth despite their attempts to control or contain it.
"I gather that there will be an effort made to support activities on Earth now that there're three spaceships at our disposal?" And she looked at Zainal for comment.
"We haven't heard of any," Kris said and added "yet." Zainal had been so busy getting pictorial proof to send the Farmers that they hadn't discussed any future plans.
He shrugged. "Three ships are too few against as many as the Eosi have."
"Not even for a teensy-weensy hit," and Dorothy left a very tiny space between her forefinger and thumb by way of illustration, "just to serve notice on the Eosi?"
"I think we've just done that," Kris said with a droll grin.
"They will try to penetrate the Bubble," Zainal said. "They will have to figure out what it is and how it is maintained. That will annoy them seriously."
And he was patently delighted. "We must hope that it remains. The Eosi have other weapons that destroy planets."
"Do they?" And Kris felt a twinge of fear under her bravado.
"If they cannot possess, they do not leave it for others to have."
"Oh!" Kris had no flippant reply for that.
"Does the Council know?" Dorothy asked, concerned.
"I will tell them," Zainal said, nodding solemnly.
"Well, then, that's all I can bother you with," Dorothy said, beginning to gather up her notes. Then she paused, tilting her head at Zainal. "You don't have any idea where the Eosi came from, do you?" When Zainal shook his head, she managed a selfconscious laugh. "From a galaxy far, far away?"
Kris chuckled, delighted that Dorothy was not only Trek oriented, but could also quote from Star wars.
"Thank you, Zainal. You've given me valuable information."
Dorothy smiled. "More than you might think. I do apologize for besieging you after what has been a very difficult day but we needed this input." She held up the notes. "We can design appropriate treatment now.
In so far as our resources permit, that is."
Zainal opened the door, and they stepped into a moonlit night.
"Over here, Dorothy," Chuck said, flipping on the runabout's light.
"Oh, thank you, and thank you again, Zainal, Kris." She hurried over to the little vehicle, murmuring her thanks to Mitford before she turned it northward.
"I've one of the flatbeds and there's room on the boxes for you two to ride back to your place," Chuck said. "Don't want any night crawlers grabbing you."
"Thanks, Chuck," Kris said, only too grateful for both the offer and the sentiment. She was really dragging with weariness right now. Sitting down for a spell had not been as good an idea as it had seemed. It only emphasized her fatigue.
"Over here," and Chuck reached the flatbed and turned on its light to guide them.
Kris was already climbing on the cargo before she realized that the boxes didn't resemble anything she had purchased on Barevi.
"What's all this, sarge?" She couldn't see the printed labels in the dim light.
"It's the books we found," Zainal astonished her by saying.
"Yes, books," Zainal repeated calmly. "Ray saw them. As trading captain of the KDI, I thought such paper stuff would be good for packing material."
He grinned. "The Drassi did not argue, glad to be rid of the stuff."
"But there must be fifty boxes here? They're not all the same book, are they?"
"Nope," Chuck said. "Catteni looted libraries, too. We've got some former librarians just drooling to catalog what we managed to 'liberate." This is only part of what we unloaded. Our kids won't grow up ignorant, though they might have some rather interesting gaps in their education."
"Books," Kris said and suddenly realized that she had missed books...
certainly the availability of books. "Wow! That was a real coup:'
"Books?" Zainal asked. "Schoolbooks?" His tone was sly though Kris could not see his expression in the dim light. "Bi-ol-o-gy?"
"Zainal has just acquired a need to know," Kris replied drolly. Oh, well, she'd had good grades in biology though just how much human biology would expand Zainal's understanding of how his body worked was a moot point. And she was too tired to inquire.
All three were silent for the rest of the journey.
Once Zainal closed the door behind them, Kris gave up the notion of a shower as being too much work and a ruse to keep her from getting horizontal, and asleep, as soon as she could make it to the bed. She did take her boots off, as Zainal was doing, but that was all she managed.
THE K-CLASS SHIP, which arrived at bay fortyfive to collect a shipment of slaves for an ice planet's mining operation was furious to discover that someone else had taken them. The Drassi lodged a protest about that, and then another one that he had been forced to wait eight days before sufficient slaves could be assembled. So insignificant a report went unread.
The costs submitted against a ship with a KDI identification code were duly registered although it was later noted that this ship had supposedly been listed as "lost."The charges were paid and the anomaly forgotten.
Chapter Two.
IT SHOULDN'T HAVE SURPRISED KRIS that by the next afternoon many people were aware of the substance of their discussion with Dorothy Dwardie. Rumor circulated the settlement as fast as a Farmer orbiter.
Fortunately, it worked more in favor of Zainal than against him.
The Catteni were, however briefly, also seen as Victims of Eosian tactics, more to be pitied than feared.
A quintet of anthropologists, while loudly deploring the forced evolution of the Catteni, requested most politely for Zainal to take some tests to evaluate his "stimulated" intelligence.
Kris was furious and Zainal amused. In fact, Kris was so incensed that she was even mad at him for agreeing.
"They cannot do me any harm," Zainal said in his attempt to placate her.
"It's the whole idea of the thing... as if you were no better than a laboratory mouse or rat or monkey," she said, pacing about the house while her mate and her son regarded her with surprise.
"They are also testing the Deski and the Rugarians." He grinned at her.
"I would like to know how I rate."
"How can they possibly evaluate you fairly? In the first place," she
said, waving her arms about as she paced, "lots of the questions require
a similar cultural background . . . and history and things you've
never had a chance to study:'
"So?" Zainal reached out and stopped her midstride as she was going past him. "You are annoyed for me? Or with me?" he asked at his gentlest, a gleam in his yellow eyes.
"With them! The nerve, the consummate gall"' and she tried to struggle out of his embrace.
"Sometimes, Kristin Bjornsen, you protect me when I do not need it;' he
said, smoothing her hair back from her face. "As you would Zane:'
"Nonsense;' Kris snapped, trying to push him away. "You don't know when to be insulted. I am insulted. For you."
Zainal laughed and easily resisted her attempts to break free.
"It is difficult to insult an Emassi;' he said. "I think it is better for them to find out that I am very, very smart. It will solve other problems."
That mild remark stopped her struggling.
"What problems?" she demanded, suspicious.
"The ones I must solve."
"Which are?"
"How to free us . . ." and he gestured himself and then to her, "and
your people from the Eosi:'
"But we need the Farmers' help for that and we have no idea when we'll have a response---if any---to that report you sent them. What are you planning, Zainal?"
"This time you, too, must wait and see," he said, giving her a final squeeze before he released her. And she got no more out of him.
He went off to the session with the anthropologists while she fumed and fretted as she did the household chores. She was not due for her shift until late afternoon. She couldn't even find satisfaction in taking care of Zane, which she usually enjoyed thoroughly. She all but pounced on Zainal when he returned a few hours later.
"Well?" she demanded as soon as he entered the cabin.
His grin was a partial reassurance but she insisted on details. "They say I am very smart. At the top."
"How could they figure that out? What did they ask? How did you reply?"
"Carefully"' he said, pouring himself a cup of water. "Thirsty work."
Kris let out an explosive "oh" of total frustration. "You'd drive a saint to drink."
"What sort of questions?" She would not be diverted.
"Logic ones which I am well able to answer. Sorrell told me that they used some of the Mensa tests? That you would know what those are?"
"I passed;' he said and then bent to lift the lid on the pot over the fire.
"We eat here tonight?"
"Yes, it's the stew you like. How high did you pass?"
Zainal's grin was malicious. "Very high. They were surprised and..."
he paused to let his grin broaden, "they were respectful."
"Well, it's about time."
He turned and put his arms about her, drawing her close to him so that
he could look her in the eyes. "One earns respect. It is not just
given:'
"But you've earned it twenty times over, Zanal," she said, not quite willing to be totally placated by his proximity but she did let her arms creep around his neck. "When I think of how lucky we were that you got dropped..."
"I was very lucky," he said, burrowing his head in her hair. "Very lucky;' They remained in that embrace, enjoying the simple pleasure of touching and being together until Zane, waking from his afternoon nap, disturbed their communion.
"So, what have you been planning in that devious stimulated Catteni mind of yours?" Kris asked.
"I think we have to go to Earth," he said so casually that she nearly dropped her son.
"It is safer right now than it will be..." he began, taking Zane from her to dandle on his knee, which had the boy chortling with delight, while she tasted the stew.
"Oh?" The stew needed a pinch more salt, which she added.
"Yes, because it will take time for the Eosi to discover that the Victims did not get to the intended destination. They will also be thinking of a way to break through the Bubble. They do not like such defenses."
"Now I think there may be other Catteni, who have had enough Eosi," and he grinned at her. "I am not the only one who thinks for himself.
Who is smarter than the Eosi want us to be. I know of five who are like me. I need to know where they now are. I need to know if there are more now)'
Zainal considered as he tickled Zane's toes while the little boy giggled, withdrawing his feet and then presenting them again.
"I think there are no more than one hundred."
"Because that's all the Catteni they upgraded? Don't they reproduce or something?"
Zainal shook his head. "Not that we know of."
"The others of like mind I told you about. We have met, in small groups, from time to time, to exchange knowledge)'
"A risk all Emassi take," he said with a shrug. "Yes, I do believe that we have been looking for some way to shake Eosian domination. Your people have shown a resistance no other species has. That's good)'
"As far as it goes and look what happens to Humans who resist..."
and Kris's gesture included the planet. "How many worlds do the Eosi dom-Mate?
I mean, there're the Deski, the Rugarians, the Turs, the Morphins, and the Ilginish... How many others?"
"The Eosi control fifteen star systems that have at least one intelligent race: another ten where they take metals and materials."
Kris laughed. "You honestly believe a rebellion has a chance against such a setup?"
"If we have the Farmers' help..."
"Boy, oh boy, oh boy, are you an optimist!"
"It is a start. It is more than we have ever had."
"With two spaceships and a scout, we can go up against that sort of opposition?"
"it is a start."
"I've got to hand it to you, Zainal. God loves a trier," Kris said, shaking her head at the impossible task he had proposed. And yet... "Have you mentioned any of this to any one else yet?"
"I talked to Chuck. I will speak to others. We need to go to Earth as soon as possible. Earth needs to know that Botany is!"
"Let's eat first, shall we?" Kris said as brightly as she could, trying to assimilate the magnitude of his vision.
DOROTHY DWARDIE'S TEAM spent the first week assessing the condition of the mindwiped and divided them into various arbitrary groupings, according to the perceived severity.
As she said in her initial discussion with her aides, there were two levels of healing: one, the physical trauma of assault on the tissue and/or function of the brain, and two, the psychological trauma of assault on the psyche or self. She expected that some trauma would be time-limited.
"The mind has gone into functional frostbite," she said, "and when it thaws after the trauma, returns to normal function without help. Since most of these people were trained scientists, it's possible that many will sim ply reestablish old neural pathways. There may be some loss of factual memory: maybe even a great deal. Even then much may return over a period of time.
"Right now, they need reassurance, interaction: music, smells, kindness, encouragement, gentle exercise. As normal a routine as we can manage.
Talk to them, about anything and everything: help them reestablish themselves.
Where we know the name, repeat it often. When we know something of their background, refer to that as frequently as possible. Help them reacquaint themselves with themselves."
Kris had three women, all in their late fifties: two had been research physicians in a drug company---Peggy Ihde and Marjorie Flax; the third they called Sophie because Sarah McDouall said she thought she looked like a Sophie. Kris was to supervise their meals. Just putting a spoon or a fork in their hands stimulated self-feeding. She read to them from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which they might even have read in their younger days. She took them on quiet walks in the lodgepole copse, or sat with them above the bay where benches had been placed for meditation.
"Pleasant surroundings are extremely important after the holding pens they've been in," Dorothy said. "Soft, kind voices, gentle handling will reassure even the most damaged."
There were a few whose condition was clearly catatonic but Dorothy was serenely confidant that, in time, even these would recover.
"There's something about this place," she said, spreading both arms out to include the entire subcontinent, "that will generate healing. The smells are good, the food is fresh and tasty, and the vibes ..." she smiled at using the vernacular description, "are good because we've made them so. Beauty is a natural stress-absorber, you know. It reassures on a nonverbal level that they are now safe.
"You see," she went on in her soft voice, "we've decided to use a multi-modal treatment of this stress. The right hemisphere---which thinks in pictures---can't tell time: therefore it needs pictures to counteract the negative images of the trauma. The left hemisphere stores rational thought processes in thought and ideas. The two hemispheres interact and each approach can help the other side. We need to maximize good input and involve as much as possible in terms of brain resource utilization. Many of our friends here may never recall exactly what happened. That would truly be a blessing."
"But won't we have to explain something of how they got here?" Sarah McDouall asked.
"Oh, yes," Dorothy said with a smile, "and by then we'll probably have a coherent answer for them. They are, to all intents and purposes, on a holiday from their own minds right now."
"We could always tell them they're in Oz," someone at the back of the room quipped.
"And no red slippers in sight," someone added.
Dorothy's expression was droll. "We're all in Oz."
"The Eosi are the wicked witches..."
"Let's leave the analogy there, shall we?" Dorothy said in the firm tone of she-who-must-be-obeyed.
Kris felt her shoulder muscles relax. She had been readying herself to protect Zainal. Really, she had to stop doing that. He had made his own position here on Botany and was firmly entrenched. She didn't need to fret over possible snide remarks and animosity. She devoutly hoped!
THAT EVENING WHEN ZAINAL CAME HOME from the construction site of the new units for the Victims, he very carefully put a book down on the table.
"That's for kindergartners," she said in surprise, recognizing the title.
"Kindergartners? It is for learning to read," Zainal said and gave it a little shove with one large and very dirty thumb.
"Please wash up, dinner's nearly ready," she said, because she really couldn't tell Zainal not to handle the book-which might be the only one of its kind-with his dirty hands.
"I learn to read," he said and gave it another, almost angry push.
Zainal scowled and Zane, who was seated in the high-seated chair his adoptive father had made for him, began to whimper in apprehension. He was very quick to sense moods. Immediately Zainal turned a smiling face and diverted the child by tickling his feet until he was hilarious with tickle laughter.
"I need to read to use computers."
Kris blinked in surprise, having forgotten for the moment that Botany now possessed working computers... which were being put to all kinds of good use. There had been several uninterrupted sessions to develop adapters for the units to run on solar power.
"Oh, yes, of course you would," Kris said. "Dead easy for a man with your smarts."
Zainal turned his smiling face from Zane and gave the little book a dark scowl. "Not when all those... squiggles... make no sense at all."
"Are there many---" and Kris thought swiftly for a less insulting description than "kids' books"---"primer books in what we got?" She hadn't had occasion to look in that section of the hastily assembled "library."
"This was given me. I wash my hands... and Zane's feet..." he added pointing to the oily smears now marking the child's bare feet.
ONCE ZANE WAS IN BED, she took, not the book, but a pad and pencil and wrote out the alphabet in upper and lower case, as large as she could lengthwise across the page.
"But I brought the book to read.. :' he said, pulling it toward him with now clean hands.
"First you must know the... squiggles that spell the words we use. Too bad we didn't have a book on English for second-language speakers... although come to think of it, that wouldn't do you much good. Now, this is the first letter of the alphabet ... 'ay." Which can also be pronounced 'ah'... just to confuse you. It is a vowel. B, which is usually just 'bee' is the second letter and a consonant."
He had repeated "vowel" and now spoke "consonant." Zainal had no trouble committing the sequence of the alphabet to memory---nor of naming any of them when Kris drilled him. His concentration was incredible.
He kept her going until even such words as "Spot" and "Jane" were blurring her eyes. He had also read through the book nine times and had it memorized.
"No spot and jane on the computers," he said.
"We'll work on computer language tomorrow," she said, rising stiffly from the chair in which his need to learn had pinned her for hours. She yawned.
"I work more now," he said, looking at her expectantly.
"Okay, see how many words you already know that rhyme with Spot... like dot, and tot, and Scott... or with Jane, like mane... no not drain... ah, try run, fun, gun, stun..."
"Oh," he said, delighted at such an exercise.
She went to bed. When Zane woke her in false dark, hungry, Zainal had filed pages of similarly sounding words, not all of which were spelled properly but she had to give him an A for effort. Spelling would come later.
What did astonish her as she fed Zane by candlelight was the computer manual she found under a pile of his laboriously hand-printed sheets. He had underlined all the unwords... ctrl, del, esc, Pgdn, Pgup, num, menu.
"He can't have read the manual," she murmured and smothered a laugh.
"He may be one of the few who ever did before they turned on a computer."
She and Zane had gone back to sleep again before full daylight and, by then, Zainal had gone off to work. In a neat pile on the mantel he had left all but the primer. Doubtless that had gone back to the library shelves for something more challenging. The manual was still there but then, there had been plenty of those in the packing cases they'd brought back from the marketplace at Barevi. But why this sudden need to understand computers . . . ah, yes. It probably had something to do with Zainal's master plan. Maybe it was plans since he intended not only to free Earth but destroy the Eosi and release Catten from slavery. Did he also plan to use the mind stimulator on everyone? To equalize the Catten race? Ooops, she sort of thought that might be a bad idea. Zainal was a most unusual Catteni.
Still, there might well be similarly motivated Emassi among those whom he was going to enlist to help. But the Drassi... and the Rassi... though she despised herself for generalizing... were different: especially since they were such big people with lots of muscles and not much common sense.
She had an early shift this morning so she and Zane started off in the fresh morning air to the day care center. He was crawling around everywhere, even trying to climb, and spent more time falling down. But she let him fall... and let him get up. He rarely hurt himself. On the advice of other mothers, she had put extra padding on the knees of his trousers, saving him scratches if not bruises. Actually, Kris thought, Botany's new generation was generally sturdy and few mothers had the time to pamper their children. With the notable exception of Janet and Anna Bollinger. Their kids, however, had enough rough and tumble at the day care center to have developed allergies to maternal fussiness.
No television, no Coke, or chocolate---though sometimes Kris' craving for a chocolate bar was almost overwhelming---was all to the good. She did miss caffeine and, while the experiments with beer and other spiritous liquors had been successful, there was as yet no tobacco substitute. As soon as the children were able, they were put to little tasks and chores that would make them as self-sufficient as their parents had learned to be.
Raisha Simonova was checking in the children at the day care center this morning. Zane toddled firmly off to the room that catered to his age group. One of the Deski children, Fil, was on its way (gender in Deskis developed later) so he waited for Fil. Another plus for Botany---no racism.
Well, not to fret over, because the few who had trouble assimilating with the Rugarians and Deskis were gradually losing their sense of Human superiority: difficult to maintain when a Deski walked up a wall to carry slates to the roof. Or a Rugarian easily hefted weights that took two or three Humans to manage. Both races were also becoming more and more fluent in English, though they had trouble with past tenses of verbs. Who didn't?
And a good couple of dozen Humans were attempting to master their languages.
Almost, Kris thought, as she stopped by the library to pick up the day's reading, it would be a shame to have to open Botany up. It could easily ruin the harmony that had been achieved. And yet...
All three of her charges were sitting in their bedside chairs, an aura of anticipation about them.
"They know to the minute when you're due, Kris," Mavis Belton said.
"You don't know how good," Mavis said with a deep sigh, slightly turning her head toward one of the "difficult wards" where the worst of the Victims were kept.
"Good morning, Marjorie," Kris began, initiating her morning routine by touching the arm of each in turn, "Good morning, Peggy. Good morning, Sophie."
"Why do you call me Sophie? That's my middle name. My Christian name is Norma," the woman said with a hint of petulance. "Norma Sophie Barrow. Miss Barrow."
"I do apologize, Miss Barrow;' Kris said sincerely, holding her hand now for the woman to shake. 'I'm Kris Bjornsen, the nurse's aide."
"Of course, you are. We've been expecting you," Miss Barrow said almost tartly. "Aren't we?"
Marjorie and Peggy nodded.
"In that case, let us walk up to the dining hall," Kris said.
Behind the newly restored Miss Barrow, Mavis was almost in tears with joy at the breakthrough. It was a very mixed blessing. Miss Barrow was stunned to find herself in such rural, primitive surroundings.
"Rustic, ! should say," she remarked as they entered the log-built main hall. "I would certainly never take my vacation in such a setting:' She wanted coffee and refused to drink the herbal tea which was all that was served. She wanted white bread toast and butter and did not like the berry preserve, which did service as a spread. Nor would she eat the hot oatmeal. Porridge was for children or invalids. She wanted an egg, boiled, three minutes.
Although Marjorie and Peggy were hungry enough to eat what Kris served them, they began to falter as Miss Barrow's complaints jarred their own memories of breakfasts or homes or what they had once been accustomed to.
Just as Kris was beginning to think she wouldn't be able to cope with this sort of insurrection, Dorothy Dwardie slid in beside Miss Barrow.
"I am so glad to see you looking so well, today, Miss Barrow."
Miss Barrow recoiled from Dorothy, a hint of fear contorting her features.
"Doctor?" Miss Barrow was only slightly reassured while Kris admired the friendly but not intimate tone Dorothy used.
"Yes, Doctor Dwardie, I'm in charge of your case."
"I've not been well?" As Miss Barrow's fragile hand went to her chest and her expression became even more confused, Dorothy nodded, still smiling with great reassurance.
"Yes, but nothing life-threatening, I'm happy to report. The tests have all come back negative. You may not remember things in the detail you used to but we're positive that you will make a complete recovery."
"I was working very hard," Miss Barrow said, running one nervous finger along the edge of the table and watching its progress, "the merger, you know."
"Yes, exactly, the merger. One of the elements of your convalescence has actually been a change of diet to a very bland one. A change to flush the toxins of fatigue out of your system. If you just look at Marjorie and Peggy, you'll see how healthy and fine they are. And you're very much improved."
"Toxins . . . yes, there were toxins," Miss Barrow said. "Some of them . . ." She closed her lips and gave a weak smile. "I'm not allowed to talk about my work, you understand."
"Yes, yes, Miss Barrow, we do. Miss Bjornsen is the soul of discretion but as I have a top security clearance, perhaps if we had a quiet little chat in my office, I could relieve your mind, and we can figure out just what other therapy will speed your recovery."
Gently Dorothy got Miss Barrow to her feet and led her out of the dining room and toward her putative office.
"She'll be all right, won't she?" Marjorie said, her eyes wide with fright.
It was also the first time Marjorie had said more than yes, no, and maybe.
Peggy stared from one to another and then back to Kris for reassurance.
"She'll be fine;' Kris said firmly, smiling and nodding her head. "But I think we'd better finish our breakfasts. Then we'll find a quiet spot for me to finish reading Pride and Prejudice."
"I read that once," Peggy said in a vague tone, frowning slightly.
"I like Kris reading," Marjorie said.
"Why, thank you, Marjorie;'
"You know you don't have to be so formal, Kris. I don't mind if you call me Marge like everyone else."
Then she grimaced, looking down at the table and, with furtive glances, gradually looked around the room. Peggy, however, held up her cup for more tea, which Kris instantly supplied.
"Some of your friends aren't here with you, Marge;' Kris said, thinking some explanation should be offered before Marjorie's returning awareness caused her dismay.
"They aren't?"
"More tea?" Kris offered and Marge shook her head.
"Doesn't really taste like tea to me."
"It's part of the bland diet to reduce the dose of toxicity you had," Kris said.
"No," Kris replied, "but we aides thought it wasn't fair for us to drink something you aren't yet allowed."
"Oh!" Marge accepted that.
Kris tried not to wonder what else would happen today or who would have a breakthrough but the rest of her eight-hour shift went without any further incident, other than Marge making comments about beautiful scenery and the lovely fresh air. Peggy said nothing more and seemed to be deep in her own thoughts. And Kris certainly hoped she was having some.
She got her two charges back for their afternoon nap and, for once, they lay down in their beds immediately and were asleep in moments.
Mavis beckoned her into the nurse's office.
"That Miss Barrow's a pisswhistler," she murmured in rather unprofessional language. "And that's exactly what brought her around."
"She ran a huge lab for Erkind Pharmaceuticals and everything, but everything had to be precisely in place and exactly done."
"Oh! And suddenly her neurones meshed and nothing here was as it should be in her neat little mind?"
Mavis cocked her. "She's fighting it but with every twitch of
disagreement, she's remembering more. She's more than halfway back to
sanity:'
Kris grimaced. "If precision and order are her sort of sanity, she could be a real pain in the arse."
Mavis shook her head this time. "No, we'll let her manage our lab when
she's fully recovered. It'll be the envy of . . ." Then Mavis
giggled. "We couldn't actually ask for someone with a better
background/'
Kris thought of Leon Dane, of Thor Mayock's hooch, and the easy, if effective, way the hospital facilities had been run, and wondered.
"Some speech from Marge... she prefers that... and one sentence from
Peggy but that one's been thinking hard all day long/'
"Good," and Mavis made notes on the day pad. "We'll see if we can improve on your start. You're mid-shift tomorrow?"
Kris nodded and then another group returned to the dormitory and Mavis went to help settle them for their rest.
ON HER WAY TO COLLECT ZANE, she wondered just how the prim and proper Miss Barrow would view the Deski and Rugarians with whom they shared the planet. And how she could react to Zainal's presence when she saw him. Once the Victims started being people again, they would have to see, and become accustomed to, the one Catteni since he was the one who had organized their rescue.
Zane was having a late nap and Kris looked rather enviously at all the small bodies, all curled up under their blankets on the mats that had been woven for the purpose.
"Go grab some zzz's yourself;' murmured Sheila who was in charge.
She was also working on a detailed map of the eastern coast of this continent, from measurements Kris's exploratory team had brought back. "I'll never get used to the long days here. Not to mention the long nights. I'll wake you when Zane's up. I always say, leave sleeping dogs and chilluns lie."
There were bunks for the nighttime staff, two of which were already occupied, so Kris climbed as quietly as possible into an upper one and very shortly fell asleep.
A SLOPPY WET KISS WOKE HER: the donor being her dearly beloved son, who had managed to clamber up the ladder at the head of the bunk.
He giggled, delighted with his accomplishment, though Kris was only too relieved he had escaped unscathed. She'd take ladders away the next time she slept here.
"Hey, love, you don't know how to climb ladders yet," she said, alternating between being frightened at the risk he had taken and proud that he had tried.
"Ahh, Mummy."
Kris threw back the blanket, jumped lightly to the ground and held up her hands for him. Quick as could be and without a moment's hesitation, he flung himself down at her, giggling when she caught him neatly. Ssssh-ing him, they left the sleeping room. Two beds were still occupied.
Zane was in great form and, as it was snack time, they went hand in hand to the dining room, which was crowded with others. With such long days, four or five meals were frequently offered. A hearty breakfast, a mid morning sandwich, a three-course dinner midday, a midafternoon fruit and sandwich, and then a good supper. Late-night snacks were leftovers of bread, cake, and sandwiches, whatever needed to be eaten up and usually was. The herbal tea and, with spring now leading into summer, fruit juices were available all day long. Caterers worked in several short shifts but nevertheless worked a twelve-hour day. Food preparation was as often as not a punishment detail for minor infractions of colony laws, but everyone took a turn at those chores. The big difference here on the new land was that the food didn't also have to be picked, dug, fished, or gutted: other working groups had already processed it for cooking.
On the northern wall of the dining room were the listings of jobs and rotas so that there was no excuse for anyone to miss assignments. Diners customarily checked before or after they ate to see what their duties were for the next day or the next week.
Zainal was listed as working with ex-Admiral Ray Scott, Bull Fetterman, Bert Put, John Beverly, Chuck Mitford, Jim Rastancil, Salvinato, Gino Marrucci, Raisha Simonova, Boris Slavinkovin, Hassan Moussa, Laughrey, Ayckburn, Peter Easley, and Worrell. These week-long meetings were scheduled at the hangar. Considering that most of these men were ex-service of one country or another, Kris had no problem figuring out that Zainal was probably talking up his master plan. Whether the others would go for it or not was debatable. Certainly there were significant absences from that list, such as the odious Geoffrey Ainger, the Brit naval commander, Beggs, who had been Scott's gopher, and Sev Balenquah, who had so nearly blown their disguises on their sneak trip back to Barevi to obtain the supplies which were making all the difference in the efficiency and productivity of the colony.
And if all those with experience in flying the Catteni craft, including Raisha, were there, she wondered just what escapade was being planned.
SHE AND ZANE HAD THEIR SNACK, a hot rolled sandwich with a sort of sausagey filling, the constituents of which she did not wish to know but the result tasted good. Zane licked his fingers so hungrily that she found a small extra one to give him.
"We've our garden to tend now, love," she said, and he hopped and skipped alongside her as they returned to their cabin. She got out the hoe and his little weeder prong and they finished that chore by the time they saw Zainal being dropped off from the flatbed, still occupied by those living farther up the way to the main administrative area.
"Daddy, daddy!" And Zane made a wobbly beeline to his father who heaved him up so high that Kris caught her breath, even though she knew perfectly well that Zainal would never drop the boy.
"And what might I ask are you and all the high, low, and middle brass doing at the hangar these days?"
"Heard one of your old girls remembered who she is," he replied.
"Ah, how good the gossip system is here;' she said drolly. "First, please, the answer to my question?"
"Those who played... doggo?" and Zainal's yellow eyes twinkled as he
looked for confirmation on his use of the slang, "knew a lot more than
they thought they did:'
"That's good. About what did they know more?"
"I believe Scott calls it 'the state of the nation.""
"And?"
"We're mounting an expedition." He did not meet her gaze, but threw the delightedly squealing Zane up in the air again.
"Soon?"
"Quite likely."
"Who all's going?"
"That's what's taking so long to decide," and Zainal gave a heavy sigh.
"Just think how much more time that gives you, my dear, to learn how to operate computers."
"That is the only reason you find me in such good fettle."
Kris burst out laughing. Zainal knew just how to get her into a good mood... proving that he'd mastered yet another Terran expression.
"Can we eat here tonight? Kurt Langsa---well, however you pronounce the rest of his long name---said he would come?"
He had Zane safely ensconced on his shoulders now and pulled her against
him, kissing her cheek. "I read nine books during the talking," and he
wrinkled his nose. "I need someone who uses computers all the time to
show me what the manual says. It uses words I know but not the same
way;'
"I know exactly what you mean, Zainal. I'll go get some food from the Hall."
"No, Kurt brings. I would like you to go over the words I have learned so that I pronounce them correctly. The spelling is always different and yet the words sound alike." He sighed now in exasperation.
"I don't imagine it's any consolation to you, Zay, but we had to learn, too, as kids."
"In Catteni, the sound is always the same..."
"If you're accustomed to gargling, yes, they would be," Kris agreed affably, remembering how hoarse she had been when she'd had to talk to the Catteni scout ship before they captured it. "I do speak some Catteni," she added, slyly glancing at him. "More Barevi."
He gave her a sideways look, so that she couldn't really see the expression in his eyes.
"That is known," he said at his blandest. "But you must learn to understand more."
"When do the classes start?" she asked in an equally bland tone, determined to find out.
"Soon."
"Ah, then let us continue teaching you antonyms."
Hane was busy in his play corner with the blocks and the miniature vehicles that Zainal had fashioned for him. He was mimicking the solar panel hum as he played, oblivious now to the adults.
She had no sooner reached for the list than there was a knock on the door, and Zainal called out "Enter!"
Kurt Langsteiner peered cautiously around the door, a thin-faced man with an expression of perpetual anxiety. He smiled, which altered his face considerably to a pleasant appearance, and stepped inside, carefully closing the door with one foot as both hands were full.
"Name plates would help," he said. "This is the third house I've tried in your neck of the woods."
"Let me help," Kris said, rising to take the basket from one hand. She immediately exclaimed with real pleasure at the three long loaves of bread that stuck out around the stew pot. "Rocksquat..."
"What else?" Kurt said with a droll laugh, "but they put some salad in as well and something for young Zane." He stepped up to the table now and placed on its surface the six large bottles of beer that had been tied at the neck and clanked against each other.
"Remnant of my student days when I found that beer made the studying go more easily." He put the bottles down, and he shook his creased fingers to circulate blood to them.
First Kris brought three glasses to the table. They were still sort of odd shaped, with uneven blemishes from the not-quite-expert glass blowers. In fact, some said that the glasses, with their slightly skewed sides, looked half-drunk. A new guideline had been formulated: if a drinker was asked if his glass was straight and he answered "yes," you had proof he had had more than enough to drink. She was setting out plates and utensils as Kurt started pulling out notepads and books from the various pockets of his ship suit. It still looked new, by which Kris figured he must have been in the Sixth Drop. She didn't know that group of arrivals as well as she did those from the other five.
"What is the worst trouble you're having, Zainal?" Kurt asked as he made an orderly pile of his materials.
"It is the words that sound the same that are not the same," Zainal said with considerable asperity.
"Quite understandably. They're bitches to get right at any age." Then he turned to Kris. "I used to teach computer in junior high school before I got rounded up so Mitford thought I'd be the best candidate to do both jobs on Zainal," Kurt said to her as he organized his teaching materials on the table. "And Zainal here," and Kurt nodded at him, "said he'd teach me how to read and write Catteni."
Now Zainal grinned at Kris and pointed to the third chair. "You will learn, too."
Obediently Kris settled down. Leave it to Zainal to throw her a real curve ball. Oh, well, she had only herself to blame.
"You learn a lot better on an full stomach . . . and it gives you a base for the beer. Zane, please wash your hands for dinner," she said, using hot pads to lift the stew kettle to the table.
The three males obediently went to wash their hands as she finished setting the table. Kurt must be well liked by the caterers for a whole cake had been carefully tied between two baking tins to keep it from being damaged by the hot stew pot. And so had a good portion of salad greens, though the heat from the stew had wilted some of them.
THEY MADE A GOOD MEAL, with Zainal beginning his part of the teaching bargain by using the Catteni words for everything on the table.
Even Zane tried to repeat them, giggling as easily at his own mistakes as at his mother's but had the good sense to cover his mouth when Kurt had trouble. Though Langsteiner certainly seemed to get the guttural sounds more easily.
"German was my first language," he said in an aside to Kris.
"You'd never know it to hear you speak English," she replied.
"My parents spoke both," he explained.
"We really should make Zane learn Catteni, too," Kris said, leaning toward Zainal.
"And Rugarian and Deski," Zainal said at his blandest.
"Them, as well, of course," was her quick, equally bland response, and Kurt laughed.
"And what a hodgepodge they'll all be speaking," he said.
"It will be helpful," Zainal said, "when we free Rugar and Deski, too."
Kurt's eyes bulged at that, and he looked quickly at Kris to see her reaction.
"Why settle for freeing just ours?" she said with a diffident shrug though this was the first she'd known of that facet of Zainal's master plans.
"Besides, Zane already speaks some Rugarian and Deski at day care."
"Really?" Kurt was startled.
"Gets a bit like the Tower of Babel in there some days," Kris said, dipping the ladle into the stew pot to offer second helpings. The pot had been graciously full.
They all had two pieces of the excellent nutty-flavored cake that had a topping of thick sweet blue-colored berries that did not at all taste like blueberries, nor had similar seeds.
As was often the case with young Zane, he was ready to go to sleep with his stomach nicely full so Kris prepared him for bed while the two men cleared the table. When she returned, she rather thought the humorous glint in Kurt's eyes was for the accustomed manner in which the Catteni had performed the KP duties.
The beer helped a great deal as the two Humans struggled with the guttural, harsh Catteni words, first jotting them down phonetically and then in the Catteni script. This was a cross between runes, Kurt's definition, and glyphs, which was Kris' notion. By the time the beer had run out, the two of them knew how to count to five hundred in Catteni, and Zainal could now spell all the words that had bothered him as well as understand all the computer abbreviations which had so baffled him. They set a time for the next lesson, and then Kurt got into the runabout and made a slow but competent turn to head back to the main settlement.
SINCE THE MIND-PROBE had discovered very little useful information -apart from some shady dealings among the former administrators and administrations of the planet's political divisions---the Ix had abandoned the project: bored even by the occasional scientific theories that had yet to be proven. Most of these were already in use by the Eosi: and far more sophisticated usage than the silly Humans had ever thought to employ.
Unfortunately the obsession to destroy those protected by the Bubble had become so entrenched in the Ix Mentat's mind that it thought of nothing but the means to do so. Where the Bubble had come from and what comprised the amazingly invulnerable material was almost a secondary consideration.
The Juniors---which was not how they were called in Catteni but the translation was close enough to their actual position and authority within the Eosi context had repeatedly tried to divert the Ix with other matters. Lest the Ix be provoked by their counter-arguments into another seizure, they had no choice but to proceed with the Mentat's latest plans: to organize the greatest force the Eosi had ever assembled, even larger than the one with which they had assaulted a planet that many High Emassi wished they'd left strictly alone. But it had seemed such a useful place: with a population density that would provide other, less desirable locations with an endless supply of workers needed to produce and refine the raw materials that kept Catteni ships in space. There was also the added fact that the Eosi were committed to extending their control of this arm of the galaxy as far as they could---and as fast as they could.
So the orders were sent out to the naval shipyards and the plants and planets that produced the materials needed to build more AA-ships, and devise heavier, more devastating missiles to launch at this mysterious Bubble.
The Ix Mentat was approached by one of its peers and tactfully asked why one small, insignificant world was its target.
"Because it's there," the Ix replied, glowering and seething with rage.
"Defiance is not permitted," the Le Mentat agreed and that was the end of that.
Chapter Three.
MARGE BECAME MORE VOCAL BUT struggled painfully for sentences or words and would often burst into tears. Peggy would watch her, lean over, and pat her shoulder or her hand, then immediately go into what Kris called her "meditative" state.
When discussing her charges with Dorothy, the psychologist advised her to suggest words, if she could, to Marge or show pictures. Peggy was obviously aware of what was happening about her, and that was a very good sign.
"Miss Barrow," and Dorothy gave the mischievous smile that made her seem much younger, "wants to take charge of our laboratory.
She is naturally appalled at its primitive facilities and amazed that we aren't all down with something fatal. Leon, Thor, and the others need her skills so much that they're willing to put up with her . . . disorientation:' Dorothy sighed.
"Miss Barrow will not be pleased when she accepts that she's on another planet entirely and will never get more than the equipment we have."
"I wouldn't bet on that, Dorothy," Kris said with a grin.
"What do you know that they haven't told me?" Dorothy asked, eyeing Kris with mock annoyance.
"I'm not sure they've told me any more than you will have heard, too.
Like they are going to try to get back to Earth.
the psychologist asked in a wistful tone, then added more briskly, "I am encouraged, though. We're getting almost daily breakthroughs now. Though how we'll fit some of these people into Botany I haven't a clue. I mean, an as-trophysicist who was on the Hubble team and a meteorologist when the weather here is already controlled-Do we even have a clue how that's done?"
"Zainal thinks that huge square block we discovered on the seashore has something to do with it. There are four others in sort of a pattern."
"We've a lot of studying to do first," Kris said and rose, not wanting to spread more gossip, even to someone as discreet as Dorothy was, professionally or personally.
KRIS FOUND HER NAME up on the roster board for a late afternoon meeting with the Central Council. She checked in with the day care to be sure that the day's manager knew that she wouldn't be in to collect Zane at the usual hour. Sarah McDouall had already been informed. Zane did not notice his mother, since he was involved in some complicated game with Fek's child and two Rugarians whom Kris didn't know. The Rugarian babies were born with as much body fur as their parents, and it really was difficult for humans to tell them apart without going through the list of names until the yaya (which was Rugarian for the unadult) answered to the right one. A Deski young one was called a slib. Some of them were easier to identify since their skin had different tones.
Zainal caught up with her in the dining hall where they were both eating a quick meal.
"What's this all about then?" she asked him.
"Plans have been made. Discussion now."
She knew him well enough to know that she would get no more out of him. Then she noticed Miss Barrow threading her way to an empty table. She wore a look of disdain, as if wrapping herself carefully away from the reality of an ambience she could not escape. Unlike everyone else garbed in the ubiquitous ship suit, she wore a dress, severely cut, in one of the dark greens, which Kris had brought back from her excursion to the markets of Barevi. The dress was long-sleeved and buttoned up to a high collar, with a hemline at calf-length. To Kris' astonishment, Miss Barrow did incline her head graciously as she registered Kris' presence, but she straightened into consummate distaste as she recognized that Kris was seated with a Catteni. She turned her face haughtily away.
"Poor woman," Kris said, shaking her head.
"Why?
She was saved the mines."
"One day, she'll find out. I hope," Kris added as an afterthought, "the notion that she is beholden to you doesn't throw her."
"She is good in lab, they say," Zainal remarked. "So she is. We'd better go."
Kris saw the biggest of the flatbed vehicles draw up to the dining hall and heard it toot its horn. Half the diners immediately made their way to the door and climbed on the transport.
THEY WERE DELIVERED tO the immense main hangar where the scout ship and the two transports lurked in the shadows cast by the one work light left on in their area. Not for the first time, Kris wondered what the Farmers had used this vast area for, so neatly carved from the mountainside.
In the center of some of the unused space, chairs and benches had been set up, facing five large mounted slates that were still the best Botany solution for large displays. She could see that one held the diagram of this system and another of Earth. The other two were probably the systems in which the Barevi planet and the home planet of the Catteni were situated.
The fifth held lists and names.
So, thought Kris with a surge of anticipation, we are moving outside again.
There was a table to one side of the slates with chairs crowding around it. Judge Iri Bempechat was seated in the center and was obviously the moderator for the meeting. Kris liked the old man enormously for his wit, his humor, and his vast store of judicial wisdom. So far no one had contested any of his decisions and she hoped the situation would remain that way. On his right was Ray Scott, on his left two men who were vaguely familiar to her: they also had the gaunt look of Victims despite two weeks of restorative treatment and therapy. Even those who had played "doggo" showed the effects of their incarceration in the brutal open pens where the Eosi had contained them. Dorothy Dwardie sat beyond those two men. The rest of the Council, from Chuck Mitford to Leon Dane, occupied the other spaces. Raisha and Gino sat together, trying to look unconcerned and anonymous at the end of the right side.
Two seats were still unoccupied and, as Kris and Zainal entered, he gave his head a slight tilt toward the table, indicating those chairs were for them.
Kris was quite glad to join him there. That gave her a chance to see who else had been invited. Mostly those who were technically skilled in one way or another, including Dick Aarens, and a great many of those who had been in the Fifth and Sixth Drops.
Well, she thought, we won't have to contend with Anna Bollinger and Janet.
Ray stood up and whatever private conversations had been going ceased.
"Zainal has proposed several plans of action since we cannot be sure that the Farmers will answer our latest message to them, nor when. We've been fortunate enough to have the latest information of Earth from those we rescued from the Barevi slave pens. Zainal?" Ray sat down and Zainal stood, going to the slates.
"First, we need to know who or what is watching Botany outside the Bubble," he said. "This is the point where the Eosi tried to ram their way in:' Someone had drawn in cartoons of the debris. "They left enough behind so that I believe the scout ship can poke her nose outside the Bubble and have a look."
"What about the geosynchronous satellite up there?" Aarens asked, jumping to his feet to forestall the others who more politely raised their hands to signify that they had a query.
"It may or may not be able to see the scout's nose among the rubble," Zainal said, "but by the time the report is sent back, Baby will no longer be there. The records will show only what has been seen before. Unless the film is sent to a very high-ranking Eosi, it will be considered what you call a glitch. In order to get out of the Bubble, we need to calculate the speed and direction of the new satellite that the Eosi have put in place. We can then figure out where to leave the Bubble without being detected."
"Yeah," Aarens said in a dubious tone of voice, "but that sat would see the scout's ion trail, wouldn't it?"
"Not if the speed of the scout is sufficient to get it behind one of the moons. Its direction would be unknown."
"What about if there's a fast ship just waiting for us to try something like that?"
"There are ways," Zainal said with a grin. "That scout is much faster than anything but another scout. Such ships are never used as watchers."
Aarens shrugged and sat down.
"That is the first step," Zainal said.
"If you're going back to Barevi, I've a long shopping list," someone said and received a chuckle.
"No, Barevi would be too hot for us right now," Zainal said. "We go to Earth and we use two ships; the scout and the KDM which will renamed and altered to look as if it had been hit by space... stuff."
"That metal'll be hard to dent," Gino said, shaking his head. "You Catteni make a good hull."
"It'll be camouflaged;' Hassan Moussa said and grinned. "I'm a past master at that."
"But going back to Earth?" Aarens asked, stunned.
"Last place they will expect us." And Zainal turned to one of the Victims who nodded agreement. "Ricky Farmer here was senior air controller for O'Hare airport while there was still Human air traffic. When all your planes were grounded and he was victimized, he took notes on Catteni routes and procedures. He has code words---though his Catteni is about what my English once was;' and that rated some chuckles from the audience, "and these will help us get into some of the landing places now used by Catteni transport ships. I understand from Jeff Fawcett," and he gestured to the other Victim, "that large amusement areas have been built around the landing sites for the crews. These would be useful places for us to find out more information."
Lenny Doyle said.
"We also intend to..." and Zainal had the merest smile on his lips, "invade Catten."
That provoked a widespread eruption from the audience, more an elated one than fearful, although quite a few faces bore skeptical expressions.
"Hey, ain't that pushing our luck?" Lenny Doyle asked, raising his voice to be heard above the babel.
"Only volunteers," Zainal said with a sly grin. "And mostly to learn
what would be impossible to learn on your planet. More codes are needed
and Catten is the only place to go for that;'
Kris waited for someone to ask what was so obvious to her: if Zainal was going to contact Catteni dissidents. She didn't know how many people on Botany---besides Chuck Mitford---knew anything about that facet of his grand scheme. Surely Zainal would have confided in Ray his hopes that he could muster assistance on his home planet to help overthrow the Eosi.
"We got to have information we can't get any other way," Ray Scott put in. Kris heaved a small sigh of relief. Ray did know and seemingly ap"We're also going to ask for volunteers to remain on Earth and con-the resistance groups."
"I don't know all of them;' Jeff Fawcett said in a voice still hoarse from . recent ordeal. "But enough for us to get the word spread.
"Jeff's also going to need a volunteer to go with him;' Scott said, '
from the First or Second Drops.. ;'
The number of hands that shot into the air gave Kris a thrill of pride.
most eager had jumped t°their feet, to establish their willingness: Joe Latore, both the Doyle brothers, Mack Dargle, Bart Lincoln, Matt Su, and / Areson were those she recognized first in the show of hands.
"Thank you very much;' Zainal said.
Granfyng, most graufymg, Ray satd, holding up his hand, too, as did all the other military men seated at the table. "More than the ships can ?hold."
"Some must speak and understand Catten," Zainal said.
"We're learning;' quipped someone.
"You will learn harder;' Zainal said with a wry expression.
"What about the Farmers?" Jay Greene asked when the laughter at (that threat died. "Shouldn't we wait for their response? And their advice?"
"No, the time to move is now;' Scott said.
Zainal stood. "The Eosi will try very hard to break through the Bubble.
That is their way. Run shod roughly over any opposition with the force
ii of their weapons. We must leave before they reinforce their
warships. They have many:'
"But they haven't been able to penetrate the Bubble, and we know they've tried;' Jay said.
"They will keep trying until they have;' Zainal said. "That is why they tried to discover new information in the minds of your specialists)'
Dick Aarens jumped to his feet, his expression angry and obstinate.
"And what happens to those of us left here when they do break through the Bubble? Have you contingency plans for that---if you're taking all three ships away with you?"
"We move quickly and not where they expect us to go and learn what they plan and how to . . ." Zainal looked down at Kris for the word he needed.
"Counteract;' she murmured.
"Counteract their plans."
"We're still fleas on a dog's back/' Jay said, "with all the ships you said they have. I was talking to Rick Farmer, and he says they've got hundreds in their navy. What if they use all of them against the Bubble?"
Judge Iri Bempechat raised his hand and was given precedence over others who wanted to add their comments.
"Zainal, such a fleet is widely dispersed, is it not?" And when Zainal
nodded, the Judge went on, still looking at Zainal, "and it would take
weeks, even months, to direct them all here. So we have some leeway if
we make our moves quickly. Admiral Scott believes that they would try
to install a battery on the moons that are outside the Bubble. To do
so, they must bring in machinery, material---and life support systems for
whichever unfortunate species is drafted for such an undertaking. I am
also of the opinion, with which our military and naval representatives
concur/' and, with one hand on his chest, he bowed his head to the right
and left, "that the Farmers must have placed some sort of sentinel to
monitor our protective Bubble. They made it clear, in that one
regrettably short interview with various groups of us, that they intend
to preserve us. I believed in their sincerity as well as their interest
in us... even if it should be the interest of a scientist watching ants
to see how they contrive---"
"Now, wait a bloody minute..." and Geoffrey Ainger jumped to his feet. Kris had not noticed him, seated at the back, and wasn't happy at his presence. "What is all this going to do for us? Except put the colony in more danger? Simply because one.. ;' and his pause was pregnant with his distrust and animosity toward Zainal, "... person wants to pursue a private revenge?"
"First duty of a captured soldier... sir.. ;' and it was a stern Mitford whose parade ground voice dominated the shouted reactions from an angry audience, "is to do his best to escape and return to his unit. Mine is on Earth. And if Zainal wants to see his people freed of the Eosian domination, we sure as hell do, too, cause it means we'll get out from under 'era.
That speech set the cat among the pigeons, Kris thought, struggling to keep from cheering. Or maybe the night crawlers after live meat.
Ray Scott, with help from Peter Easley and udge Bempechat, finally restored enough order to continue the meeting. Easley had been discreetly seated to one side where Kris had not noticed him. Not too far, as it turned out, from Ainger. Not far either from Beggs, whom she saw sitting by the British ex-naval officer. Had Pete sat there to keep an eye on those dissidents?
Quite likely, she thought.
"You gave me the impression, sergeant, that you had no wish to leave Botany now;' Ainger could put a wealth of venom in a seemingly casual comment.
"I don't, but I'll do a great deal to preserve what we all have made here.
So I can enjoy what I've---we've---worked so hard to achieve." Satisfied with the applause to his answer, Chuck sat down again.
"There are risks," Ray said, once more taking charge of the proceedings.
"Most of you can figure them out without much help but, if our people on Earth knew that there was an organized space resistance to the Cat I mean, the Eosian overlords---it would give them heart and purpose against the tremendous odds they've had to deal with. Especially if we can also prove that we've rescued the ones the Eosi were brain-wiping."
"Speaking of tremendous odds, admiralre" And Ainger was again on his feet. "Just how large a fleet exists? That's pertinent even if getting the entire naval arm of the Catteni here would take time:' He looked directly at Zainal for the answer.
"Some of the oldest ships in service are slow and their equipment obsolete;' Zainal replied. "There are only four of heavy---new in service dreadnoughts, did you call them, Ray---" And when Scott nodded, he went on, "that much information Admiral Scott and I learned on Barevi. Until just recently spaceship builders have been concentrating on producing ships like the KDL and KDM, to replace those no longer spaceworthy, like the first ship we attacked."
"So what sort of ships and weaponry do they have to bombard those of us left behind on Botany?" Ainger asked.
Boy, thought Kris, that Ainger has a bad negative attitude.
"Only the four of the dreadnoughts but there are . . . ships of the line... which are able to destroy satellites, small moons, and large asteroids.
To my knowledge, which is now not up to date, there are thirty of them.
They are assault vessels, which supported the kind of large transport
that landed on your planet. They are larger than the two K-class we
have here;'
Ray Scott leaned over the table toward Ainger. "Zainal has given us a
list of the types of spacecraft used by the... urn... navy. We've
also been able to get a fair translation of the data from the scout
ship, so we have useful details about range, crew complement, firepower,
and maneuverability of all types, except the dreadnoughts, which are so
new. You are certainly welcome to peruse the data at your leisure:'
Ainger waved away that offer with a flick of his fingers. "Those of us remaining on Botany are going to be vulnerable..."
"Only if the Bubble fails," Ray Scott said in a testy tone, "which seems unlikely, given the advanced technology of the Farmers which is so upsetting the Eosi." Then he deliberately looked away from Ainger. "So we have three expeditions to mount: first, a reconnaissance at the Bubble edge; second, sending off both the scout and one transport to Earth to see what---" he grinned "---trouble we can cause there and how we can help the resistance movements; and third, an information-gathering jaunt to Catten. I think that has to be under your command, Zainal," and he nodded in his direction, "with your choice of crew but we'll accept volunteers for both expeditions."
Zainal stood. "A full crew." Then he pointed at individuals. "Gino, Raisha, Bert, Laughrey, Boris, and Hassan. Those only who speak good Catteni and are the right size will come with me;' and his eyes flickered briefly at Kris.
"We feel we should pack the Earth expedition with as many infiltra tots as possible;' Ray said and had to raise his hand to finish his sentence when most of his listeners rose and shouted out their names, "to spread the good word."
"What if there're some traitors among us?" Dick Aarens asked.
Ray Scott gave the mechanic a long incredulous look. "How many do you think there could be?"
There were smothered giggles, and Dick Aarens swung about, trying to find the sources.
"Well, there might be," he muttered with sullen aggressiveness.
"Particularly on the last drop---and even among the Victims. One of them
might have been lying 'doggo' for very good reasons. He kept his
brairgtwhile others got them wiped:'
"Now, just a cotton-pickin' minute." Will Seissmann was on his feet, shaking a fist at Aarens across the audience.
"Young man.. :' began Miss Barrow who was red-faced with indignation.
Dr. Ansible was so apoplectic at the mere suggestion that he had to be restrained from diving across two rows of seats to Aarens.
"I'd retract that, were I you," Peter Easley said.
"I won't because it damned well is a possibility;' Aarens said, jutting his jaw out as if asking for a punch which would have many willing to oblige him.
Dorothy Dwardie jumped up. "In my professional opinion, Mr. aarens, there is little possibility of treachery among those who suffered, or even avoided, the Eosi mindwipe. We have had trauma counseling sessions which would have exposed a quisling."
Which, Kris devoutly hoped, was accurate. But the suspicion had been raised and would hang there, a dark doubt in everyone's mind: even among those who had learned a great deal about each other in the years they had worked together on Botany.
Another of the psychology team, Ben Boyalan, rose. "We may have neither a lie detector nor any sodium pentathol but there are ways of testing responses. That is, if anyone feels such a procedure is at all necessary above and beyond our trauma counseling." He gave Aarens a dire look before he sat down.
"I won't close what has been a very constructive meeting on that kind of sour note," Ray Scott said. He was not the only one scowling in Aarens' direction. "I will summarize what we," and he indicated the others at the table, "have been planning, and why there is some urgency in the scout making a reconnaissance run. We do take Zainal's advice that Earth would be the last place the Eosi would look for us to appear," and he grinned, "and the best place for us to set in motion a coup d%tat. If Zainal is willing to risk his life returning to Catten for the information he considers vital to our ultimate goal of freedom from the Eosian domination, then I wish him all the luck he'll need and the support of everyone on this planet. We all have many reasons to be grateful he was on that first drop. Don't we?"
The spontaneous cheering, and the warmth of it, brought tears to Kris' eyes. She never would have expected that sort of public gratitude...
especially from Ray Scott who had not always agreed with Zainal. The applause and stamping continued for so long that she gave him a nudge to stand and acknowledge it. He did so, with typical diffidence, but his wave of acceptance took in the entire audience and became a formal salute to Ray Scott.
That was when Kris noticed the very satisfied grin on Iri Bempechat's face. Chuck looked suspiciously bland, one eyebrow twitching while he played with his pencil, slipping it up and down through the fingers of his right hand, a sure sign of complicity. And suddenly Aarens' niggling little suggestion was only Aarens tossing a spanner in works that didn't happen to include his participation.
THE VEry¥ NEXT DAY, the designated pilots climbed into Baby, the scout ship, and took off for the peek out of the Bubble's remarkable material.
They drew straws for takeoff and landing and the other in-flight duties since this was also a training mission.
The official mission directors took places in Ray Scott's office, grouping around the bridge console, which had been taken from the crash-landed transport that had made the Fifth Drop. So those in Scott's office would have a chance to see what Baby did and saw. Someone had thought to rig speakers outside the hangar so that the many that wouldn't find places in the office could at least hear what was going on.
"On site," Raisha said, her voice ringing with suppressed excitement.
"Still the same space flot. Can't see that any of it has moved a centimeter.
Gino's easing Baby's nose in between two of the largest of the disks the Eosi vessel left behind." She chuckled.
"Good choice," Ray said, grinning. "The geosynchronous satellite might not even notice we're looking out."
"Hold it right here;' and there was such a change in Raisha's tone that everyone tensed. "How big did Zainal say the Catteni fleet arm is?"
Apprehensively, Ray looked toward Zainal. The Catten/immediately leaned over the speaker grill.
"How many do you see?" he asked as calmly as if he was asking how many rock squats were visible.
"Two of those dreadnoughts, I think. We're not entirely outside the Bubble yet but the skin is transparent and we can see out." What she didn't add, "and I hope they can't see in," hovered unsaid but understood.
Kris felt goosebumps rising on her arms and rubbed them away.
"There are also three flotillas of other smaller craft," and Hassan
Moussa took over the reporting, "five in each group, beside and above
the two big guys you can probably see on the bridge monitor;'
"Yes, we see them. Are they the dreadnoughts, Zainal?" Ray asked, beckoning for Zainal to stand beside him.
Zainal nodded. "What else?"
"Wouldn't they be enough?" Jim Rastancil asked facetiously.
Zainal shrugged.
"Hey, we've got other junk in the sky," Hassan continued. "Shall I widen the screen?"
"Yes, please," Zainal said, crossing his arms on his chest, the picture of objective observer.
"It's the dreadnoughts I worry about," Ray said, rubbing his chin nervously.
"What other ships are there, Hassan?" Zainal asked blandly.
"Bulky cargo type carriers and one transport larger than the KDL or KDM.
Heading toward the nearer moon."
Ray looked at Zainal. "You were right about the moon base. What sort of air-to-ground missiles would they have? Something heavy enough to penetrate the Bubble?"
"Stay where you are, Gino//' Zainal cautioned. "I do not know, Ray.
Eosian weapons are powerful but the Bubble is an unknown quantity."
"Baby has not fully penetrated the Bubble/' Gino said. "Hassans just telling you what we can see through it."
There was a sudden flash of blinding whiteness, which stunned everyone watching, causing them to have retinal flashbacks. It took several seconds before clear vision was restored to those in the office.
"I do believe they're trying to breach the Bubble/' said Hassan after a moment, and he sounded highly amused.
"Them/' Hassan replied. "Quite likely with every weapon on board."
"I'd say they fired all forward weapons/' Laughrey said, "although that flash was so strong, I don't think any of us are seeing more than the damned flash. Baby evidently saved us the worst of it with some sort of instant screen:' Zainal nodded.
"Any pain in your eyes? Headache?" Leon Dane asked, present in his capacity as a physician.
"Do you have a clearer idea of what happened down there?" Zainal asked.
"We got the flash right on//' Ray said, blinking furiously, "but I'm seeing all right..." He looked around for confirmation from the others and everyone nodded.
"Us, too/' Laughrey said, "even with lots of retinal echoes, all shaped like Baby's forward screen. Yeah, and hey, nothing got through the Bubble to us."
"All systems functioning perfectly," Raisha said, calm again.
"And whaddaya know?" Gino's tone was jubilant. "There isn't a ship out there---'cept the one heading toward the Moon, which is in the same place they were before they fired."
"Some of the smaller ones are tumbling end over end//' said Bert Put.
"That was some backlash! Shake 'em up good."
"I don't think they'll try that kind of a broadside again real soon//' Boris said in his deep bass voice, rippling with laughter.
"They've lost a whole mess of gear again, too//' G/no said. "I doubt they've even reception from the nearer ships."
"Could they have fired because they saw Baby?" Ray asked anxiously."
"No. We put the brakes on the moment Raisha spoke. The fo'ard screen was right against the Bubble film but we hadn't penetrated it//' Gino said.
"You might say our timing was serendipitous//' Laughrey said, chuckling.
"Can you pick up the newest Eosi orbital satellite?" Ray said, reminding them of the second purpose of their flight.
"On screen//' Boris said. "Tracking and recording. It is not as fast as the Farmers' orbital. In fact, it is as slow as a horse-drawn vehicle compared to a Formula One racer."
"Really?" Jim Rastancil said.
Kris made a note to herself to tell Boris what a lovely comparison that was. And very reassuring. She turned to Zainal and saw that he was grinning, even if he couldn't possibly know anything about Formula One racers.
She'd told him about horses. But Formula racing had not yet come up in any of their conversations.
Now Zainal was nodding. "As soon as we know its trajectory and timing,
the scout and the KDM must leave. They will take a while to get
ship-to-ship communications back on-line, and then it will take the Eosi
time to calm down at this defeat of their weapons. They will be so
angry, they could argue for days before they come to a decision about
what to do next:'
"What about the moon base?" Ray asked.
Zainal shrugged. "That will take many weeks, months even, before it is finished. They may not even know we can get out when we want to."
"But we landed on Barevi and stole a ship." Ray said by way of reminder.
"They do not know that those ships are in here now."
"How stupid are these Eosi?" Bull Fetterman asked, his eyebrows raised high in surprise.
"You might be surprised," Zainal said.
"Then how long will it take to provision and crew the scout and the KDM?" John Beverly asked, speaking for the first time.
"How long is the trip to Earth?" Chuck asked Zainal.
"At top speed, about ten of your days," Zainal said.
"Didn't think it was that close/' remarked Beverly.
"From here it is. From Barevi it is longer."
"I'd say we can provision, water, do a quick service in about three days;' Chuck said.
"Do it in one and a half," Zainal said. "Sooner is better than later."
"Okay, gang, let's do it/' Chuck said, clapping his hands as a signal to move out. He got to the door of Ray's office, stopped, turned, and asked, "So who's going?"
Ray Scott was pulling a file to the center of his desk. 'I'll tell you by the end of dinner. All right, now, where's that provisional list we made up?"
DINNER THAT NIGHT was more of a feast than a normal repast and there were loud calls for the evening's cooks to come out and take a bow.
Dowdall stood on his table and announced a call for volunteers to hunt enough rocksquat and catch enough fish to provision the ships with "edible" food, not that Catteni issue.
"Dorothy warned me that there're a lot of scarce items on Earth. The Catteni take almost everything that's produced," he said with a very sober expression.
"Hey, Dow, we still got crates of the Catteni bars," Joe Latore said.
"They don't taste like much... unless you're real hungry."
"There are so many hungry people;' Dr. Ansible said in a sad tone, but loud enough for many to hear.
Sandy Areson leaped atop her chair. "We got lots here we can send along. Botanical care packages. Any volunteers?"
"We can let all the kids sleep in the center tonight," Patti Sue Greene shouted. "They'd love that and I'll volunteer me..."
"You'll need more than yourself/' Mavis Belton said.
"I will be glad to assist Patti Sue/' Anna Bollinger said and prodded Janet beside her who nodded quickly but without much enthusiasm.
Zane! Kris had to cover her mouth with one hand. What if she never came back from Catten? Never saw Zane again . . . Then she felt a hand squeeze her shoulder and looked up into Peter Easley's eyes. He nodded his head once and smiled reassuringly. Kris sniffed, patted his hand, and sniffed again. No, Zane would be fine.
She was going on the Catten mission with Zainal and he had not yet set an established dep.rture time. There had to be dings painted into the KDM: he had to do a little fixing with the recognition beacon, so that it gave only so much of the normal patterning before jamming. That would also verify the damage it had suffered. There were uniforms to be fixed: hair to be dyed gray, and the yellow contact lenses to be fitted so that this group would look more Catteni than what was called the first Botany expedition to Barevi had. Sandy Areson had fixed up cheek pads for Zainal and several rather nasty-looking scars that could be glued on his face---she instructed Kris on the process. These would sufficiently alter his appearance and would also explain the persona he was adopting for the expedition.
Sandy gave Kris small cheek pads that gave her more of a rounder, Catteni-shaped face. For Chuck she had yet another wad, in between his gums and teeth. Subtle enough but effective in altering appearances.
They'd spend the longish journey to Catten learning as much of the language as they could cram into their skulls... as well as the drills that would mark them as Drassi. Coo and Pess would also be in the crew:
Rugarians often accompanied transport crews because of their strength. There were always Rugarians on Catten as well. Coo and Pess might even be able to discover as much information from their species as Zainal could.
When dinner---and the accolades to the cooks---was completed, Ray Scott climbed to the top of a cleared table and read out the names of the crews for each ship. At the end there were more cheers than long faces.
"If this first run works;' Ray said, "we'll make as many as we can and
save as many who may be at risk as possible;'
That met with a rousing cheer, foot stamping, and hand clapping.
"Can we handle more?" someone shouted.
"Don't be silly," a woman replied contemptuously. "We've got plenty of space."
"We'll find out," Ray said, waving down others who wanted to discuss that issue. "We've got people from quite a few nationalities so we can make good contacts everywhere."
"Any specialist is at risk," NormaBarrow surprised everyone by saying in a firm and unusually loud voice which defied contradiction.
"And no quisling accepted," a man said from somewhere in the dining hall.
Aarens whirled about trying to find who had spoken.
"Cool it, Aarens;' Ray Scott said. "It's not as if the Eosi have
coerced many humans. At least I hope not:'
"I'll find me a lie detector and some sodium pent," Leon Dane said.
"We'll process anyone we think might be suspicious. And long before they find out we've got our own transport/' he added with a grin. He was going along as mission medic and to see what medical supplies he could acquire.
He was hoping that not every one of his dissident friends in Sydney had been rounded up when he was. Joe Marley hoped to find help in Perth.
Ricky Farmer had said that Catteni ships flitted from one continent to another, seemingly without orders or on special missions.
"It's got so even the sight of a Catteni transport sends everyone into hiding," Ricky said. He had volunteered to go to Chicago where many were now living in the old underground sewer and transport system, which had been constructed in the 1800s and had been virtually forgotten.
Leila Massuri and Basil Whitby had volunteered to go to London and Paris. The Chunnel had not been finished or opened up but it was completely dug from shore to shore and had provided a means of getting to and from the continent. Boris and Raisha would pilot the scout and see what they could find in their homeland, Russia. Bull Fetterman, Mic Rowland, Lenny Doyle, and Nat Baxter completed the Baby's crew. Bert Put and Laughrey would pilot the KDM, with Lex Kariatin, Will Seissmann, Joe La-tore, Vic Yowell, Ole, Sandy Areson, and Matt Su as crew while John Beverly was de facto captain. They hoped to have all four decks full of refugees on the way back. And at least some of the machinery, tools, and equipment on the wish lists.
Zainal, Gino Marrucci as backup pilot, Kris, Chuck Mitford, Coo, Pess, Mack Dargle, Ninety Doyle, and Jim Rastancil were those going on the KDL to Catten.
CHapter Four.
IT WAS AS WELL THAT BOTANY DAYS were so long because every minute was needed as engineering groups under Peter Snyder---with Dick Aarens working as hard as anyone else despite a sour mood as he took exception to everything and argued any alterations---checked and provisioned the ships.
"If he comes into the infirmary with a wrench-shaped wound on his head..." Pete muttered to Thor Mayock at breakfast.
"I won't give him any painkillers when I stitch it up," Thor finished for him. "You look ghastly."
"Ha! Speak for yourself."
Worrell was everywhere, living up to his nickname of Worry, checking lists and trying to supply whatever he could to take back as care packages. Beth Isbell and Sally Stoffers were his shadows, discreetly double-checking since every one was working flat out to accomplish the necessary miracles.
To be sure of accuracy in the configurations, five people checked out the trajectory and time of the thirty-hour orbit of the second world-circling Eosian satellite and several windows were discovered:
Bert chose the south polar ones that he felt gave both the scout ship and the KDM the longest escape shot. The first propitious window left little time, but both KDM and Baby were ready, so the crews scrambled aboard. Weary but satisfied teams cheered as they took off. Following the example that had worked with the return procedure of the first Barevi raid, they made all possible speed to the Bubble, slowed and pressed prows through at minimum thrust. The scout went first, just in case, and gave the KDM the allclear.
After that they were lost to those watching. Nor could any message be sent back to reassure those on Botany.
Zainal, Ray Scott, Pete Easley, and Judge Iri spent hours trying to work out, from copies of Baby's records, a plausible mission that would explain where Zainal and his ship had been before they returned to Catten.
Zainal couldn't remember if any of the earliest of the K dass had gone missing, although that was likely enough. They were used for large crew explorations of habitable planets, for mining expeditions and supply runs. But the clever damage to the hull would explain a space collision. Pete Snyder got Aarens challenged by the need for a fault that would appear to have disabled the engine. A small part, actually, which as everyone knew, was the kind that could be easily overlooked in a servicing and yet cause considerable problems when it malfunctioned. A bogus part for the gyro was constructed, using imperfect metals to account for its sudden collapse. Aarens was very pleased with his handiwork and received generous praise. His basic need for constant appreciation was wearing on those who had to work with him. But, as they all said, he produced when the chips were down.
Then Aarens redeemed himself once again, by pointing out that the boards in the bridge helm positions were the same. Everything salvageable from the crashed ship had been saved: just in case some unexpected use could be made of the parts. As it turned out, even the unusable pieces had been stacked at the back of a cave. Zainal went through the worst damaged, scorched boards and chose several which, when they reached Catten, he would substitute for the usable ones, thus confirming the substantial damage which had delayed their return. These and the malfunctioning gyro unit would be sufficient.
"They will not let us dock at the space station with such damage," he said, waving the scorched boards about. "They'll shunt us to the surface, to a small emergency field until they can send technicians to inspect. But we need some sort of cargo. A ship picking up materials from a mining center...
"Duxie's prospectors have mined more gold than we need," was one of Judge Iri's suggestions.
"Platinum, too;' Ray put in.
"Those are good;' Zainal said. "Any other rare metals? Even a crate or two of raw ore would be useful. R. henium, any of the platinum group.
We'll say we had to leave cargo behind to lift with such a damaged ship.
The gyro went first, we were in a meteor shower... took us a long time to jury-rig the boards. I think that's a suitable scenario," and he grinned slyly at Kris for that latest addition to his ever-expanding English vocabulary.
"Good Drassi bringing home what they can. And I can raise such a fuss
over the shoddy manufacture that delayed us that I shall be sent from
one office to another with my complaints, and that's how I'll learn what
I need to know. Make loud accusations of poor servicing and second-rate
materials:'
"Is Catten so bureaucratic, too?" asked Ray with a frown.
"Only the Eosi cut corners."
"You're sure you can carry this impersonation off?" Judge Iri was clearly worried.
Zainal shrugged. "Why not? Who but a Catteni ship would go to Catten? It is not a comfortable place to be;' and he glanced over at his volunteers, chosen as much because they were all sturdily built and would be able to manage the heavier gravity of Catten. Kris wasn't so sure about her own ability but nothing would have kept her from going along, even if she had to remain in the artificially lower gravity of the ship the entire time. She now had enough Catten to answer any communications the ship might be sent.
"We have been away a long time, whoever we are," Zainal said with a little sly grin, "so it doesn't matter that we have landed and changed the ID.
"How fast does your paint dry?" asked Ninety facetiously.
They still had the uniforms that had been tailored to fit the first Barevi raid but Sandy Areson had some new artifices to contribute. First, she'd an awful-smelling mixture that bleached their hair a dingy gray. One of the recovering Victims was a skilled optician (though he never did explain what he had done on Earth that would have caused him to be victimized by the Eosi). When he realized that gray hair and skin would not entirely present the team as Catteni, he finally managed to produce yellow contact lenses, cursing the need to improvise, since he had not considered his first attempt to be successful. But he managed.
"You'll have to take them out and wash them every day," Riz Kamei said, unhappy with that necessity. "No plastics here at all."
"Yet.. :' one of his helpers said with a grin.
"Whatever," and Riz flicked his long fingers irritably, "but the lenses will do what's necessary." Then he shook his head as if he found even the requirement of yellow as an eye color an offense.
He showed them all how to put them in, how to clean them in a solution he provided, again muttering about insufficient supplies until everyone really did wonder what his Earth side job had been. He did however allow himself a slight smile of approval when the contacts were in place.
Kris had never considered herself especially vain, but she had had a brief flush of dismay when her hair had not only been clipped very short on her head but bleached such a hideous gray. Now, with the yellow eye lenses, she looked so much like a Catteni, she was almost nauseated.
"You're still much too pretty to be a typical Catten broad," Ninety Doyle remarked. He added a smile that, with his yellowed teeth and dyed skin, made him look all too much like other Drassi they'd seen in the Barevi markets.
She gave a shudder of repulsion. "You look awful, Ninety. Lenny would
disown you;'
"Lenny's mad enough he couldn't come along," Ninety said, closely examining his gray complected face. Their Botany suntans also helped approximate a Catteni grey skin. Sandy had said both body paint and hair dye would last about two or three weeks, depending on how often they bathed.
"Yeah, but Lenny's closer to a Guinness than I am," Ninety said gloomily.
Looking around, Kris remembered that the Catteni who had crewed Baby hadn't washed at all, remembering the stench in their quarters.
"If there is any Guinness left, Ricky Farmer wasn't so sure about that.
But I'm sure he'll bring you back a bottle;' Kris said, meaning to console.
"Bottle?" Ninety roared in dismay, as if she had uttered an unforgivable blasphemy.
"Can?"
"What'd you bet he frees the last vat in Dublin?" Mack Dargle said.
"I never bet on sure things;' Kris said, grinning.
"They gotta get your teeth yellower, Kris. That smile's a giveaway."
"And not a tube of Colgate to whiten my teeth anywhere on this planet," she said in wistful retort.
"They may bring some back, you know," Mack Dargle said, taking the
mirror from Doyle so he could inspect himself and did a good comic
double take. "My own mother wouldn't recognize me;'
"Just so long as a Catten wife doesn't," Ninety said.
Mack shuddered. "I saw some of those crew-women. No thank you.
I'd sooner wrestle with a crocodile:'
THE PREPARATIONS FOR THIS FORAY into enemy territory were finally complete. The window was a nighttime polar one so Kris hurried into the day care where Zane was sleeping, for one last look.
Zainal came to join her, resting his big hands sympathetically on her arms.
"He's a fine strong lad. He'll do well here," he said into her ear and pressed his face against her cheek in his special display of affection.
A noise made them both turn to the doorway and there was Pete Easley, a slightly droll smile on his face.
"I drew night duty;' he said, though all three knew he had probably done so on purpose. "He'll be fine. Don't worry about him."
"We won't;' Zainal said with a nod of his head and with one arm still on Kris', led her out of the room. Both stopped at the threshold for one more look at the sleeping child.
Kris tried not to, but she sniffed all the way to the hangar and had to blot her eyes twice. She hadn't thought---in all the fuss and furor of these preparations---that she would experience the same anguish at leaving him as she had on their first expedition to Barevi.
"Zane will be all right with Easley;' Zainal murmured as he lifted her down from the flatbed that had brought them to the now-battered and space-worn KDL awaiting them outside the hangar.
The Judge, Ray Scott, Worry, Pete Snyder, Jay and Patti Sue Greene, and even Aarens were there to wish them a safe journey. Worry was even bold enough to clasp Kris in a bear hug. The judge kissed her hand and then both cheeks. If Ray Scott only shook her hand hard and warmly, Patti Sue was openly weeping as she hugged Kris tightly, murmuring over and over, 'I'll never forget you, buddy, I'll never forget you."
'I'll hold you to that;' Kris said, feeling as she might weep like Patti and, ignoring whatever protocol to board there might have been, she scrambled up the steps into the KDL. Everyone else followed, with Chuck Micford growling how he hated farewells.
ZAINAL INDICATED that Gino should do the honors on the takeoff, while he punched the final bits and pieces of their "delayed return story" into the ship's log. He grinned with unusual good humor when the log acknowledged the entries. There were enough computer hackers to have made it a proper job "as long;' they teased Zainal, "as his Catteni was okay:'They had even coded into the log appropriate star chart coordinates. If, that is, any one would dare question the report of Emassi Venlik, Zainal's new alias.
"He lived once. Died badly, and only I know where" was all Zainal would say of the man whose identity he was assuming.
"Was he a chosen?" Chuck asked.
Zainal gave a quick shake of his head. His next word startled everyone.
"Schkelk!"
Chuck was the first one to fall into the stance of an alert Drassi, Wih Kris a second later before Mack and Ninety suddenly realized what had been said: "Listen." Even Coo and Pess straightened from their usual languid positions.
Distinctly and slowly enough for them to understand, he gave orders for the ship to take off and the course it was to assume as soon as it had lifted from the ground.
"Emassi!" was the appropriate reply said in crisp unison and then each went to the duty station they had been assigned.
Coo and Pess buckled into the two drops seats that had been placed on the bridge for their use in takeoff and landing.
Zainal never spoke another word of English during the entire eight-day voyage. Neither did they after one of Zainal's thumps, and Kris was no exception though she didn't think he whacked her as hard as he did Gino, Chuck, Mack, or Ninety. But it sure reminded her to keep in her part.
The yellow lenses irritated Mack's eyes. Riz had mentioned that someone might have trouble and sent along eyewash, with the recommendation to keep the contacts in for short periods, lengthening the time each day to allow the eyeball to adjust. By the time they were orbiting Catten, he could keep them in most of the day.
Seen from outer space, Catten was a lovely planet! Almost as beautiful as the pictures of Earth sent back from space by Russian and American astronauts.
There were larger landmasses but inland lakes the size of seas and several enormous rivers to judge by the width of them. It was also remarkably green, which caused a good deal of surprise.
Zainal grinned. And said in Catten: "They have destroyed enough planets so that they are careful about this one. All manufacturing work is done on other worlds."
"You should see Earth," Ninety said proudly.
"Not all of it is as pleasant as..." Mark paused because there was no Catteni word for Ireland, "where you live."
"More unpleasant since Catteni come," added Gino grimly with an apologetic glance at Zainal who merely nodded. "KDM and... yaya..."
which was all Gino could think of as a Catteni description of "Baby," "will not like what is there now."
Everyone paused in reflection on that unhappy observation. Then Gino pointed to a goodsized satellite. "How many moons?"
"Four," Zainal replied, then added as an immense space station spun leisurely into view in its geosynchronous orbit above Catten, "we do not want to dock there."
Everyone gawked at the sight of the monstrous edifice, with gantries and netted supplies far larger than the KDL floating on tethers about it.
Ships of all sizes made their way in and out of docking slips. One entire quadrant seemed to be a shipyard, taking advantage of the lack of gravity to push large structural members into position for assembly.
Suddenly the com unit blurted out a harsh barking which was either muffled or distorted so much that only Zainal understood; the others caught maybe one word clearly.
"... chouma."
Zainal rattled off his assumed name, the fact that his ship was damaged and requested landing at an isolated emergency site on planet.
By listening with intense concentration to the Catteni language, the crew got most of the next exchange, demanding details of the damage.
Zainal responded that he could not maneuver into the moon base with currently faulty equipment. Immediately he was bluntly told to sheer off his present course while a landing site could be warned of his imminent arrival.
' Zainal twitched fingers behind his back to indicate to the others how well their scheme was going. Considering the size and complexity of the space station, the Terrans could well appreciate the need for caution, and why ships had to be in maneuverable condition. They were probably as fastidious about unstable cargoes.
The interrogation went on. What was the trouble? Where had the KCX been? Was it contaminated? What cargo did it have on board?
Zainal signaled to Gino to go into his well-rehearsed reply, the pilot scrambling to get his notes out of his pocket in case he needed to refer to them.
"Engineer Tobako speaking;' he said. He'd had fun choosing an alias.
"Gyro unit, two-three-eight.. :' and he spoke the Catten letters appended to the part, "realfunctioned in meteor swarm, flashback damaging many boards in control panel and causing helm problems. Maneuvering affected.
Suffered hull and interior damages. Landed on largest meteor to repair damage. Gyro part badly made," and Gino infused a lot of contempt in his voice for that failing. "Imperfect metal. Had to reduce cargo to lift from meteor. Only one cargo deck remains. Three crew died."
"Only one part cargo?" The contempt and dismay was clearly audible and nothing at all was said about the loss of lives. "Go to field at.. :' and the Catten rattled off the coordinates so quickly that, while Gino managed to jot down the English equivalents of the first four numbers, that was as far as he had got by the end of the message. He gave Zainal a startled and anxious look. Zainal nodded to assure those on the bridge that he had heard all he needed to obey.
"Platinum, gold, rhenium, some germanium." Zainal took up the report now.
"Ah.. :' and that drawled exclamation was close to approval. "Is there more where that was found?"
"Yes. All can be collected again. I will return to the meteor with a repaired ship, and braver crewmen than the Drassi who died. These were only a step above Rassi..." Zainal paused to be sure that his complaint was understood. "It is a cargo I do not wish others to get."
"Ah..." and there was more warmth and approval. "A vehicle and mechanical support will meet you on the surface. Klotnik."
When the com line had been cut, every one reacted, sighing, or whistling or mimicking the wipe of a sweaty brow. In fact, Ninety took out a square of doth and was about to mop his face when Zainal thumped him.
Immediately Ninety used his finger to scrape off the sweat, as a real Drassi would do.
"There is really not that much of a cargo," Kris said dubiously. Would they get in trouble with what they had? It was all that Walter Duxie, the head miner, could find that might be considered valuable by the Catteni in the short time he had to do any prospecting. The germanium had been pure luck. And what little of the platinum groups they had so far discovered.
While the gold had seemed a real sacrifice to some people, the metal had little intrinsic value on Botany. The two professional and many amateur jewelers used it as settings for some of the rather magnificent gemstones which had turned up on the planet during the general assessment of mineral and metal deposits.
"It is enough, since they think we go back for what was left," Zainal said and grinned, looking more like the man she knew so well than the very Catteni Emassi who had barked answers over the com. "It has gone well. Now proceed slowly until we are in atmosphere and remember to vent smoke often."
That was an effect that Peter Snyder had been particularly pleased to install. It would dissipate fast enough in space but would certainly be visible from the space station, to enhance the story of a "damaged" ship.
"Much traffic," Gino said, glad enough to be steering away from the space station with so many other vehicles zipping here and there or ponderously moving out.
"There are two dreadnoughts in dock, nine large surface landers," Zainal said, pointing to the stern ends.
They were visible once you knew what to look for, Kris realized. They looked bigger to her than the Empire ship from Star Wars.
"I count eighteen H-type ships;' and again Zainal indicated where to look. What initially looked just like protrusions of the spaceship were, in fact, spaceships in dock. The H-types were similar to the one Kris remembered landing at Denver. She shuddered. Zainal went on. "Look beyond the station to your right, past the freighters and drones." His big finger now indicated a three o'clock position. "There's a full flotilla there."
"I can spot another one on the screen, farther out," and Gino tapped the screen with the proximity display.
"Wow!" Mack swallowed as he saw the incredible number of ships' ..
being handled by the station. He stared at the display as they moved slowly away from a direct view of the massive unit.
"How big a navy did you say the Catteni have?" Ninety asked, looking quite anxious.
"More than you see here," Zainal said.
"Lots of traffic, too," Chuck said.
"That is good. For us." And Zainal smiled.
When they were far enough from the space station for Kris to feel as if there were no eyes on them, she and the others began to relax. Now they could spend the descent watching, as more details of the planet were visible.
"I know the field we've been assigned," Zainal said as their ship slowed for landing. "It has some facilities. Always be Catten there. I pilot now."
"SMALL?" Kris murmured, remembering to speak Catten as she took in the landing site. Nine football fields wide at the very least, and long as a Denver jet runway: almost larger than the landing field at the Farmers' hangar on Botany. Low, large buildings framed one side, and beyond them, across an access road, were separate structures, small enough to be dwellings though they reminded her more of the hovels in a Brazilian barrio.
They came down, venting more of Pete's smoke for effect. Zainal's hah dling of the ship made them all glad they were well strapped in but the motions certainly imitated a ship that was barely controllable. He also halted at a distance from what looked to be hangar or servicing facilities.
Immediately he and Gino, who seemed to be moving slowly for such a generally deft man, removed the panels of the control positions and substituted the scorched boards, handing the good ones carefully to Ninety and Chuck to wrap and store in a prepared hiding place. Ninety and Chuck grunted and seemed to get out of their seats like old men. Zainal replaced the damaged panels, as Gino couldn't seem to get his hands to work properly.
"What's the matter with me?" Gino demanded, in English, looking at his hands.
Ninety and Chuck were taking forever to walk down the short passage and Kris then realized that she felt awfully heavy. It took a real effort to bring one hand over to release the safety belt.
"Me, too," she said, struggling to stand.
"Hmmm," was Zainal's anxious response. "Cattens gravity is heavier than Earth's. You will adjust but slowly. Just move slowly and pretend that is how you move."
"Wow!" exclaimed Gino when, with considerable effort, he pushed himself to his feet. "My knees are not going to like this."
"Hurry with the hiding," Zainal called out down the passageway to Ninety and Chuck.
"We try, Emassi. We do," but even Chuck Mitford's heavy baritone voice sounded strained by the heavier gravity.
"They will think me a great pilot," Zainal said, with a toothy Catteni
smile, "to bring down a ship in this condition:'
"Will they believe that we're Catteni?" Gino muttered.
Zainal gave one of his inimitable shrugs and grinned. "Who else but a Catteni would come here?"
"I can sure believe that;' Gino said in English. Zainal thumped him and cocked a warning eyebrow at him. "Kotik," he answered, chagrined at his lapse.
Zainal gave him a gentler pat for the proper response.
A pounding on the door and Zainal leaned forward to flick the release switch on the hatch.
There were Catteni growls of "get out of the way" and the thud of nailed boots on the deck as three men, none of them small, stalked into the cramped bridge compartment. Remembering all the drills, Kris somehow managed to get to her feet and assume the proper attention stance. She thought her arms would lengthen from the weight on her shoulders and it was hard to keep her chin up. Fortunately, she didn't have to say or do anything.
neither stated that he was Emassi or saluted, Kris knew he had to be the same rank. His brutish features and small bright yellow eyes were also more typical of the species than Zainal's.
"Venlik," replied Zainal and waved to the scorched, warped panels while Gino, who was supposed to be another Emassi, displayed the carefully manufactured defective gyro part.
"Hmph." Kivel took and examined the gyro and handed it back to the Drassi behind him.
Kris decided she was getting good at differentiating the ranks.
Kivel now gestured for the damaged panel to be opened, and turned slightly so that Kris, being a lowly Drassi, could do it.
"Too many in here;' Zainal said irritably, and with an imperious wave at Kris, "open cargo, bay three. You hear me?"
Kris nodded which was a lot harder to do in the heavier gravity than she would have believed. And, by sheer effort of will, passed the other two big Drassi and, when she was out of sight, put both hands on the sides of the companionway to give herself some support. She made it to the cargo deck and was grateful that she knew how to operate it. As soon as the cargo hatch swung open, she saw the vehicle, load bed against the side of the ship, and stepped aside as seven men swarmed aboard. One was Drassi and the other poor wretches were obviously the Rassi, the primitives from which the Eosi had made the two more intelligent groups.
The Drassi shouted his commands, obviously delighting in his ascendance over these dumb creatures. For that was what they were. He had to show them where to place their hands on the crates, shoved them toward the open hatch, and even walked them onto the vehicle and pointed to where the crates must be stacked. He sent them back for another load but paused long enough to pick up one of the gold lumps, scratch the soft surface as if to reassure himself it was gold, before he dropped it with a dull thud back into the crate. Then he walked back and forth, the gravity not affecting him one iota, Kris noticed enviously, as he supervised the unloading.
"Is that all?" he asked, glowering at Kris.
"All on board"' Kris replied negligently.
"Humph," was his unimpressed response. She then handed him the receipt that Zainal had prepared.
"Everything must be signed and acknowledged," Zainal had told her, in a discussion of the unloading procedure. "He has to take it up front for my signing and whoever is his leader."
"Sign," she said firmly and held out the Catteni issue clipboard that had been in the KDL's supplies.
"Humph." He scrawled some runes.
She pointed to the companionway for him to take the board to his commander and with another "humph" he stomped off. She hung on to the control panel until she heard him returning before she straightened up against the awful weight. He jabbed the clipboard into her midriff. Fortunately she was leaning against the bulkhead so he didn't quite knock her down. She did remember to check that there were two new rune lines before she nodded and gave him the wave to leave. She was appalled to see him jump off the cargo deck to the ground---but then he was Catteni and had on heavy boots---her ankles ached from even watching him. He strode to the front of the vehicle and she was able to close the hatch and just slide down the bulkhead to sprawl on the deck, exhausted by this battle with Catteni gravity.
She was actually close to tears, thinking that she would be no good to Zainal at all on this mission when she couldn't even stand up for more than a few minutes without collapsing.
When she heard voices and booted steps in the companionway, she started to struggle to her feet but the noises stopped; she heard Zainal request transport for him and his crew for shore leave.
"Not much here;' Kivel said. "Try Blizte. Small but adequate."
"I know the place;' was Zainal's reply.
"Transport will be dispatched on our return."
"Good."
She didn't hear the hatch close and wondered what she should do now.
Get to her feet or collapse again. She knew which she preferred but dic]o want not to disappoint Zainal.
Suddenly he was there, hands under her armpits, lifting her, almost effortlessly, from the deck. He managed a quick press of his face against her cheek.
"You and Chuck must stay on boaM as guards"' he said swiftly in English.
"When the repair men arrive, you are off watch and asleep. Chuck only
has to stand around and look suspicious:'
"He does that well," she murmured back.
"You did very well, Kris," Zainal said again, his tone warm and loving.
She leaned into him for strength until they heard steps approaching and separated from their close embrace. But Zainal kept one hand under her arm to support her.
"They're gone, and a smaller vehicle is on its way here;' Chuck said and moved forward to take Kris' other arm.
If she hadn't needed their support, she would have pushed both away from her to walk on her own two feet, but she didn't have the strength and was far too grateful for their assistance.
They eased her back into the bridge compartment and into the com seat.
"Your Catteni is enough for any messages;' Zainal said, keeping one hand on her shoulder. "Anything you don't understand, make them repeat.
Tell them com unit is also faulty. Then act stupid Drassi and you will
tell the Emassi when he comes back. You don't know where he has gone...
but then they wouldn't ask you since you wouldn't know:'
Kris was glad that gravity was not affecting her ears because she understood every Catteni word Zainal spoke.
"Chuck, you will admit only the service men who will have a proper clipboard you will have to sign as they enter, put in the time I showed you how---when they leave. Whenever they come, Kris is to be off guard and asleep."
An obnoxious klaxon announced that the transport was awaiting its passengers.
"I gotcha," Chuck murmured in English.
Zainal bent to Kris' ear. "The first few days are the hardest. Move as much as you are able and use hot showers," he said in English. "Walk around the ship if you can. We will not be here long. If I can help it."
Then, with a final squeeze of her shoulder, he nodded for Gino, Ninety, Mack, and the two Rugarians to follow him.
Kris saw the ground transport as it sped diagonally off the field, toward the road, away from the command post and the hovels. It was all too quickly lost as the road took it into the thick forest of tossing greenery. She didn't even have the energy to compare Catteni botany with Botany's vegetation.
While she was sunk in the seat, she heard Chuck moving around.
When he reentered the bridge compartment, he carried cups and gave her one. Rather, he put it in her right hand where it lay, almost useless with the gravity, on the armrest.
"Try it, gal, you need the energy. Some of Mayock's special."
"Oh, Gawd;' she said. It took two hands to get the cup to her mouth but liquid didn't seem to object, and she was able to get a good swig down her throat. Did the heavier gravity make it go down faster? She took another sip and it did seem to drop into her stomach really fast.
"Any better?" Chuck asked in a conciliatory tone.
"It's never too much work to drink; Kris;' he said and took the other looking out at the scenery. "They don't seem to do much in the way of forestry."
"I saw the Rassi," and despite the gravity she managed a little shudder.
"You wouldn't want them as work gangs. They barely managed to carry the
crates into the waiting truck. I begin to understand why Drassi have
such short tempers... if they have to work with that level of
unintelligence. Not even room temperature. More like just above
freezing;'
Even talking was hard because it meant she had to move her jaw.
"Just sit, honey;' Chuck said, lightly touching her arm in compassion.
"We'll get used to it?" she asked.
"If Zainal says we will, we will. Look, Kris, finish the drink and then get some sleep. That'll help. We've already had a busy day."
"Finish that drink and believe you me, you'll sleep, honey."
She did just that, taking the second half of the drink in one gulp and letting Chuck help her back to the crew quarters. Even the bed, which had never been all that soft, felt harder to her. The blanket hadn't gained any weight but it felt rough, even through her uniform. The pillow was a rock but that didn't prevent her from falling deeply asleep.
ZAINAL COMMUNICATED WITH THEM once the next morning; his blunt phrases indicated all was well. To expect repair crews the next day. He gave a com contact number. Drassi Chuck would give their Drassi leader the prepared list of resupply items. Zainal was getting the rest.
Kris felt somewhat better by midday, with frequent sips of Mayock's Superior Hooch. In fact, it did make her feel lighter. Not lightheaded for her head still felt thick. She insisted on standing a watch while Chuck slept.
She answered several com unit calls quite adequately. Four were obviously a check to see if the ship's guard was actually on duty. Another, from a very pompous Emassi, inquired if the ship was still in a dangerous condition.
She replied firmly that it was not. When the Emassi wanted to speak to Zainal, she gave him the contact number Zainal had left, grateful that he had since she had absolutely no idea where he was. There had been a lot of noise in the background during Zainal's call, which led her to believe he was in a much larger place than the Blizte place which Kivel had mentioned.
She did make herself leave the ship and managed, with very slow steps, to do a full circuit. She sat on the hatch steps and made herself do a second circuit the other way round. When she reentered the ship, she felt as if she had done a marathon at top speed. More of the Mayock Superior with very little water in it helped relieve the exhaustion. In fact, it helped enough so that she did another walk two hours or so later, bored with doing nothing.
This excursion didn't leave her feeling as wrecked afterward.
She managed to make some food for Chuck and herself. By then Chuck had slept a good deal longer than his legendary six hours, but he had needed it. She woke him and they ate together, with more of Mayock's supportive aid.
They decided they had both better be on duty when the repair crews arrived, to give a show of exemplary attention to duty. Chuck made her sleep until just before dawn.
"You've got to see dawn here, Kris. Never seen anything like it in my life;' he told her. "Then I'll kip out until you see the service crew arriving."
That sounded fine to her: Food helped nearly as much as Mayock's brew, and she slept again until Chuck woke her and, with a friendly hand supporting her, led her into the bridge compartment so they could watch the dawn together.
There weren't many clouds in a Catteni sky---too heavy an atmosphere, Kris decided, or they'd just drop down. But the sky coloration went from the most delicate aqua into fantastic almost lightning-like---displays of yellow to orange to red and then back to orange and fading into yellow that turned greenish before the blue-green of a normal Catteni sky settled, and the very bright white sun came up. Instantly the bridge screen darkened.
"Too bright for Emassi and Drassi?" she asked facetiously.
Chuck yawned widely and stood up. At least he seemed to be adapting to the heavier gravity. Maybe she would... probably just about the time they could leave.
Chuck went off to sleep, and she fixed herself some breakfast. Her stomach must be adjusting because it felt empty, not merely heavy and unready for any new burdens.
She took just a slight dose of Mayock. She didn't want the repair crew folk to smell any liquor on her breath because it would be very difficult to explain where she'd gotten it. Besides, they'd only brought enough for their personal needs. Even if her personal need for continued potions seemed excessive, considering her generally abstemious habits.
Remembering the state of Baby and the KDL when they had captured them, she did wonder if perhaps this ship was a little too neat and orderly to be a proper Catteni used vessel. She'd ask Chuck if they shouldn't throw a few things about. She did leave dishes on the table and the cooking pan on the heat pad.
She never had a chance to discuss this detail with Mitford because she saw the repair crew vehicles, massive affairs, Cattenistyle eighteen wheelers, come careening across the field. She had only enough time to shake him awake before the trucks screeched to a halt by the cargo hatch. Someone 'banged on it. Chuck gave her a shove forward to the bridge compartment.
"You're on com watch," he muttered and then in fine, annoyed Catteni, yelled that he was coming, he was coming.
He undogged the hatch and was almost mowed down by the Emassi who charged in, scowling and punching Chuck out of his way. But years of army discipline intervened, and Chuck assumed a properly military stance, far more humble than any American soldier would present even if a four star general or the president of the United States confronted him. Kris' com unit blurped for her response.
"Crew are there?" was the inimical query.
"Yes, Emassi;' she replied meekly.
"Get Emassi Yoltin to speak;'
"Yes, Emassi." And Kris actually managed to increase her stride to something approximating "hurry" to the hatch and, with a proper salute, begged Emassi Yoltin to speak to Emassi on com.
Meanwhile, the repair crew, burdened with heavy kits and a variety of portable affairs that resembled the weaponry of a bad science fiction movie, went astern to the gyro unit. Another group waited outside the hatch, carrying more carefully some packaged units that looked like control board replacements.
Managing to glance outside, she saw others, led by a second Emassi, examining the "meteor" damage, Pete Snyder's magnificent efforts.
Several of the outboard sensors on the port side had also been broken off to add verisimilitude to the supposed crash. Suitable gashes had taken a lot of time to make but the Emassi was nodding, touching the marks and then rattling off orders to his crew. A third group were setting up what looked amazingly like a field kitchen. Kris breathed a little sigh of relief that she wouldn't be expected to feed this lot.
Considering what she saw being prepared and smelled cooking, she hoped that she and Chuck wouldn't have to eat any of it.
"You/' Emassi Yoltin said, returning from the bridge, but he pointed to the group waiting outside, "repair controls." He passed by her as if she didn't exist but Chuck now followed Yoltin astern.
"Emassi Venlik orders me to check replacement unit," he said.
Emassi Yoltin gave Chuck such a look that a snake would have died of the venom in it but Chuck held his ground until Yoltin gave an abrupt nod of his head and allowed Chuck to follow him.
Totally superfluous, Kris decided she needed more Mayock to get through this experience.
When the control panel repairs were finished, she did resume her station at the com unit. And saw the arrival of another vehicle. This time she remembered how to initiate communications with an on-surface vehicle and made contact.
"Cargo, supplies. Open hatch/' she was told and dutifully followed such orders, wondering what Zainal had acquired.
It was considerable. Foods, crates with runes she couldn't quite understand, but thought they were spare parts. Certainly a good deal of fuel canisters was onloaded, taking up a full cargo deck and then half of another.
Some open slatted crates proved to be fresh foods.
"Good," she said, when the Drassi supervising the loading looked at her for some reaction. She smacked her lips. "Not much fresh to eat for a long time," she added. She recognized some of the fruits she had seen, and bought, in the Barevi markets. She'd thought they were indigenous. Then remembered that Zainal had said the Rassi worked the land and produced great quantities of food for both Eosi and Catteni ships. "We eat well."
"We will. And soon," the Drassi said but he jerked his head to the exterior and the rather unusual smells coming from the outdoor kitchen.
The Drassi had been marking off items on the clipboard as the Rassi came on board with their burdens. These seemed slightly more intelligent than the ones there the other day. Possibly because they had resupplied ships so often. '.
Then the truck was empty and the Rassi sat on the floor, waiting for whatever would happen to them next.
The Drassi handed her the clipboard, and she wrote down her rune and then took it from him to get Chuck's signature. He was standing in the passenger hatch, watching the repair crews eating. He signed and winked at her.
"We weren't invited;' he said, mouthing the words with little sound.
She rolled her eyes in relief, aware out of the corner of her eye the ravenous way in which the meal was being consumed, with much smacking of lips and slurping. Even eating in such company would have been nearly as nauseating as the food they consumed so greedily.
She returned the double-signed records to the Drassi, and he also jumped to the ground and barked an order at the apathetic Rassi. They slowly rose and followed him around the ship to the eating place.
She closed and locked the cargo hatch, three of its decks now full of supplies. Zainal had gone whole-hog here. Would they get away with such bald-faced piracy?
"We can eat," Chuck muttered to her as he pushed her past the open cargo hatch. "Water's pretty good."
They used that to dilute the Mayock with which they washed down the fresh fruit and what passed for bread in the Catteni cuisine. It was so fresh that it was easy to chew and didn't taste half-bad.
"D'you know what they're eating out there?" she asked Chuck.
"You don't want to know," Chuck said and took a long swig from his mug.
That was enough to inform Kris that the Catteni were probably eating Kassi. She ate nothing more despite Chuck pantomiming that she should.
The exterior crew had filled in the gouges, and the main hole, using some sort of mastic. When the interior specialists had finished their job, they drove off but left EmassiYoltin behind to supervise the rest of the repairs.
A Catteni day was longer than one on Earth but shorter than one on Botany. There was actually more exterior damage, between the "meteoric" gashes and the hole, because the stumps of the broken external units had to be removed and replaced. This required technicians going in and out of the ship, and coming awfully close to where the undamaged control panels had been secreted. Kris thought she might have indulged in the first faint of her life but managed to pinch herself hard enough to retain consciousness.
They'd come so far and done so well, she simply could not jeopardize everything with such a reaction.
So they had another day to endure the proximity of sweaty men whose clothing was smeared with the repair compound, which intensified the stench of them.
Chuck did offer the Emassi the captain's quarters but that was curtly refused, and Chuck and Kris were left to themselves. They did, however, close the passenger hatch as night descended on the field. That meant they didn't smell whatever it was the Catteni were eating. Kris was ravenous by now and made a huge meal for them both.
'I'll take first watch," Chuck told Kris, and she could not demur. The day's excesses as well as the gravity had reduced her to total exhaustion.
He woke her six hours later. "We've had a few calls, and one from
Yoltin to be sure we're keeping watch. So you've got to stand one:'
"I'm fine, Chuck, fine;' she assured him. Indeed, she realized that it wasn't quite as difficult to sit up and get out of the bed though she still felt as if all her muscles and flesh were being pulled inexorably groundward.
She got a call from Yoltin shortly after she took the com. Yoltin was a real Catteni bastard. Checking up. She had a sudden notion and put it into action by removing the undamaged control panels from where they had been stashed and putting them quietly behind a huge crate in the cargo deck that was currently available. If they should be discovered, though she doubted that, they were no concern of hers. The Drassi had checked off all the items that were brought on board, and being Drassi herself she could pretend she didn't read well. Not many true Drassi did unless they "needed to know" as Zainal would have put it.
By the time all the repairs had been done, EmassiYoltin did an onboard inspection of every panel and locker of the main ship. Chuck turned an awful deeper shade of gray until she managed to give him a wink. He leaned briefly against the bulkhead in relief.
Yoltin could find nothing to reprimand them for---apart from unwashed dishes in the kitchen, and he ticked them off soundly and loudly for that, while they looked humble, meek, and repentant.
As Yoltin left, Chuck said very angrily to Kris "that the galley must be spotless when Emassi Venlik returned. You are responsible, you will do it."
"Yes, Drassi Chuck;' Kris responded with earnest subservience. Both were close to laughing at their little charade and did, when the passenger hatch was closed.
They heard the vehicles revving up and immediately strode to the bridge compartment to see the last of the crew leaving, dust rising at the speed of their passage. They also saw a smaller transport coming out from the field buildings.
"Oh, God, what now?" Chuck demanded. "Go do the galley thing, in case
that's what's to be inspected:'
They really had not been that untidy but she sloshed water and what went for cleaning liquid about the sink. Her hands were raw, and she checked to make sure that the liquid had not taken off her skin dye. It looked paler but she didn't dare do a touch up-the dye had a very no-riceable odor to it---until their latest visitor was gone.
It was Kivel after all, with two Drassi, who inspected the ship as well, spending more time on the exterior to approve a smooth hull.
"Emassi Venlik is not back," Chuck replied.
"He must come soon. This field will be needed," Kivel said at his most pompous.
"We have been in space months," Chuck said with a very good imitation of a Zainalian shrug.
The query was innocent enough but there was a gleam in Kivel's eyes that suggested rumors of an abandoned cargo of considerable worth had circulated.
Chuck shrugged again.
"We will talk of this at the evening meal," Kivel said, far too affable to have confused even a Rassi.
Chuck looked slightly eager and then relaxed. "I am on guard. Emassi Venlik is a hard commander."
Kivel inclined his head at Kris. "The little one can stay on guard. We will enjoy ourselves this evening;' he went on, his tone an insidious promise.
Chuck allowed himself to consider this and, looking hard at Kris, he finally nodded. "You will say nothing of this to the Emassi."
"No, Drassi Chuck."
"Come, then," and Kivel gestured affably for Chuck to take precedence out of the hatch.
Chuck, bowing politely, insisted that the higherranking officer leave first. With Kivel's back turned, Chuck had a chance to throw an inquiring look at Kris, and she winked in encouragement. She'd close the hatch and not open it until Chuck got back. Mitford really didn't have much choice, not since a Drassi more or less ordered his company.
Kris ate by herself at the com, watching the dark creep across the beautiful forest and then the first moon rise, a large orange crescent. Two, one very far away and small, also started their ascent with the first one mid She almost wished the com unit would blurt at her so she'd have something to do. She poured herself a respectable tot of Mayock's supe-and then wondered how Chuck would be handling the Catteni equivilent Mitford had often boasted that he could drink anything alcoholic and keep his wits about him. She certainly hoped he could tonight.
The fourth moon was rising, and the level in the bottle of Mayock was only a finger high, when she heard a transport, and loud, off-key singing.
Then there was a spirited banging---by more than one fist---on the hatch and she hastened to open it.
Kivel almost threw Chuck inside, waving back to the transport and waving the driver to go on.
"You made it," she said, hearing herself slurring her words.
"On... ly just," Mitford replied, having far more of a problem than :
in enunciating.
"I'Ll get you to bed/' she said, pleased that she was so much soberer.
he wan'?"
"Cooooo... orrrr... dinates;' Chuck managed, lurching from side to side even with her trying to keep him upright.
"Thought so."
"Doan... know... 'era. On . . . ly Drasssssssi;' Chuck said and hic"Stuff... was... worst... thing... ever... drank. Drunk. Drink."
They had reached the captain's quarters, which was nearest, and Chuck went in at that door. Kris didn't object. It was nearer than the crew quarters and in his condition she doubted he could get into the lowest of the three-bunks without cracking his skull.
The captain's bed was also wider and she steered him toward it. He laied down but was sitting up so fast that they cracked skulls.
She did that service for him with fingers that had trouble opening the The next thing she knew, he had locked his arms about her and pulled her into the bed along with him. By the time his head was down, he was snoringly asleep. She waited a few moments, wanting to get horizontal herself because suddenly the Mayock that she'd been sipping for hours was catching up with her. But he had some sort of a death grip on her and she couldn't disengage herself.
Well, she was as nearly horizontal as he was, though she still had her boots on. She inched her way into a more comfortable position, put her head on his chest and went to sleep.
SHE WOKE FIRST the next morning. Chuck was no longer snoring but he had his head resting on her bare shoulder. She'd had the most remarkably vivid, almost pornographic dreams, and gasped in dismay.
"And I'm bare?" Chuck also was---clothing strewn about the cabin.
"Oh, my god, that Mayock did it again."
She swallowed. "That's unfair. I don't remember anything about it. At least I hope that dream wasn't what we did!" She stared at the relaxed, sleeping face of Chuck Mirford and slowly shook her head. She could not, would not believe he, and she, had done that! Such behavior, even in their super-drunken conditions, was as uncharacteristic as it was unlikely. Even impossible. She shook her head, infuriated and irritated.
Then she tried to remember when she'd last had a period and couldn't.
Between Botany days and the elapse of time on the Catteni trip, she couldn't figure out if she was in a fertile period or not. She glanced over at Chuck.
Well, if she was pregnant by him, at least she'd spared both of them any embarrassment over actually going to bed for that purpose. But she did wish she'd remember something both logical and in character. That was unfair.
A buzzing penetrated her ruminations. The com unit on the bridge was announcing a message coming in.
Mitford was so relaxed---well, she'd done that for him at least---that she was able to withdraw from his side. She covered him with a blanket, hoping that he was so far gone in sleep he wouldn't rouse as she went to answer the buzz. She did grab up her clothing as she left the room. Let him think he slept alone.
She didn't waste time dressing---she'd just leave the visual off but she wanted to stop the buzz. She managed the correct response in her guttural tone.
"Venlik here. All repairs finished?"
"Yes, Emassi:'
"All cargo aboard?"
"Yes, Emassi."
"Prepare the ship for immediate takeoff."
"Yes, Emassi:'
He didn't even ask why she didn't turn on the visuals.
Did she have time for a quick shower? Well, she was going to have anyway. She'd have to take care of that detail, or some of the other Humans might notice a certain other reek about her. And her eyes hurt. Oh, Lord, the contacts. She slipped hers out, and they were the first things she cleansed. Then she remembered that Chuck's would surely still be in so she knelt beside his bed, and delicately stroking the eyelids, managed to slip the contacts out. His eyes might be sore, too, but maybe seeing the lenses in a cup of water might make him think he'd had the sense to do it for himself.
She washed quickly, dried herself off, and remembered to check her color before she dressed. She was still gray enough. Oh, Lord, how glad she'd be to be Human again. She used some eyewash to soothe the irritation, hoping it would ease before she had to use her eyes for something important.
The way Chuck was sleeping, her eyes would be normal by the time he woke. Should she wake him before Zainal returned? No, she'd say she'd !i ' just relieved him on watch.
"You caught me in the shower, Zainal," she rehearsed aloud as she dressed if he asked about the delay in response.
Damn, he hadn't indicated how long before he'd be there. No, he'd said he wanted the ship ready for immediate takeoff. Had he run into trouble?
She started the preflight check, having watched Zainal, G/no, and Raisha do it often enough to know the drill. She then checked each cargo deck to be sure everything was locked down there for takeoff and left the empty deck ready. When she returned to the bridge, she noticed a dust cloud appearing at the edge of the forestry. The truck, and it was a goodsized one, did not, as she half-expected, come directly to the ship but paused in front of the command post. Whatever transpired there was very brief for the vehicle did not stop long. And, as it turned toward the ship, she noticed it headed toward the cargo hatch so she made her way as fast as she could down the companionway, rather pleased with being able to move with some speed in the heavy gravity. One really did get used to it.
She unfastened the hatch so all was ready for a speedy loading as the truck backed up, almost but not quite banging against the fleshly repainted hull.
Coo and Pess emerged first, lifting the accordion backdoor of the truck. They hurried on board with a large and heavy-looking carton. It made a heavy thud as they let it down. Behind them Ninety, Mack, and Gino each struggled to bring in more crates and containers. Zainal appeared with satchels that he deposited with more care on the bow end of the cargo space. He grinned at her, his eyes sparkling with success but he immediately turned to bring yet more crates on board.
"Where's Chuck?" Zainal asked on his next trip back, and he was speaking English again.
"He had a busy night as the Emassi's guest," she said and stepped forward to help unload in Chuck's absence but Zainal shook his head and tapped the control panel for her to be ready to close the hatch at his command.
It didn't take all that long to unload with Pess, Coo, and Zainal all more used to Catteni gravity than the Humans who handled the lighter objects.
This deck was almost as full as the others and Kris was obsessed with curiosity.
"Pess," Zainal said, pointing to the truck and indicating that the Rugarian was to take it back to the command post. They had to wait until Pess came back, covering the distance quickly with his oddly jointed long legs.
"That's all?" Kris asked, her hands on the cargo controls.
"Yes. You didn't happen to do a preflight check, did you?" Zainal asked as she closed the cargo hatch. She nodded an affirmative. He and Coo were netting the cargo down, fastening the ropes tight to the deck cleats.
Gino had already gone forward. Mack and Ninety looked about done in as they leaned against the bulkhead.
"Had a good time, lads?" she asked blandly.
"It'll take the entire trip back to fill you in," Ninety said with a ghost of his usual impudent grin. "Lenny will never believe what I've seen and done."
"C'mon, let's get strapped in for takeoff," Zainal said, urgently pointing forward.
"Is anyone after us?" Kris asked anxiously.
"Not exactly;' Zainal said with a grin, "but they're not above following
us back to where we left all that high-grade ore;'
"How can they find an asteroid that doesn't exist?" Kris asked, answering his grin.
"Ah," and he put his hand under her elbow to speed her along the
companionway, "but that is exactly what we must find before we can go
home to Botany:'
They were almost to the bridge compartment when Kris remembered that Chuck wasn't strapped in. "I'll have to net Chuck down."
"Don't waste any time;' Zainal said, turning sideways to squeeze past her. He smelled of something acrid which she couldn't identify.
"Zay's also got to be gone for at least a full Catteni day;' Mack muttered to her as she strapped in beside him.
Kris rolled her eyes. "You can't leave that man out of your sight but
he gets into trouble:'
Fortunately Zainal was far too busy laying in the course with Gino, making the necessary com calls to hear their soft remarks.
"Tell you one thing, Kris, he's not a man I'd tangle with anywhere or anytime, and even in my own gravity," Ninety said, impressed.
Mack chuckled. Having received clearance from Emassi Kivel himself, they proceeded to take off at a sedate vertical ascent.
"Kivel tried to get Chuck drunk enough last night to interrogate him," Kris said. "I don't know what they use for such purposes here on Catten, but it was a miracle Chuck made it back this morning."
Kris severely berated herself for her adjustments to the exact truth but no one would be hurt by her version, and she might not even have any reason to explain anything to anyone.
After enduring the Catten homeworld gravity, the takeoff pressure was minimal. As they rounded Catten on the outward-bound orbit, Kris once again found the beauty of the planet almost breath-stopping.
The space station hove in sight and this time, one of the dreadnoughts was maneuvering out of its dock. By noticing some of the H-class ships nearby, Kris got a better idea of just how ginormous the dreadnoughts actually were. It was comparable to being in a Tomahawk with a 747 looming behind you. And these ships had not been able to penetrate the Bubble?
The com unit blurped, and Gino answered in a totally expressionless Catteni voice.
"This is Emassi Venlik. Eosi Ba is responsible for our destination," Zainal said.
"Understood."
Maybe Kris only imagined it, but there was even a note of awe in that response. Zainal grinned at Gino who chuckled softly when the com line was off.
The KDL executed a course alteration and then showed its stern to the space station. Zainal poured on the speed as the ship headed out to where thousands of stars gleamed in the black of space.
"Did he beat someone up?" Kris asked when she felt they were safely away.
"To a faretheewell;' grinned Gino, and then he rolled his eyes. "Some nerd sycophant of an Eosi. I don't think the ones we met were that anxious for trouble. At least not the ones that Worry and Leon saw. Now the guys I met... One was humongously wide and I made myself as small as possible against the nearest wall. But the ones in an ugly mood were worse than anything Hollywood ever dreamed up, including the aliens in Aliens."
Zainal now leaned back in the command chair and stretched until every joint and tendon seemed to crack.
"Let's hope Duxie can get us some more of that high-grade ore and we'll
be the toast of the cap,to, Gino added, and out as often as we choose;'
"Gino, are you okay?" Zainal asked, rising.
"I'm great, Zay, you need the rest;'
"Chuck's in your bed," Kris said.
"Where is immaterial so long as pointing to Mack and Ninety, "and you're off duty, too. It should be all clear ahead, Gino, but wake me if something you don't understand comes up.
"Get some rest, Zay;' Gino said and made shooing motions with his right
hand. "You, too;'
Kris looked around for Press and Coo. Surely they'd need some rest as much as the others, but neither Rugarian was there.
"They zonked out as soon as we made orbit;' Gino said. "Move up i here, Kris, and I'll give you a rundown of all we did and what Zainal managed, smooth as a baby's butt."
A DRASSI CLERK NOTICED THE EXCESSIVE CHARGES and ill; assorted cargo registered against this particular vessel. When he checked through to administration, holding the com line open for nearly an hour, he was told that the ship had sufficient credit to cover the expenses. There was no problem. He was to return to his duties. Being a Drassi, he did so, felt more abused by his superiors than ever. There were no rewards for being diligent on behalf of his Emassi. But what choice had he?
"I HAVE TO TELL YOU, KRIS," GINO began, "I wasn't all that keen on seeing a Catteni there on Botany, but.. :' and Gino whistled expertly and shrilly through his teeth, "when you see how that guy operates, I'd walk through fire for him now."
"He does have a way about him," Kris admitted with a grin, "so how did he operate?"
"Blizte was a boondock of a berg, all Rassi in godawful hovels, just staring at us. Or to be more precise, staring at nothing really. Two Catteni vets---one had both legs missing and the other was minus an arm---managed the one---get it the one eatery in Blizte. They were sitting on a bench as we went past. Zainal got a wave. A few klicks on and we came to a surfaced road.
Don't know with what but there were few ruts in it and that old banger could move when you put your pedal to the metal." Gino executed a joint cracking stretch, and Kris wondered if she couldn't possibly manage the bridge and let him sleep, too. "No, I'm fine," he told her, hands back on the armrests. "I can sleep anywhere and be fresh with half an hour's catnap. I slept on the way back from the city.
"And that was an eye-opener." Again that distinctive whistle of respectful awe. "Like something from future worlds 'n' stuff. Beautiful layout and even the important buildings weren't squared-off in plate glass but..." he mimicked a commercial voice-over, "'ecologically situated so as not to mar the natural beauty and making good use of flora and fauna." Nothing higher than one story. Mostly because the buildings are built down rather than up. Zainal says some of them go down a good hundred plegs."
"What do the Eosi live in?" Her curiosity got the better of her dislike of the overlords.
Gino raised his eyebrows. "Only for Zainal pointing them out, I wouldn't have guessed. Though they do enclose their properties with high walls and force screens. Saw a bird-like thing get fried trying to land on one.
So we didn't get to see anything inside the compounds. They're also scattered all over Cattena---which is what they have so imaginatively named the city. Still, if it weren't for the neighbors, it'd be better than Beverly Hills.
Or even Carmel.
"Zainal showed us where his family home was, and it's spread out over quite a hunk of real estate. Zay says it's because so many Eosi hosts have come from his lineage, or pedigree or whatever you want call it."
Gino's shudder was not faked. "Four of them. Big bastards, even when you know the poor damned Catteni that got stuck with being subsumed was big to start with. Crazy eyes! Scare the shit out of me... begging your pardon."
Again his whistle. "Sure was glad Zay got out of that living death.
Worse than a zombie in my opinion.
"However, he stops at a place where there're public com units and made a half dozen calls, while we ambled over to the eatery."This time Gino grimaced. "They don't know a damned thing about good eating. Cram into their mouths, but Zay had told us what to order and we did and that was pretty good. Almost as good as what we regularly eat on ' Botany." He said that with an air of condescension.
"He couldn't reach all the guys he wanted to see, but he said that these four were the best and he was just lucky to find any one of them at Cat.We did the secret hand signs and passwords and stuff and met at what for a service station here. Sort of Cattenistyle garage sales." He grinned impishly at her for his witticism. "We made as if we were trying to sell the transport so much of the conversation between Zainal and the others appeared to be discussing the condition of the truck and the engine it uses. That engine is stuck above one of the ground level panels. Zay hiS.
'! parked obliquely to the station so no one could see any one coming or going. One of us was there to keep the mechanics or whatever they were from closing in when inconvenient. There were two or three other vehicles being inspected so it was a good cover to use."
He paused, rubbed the side of his nose.
"And?" Kris prompted him.
He chuckled a smug "he he he he" of satisfaction. "There seem to be a lot of Catteni Emassi fed up to here," and he levelled his hand with his nose, "with Eosi domination. Especially..." and he paused again for emphasis, "since Mentat Ix---that's the one Zay's brother's lugging around and Co and Se have been agitating every one of the other Eosi about demolishing Botany, diverting all naval forces to that end."
Gino looked worried. "No one has ever seen the Mentats---they're the
leaders among the Eosi---going so ballistic. They've got to penetrate or
burst or explode or implode the Bubble---because it's there, I think, and
has them stumped. And stumped, they don't like to be;'
"Yeah, and it's not good. They haven't stopped mindwiping specialists so those who were lucky enough to escape being caught have had to go into hiding. And hiding places are getting filled up and harder to find... especially as we have no air transport at all. And very few working trucks or cars.
The Eosi have found another use for petroleum products---all theirs. It's not as if they can burn the Bubble away---no oxygen in space, thank God.
"And the Emassi Zay talked to are not the only ones beginning to get ideas from the rebellion on Earth." Gino nodded in satisfaction. "Evidently we've really got 'em going, Catteni and Eosi. Never had so much opposition before. We might not be as technically advanced as Eosi, but I'll tell you, there're not enough Emassi to deal with what we're giving 'em back on Earth."
"So we could actually rebel enough to get Earth back?" Kris felt a surge of triumph flow through her.
"I didn't say that," Gino replied cautiously, tilting his head to show his skepticism. "In the first place," he held up one finger, "Emassi and Drassi like Earth and want to keep it---just get rid of the troublesome population.
Meanwhile they're looting everything that isn't cemented into the ground and sometimes they jackhammer loose what they fancy. In the second place, they have stopped ruining manufacturing complexes and keep some of the specialized companies working nonstop... which means until the workers drop from exhaustion. I mean, shift work was never like that. Nor those sweatshops in India and Asia we were hearing so much about. We do have some items high on the list of acquisition and they're being turned out in bulk. While there might not be enough good Emassi to help a worldwide coup, I'll tell you one thing: the Eosi invasion sure stopped all the petty squabbles and got all Earth working toward one real good goal---getting rid of the invaders."
"I always did think a really bad extraterrestrial menace would unite the world," Kris said.
"It sure has. Palestinians join Israelis; the Northern Irish have allied with the Brits in covert actions against any Catteni on the British Isles. Even North and South Korea are cooperating against the mutual enemy. The African nations got some real rough treatment---because they're black fer Gods' sake and the Catten/tried to make Rassi out of them;' Gino snorted.
"That didn't work. In fact, I think the African nations have wracked up more fatalities among the Drassi and Emassi than any other race. Turnabout's fair play. Now, if that will hold when we've thrown out the invaders, it'll be the first wonder of the twentieth century."
Kris sighed in a hopeful breath. "I suppose it could happen."
"Might not until the twenty-first but we'll see. We've a few years to spare."
"Well, I'm not quite sure, since this is going to take a lot of planning and under difficult circumstances. We've got to wait until Baby and the KDM make it back. Then we'll have to somehow get some of the Emassi sympathizers to Botany so we can correlate plans and stuff."
Gino laughed. "Zay's started the process and, as long as we can keep
bringing in the high-grade ore, no one's going to wonder where he's
getting it. So he can check in as much as he needs to to mobilize
dissidents:'
"What did he mean about being followed? By the friends of the Catteni he beat up?"
"Oh, him. He didn't have friends smart enough to follow us. But there are others, Eosi, in particular who might try," Gino said with a laugh.
"Probably will. But one of his Emassi friends gave him a chart of an
asteroid belt so dense you could hide the entire Catteni fleet in it and
they wouldn't be able to spot each other unless they knew exactly where
the other ship is. There're so much heavy elements in the belt,
supposedly, that it jams all signals. We can slip in and out of there
neat as a whistle. In fact, that's where we're headed right now;'
Reacting subconsciously to being followed, Kris turned about in her seat but Gino laughed.
"Don't worry, Kris;' and Gino patted her knee. "Zay and I spotted them. Way back. We took off before they expected us to so they were late leaving the space station. They'll try to track us by the ion trail and let's hope another ship crosses ours and confuses them. Any way, we'll be in the asteroid belt long before they make it. You wait, Kris, you'll see."
Gino shook his head. "Not Kamiton. You know how reserved Catteni are? Well, this guy all but kissed Zay he was so glad to see him. Not that he knew who he was at first... and in fact, damned suspicious because he had known Venlik, the Emassi Zay's pretending to be, and hated the man.
So there was a bit of an impasse at first. Until Zay removed the cheek pieces and reminded Karoitoh of a few details only the real Zainal could have known. You should have seen Kamiton's face when he realized who Zainal really was. And I like Karoitoh. He can smile, and he's got that same wacky sense of humor Zay has."When Gino noticed how dubious she was, he laughed. "Look, hon, I've been a good judge of people all my life and there's not that damned much difference between us and Catteni when you get down to basics."
Then unaccountably Gino blushed.
"Well, if you say so, G/no," Kris said, ignoring the blush since she had a good idea what caused Gino Marrucci's sudden embarrassment. There was indeed one very notable difference between Human and Catteni that she happened to enjoy exceedingly. And Gino had suddenly remembered that.
"I'll reserve my opinion until I meet him. If I ever do."
"I think you will;' the pilot said, recovering his composure quickly.
"He's the first one Zay wants to bring through the Bubble."
"Really?"
"YUP, because if they had a Missouri on Catten, Kamiton'd be from there. We gotta show him the Farmers' part of Botany and what we've managed to do on our continent before he'll really believe what we told him.
Humans speaking Catteni are not that uncommon these days, but Humans
living beyond Eosi control need to be seen to be believed:'
Kris nodded. "Sometimes I don't believe it myself."
"Hell, kid, you were making it happen before I got transported."
"That doesn't change the fantastical aspects of it, Gino."
They were silent for a long while, watching the stars, then Gino pointed out some of the anomalous primary colors, and even one double star. They were so far away as to resemble opaque marbles rather than suns. Gino crossed his arms on this chest, a slight grin on his face, and shook his head ever so slightly.
"Never thought you'd be this far from our solar system, huh?"
"You got it."
"Hungry?"
"Something hot would go down well, food and drink, if you don't mind, Kris."
"Drassi hear, Drassi obey;' she said with mock humility and made her way back to the companionway. She had become so accustomed to the heavy gravity that a normal one had her bouncing along.
Snores from the various sleeping accommodations indicated that the others were well and truly asleep. She had the galley to herself and prepared enough food for them both. Then she remembered she didn't need to wear the lenses anymore so she took hers out, cleansed them once more before putting them back in the little container. She got an extra cup of water for Gino to get rid of his.
As she handed him his tray of food, he gave her a puzzled glance and then chuckled. "Excuse me, while I get my own eyes back." He put his lenses in the cup and put that to one side. 'I'll clean 'em later. I'm hungry enough I might eat 'em as hots d'oeuvres."
"Naw, they don't taste at all like oysters;' she retorted facetiously and started in on the stew she'd reheated for them.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER she decided that there was nothing to do and she would certainly know which lights indicated trouble in any section of the ship.
"Go get some rest, Gino. I can sit here and look at the telltales just as sensibly as you can."
"Not quite yet," and he pointed ahead, without taking his eyes from the sensitive scope he was using. "The pulsar I've been looking for. We make a course correction when we line up with that. Then I'Ll go get some sleep.
And wake Zainal up. He said to."
WHEN ZAINAL TOOK OVER THE BRIDGE, he first pressed his cheek against hers and kept one arm about her shoulders even after he had seated himself.
"Including your brush with another Catteni."
"He asked for it. But he's a mere nothing," and Zainal gave a contemptuous flick of his hand. "Getting Karoiron on our side was more than I expected. Tubelin, Kasturi, and Nitin can be valuable to us, but they don't have the connections that Karoitoh has. Or the family prestige."
"And?" she prompted.
He ruffled her short hair, tipped her face toward him so he saw she had removed the lenses. "You look much better with your own eyes. You did make a convincing Drassi."
"Noble Emassi, you are too kind."
Zainal chuckled in that bass rumble that made her grin. "Don't let that get around just yet. However, all four are due to go back to Earth for various tasks. If we could somehow get them in touch with our Humans there, we could begin to make the Catteni regret what they've been doing to your planet."
Kris thought that over. "But you're Catteni. And you said 'our' Humans."
"I like the way Humans think better than I like the way Catteni don't ever think."
"Luck."
"What are our chances of doing what you want? Getting rid of the Eosi, with or without the help of the Farmers?"
"I heard something I have never heard about an Eosi Mentat before," he
said, his tone very somber and thoughtful. "The one who subsumed my
brother went totally out of control and his juniors had a very difficult
time reducing his... wildness. He's the one that wants to burst our
Bubble no matter how long it takes:'
"Eosi can have nervous breakdowns?" She was astonished.
"I don't know about nervous, but Ix was dangerously out of control."
"What does it take to kill an Eosi?"
He gave her a quick look and a humph. "I've never heard that one has ever been killed. Though . . ." and he paused reflectively, "killing one has never been tried. They are well protected, both by the fear of them that is instilled from the time we understand anything outside childish needs. We don't even know how long an individual Eosi lives. Except that it needs to change hosts." '..
Zainal shook his head, drawing the corners of his mouth down. He gave her a sideways look. "You Humans say you do not like to take Human lives. It is against your laws."
"The Eosi are not Human," she said tartly.
"The Farmers would not like it."
"You haven't given up then, on gaining their assistance?"
"No," he replied.
"What if Humans managed to kill an Eosi.. :'
Zainal waved both hands in a cutting negative gesture. "The numbers
they would kill in retaliation would decimate your population:'
"They are, on a small scale, but if an Eosi was known to have been killed by some Human agency, they are just as likely to destroy the entire planet."
"Well, there goes another good idea. We have to kill them all then."
"Bloodthirsty," she corrected him. "I just want my planet free of them."
"As I want my planet free of them. We've had them longer. We get the first chance."
"Not without us right there beside you, Zainal. You Catteni can't have all the fun." Then a yawn overtook her.
"Get some sleep, Kris. You've served a double watch already."
She tried to argue but with one hand, he lifted her out of the chair.
"Get some sleep. I can hear the sergeant moving around:' He reached into one of his thigh pockets. "Tell him to take this powder in water. It'll help."
She took the packet he handed her.
"Didn't know Catteni ever needed hangover remedies," she said, amused.
"Headaches are caused by other things than too much Mayock:'
Kris left before he could see the guilty expression on her face. She found Chuck, looking more green than gray, just coming out of the head, one hand clutching the door frame. He was definitely in need of whatever remedy Zainal had given her for him if it had taken him this long to sleep off the hangover. She cleared her throat, and her mind, of other details.
His eyes weren't really focusing, but she'd got the lenses out before they could have irritated the eyelids. Mind you, his eyes were pretty bloodshot in spite of having no lens aggravation. She took his other hand and---sternly forgetting what her erotic dreams reminded her his hands had been doing---slapped the packet into the palm.
"All in the line of duty, sarge," she said brightly. "Take it immediately in water. I'll even get the water..."
'I'll get my own water, Bjornsen," he said with great dignity and straightened himself out and walked, however slowly and carefully, back to the galley.
Chapter Five.
IT TOOK NEARLY TWO WEEKS TO REACH the coordinates Kamiton had given Zainal. Kris said nothing about it, but she hadn't realized she'd be so long away from Zane. She thought a lot about him and there was plenty of time to think as they hurtled at top speed toward their destination. "Top speed" was somewhat dampened by a device which Zainal had attached to the propulsion unit just before they shifted to a new heading, and before they left what would have been a well-traveled area of Catteni-controlled space.
"It alters the ion emissions slightly;' he explained.
"We may not be as easy to follow. Certainly it will delay pursuit.
Kamiton knows where to meet us."
"He's meeting us?" Chuck exclaimed.
"Didn't Gino tell you?" Zainal asked.
"He told me that Kamiton would have to see before he'd join wholeheartedly;' Kris said.
"Oh," for once Mitford was taken aback. He rubbed his forehead. "I seem to be missing a lot."
"There are alcoholic drinks even I wouldn't take," Zainal said reassuringly.
"I think Kivel probably did his best to get information from you."
"Fraggit, I thought I could hold anything and not spill any beans,"
Chuck said. "I did hear you mention Kamiton but I didn't know you
intended to take him back to Botany:'
"Him and how many others?" was Ninety's query.
"Only Karoiron;' Zainal said. "He is a scout explorer, which is why he knows about this asteroid belt where we will meet him, and then return to Botany. Spatially we are traveling in a triangle so we won't be long getting home once we contact him."
"Do we have to be Catteni with him?" Gino asked, rubbing at the stubble over his gray skin.
"No, because it will give us the... the upper hand," and Zainal grinned, "to show him how well we can fool Catteni, even on their own world."
Kris was not the only one who took in the significance of his last phrase. Ninety nodded slowly, and Gino grinned more broadly than ever.
Coo and Pess nodded. Mack Dargle made a comical grimace.
"What did I say?" asked Zainal who was becoming more and more sensitive to Human nuances.
"Their own world," Kris said, enunciating the three words slowly.
"I would give my eyeteeth to hear other Emassi speak that way of Catteni;' Mack said.
The asteroid field was a spectacular vision as they passed the heavy Uranus-type planet well away from the slowly orbiting mass of space detritus.
Chunks large enough to be small moons were interspersed with smaller, uneven hunks following eccentric orbits about each other as well as the big planet, which, like some interstellar miser, seemed unwilling to release any of its satellites. The cosmic do-si-do dance was almost mesmerizing.
Gino wondered just how many of the original inner worlds and moons had been involved in a collision of such magnitude. And how it had occurred. Two charred and dead planets, pockmarked by impacts centuries old, wobbled on erratic Mercury-and Venus-type orbits, each with more small moons of spatial debris attracted by the gravity of the planets they now orbited but not large enough to head for final dissolution in the primary.
The star was dying, according to the spectroscope analysis Gino had done: the readings suggested that the star was doing its damnedest to continue to live. Yes, all this space junk wasn't really an asteroid belt... a field of planetary and lunar fragments hugging the one thing that gave it some stability---the heavy Uranus planet. The area would take days to circumnavigate.
To wend a way through it would require not only a very, very experienced pilot but a ship with heavy shielding and good gunners to explode those bits and pieces that were too small for them to avoid and too big to ibounce harmlessly off the shielding.
"Only someone like Karoitoh would find a... a curiosity like this:' Zainal shrugged and seeded himself more firmly in the pilot's chair, hands poised over the control panel.
"How'll we ever find the one we want with that mess churning around like
that?" Gino asked, his hands tense as he readied himself to use the
thrusters on Zainal's command. "It's damned near a light year across;'
"No," Zainal replied prosaically, "but certainly it covers an enormous
area:'
They'd rehearsed the maneuvering tactics all the previous day, using the diagram that Kamiton had given Zainal. They were to approach from co-oral'mates at the ecliptic and weave a course that, in itself, would have thrown any pursuer off. Not that the ship's detectors had spotted anything following them. Kris wondered how anyone could rely on the diagram since : every rock, boulder, mountain, and small moon seemed to be on a totally · rratic orbit.
SEE WHAT YOU MEANT about being able to hide.. :' Chuck murmured respectfully.
"Right thruster two seconds.. :' Zainal interrupted Chuck's remark.
Gino responded, and they seemed to be heading directly at a cluster spinning end on end when Zainal asked for three seconds right thruster and they broke into the clear... briefly.
No one dared say another word to risk breaking the concentration of the two pilots. They sat, occasionally with an inadvertent gasp at the terrifying proximity to a space obstacle large enough to crush them, clinging to the armrests of their seats, and grateful for the safety belts that held them in place. Zainal had insisted they don protective helmets and emergency oxygen tanks, and these precautions, pitiful though they seemed as the ship wove a torturous way through the maze, irrationally gave them a sense of security.
It seemed like hours, and possibly it was, before they finally saw empty space again. Then Zainal ordered a left thruster for five seconds, which swung the ship right back at the belt. The second course change, just before they would have reentered the asteroid belt, brought them parallel to it.
Zainal gave a nod of his head and slowed the KDL almost to a complete halt. The ship drifted toward a ginormous asteroid, which turned ever so slightly to display an obvious cavern, which had been punched into it at some point. Zainal now slowly moved the KDL toward the dark hole, and they caught sight again of a glint where no light should be. He activated an exterior light, and they all reacted to the sight of an EVA-suited figure making for their hatch.
"Light the air lock," Zainal said, "and prepare to accept boarder."
Karoiron was as much a surprise to Kris as he was to the rest of the Botany group. He acted, Kris thought, much as Zainal had on their first meeting: dismissive, even contemptuous, until he realized that each and every one of them understood what he said to Zainal.
"I did not expect you to arrive so promptly, Zainal. I have only just arrived myself."
Kamiton shrugged shoulders as broad as Zainal's and began to strip off rest of his space suit, looking around with a frown as no one seemed immediately assist him.
"You're closest, Chuck," Zainal said in Catten, "give him a hand. These are awkward even with plenty of space." He took the helmet from Kamiton and the harness of the one-man thruster pack.
"Your cabin has the most room," Chuck said as Zainal opened a compartment where the helmet and thruster could be stored. "This way, Kamiton, in case you are unfamiliar with this class of ship." By tone, gesture, and courtesy, Sergeant Chuck Mitford was establishing his equality with the new arrival.
"They all speak Catten?" Kamiton asked, surprised as Gino and Mack pressed tight against the bulkhead to give him room to move aft.
"All of them," Zainal said.
Kris, too, had made as much space in the companionway as she could to allow Kamiton to pass her, but he stopped and stared hard at her. She / raised an eyebrow in askance. He was a touch taller than she.
"Is it a female?" he asked Zainal, not taking his eyes off her.
Kris was glad that her gray skin did not show the flush of blood to her
face at being referred to as an "it:'
"Female and of command rank," she said in a cold hard voice, almost
spitting out the Catteni syllables. "A fact you will remember:'
"One of the Terrans, though, is she not?" He looked forward at Zainal.
"Do not speak over me, Kamiton," she said, thoroughly incensed and
determined to be certain he answered her directly, "speak to me as you
would to any other of equal rank;'
"I would, were I you," Zainal remarked in a mild tone to Kamiton.
"She's dangerous in a fight. Gino," and he paused at his cabin, "set course for Botany, top speed." Then, as soon as Kamiton and Chuck had entered the cabin, he winked at Kris and closed the door.
WHATEVER MIGHT HAVE BEEN SAID during the short interval in which Kamiton was assisted out of his EVA apparel, he did not again refer to her as an "it" or but addressed her directly, as he did the rest of the crew. Since he asked a great many questions, glancing about the cramped table in the crew mess, he did seem to accept her answers if she gave them.
Once or twice, he rephrased the question later on, looking at Gino for an answer.
"Kris would know that, and I think she's already given you the answer," Gino said blandly.
Kamiton was quick enough never to use that ploy again.
"Which of you were first on Botany?" Kamiton asked.
Chuck held up his hand first followed by all, including the two Deski and Zainal, except Gino. Karoiron had the same habit of raising one eyebrow as Zainal would, in the manner of requesting explanation.
"I am space pilot, too," Gino said with a shrug. "Third Drop."
"The rest of us," Chuck said, "were what the Eosi picked up in the initial Invasion.
"So you have learned Barevi as well?" Kamiton asked.
"Well enough to barter in the markets," Kris said.
"And other places;' Chuck added in a droll tone.
Kamiton started to cross his arms, but there were too many wide bodies to permit that so he put his elbows on the table. Gino got up and started to clear the remnants of the meal, which provoked a startled reaction from Kamiton. Gino grinned.
"We all take turns;' he said. "You do know, Kamiton, that there are many minerals in the asteroid belt. Read traces as we wandered through:' Kamiton gave a curt nod of his head. "I picked it so."
Coo and Pess, evidendy having had enough of the social scene, rose and left the room.
"Now;' Kamiton asked in a patient tone of voice, "I wish to see the spatial photographs of this refuge of yours. And especially of this Bubble that has our leaders..." his tone was contemptuous, "so aggravated."
At least that was what Kris thought the word meant. Most of the language Kamiton had used could be understood in context if he used words that she wasn't familiar with. At least he did them the courtesy of not speaking in pidgin Catteni.
Mack Dargle came in then: he'd been standing the watch. "Nothing around
here but us, Zay;' he said, nodding to Karoitoh. "Pess has taken over
the watch;'
Zainal nodded, then asked Mack to collect the hand viewer and the file that had been compiled as what they facetiously called the "travel guide."
Karoitoh went through the file several times, first very quickly, grunting now and then. The second round was more selective as he magnified certain scenes, like the enclosed valleys, which caught his attention. Zainal had had Baxter take shots of the new Farmer equipment in the garage and then in action. There were also shots of the units, which the settlers had made of the original equipment.
Kris noticed it about the time that Chuck must have because the sergeant's eyes made contact with her. In no shot did Zainal actually show the geographical location of either the original installations or the current ones. Nor any details that might have given their positions away. Kris wondered if this was intentional. Zainal had said that he trusted Kamiton.
' How far?That was when Kris began to fret over the possibility that Kami-was actually a spy for the Eosians.
Then Chuck tapped her on the arm. "Your shift, Kris;' He also gave her a nod to reassure her that he would remain. And that he was still assessing this new recruit.
Kris glanced at the timepiece on the wall. "The time has just flown, "she said inanely. Then pushed herself around the table, which also momentarily displacing Kamiton from his position.
"I think the Cat's okay," Gino said when he came forward an hour later. He'd brought her a cup of herbal tea. He had one as well as he slipped in the pilot's seat and absendy ran his eyes over the panel lights. "So do Coo and Pess, and they'd have more to go by than any of us. 'Sides which, I can't imagine Zainal risking any chance of aborting phase three. then wriggled his fingers in a characteristic stretch of his hands over the control panel. "Got a course correction to make soon." He leaned slightly to the left to peer at the rearview screen. "Nary a sign of pursuit either. Hope the others are okay." And doubt crept into the pilot's voice.
"So far Zainal's been right..." Kris said loyally.
"You only need to be wrong once," Gino said.
"For Pete's sweet sake, you sound like Balenquah."
Gino sat up straighter in the chair. "Kindly keep your insults to yourself, young woman," he said. "To begin with I'm a much better pilot than that idiot ever was."
"Sorry," Kris said, feigning meekness.
Gino had his eyes on the timepiece now and, toggling up the course correction made it with swift movements of his agile fingers. "There now.
We should be home in next to no time."
"As the man said, that asteroid jumble wasn't all that far from where Botany is after all."
GINO'S WORDS WERE TRUE enough for they made it home just as the watch changed. Before that, however, Zainal and Gino had done the computation to find which window was the best one to take, avoiding the thirty-hour satellite. They had three and Zainal decided to use the one that would bring them in just "beyond" the range of the geosynchronous, older one while the thirty-hour sat was on the other side of the Bubble.
By mutual consent, Kamiton was allowed to take the second seat so he could have the best view of the Bubble and the insertion. He sat, arms folded across his chest in best Catteni mode, and watched, his keen yellow eyes missing nothing. Zainal had indicated that Kris and Gino should remain in the cabin. The others were detailed to rig the ship for landing and check the cargo restraints. There was always some buffeting as they entered the atmospheric envelope of Botany.
Zainal altered one view screen to show Kamiton the Eosian arrays still stuck in the Bubble at that point of exit. Karoitoh snorted, then apparently gestured for Zainal to turn the screens on the Bubble. He seemed surprised when Zainal slowed to penetration speed. They almost popped through like a pea coming out of a pod, Kris thought. She gave a nostalgic Peas were so good, fresh out of the pod. Maybe someone would have thought to bring back some Earth-type seeds to experiment on Botanic soil.
She hoped so, and that peas were among them.
They slipped easily through the Bubble's skin, and Kamiton rumbled a request for a rear screen view. Of course, there was absolutely no indication that a large ship, with arrays of all the same sorts that had been ripped off the Eosian vessel, had passed through it.
Then Kamiton saw Botany, the largest of the continents in full view, though clouds were obscuring the seas and the other landmasses. His eyes opened wide. He said nothing but the crisp nod of his head was approval enough for Gino and Kris who grinned at each other.
Zainal did the necessary orbits, pointing out the original continent they had inhabited, also the half-desert one they had partially explored, barely visible under cloud cover. Then at a much lower altitude, he did a flyby of the command post, magnifying the screen sufficiently so that Kamiton could identify that this was an alien structure.
They flew on, low enough over the neatly cultivated fields to show Kamiton a few Farmer mechs at work, spraying in one case, harvesting in mother. Again that sharp Catteni nod to indicate Kamiton had noticed.
Almost at a glideonserving fuel had become second nature to all the pilots---Zainal took the KDL across the narrow sea and up to the landing field.
"God in heaven, what's happened?" Gino cried.
Zainal snapped on the intercom. "Scott? Beverly? Someone. Landing mstructons.
"Five, I count five," Kris said, her voice rising in a squeak. "We've been invaded?"
"Welcome back, Zainal," and Scott's voice was far too vibrantly triumphant for the extra three ships to be menaces.
Suddenly Zainal began to swear in Catteni, only a litfie of which Kris understood but it had to do with boiling and eating and other usually fatal applications. Karoitoh was roaring his head off, laughing and whooping in such uncharacteristically Catteni behavior that Kris and Gino were both grinning, too. Kris couldn't quite understand his angry reaction: after all, he was the one who proposed the acquisition of Catteni spaceships.
Zainal was definitely not amused and continued to growl out his fury all through the landing procedures. As soon as he put the KDL down, to one side of the now crowded field, he jerked his head at Gino to power the ship down. He brushed past Kris who was considering what options she had of cooling him off before he did something that would really put the cat among the pigeons. She slipped in ahead of Kamiton who was nearly staggering with laughter down the companionway to the hatch. Zainal didn't wait for the landing ramp. He jumped to the ground and started looking about for someone to holler at.
The other ships could not have been there very long, because two were still unloading groggy passengers or cargo or both. The passengers were enough of a surprise all on their own because Kris recognized the unmistakable lanky figures of black Maasai, with their long hair and distinctive garb. She missed the customary spears and shields that she'd seen them carry in the documentaries and news reports during the African famine.
Cargo was being unloaded, boxes and crates and larger items that required the use of a quickly constructed hoist told her that the mission, however increased, had been very successful.
"AH! SCOTT!" And Zainal had seen his victim and turned in that direction.
Halfway up the field, Ray Scott acknowledged that shout with a wave and the most cheerful expression Kris had ever seen on the ex-admiral's face.
She groaned at the thought of that dissipating when Zainal confronted him. Standing in the now fully open cargo hatch of the KDL, she began to semaphore her arms, trying to catch Ray's attention. Just warning him might help.
There was nothing wrong with the ex-admiral's eyesight, and he caught her frenzied signal. His smile began to fade as Zainal closed the distance between them. Even Zanal s back looked angry, Kris thought. He was in a towering rage and even Kris could understand why other species were afraid of Catteni. What she couldn't understand was why he'd be so angry at what seemed to be a very successful undertaking.
He was confronting Scott, waving arms and fists about, pointing from one of the newly captured ships to the other. Two were as big as the H-class, which had kidnapped her from Denver ages ago. The other was another new K-class. One way or another, Botany was assembling a substantial space fleet. So why was Zainal so put out?
Karoiron had disembarked the KDL, Chuck Mitford and Gino Marrucci acting as guides as well as sponsors. Mack was following at a more leisurely pace, taking in all the activity and the new arrivals, Human as well as material. The busy stevedores didn't even give Kamiton a second look.
Kris ran to catch up with Zainal and caught the last of Zainal's diatribe, so well interspersed with more Catteni curses and allegations, that Ray looked so stunned Kris could almost feel sorry for him.
Abruptly Ray Scott began to chuckle. "You taught us how, Zainal.
Dont btch at m when we had a chance to improve on your tactics and save a lot of people the Eosi want badly."
"One ship at a time would not be missed," Zainal began again, his voice harsh, his manner so belligerent he looked more Drassi than Emassi.
"These all went unnoticed, too, Zainal," Ray said, calmly, suavely defusing the unexpected anger Zainal displayed. "And who is this you have brought?"
If there was an edge that approximated disapproval in Ray's voice, Kris could hardly blame him as he now caught the approach of Kamiton and his guides.
But evidently Zainal had spent most of his anger. With a definite effort, he contained himself, taking a deep breath. Looking over his shoulder, he saw how close Kamiton and the others were. He also turned his head just far enough to take in the anxious expression on Kris' face. Suddenly, the gray of his skin lightened and, with a massive shake to his whole body, he relaxed, gesturing for Kamiton to approach.
"Admiral Ray Scott, this is Emassi Kamiton, a friend for many years and one as committed to removing the Eosi domination as I am." Zainal let the two men shake hands---he'd mentioned that custom to Kamiton since Catten/rarely touched in cordiality---and Ray did not wince at the grip Kamiton produced.
"You are welcome, Emassi," Scott said in Catten/, with a slight grin when he noticed Kamiton's surprise. "Most of us can speak a little Cat-ten...
these days. Come, join us, you, too, Kris, Chuck, Gino. We can debrief in turns." He added the last in English. "Report, I meant to say," he put in, remembering the Catten/words.
Kamiton was looking around with great interest, especially at some of the unusual people who were being helped out of one big H-class.
"We've almost doubled our population again," Ray said, gesturing for them all to go up to the hangar and his office. "Later, Emassi Kamiton, it will be my pleasure to introduce you to the leaders of our colony."
As they entered the hanger, Kris saw Baby already ensconced, her hatch wide open. How had they managed to get pilots enough for three more ships? The KDM had had Laughrey as a second pilot and Boris with Raisha on Baby, and Ricky Farmer, maybe that's how they did it. She shook her head. But none of them, except Laughrey who'd captained Concordes, would have any experience with such big vessels, which would also require a minimum crew.
"Kris..." and obviously Ray Scott was calling for her attention a second time, "there's coffee over there," he said with a broad grin. "And even some reasonably fresh milk."
That shook her out of her introspection.
G/no and Chuck reached the serving table almost as soon as she did.
Chuck inhaled the aroma, eyes closed in ecstasy.
"I'll take a fresh cup, Kris," Scott said as he gestured the two Catten/ to the chairs around the long table.
"Maybe a cup of coffee'll help settle Zainal, too," Chuck murmured to her as she poured for them all. His eyes were twinkling but his expression was sober. "I don't ever want him to get that mad at me, and I've been chewed out by experts."
"You?" Gino said, trying to ease the tension he felt in the atmosphere.
"Sugar as well, Ray?" Kris called out, noticing the large package of it open on the table.
"Two," Scott answered and she wondered just how much sugar had been acquired.
Without even an apologetic look on his face, Chuck used three spoonfuls but no milk. Kris was still deliberating what to add to the two cups destined for the Catteni when Chuck splashed in both sugar and milk, stirring vigorously.
"They can always try it pure later," he said. "This is real army coffee."
He took three cups as deftly as Kris did while Gino, eyes glinting with amusement, carried his and Scott's over to the table.
"See if you like it, Zainal," Chuck said at his most affable in trying to placate Zainal's still visible anger. He spoke in Catteni but when he went on, he had to use the English words where there were no equivalents even in Barevi. "Army can't move without coffee, nor the navy."
"It is a pleasure for us all," Scott said, also in Catteni. Then he blew on the surface of his coffee before sipping judiciously. As the other Humans were following that example, so did Zainal and Kamiton. Then Scott dropped into English. "First thing Sandy Areson offloaded was a huge pot of brew and doled it out. I got that pitcher and two refills. I think she'll be brewing for the rest of the day, we're all so eager for the taste of it. Boxes of tea as well, so Ainger's happy."
"How much coffee did she bring in?" Chuck asked hopefully.
"Sacks full, though not all may be as fresh as this," Ray said before he switched to Catten. "I don't think the Catteni;' and he nodded graciously at Kamiton, "realized..." and he made gestures of grinding with his two hands, "that the beans have to be ground to be useful."
"Sort of like potatoes when Sir Walter gave them to Queen Elizabeth," Kris said, slipping in the remark to allow Zainal more time to regain his usual dignity.
"Now, let me explain to you, Zainal, Kamiton, about the three ships," Ray said, sitting forward but keeping both hands on his coffee cup.
"I listen," Zainal said in a firm voice and sipped again at his coffee.
Kamiton did, too, rolling the liquid in his mouth and savoring it.
"Neither of the two ships we sent on this reconnaissance of Earth had any trouble with their ID's or traveling. As you said, Zainal, Catten/ships are moving about without any restrictions at all. All right, all right, that might change because of what happened next," Ray intercepted Zainal's objections.
"But considering how easy it all was to take over three more, I doubt they will be missed."
"They will not be missed," Karoiron said, having followed Ray's somewhat basic Catteni even with the ex-admiral's atrocious accent. He grinned broadly. "Everyone is too busy taking valuables and loading cargo drones.
Those who are assigned to the Eosi do not have the same freedom, but those, as you know, Zainal, are the chosen few!" Kamiton's smile was a mixture of contempt and condescension.
"Matt Su and Vic Yowell managed to find an unused channel on the communications band and kept in contact with our scout ship."Then Ray rubbed his forehead and, with an apologetic nod at Kamiton, asked Zainal to translate to Kamiton while he resorted to English. "That proved extremely useful because once Raisha and Boris saw what had been done to St. Petersburg, they were so shattered it took hours for Bull Fetterman and Lenny to talk them back into action." Ray paused briefly. 'I'll say this for them, once they got over their initial shock, they really showed the stuff they're made of. By then, the KDM had realized how easy it was to get in and out of any major Catteni landing field and were reconnoitering." He sighed heavily. "Not much is left of the major world capitol cities, except the ones that don't look big enough to be important. After the KDM dropped off Basil Whitby and Leila in England, they let Sandy off in what had been the Boston-Cambridge area, and Joe Latore in upper New Jersey.
the KDM proceeded, as planned, to Houston and the big Cat-1osi installation there.
"That's when they had the chance to take over the two H-class ships.
The H's had just been loaded with more folks and were headed to one of the mining planets. Matt Su pretended to be in command and reassigned 'Bert Put and John Beverly as the new Drassi officers in charge of the newly acquired HTS. It was loaded but had only two crewmen on board so they · were easily fooled into believing a change in command..."
Zainal actually grinned. "Perhaps it wasn't a bad idea, after all."
"No, because John Beverly knew where some air force personnel might into hiding. And they were. So that didn't leave just two fake Catteni to manage that big mother. They aren't that difficult to operate but some crew had to be used. Beverly got to the hideout---but he had a bit of a problem, dressed as a Catteni until he wiped off part of the makeup and recognized one or two officers he knew. After that, they had enough to crew half a dozen more ships;' Ray chuckled at the startied look on Zainal's face.
Kamiton grinned, shaking his head at the audacity.
"We also now have NASA ground crew personnel who'll know how to service the ships;' and Ray was obviously relieved about that aspect. "BevLaughrey and two more experienced Hercules pilots back with him to the Houston facility in the H's shuttle and enough men to crew a second H-ship;' Ray paused, noticed that his cup was empty. Chuck rose, took it, and went to fill both. "That's when we got the African contingent.
Even the Hutus and Tutsies resented Catteni interference with their little joined forces against the Gray Men. We've Maasai, Luo, and Kikuyo :and evidently a smattering of Tuareg and Zulu. The Catteni took savage all across Africa."
"So I also heard;' Kamiton put in.
Over at the coffee table, Chuck murmured to Kris: "He's laughed once. Relax." As he poured coffee from the large botde, he inhaled the aroma with a look of pure pleasure on his face that Kris had recently seen, in much different circumstances. Fortunately he didn't see her blushing.
"And the K-class? Three spaceships disappearing from the same area would arouse suspicion," Zainal said bluntly.
"No, the K was Joe Latore's contribution to our growing navy," Ray said. "He found a lot of people hiding out in the forests in New Jersey, and they told him about all the ships they'd seen coming and going from what's left of New York City. He organized a bunch to go have a look. Had enough volunteers to make an army but kept it to a sensible force. Lots of people have rifles and small arms, you see. Have to hunt to live. They got to the city via the Lincoln Tunnel."
"The tunnel?" Chuck asked, exchanging surprised looks with Kris and Gino.
"Well, all the bridges were gone, and the Holland, but debris from the old Port Authority hid the entrance to the Lincoln and evidently the Catteni hadn't noticed the New Jersey entry. Can't get vehicles through the ones already stuck there. Some folks are using them to camp out in: those who got stuck there when the Catteni hit the city. Joe said they nearly caused a landslide getting through the debris on Fortieth Street and that didn't make them popular with the refugees. But..." and Scott shrugged off that complaint.
"According to the tunnel people, Central Park was a prime landing and loading area. So Joe and his group started up Eleventh Avenue toward the park. When Joe saw the K-class parked on top of the Cunard building at Fifty-fourth Street, he decided to take a closer look. It was fully loaded and the crew drunk out of its tiny minds on champagne;' Ray grinned. "By the way, Catteni do not know how to swim."
When Zainal translated that, Kamiton gave another of his bursts of laughter. Even Zainal had a grin on his face.
"So no one's going to miss that K right away. It was only a matter of getting in touch with the KDL. General Beverly sent his shuttle with a couple of air force Hercules pilots and enough crew to handle her. Joe brought as many folks back as possible and promised to lift more when he could." Scott sighed.
Not, Kris thought, that he didn't blame Joe for promising, but because it might be difficult to honor it.
Zainal asked in English.
"Hid behind the moons until they got the olley-olley-in-free," Ray Scott said with a boyish grin in keeping with the hide-and-seek password.
"The what?" Zainal glanced at Kris for explanation. She was relieved to see that his eyes were back to a normal shade of yellow and that the tension in his face muscles had dispersed.
"A children's game word. Quite appropriate."
"But how did the new vessels pass the Bubble?" Zainal asked, frown ing.
Ray gave a flick of one hand to indicate the ease of that operation.
"Baby brought one H-class in, using the same trick you did, Zainal, with
a magnetic linkage. Then the KDL piggybacked the other two the same way
when the coast looked clear of surveillance:'
Zainal blinked. "Piggybacked? More children's games?" he asked, with a weary but tolerant sigh.
"As far as we know, before they got through the Bubble;' Ray went on, filled cup raised in both hands, "no alarms were heard on any of the Catteni channels. If they haven't missed the ships in nearly three weeks, will they ever?" Then he took a long drink of coffee.
Zainal repeated that in Catteni to Kamiton, then stood up with his empty cup in his hand, and silently held out the other for Kamiton's.
"It is refreshing to drink;' Karoiron said, handing the cup over but he followed Zainal's progress to the service table to refill their cups while answering Ray in Catteni.
"I doubt even the Eosi know how many ships they have in the fleet. The shipyards keep building them," and Karoitoh shrugged his heavy shoulders diffidently. "The ships not to touch are those used only by the Eosi.
They are distinctively marked and no one enters who does not have to:'
"I can easily understand that;' Ray said with a grin. Then, as Zainal returned with the refilled cups, he leaned across the table toward them. "But would not they be the very ships we'd need to hijack if you," and he pointed at both Zainal and Kamiton, "want to be rid of Eosian domination?"
Chuck grinned though, Gino, for a moment, looked apprehensive.
"There are at least one hundred Eosi," Kamiton said. "That is one hundred ships to destroy and you have... how many now? Six?"
a start, Ray said, grinning slightly. "Are you also with us in our fight against Eosian domination?" When Kamiton nodded slowly, he added.
"There are," Kamiton said firmly and soberly. Now he leaned forward across the table. "We must plan. It will not be easy."
"What is worth having never is," Ray Scott said. "Now, it's your turn, Zainal," and he continued in Catteni, "tikso."
ZAINAL "REPORTED" IN THE SAME LANGUAGE, although occasionally Ray had to ask for a translation. He chuckled over the asteroid belt deception.
"Well done, well done," Ray said, rubbing his hands together.
"We cannot make mistakes, Ray," Zainal said as if he could see Scott planning all kinds of hijacking missions that would eventually be noticed: perhaps even traced to Botany.
"There is one Mentat, the Ix? Kamiton said, glancing at Zainal with a significant nod, "who is certain you all," and his large finger circled the table, "are responsible for every disaster that has occurred recently. You realize that a moon base is being constructed to keep watch over you."
Ray nodded. "We know, which is one reason why we are using the south polar windows."
"Good." Kamiton hitched his chair forward, the wood creaking under his weight. He glanced down at it, shifted experimentally, and then ignored the occasional noises.
Kris really did hope that the chair, though made of lodgepole wood, was sturdy enough for the heavily built Catten.
"The Mentat Ix has had one seizure..."
"Seizure?" Zainal came alert.
Karoitoh nodded, grinning. "Interesting, isn't it? The Immortals have a weakness.
. We must discover how we can use them to our benefit."
"Tactically," Ray said, showing appreciation for that information, "its always smart to get your enemy to destroy himself... if you possibly can.
"No species' injury;' Chuck said with great satisfaction. "Only how do we do it? One of them losing his cool doesn't mean we'd be able to get to the minds of the others." He cocked his forefinger and clicked his toung making his hand into an imaginary weapon.
"A seizure in a Mentat has never happened before," KaroitOh said.
sitting back and folding his arms across his chest.
"No, it has not;' Zainal said, then switched to English, addressing the "The significance of such an occurrence wouldn't mean as much to as it does to us;' and he turned back to Kamiton. "I would like to know why I heard nothing of that on Catten," he added in Catteni.
"Nor would you," Kamiton said in a droll tone. "But I know of it as well. The Bubble frustrates Mentat Ix. Total annihilation of this planet is required as retaliation for the humiliation suffered by Ix."
"But this Ix fellow can't get past the Bubble and we know he, it, what-has tried;' Ray Scott said smugly.
"Necessity is the mother of invention," Gino reminded them pointedly.
Zainal translated to Kamiton.
"Have you heard if their brain-wiping of Human specialists has given help?" Ray asked.
"We know that it was done," Kamiton said. "We are trying to find out if any worthwhile information was discovered. More importantly, if any projects have been started. Not so far as I know:' And Kamiton's attitude was that if anyone would know, he would.
"I think that the Eosi," Ray said slowly but with a glint of satisfaction in his eyes, "have underestimated Humans."
Kamiton smiled. "They have and it gives us," and his thick thumb chest, signifying his group of dissidents, "immense satisfaction.
And hope. How best may I serve you, Emassi?" Kamiton bent his head toward Ray in an unexpected gesture of compliance.
"My rank was admiral, Emassi Kamiton," Ray said, with a grin. "And it looks likely that I may resume it. We'll have to consider how best to use your services. Welcome aboard." Then he stood up and turned to Zainal.
"I think that perhaps it would be wise if you all," and he gestured to include Gino and Chuck, "escort KaroitOh up to the hall and make sure everyone knows he's on our side. I'll see how soon we can schedule a tactical conference, but right now, unloading and the disposition of our latest arrivals takes precedence."
Kris was on her feet. "And I have a son to see:' Clearly it was safe for her to leave now that Zainal was himself again. And she was suddenly overcome with the urge to see Zane.
"Take my runabout, Kris," Ray said expansively. "I've got reports to write while all this is fresh in my mind."
Chapter Six.
ZANE WAS SO INVOLVED, PLAYING WITH others his age, giggling outrageously over something they found funny that she stood and watched, drinking in the sight of him.
Suddenly they went dead quiet, eyes wide open and staring. One of the little girls whimpered in fright but was instantly comforted by Sarah McDouall, one of the carets on duty at the crlche.
she said, her voice part surprise and part reassurance.
Kris turned and saw a line of the tall thin Maasai men and women striding up the hill.
They had not been outfitted with the customary Catteni coverails, possibly because the Catteni hadn't made any that size before, so they wore the tatters of their traditional garb. And were as proud and dignified as she remembered seeing them in occasional news broadcasts when there had been that awful drought in Africa and Bob Geldof had started Band Aid.
The size of Maasai would intimidate more than two-and three-year-olds.
"How come you're leading the Maasai, Bart?" Kris asked, noticing him in the front, almost lost among the tall folk.
"They seem to trust me. Now a few smiles wouldn't go amiss right now/' Bart Tom/said firmly and immediately everyone complied, waving as well. "Hassan says 'Jambo' is a greeting. Can we have a chorus from you all?"
Everyone obediently repeated the greeting. The Maasai beside Bart looked surprised, eyebrows ascending up his wrinkled forehead but he stopped. So did the others behind him.
Abruptly Sarah brought the child she was holding closer, waving its arm as she did so. The transformation of the Maasai from surprise to delight was amazing. They all smiled now, at the children, rather than the adults.
The leader came right up to the playground, the picket fencing not as high as his knees, grinning broadly and saying something that Kris heard as "kasserianingera?"
Sarah held out the little girl's hand to the man. Smiling with very white teeth and bending his tall frame down to her level, he very gently touched her fingers, so gently that the child, wideeyed though she was, did not withdraw.
The Maasai nodded and stepped back, then smiled at all the children.
Behind him, the rest of his tribe, if that's who they were, nodded and smiled and murmured their response of "jambo."
"Good, good," Bart said. "That's the first any of them have reacted at all."
"I'd heard/' Sarah said, "that they love children. And cattle. Our loocows are going to give them quite a shock."
The little girl had a grin hovering on her lips, but she burrowed her head into Sarah's shoulder, peeking coyly at the tall man. But the break occurred and a ripple of soft words went down the line. The sai all had smiles now and strode forward more cheerfully.
Bart pointed toward the hall. Then, looking down at a strip of paper [n his hand added in Swahili. "Hapa chakula kizuri! Get me?"
"Ndio, ndio," the leader said, nodding and looking around to gesture for the progress to continue. "Hapa chakula kizuri!" He repeated the same words Bart had used but with the proper inflections, and the Maasai behind grinned and nodded.
"So much for Hassan's instant Swahili lessons," Bart said, grinning as he stuffed his paper back into a thigh pocket.
At that moment, Zane came running towards Kris, arms outstretched to be picked up. "Mommy, mommy, mommy."
She was only too glad to collect him and hug him tightly and kiss him over. Then she took his arm, turned, and had him waving at the Maasai flowed by in their long striding gait.
"Mommy?" Zane whispered in her ear, his eyes wide.
"These are good people, Zane."
"Not Deski, not Rugars..."
"No, Maasai."
"Massssi."
"Maas---ai," she corrected him and he got it right.
"Has a quick ear, this one," Sarah said. "Have a good trip?"
Kris chuckled, thinking of some of the elements she was not going to mention. "Mind you, all we brought back was a dissident Catteni which isnt much against the increase in Botany's fleet...
"Can't say as I did. But then, I can't say as I knew of any Catteni disSidents either:' Sarah grinned. "Nice to know we might have inside help, we?"
"Tell you later:'
"Over lunch perhaps?" Sarah said, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.
"If you share what you've heard that I haven't had time to find out."
"Good. It's nearly lunchtime and sandwiches are all made. LUNCHTIME/' Sarah called.
Out the window of the crche dining room, they saw the procession of what Sarah called the "repossessed," mainly Africans, but some whites, and their nationality not so obvious as they had been given Catteni coveralls.
"Not so many injured either," Kris remarked.
"We did the unloading," Sarah said, "and wait 'til you see what else we got."
"Zainal came back with equipment as well," Kris said. "But it got loaded in such a hurry I don't know what all he acquired."
"Did you see much of the planet?" Sarah asked, as others joined their table, eager to hear of Kris' adventures.
Kris shook her head, breaking a piece off her own sandwich, which Zane evidently preferred to what was on his plate. "The gravity damned near wore me out. I stayed on board and answered the com unit. My Catteni's good enough for that but I don't look the part. And I sure couldn't operate in that gravity! Chuck did all the fronting for us. I'll tell you one thing for sure, I was awful glad to lift off safely." Then she laughed. "We ended up in an asteroid belt and whatever created it must have been one hel-luvan explosion."
She told them the ruse they'd used so that the space station hadn't wanted them to land there, which would have meant handling more formalities than was wise. So they'd got to land on the surface of the planet, far enough away from any settlement so that their "faulty" systems would cause no damage. "And we sure were sent to the boondocks. ! did see the Rassi and they are..." she gave a shudder, "really little more than animals.
You can't call them morons or retarded because they don't have much intelligence at all. They copy what they are shown to do and even that has to be repeated over and over. But Zainal and the others got into the main city and made contact with Kamiton."
She could relate the deception about having to offload an extremely ore cargo, which is why they came back via the asteroid belt, and could get back to Catten if they wished.
"So what's this Kamiton doing here?" Sarah wanted to know.
"Seeing's believing, isn't it?" Kris replied.
"And if he likes what he sees, he brings in more dissidents?" asked another woman. Belatedly Kris recognised her as Jane O'Hanlan, the TV reporter been one of those rescued from Barevi in a mindless state.
"You've recovered!" Kris exclaimed.
Jane gave a rueful smile. "I'm improving. Many are. Dorothy Dwardie's
-been marvelous;'
"Indeed she has," Sally Stoffer said, as she wiped cereal off a baby's face.
"I'm practically out of my job there."
!
"Really?"
"Seventyfive percent have recovered enough to function on their own now, to talk and help out. We've been busy while you were gone."
"I don't doubt that for a moment," Kris said. "But boy-oh-boy, am I glad to be home.
"Daddy, daddy," Zane cried excitedly just then, and Kris looked up to "see Zainal and Kamiton in the doorway. "'Scuse;' Zane said in Sarah's direction and ran up to his father, squealing in excitement when Zainal swung him up.
"Watch out, Zainal, he's just had lunch," Kris cried.
Obediently, Zainal positioned Zane on his back while Kamiton looked on in amused condescension at the sight of a paternally occupied Zainal.
LATER Kris heard all about the resetdement of the Maasai from Sarah at dinner in the hall. Zainal had taken Zane off for an evening walk and talk.
Zainal was also teaching Zane Catteni, and if Kris was there, he preferred to jabber away in English, which defeated the purpose.
"Well, I did do some work in the outback with Aborigines, so they guessed I, and Joe, might be able to help;' Sarah said in her matter-of-fact way. "Problem is that the Maasai're used to a totally different lifestyle, which was getting ruined in Africa even before the Cat . . . Eosi hit Earth."
"I remember the famine there in the eighties," Kris said.
"So they won't be happy up here but Chuck thinks that the southern end of this continent might do, where we found semi-desert."
"Maybe, in time, but right now, that'll keep them in a more or less familiar terrain. Oh, and you should have seen their faces when we showed them the loocows!" Sarah laughed. "They couldn't believe 'era and they wouldn't believe that the critters don't give milk until one was captured for inspection."
"What about night crawlers? As ! recall it, the Maasai are nomadic, looking for grazing for their... cattle. Will loocows do for them? And they have huts or kraals... or something like 'em to live in."
"Well, tonight's the big demo on night crawlers and all the newbies are going to have to attend," Sarah said with a certain amount of grimness. "We gotta get that lesson across."
"What about using some of the closed valleys?" Kris asked.
"That's another solution but nothing to hunt and they don't like fish.
But you should have seen them looking at all the plants, grass, and stuff we wouldn't think twice about. Hassan was damned near tongue-tied translating for my Joe and the other herbalists..."
"It'd be helpful if there just happened to be a book on Swahili in that latest shipment..." Kris thought, remembering the crates of books she'd seen being transported to Retreat's library.
Sarah gave a snort. "They're rummaging through 'em right now. Has-san's running out of useful vocabulary."
"That'll be a first," Kris said with a grin. The former Israeli spy was the chatty sort at any time.
"Let's see what they got in. I'd love a good juicy murder mystery to read;' Sarah said.
'I'll make it;' was Sarah's firm reply. Then she sighed again. "I have missed reading, I really have."
"That's because you weren't rescued from two college survey courses with required reading lists this long/' and held her hand out at about four feet above the flagstones of the hall.
"So this," and Sarah gestured ironically around, "is a much better way to spend your time." Before Kris could open her mouth to answer, Sarah added, "Actually, college would be pretty dull in comparison."
"Too right," Sarah said and they both rose, taking their dishes back to the window that led to the KP section of the dining hall.
WHEN THEY REACHED THE STRUCTURE, they found only Dorothy Dwardie unpacking and shelving books.
"Oh, good, some help. I've found the most astonishingly eclectic...
texts here. ! can't imagine how all these books got in the same case together;' and she showed them the ones in her hand.
"Post-Renaissance Painters?" Sarah said, reading one title.
"How the Grinch Stole Christmas?" Kris read the second title and took it from Dorothy, leating through the colorful illustrated pages. "We may not have Christmas here, but I'm sure glad to see some good children's books.
"Yes, please/' Dorothy said and pointed over behind her.
Cases had been stacked three and four high all the way back to the tarpaulin that covered the end of the present library and the addition under construction. Aisles allowed access to the cases.
"Marian, the librarian," Sarah began in a sing-song voice, "where's the mystery section?"
"Now that's a mystery to me," Dorothy replied, rising to her feet with an effort. "Have at it. I can't promise there will be any. I'm cataloging as I go along and thank God for more computers. Otherwise we'll never know how much we've got."
"Well, I'm supposed to get some help shelving/' she said. "We had some Victims in here this morning and I think it's helping them remember some of the basic skills they once had."
"Anything, everything. Dr. Seuss for the children ranks in my eyes as a far greater treasure than anything Post-Renaissance. Though I've nothing against painters at all."
"Actually, light classics that we can read to the Victims: even Westerns or a good mystery story."
"Gotcha," Sarah said and closing her eyes, she turned herself around and pointed. When she opened them, her finger directed her to one of the side aisles. "C'mon, Kris."
Kris was still chuckling at Sarah's whimsical manner of choosing when they heaved a crate to the ground and opened it.
"Lord love us, how're we going to sort this mess out?" she said looking at the tumbled collection: books with spines bent and pages crumbled, all heaped together. A few loose pages only added to the tribulations of transfer.
"By starting at the top and working down. I'll get a few of those shelves over here/' Kris suggested, going over to one side where she'd seen the empty shelving, "and separate as we go."
"Good thinking/' and Sarah sat herself down and started pulling out books.
However, they had "unerringly," as Sarah remarked, migrated to a whole case full of mysteries and romances. Their conscientious efforts to perform their assigned task were interrupted by seeing books they either recognized or titles that looked interesting.
"A new Hillerman," Sarah crowed and settled against the back of the crate, shamelessly reading her find. "I'll just read a few pages..."
Kris worked more diligently but not much longer because she found an Elizabeth Peters' Amelia yarn and she, too, couldn't resist reading "just a few pages..."
"Ah, Doctor Hessian, have you come to help shelve books?"They both heard Dorothy say.
When Kris would have moved guiltily back to unpacking, Sarah grabbed her arm and whispered at her.
"No, let's just listen," Sarah said in a very low voice. "Dorothy's been trying to pin him down since he got his mind back. He wants all the Victims to undergo proper Freudian sessions. He feels that he should be in charge of the treatment team, not Dorothy."
"Are you Miss Dwardie ..."
"Doctor Dwardie, Doctor Hessian;' Dorothy replied calmly but there was a slight edge to her voice that alerted both Kris and Sarah. Kris wouk have risen but Sarah grabbed her by the arm, pressing her back against the crate.
"You've made a remarkable recovery;' said Dorothy with apparent plea sure.
Sounds like "grumph grumph" and an audible "be that as it may" seemed to indicate that this Dr. Hessian was not in complete accord. His raspy baritone gave Kris a mental image of a portly man of advanced years, probably balding, overweight, and overbearing.
"I was told that there had been new additions to the library and wished to avail myself of some suitable reading material."
"Oh.> Were you not also told that your help in cataloging our new shipment would be sincerely appreciated?"
"Shelving? Books?" was the pompous and astonished reply. Kris thought he sounded remarkably like Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, declaiming: "Handbag? Station?"
"He's from the Freudian school of psychology," Sarah whispered to Kris. "Dorothy's a social learning psychologist... completely opposite to him."
"The community work;' Dr. Hessian went on inexorably, "for which I am eminently qualified is to help those Victims still in severe mental distress.
I am quite willing to allot all the time necessary with some of the more prestigious Victims whom I have recognized, despite their appalling ordeals. I can certainly provide blueprints of the underlying psychody-namic conflicts of their conditions."
"We know what happened to them, Doctor Hessian. As it happened to you, and it is quite a triumph to see you walking about and conversing with everyone. Quite normal again."
"Normal? Normal?" the second repetition was louder than the first.
"What is normal... ah..."
"Doctor Dwardie," Dorothy put in gently. "Shall we take a walk, Doctor Hessian? I think the shelving of the books can wait."
Kris looked chagrined and Sarah evidently felt the same way for they were obviously not supposed to know what Dorothy needed to tell Hessian.
Books in hand, they crept quietly out by way of the tarpaulin.
Although Dorothy had seen the slight ripple of the tarpaulin, she wanted to continue this discussion outside, where there was no danger of them being overheard. Hessian, responding to a tug on his arm, followed her out of the library, saying as they went, "My normal self scarcely compares with anyone else's so-called 'normal state; "and "certainly anyone here" lingered in the air as if the doctor had spoken aloud. "I have only just begun to recall how exceptional my normal self is. You cannot expect... me... to shelve books?"
"If I can do it, why should it be beneath your capabilities, Dr.
Hessian?"
"Now, just a moment, young woman," and his voice dripped with opprobrium.
"Doctor Dwardie, Doctor Hessian," Dorothy said firmly but kindly.
"This colony survives because everyone... everyone... is willing to do the basic tasks as well as the application of their previous profession, whatever that might have been. My entire team looks forward to your helping us with the psychological treatment of the remaining Victims. Treating trauma response has been such an overwhelming task that even I have been doing this, as a much needed change of pace. There are so many more Victims," and her voice was not exactly imploring him to be reasonable, as encouraging him, "than we can effectively treat with so few psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses. Will you join our treatment team, Doctor Hessian?"
"Arumph. Be part of a team?" and his voice and manner reminded Dorothy of the English actor Robert Morley at his most pompous and petulant. "You're not serious? I hardly think so. Not with my exemplary qualifications."
Fortunately, there were few people around as dusk settled over Retreat so she steered him to the flagstone path that would eventually lead to his current residence.
"Yes, they certainly are, Doctor Hessian," Dorothy said warmly. "I am
quite familiar with your professional background. However, the psycho-'
logical team here is under my direction and we have designed a
multi-modal treatment program, which has indeed healed the trauma of
many of the Victims. While your work within the psychoanalytic
community is a valuable asset to the field, we have employed a social
learning framework here because of its efficacy with psychological
trauma:'
"And I would, I opine, have to use..." and once again Dorothy was treated to the magnificent disdain he could inject into such a small word, "this ... this multi-modal treatment?"
"Yes, you would, since we have found it to be so effective. I worked
with trauma units before I was . . . dropped here. But undoubtedly
you would not be aware of my professional work in that area:'
"No, I am not," he said in a flat discounting of any expertise she might have. "Especially since you now have someone of my stature in the field.
Surely you realize that a change of treatment models would benefit those still in the grip of what appears to be catatonia. When the main troops ar-five, as it were," and his supercilious tone suggested that he was smiling condescendingly at Dorothy. "... the reserves are no longer needed."
Dorothy was undaunted. "Let's take a stab at this situation from the viewpoint of research, and see what happens. I understand that it is probably a shock for you to discover that there are other treatment models with empirical efficacy greater than the one you are most familiar with and have evidently spent most of your life studying. I know, for example, that your resume includes eight books on the life and work of Freud in theory and psychoanalysis. I really do believe that you will be a tremendous asset to the Victims."
There was no immediate response by Dr. Hessian.
"Doctor Hessian, please don't misunderstand me. I am not implying any undervaluing of Sigmund Freud or the power of his work. I think that Freud was one of the greatest thinkers of all time in the study of nervous disorders. It's just that we are using a model with proven efficacy, and the model your work is based in is most applicable to a different treatment problem---not neurosis. We're dealing with deep mental trauma, not neuroses."
His earlier long stride, as if he had intended to outwalk her, had shortened.
Now he stood, head down, pulling at his lips.
"I doubt that you and I, Doctor Dwardie, can ever work together with any degree of mutual respect, much less find a basis for a proper course of treatment for these unfortunate Victims."
"I can accept that, although with great regret, Doctor Hessian. No, please don't go yet. There is one trauma case I'd like a chance to discuss with you. It was one that baffled all of us."
"Yes, now do sit down, Doctor Hessian," and she indicated a strategically placed stone bench that had a magnificent view of the Bay, "this might take a little time."
"I should imagine so."
"Well," and Dorothy seemed to be taking a breath before plunging into this case. "There is a professional woman, Doctor K a psychologist of exceptional brilliance---whose case, though successful, was very difficult. She experienced the mindwipe shortly after a series of Victim deaths, or so one observer tells us. These had resulted from the effects of the modulated electrical current level. Some of the early deaths were those who had been trained as neuropsychologists although leading professionals of all branches of sciences also were among the dead."
"Yes, I had heard that," Dr. Hessian was willing to admit, "from talks with Doctor Seissmann. Evidently Doctor Stanley Kessler was one. Tragic loss to the field."
"I agree," Dorothy said. "From various sources, we did learn that the Eosi reduced the current to prevent additional deaths due to central nervous system overload. Unfortunately the reason was less humanitarian than selfish. The Eosi were killing before they could complete the retrieval process that would extract the information they wanted. To be useful, the subject had to remain in a state of altered consciousness, therefore alive, during the probe."
"What could be their interest in neuropsychology?" Dr. Hessian asked.
"This is theory, of course, because they mindwiped leading profes-sionMs and state officials on a random basis but it might have to do with increasing the compliance level of the races they have dominated. They have had an unusual amount of resistance from Earth's races and they may well have been trying to find a way to disempower their ability to resist. Just 'turn them off; so to speak, by inhibiting or altering the synaptic receptor response.
It would have the same effect as removing the drive unit from a computer---you can ptmch the keys but nothing will happen. For some reason, and fortunately for the rest of those subjected to the mindwipe, the Eosi went off on another tact of mental exploration entirely. Or the percentage of death was discouraging."
"Some experienced organic damage to both frontal lobes from experimental current levels. Still others were left with the effects of psychological trauma and some had both. In addition, many have had survivor guilt, as they were aware of the eminence of many that died. They have, quite naturally, questioned their own worth at having remained alive. Others grieved.
Actually, in the case of Doctor K, there was some of both."
"Tell me more," said Dr. Hessian and, to Kris and Sarah, he sounded both curious and smug.
"Our patient, Doctor K, heard of the deaths of several such scientists, colleagues at the university, and prior to her own ordeal under Eosian instrument.
And, while the mindwipe current level had been reduced and no further deaths resulted, she was severely traumatized. Having the power of her mind stolen by ruthless aliens who had strapped her into a chair and assaulted her with a searing blue beam of bright, laserbrine light was devastating.
She had flashbacks of the blue beam following her, aimed directly at the forebrain, entering her head while she was physically and psycholog ically paralyzed, unable to escape."
"Hmmm. Could cause severe neuroses, indeed." He cleared his throat.
"You have told me about the trauma Doctor K experienced. Now I'd like to know something about her development history, psychological defenses, and pre-morbid adjustment level."
Dorothy took a deep breath as she was coming to the difficult part.
"Pre-morbid adjustment level is not a very useful concept in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder of highly functioning individuals. The focus is more closely conceptualized as helping them gain self-efficacy and self-control over their symptoms at the conscious level."
"Well," and Dr. Hessian's tone was pompous, "if you don't take pre-morbid treatment into account, you are not offering comprehensive treatment."
"In your theory that is true: in mine, technically, it's not," she replied.
"Imagine a nearly new automobile that is totally destroyed in a head-on collision.
We would seldom ask how well it ran prior to the accident or expect it to return to its nearly new form after a visit to the body shop. In fact, such wrecks are discarded. But, with people, the nature of the human spirit often allows them to achieve an amazing level of functioning so that they can transcend the level of the trauma. Teaching how to do that by employing techniques from cognitive psychology, behavior therapy, and multi-modal treatment has proven efficacious."
Another pause. "Well, then, tell me," Dr. Hessian said again with that hint of gracious condescension, "what were the symptoms of post-traumatic stress that were most difficult to treat?" he asked.
Dorothy decided that he was trying to buy time to revise his strategy.
"Doctor K had temporary post-trauma amnesia and flashbacks of the blue
light. She could not sleep or remain awake without recurrent images of
the blue light attacking her forehead. Everywhere she went, it haunted
her. In dreams as well as in waking life, she was trailed by this nasty
flashback that impeded every aspect of her recovery:'
Dr. Hessian straightened himself, a smug gleam in his eye and Dorothy wondered what hole he would try to pick in her method. He was making eye contact now while he assumed his characteristic condescending expression.
"This is why pre-morbid adjustment is so important to know;' he said.
"I would guess there was some unresolved conflict in this woman's background that made her more prone to the flashback. Do you know if there was some unresolved guilt toward a parent or unresolved shame in the area of sexuality, for example, that showed itself in this way?"
By now the sun was disappearing behind the mountains. They could hear others hurrying home but no one used this path. She didn't want to rush the man but they would soon have to leave, to avoid the night crawlers.
However, she had to make an end of this power struggle between the two opposing camps of psychological treatment. The base of their current discussion, she reasoned, is power, not just theory. There are two ends to this rope: he is pulling one end and I have hold of the other in this psychological tug-of-war. I will decide not to play and see what happens.
"Well," Dorothy said out loud, "while I would continue our discussion, we must make it back to our respective residences before full dark. I had wanted to tell you that the way we treated Doctor K's flashbacks was to bring under stimulus control using a fading procedure combined with deep muscle relaxation. We also provided her with an imagery intervention which was highly effective."
Dr. Hessian looked at her, unimpressed. He was probably not inspired by the a-theoretical even if it was effective.
"We'd best call it a night;' she said, standing up and his deep-rooted courtesy made him get to his feet, too. "I hope you decide to join us.
Would you sleep on it? We could use your clinical help and perhaps you could summarize Doctor Kessler's work and present it to the treatment staff. It might be a fitting tribute since you knew him. Anyway, let me know what you decide."
She took the few steps back to the safety of the flagstone path but turned back, assuming a humble expression. "Oh," she said, "Doctor Hessian, before I leave, I do need to apologize to you." She even managed the slightest hint of chagrin.
"Apologize to me?" he repeated, obviously pleased that she was seeing the mistake of her own ways.
"Yes, you see, presenting the case of Doctor K was my way of attempting to share with you the power of the treatment model. I guess I was not successful in helping you see that."
"Well," he said, with an almost gracious wave of his hand, "you tried."
"The irony," she responded gently, "was that while most of the case data was accurate, one part was not. I changed the gender of the doctor involved."
"Well, I hardly think that is signifieant."
"Not when Doctor K is you. We used social learning techniques to revive your fine mind, Doctor Hessian, and they worked."
She saw his gaping mouth and hurried away, leaving him to digest that final thrust.
KRIS AND SARAH HAD RUN as fast as they could to leave the scene of their eavesdropping.
"Should we apologize to Dorothy?" Kris asked, her expression repentant.
"How were we to know Hess/an would come in, all ruffled and precipitate
a set-down? I hope he got it from her, too," Sarah replied, not the
least bit repentant. Then she shuddered. "I hadn't heard her theory
about what the Eosi might have been trying to do. Make zombies out of
all of us:'
Kris had a sick feeling in her guts. She shook her head slowly in denial.
"No, Zainal is certain that the Eosi were trying to search for possible new scientific theories ..."
"And what, pray tell, was that?" Sarah asked acidly.
"A point, but it wasn't just psychologists and psychiatrists that got the treatment. There were heads of state and government departments and whatever NASA personnel they could find. All kinds of specialists." Kris realized she was talking more to reassure herself than Sarah. And she wasn't sure she was convincing. "Well, with all the information that's come back, the High Command," and she managed a grin, "are sure to come to some conclusions. I'm sure Dorothy would have told Leon Dane, at least, since he's still more or less chief medic."
"Nope, but that doesn't mean we can't find out if it's been discussed;' Kris muttered under her breath. "That's the downside of being away from here. You can't keep up with what's happening."
Sarah raised her eyebrows and regarded Kris with a wry grin. "Look who's talking? You've been traveling the galaxy and I'm stuck at home...
Oops!" She caught Kris' arm, then pointed to the cluster of torches at the dark edge of the settlement. "Demonstration!"
They were not so far away they didn't hear the gasp as the latest arrivals witnessed the emergence of night crawlers. They could hear male shouts of surprise and alarm and female cries of terror. They saw plainly the shadows of a milling throng, wanting to put distance between themselves and the wet, slimy denizens of the night ground. A chant began, and from the depth of the voices, the two friends decided that was a Maasai response to danger.
"I'm glad they're on our side," Kris said.
"Me, too, and Joe won't be on mine if I don't get home," Sarah said and turned off toward her own home on the flagstone path where their way parted.
WHEN KRIS REACHED THEIR HOUSE, Zane was asleep andZainal busy with papers on the table, so she slipped in to check on her son. He'd grown inches in the weeks she'd been away. What else had she missed of his development?
Zainal grinned at her. "He walks well now."
She pulled up another chair to sit beside him, their bodies barely touching at shoulder and thigh. She had worked herself into a nervous wreck on the walk home, thinking about Dorothy's theory. WeLl, eavesdroppers never heard anything good, about themselves or other matters: as just demonstrated.
But maybe Zainal could reassure her. She was certain to have nightmares tonight, remembering the blank looks of the Victims as they had been led off the two K-ships.
"Zainal?" she began and then noticed he was dealing with figures and time slots, and entry windows through the Bubble. "What's being planned now?"
Zainal leaned back, tossing the pencil to the table and stretching until his tendons cracked which made her shudder. The sound made her wince, thinking of bodies on a rack.
"Kamiton met some of the other leaders, and I must agree with some of their ideas." Zainal linked his fingers together across the back of his broad head. Which reminded Kris of the burning question.
She put her hand on his upper arm in brief apology. "The Eosi couldn't come up with a means to turn off all our minds, could they?"
Zainal tipped his head back, roaring with laughter, and she had to hush him. Zane would sleep through a great deal of noise but not a bellow like that.
He slipped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze, his face against her cheek.
"They've only one of those mental helmets. They could scarcely cope with the millions of you Humans, and that's what they'd have to do.
Though Ray asked Kamiton, too, if it was possible. It isn't! It would be bet ter if we could put the Eosi under that device." He made a grimace, a new trait of his which made him seem all the more Human. She'd caught the surprise in Kamiton's eyes over Zainal's facial reactions. Very unCatteni, probably. "Of course, their enlarged heads wouldn't fit so we can't use that as a way of cutting them down to size."
"So, since Kamiton needs to get back, we are going to see what other mischief... is that the right word;' and his yellow eyes twinkled at her, "we can get into. Actually," and he retrieved the pencil to tap it on the various sheets that she realized were now laid out in a semi-circle on the table, "Beverly wants to dazzle them with surprises everywhere. Everyone who went back to Earth is all for it:' His expression was solemn. "Your planet had taken a terrible beating and still won't succumb to practices the Eosi have always found effective. If not being able to get through the Bubble has been frustrating Mentat Ix, why not prod them elsewhere! Frustrate them more! Confuse them!
Harry---I thought that was a man's nameharry them until they don't know
how to deal with the various strikes we'll make:'
"Well, there're ways to totally confuse a computer;' Kris said, "and make it blow up. Could there be a way to do that to the Eosi?"
"Kamiton thinks it's a good way to go;' Zainal said, with a sly grin.
"He says it might be the right way, too."
"So?" and she pulled one of the sheets toward her which Zainal then deftly shifted back.
"So, since Kamiton can get access to all the recognition codes, and find
out which ships of which class have been destroyed or believed lost, we
can make our fleet into a much larger one:'
"And where it appears. For instance, as Emassi Venlik, I need to bring back all the metals I had to offload in the asteroid belt. First, as Emassi Kulak, I will go to a mining planet and acquire a load.. ;' He interrupted himself. "Walter Duxie says he can't mine enough to make a full load of interesting stuff, so we go where they are mining it. Then, we take that load back to Catten." He stopped and took a deep breath. "I wish to bring my sons to safety here," and he looked her squarely in her eyes.
"Of course," Kris said quickly. "They would be at risk if the Eosi found out you're still alive."
"There is one who is sure I am," Zainal said in a heavy voice.
"Your brother?" And when he nodded, she went, "but where are your sons now?"
Zainal clenched his teeth a moment before he answered. "With my sire."
"Aren't they..." and she stopped because it was obvious from the pain in his eyes and the tension in his body that they were not safe. "Kamiton's seen them?"
Zainal nodded.
"Well, it's an easy way for me to increase my family," she said in an airy tone.
"I will be their father but you will not be able to mother them;' he said, surprising her. He held up his hand. "They are now too old to be mothered.
But if you can be their friend, that will help integrate them."
"We've managed to integrate everything from Deski to Maasai, there should be no problem with integrating two Catteni boys."
Zainal gave an odd snort. "They will be safer here than on Catteni and Kamiton wants to bring his. Though he would prefer to bring his woman and set her and them in one of the closed valleys. We may have to assume responsibility for any other young who might be used as hostages by the Eosi against the activities of their sires."
"I'd think..." but she stopped when he put his hand over hers. "Okay, it's your call. So are we all going back to Catten with you?" She really didn't want to: that heavy gravity had been a killer, but she wouldn't desert him for such a specious reason.
"Drassi Kulak proved very useful," he said with a grin.
Zainal smiled. "Karoitoh can find out the other places where Humans have been dropped. Some of them are very bad places, where many deliveries of workers have to be made, and we may not find any Humans left. But we will make the effort."
"Oh."
"Three of the ships, with a change of ID, will go back to Earth and see
what else they can... what does Chuck call it... liber---"
"Liberate;' and Kris grinned.
"Liberate any poorly guarded ships. If they are loaded with loot, we will just take off. Otherwise, we will have what Leon calls a 'shopping' list."
"Kamiton thinks we must strike as often and as hard as possible to prove to the others in our group that we have ways to annoy and hamper the Eosi domination. To make them helpless to counterattack."
"Lord help us if that Bubble bursts," she said. "But it must be so very satisfying to you, and Kamiton, to make the Eosi helpless."
Zainal kept nodding his head but his smile altered from anticipation to
immense satisfaction. "We also do no species injury:'
"Oh, Lord, that's a good thing. I wouldn't want to lose the good opinion of the Farmers. That Bubble is essential to making any of these plans of yours work."
"I do not think the Farmers will find fault with what we do. They are, I think, flexible entities;' And when Kris nodded in agreement, he added with a droll smile: "What impresses Kamiton most about Humans is your flexibility. We Catteni do not possess that."
"Ha! You're as flexible as anyone on this planet."
He stroked her short, blond hair, running his fingers through it. She'd had to wash it nearly fifteen times to get the awful dye completely out.
"The more remarkable when all your lifetime before you had to operate on a need-to-know basis."
Zainal turned his head away, looking out into the darkness around them.
"I want my sons to know all they want to know."
"I think sometimes we forget what a gift free thought is:'
THE NEXT DAY, HASSAN FLEW SEVERAL leaders of the Maasai, for the remnants of five separate tribes needed to be consulted and shown, down to the southern end of the continent.
Mpeti Ole Surum, Caleb Materu, and Sikai Ole Sereb spoke some English, understood more, and calmed the other two leaders, Pakai Olonyoke and Tepilit Ole Saitoti, who had excellent Swahili. Bart, who had boned up most of the long night on Swahili words and phrases, came along on the trip in the KDL, as did Yuri Palit, who was nominally in charge of resettlements.
Baby would have been more practical. The Tub would have taken a lot longer but the tall Maasai would have been cramped on the one and experienced some claustrophobia on the other, so Hassan said he'd just make altitude and glide as much as he could on the way, to save fuel.
"I see... planes... often," Caleb said, pointing skyward. He was sitting with great dignity on one of the command chairs of the bridge. Overnight he and many of the older men had managed to equip themselves with lodgepole spears. The straightness of the wood had fascinated them and Geoff, who did a lot of the iron fabrication around Retreat, had fashioned spear tips. "Never think I fly in one." He grinned all around the bridge cabin.
Mpeti Ole Suture stood directly behind Hassan as the Israeli sat at the control panel, his eyes not quite wide with any readable expression but he missed nothing Hassan did.
Sikai Ole Sereb was the most relaxed of the three English speakers, more like a curious kid having a special outing than the most senior of the Maasai leaders.
"I think they were all so busy setting examples to each other, they didn't have time to be afraid," Hassan told the Head Council that evening when he reported the day's outing. Kris, Zainal, and Kamiton were among the group---so that Kamiton could be shown how the colony governed itself.
Zainal translated in low tones, which did not disturb the others in the big hangar office. "They do understand about the night crawlers. Last night's demonstration certainly was dramatic and frightening enough. They do want their own loocows, even if the creatures are ungrateful enough not to give milk. You know, we could import some cattle, or goats and sheep.
They'd be useful for us to have."
"If you can find any," Beverly remarked.
"True but we can look. A lot of Terran animals would do well here."
"Now, wait a minute," Beverly said, raising a big hand in caution, "we
have rocksquats which serve as good protein and supply us with quite a
few byproducts. I can't promise we can do a Noah's ark bit:'
"We wouldn't know until too late;' Leon Dane said, "if Terran grazers or browsers would survive on Botany... not with night crawlers and those avian terrors)'
"I agree. We've got to go slowly. We've got a lot here going for us without wanting what might not be ecologically feasible," Beverly said.
"The Maasai will be grateful, I think," Yuri Palit said, "to be allowed
to live in their own ways on their own land, which was taken from them
back on Earth, and make the best of things as we've done, as they've
always had to do. We did discuss the need to have shelters, built
either on stone---which isn't their way---or on platforms set high enough
above the ground and the reach of night crawlers, using steel plates on
the underside. I wouldn't trust night crawlers not to eat wood if
something edible got spilled on it. I think they'll opt for the
platforms. It's a good even climate down there, edging into really hot
but Africa's like that, too. Each tribe will have its own com unit and I
think they've mastered calling in and taking messages. But I think we
better check on a regular basis;'
"Once we know all the women are in good health. Some of them are expecting," Beverly said. "There are only that gaggle of young boys and five or six girls in their early teens who survived."
"Ah, and those boys bring up a minor problem which I think we'd better
solve as soon as possible;' Hassan said. "Five of the teenagers are
about to go into training as warriors. They are going to require some
of the ritual drugs. Olkiloriti," and Hassan stumbled over the
unfamiliar word, "is one of them. Joe Marley said that's only Acacia
nilotica, which is taken as a digestive excitant and to prevent hunger
and thirst on raids. It's also said to prevent fatigue and fear:'
"Were they looking for it here?" Chuck asked. "They seem to be examining every single bush, shrub, and blade of grass)'
Hassan grinned. "They're big on knowing the flora around them. It's how they've survived as long as they have---knowing what to take for sickness and fever and how to keep wounds clean."
"Well, I suppose that we could import some of the acacia for them..."
Bull Fetterman began. "If we can find any in their part of east
Africa;'
The roots must be clean, Leon Dane spoke up. "Let's not importTer-ran dirt or we might just import something we don't want growing wild on Botany." As an Australian, Leon knew something of the problems vegetation could cause when transplanted to a different ecology.
"I've been showing them what we've been growing for medicinal use;' Leon
went on with a wide grin. "And the old guy kept telling me everything
was good for some ailment and patted me on the back as if I'd done
something spectacular to have everything growing in one place;'
"You have," Bull said with one of his deep rumbling laughs.
"Indeed," Hassan said. "They would have to travel many miles to get to where certain bushes grow."
Just then Dick Aarens came rushing in, Pete Snyder trying to keep up with the long-legged mechanic's stride and also reason with him.
"But I've got it! I've got it," Dick said, beaming with self-satisfaction.
He shrugged off Pete's final attempt to control him and spread his arms wide in apology to those at the conference table.
"Hold it, Aarens, we're discussing another problem right now," Ray said.
"Can anything be more important than being able to see and hear outside the Bubble?" Aarens demanded, head thrown back and chin high in challenge.
Ducking her head and putting her hand to her brows, Kris shook her head slowly at this latest display of Aarens' egotism.
"See and hear?" Ray repeated, glaring at Aarens.
"I don't know how such a simple thing could be missed:' And Aarens was contemptuous.
"Then just how did you miss such a simple thing, Aarens?" asked Ray Scott, leaning back in his chair, an absolutely blank expression on his face.
Aarens frowned, knowing he was being ragged.
"You do leave yourself wide open, Dick," Pete said, shaking his head.
He leaned his hands on the table opposite Ray and explained. "The Eosi ship left all its com arrays stuck into the Bubble. They haven't moved in months. I doubt they can, even if I don't know why the material holds them in place. But it does. If Zainal or one of the NASA guys can do an EVA, we can probably make connections on this side of the Bubble and get to use the Eosi equipment to intercept messages and check on who's visiting us.
We've got the spare parts we'd need, thanks to Zainal. We can actually
put a com sat up there on our side of the Bubble:'
"You see," Aarens said, his lip lifted in a sort of supercilious superiority.
"Simple thing and you missed it."
"We all missed it," Pete Snyder said, patiently but with an irritable glance at Aarens. "I'm not all that sure we'd get much filtered through the Bubble, but certainly it's worth a try."
"It is;' Zainal said. Then he grinned. "I like it. Using their arrays to do our looking and listening."
"Save us a lot of fuel, too, as we wouldn't have to go make a check
before departure," Beverly said, chuckling. "Which we will be doing a
lot of soon enough:'
"Do I ever get a chance to come along?" Aarens said, his jaw still stuck out in belligerence.
Ray regarded him. "Only if you can lose about five inches, Dick;' he said in a deceptively genial tone. "You're taller than either Zainal and Kamiton, and they say they're tall for Catteni."
"You've let Bert Put go, and he's nearly my height," Aarens went on, angry and frustrated.
"He's a pilot, who stays on board and seated so no one checks his height," Ray said. "But if you want to go back to Earth---so long as you .,remain on board the ship---it could be arranged. We'll talk about it again.
After... we've got eyes and ears upstairs."
"Something for something, just like we were back on Earth," Aarens muttered.
"Oh, come off it, Dick," Pete Snyder said, putting a hand on the tall mechanic's back and gently urging him out of the hangar.
"That's a great idea, Aarens;' Beverly said and, taking their cue from the ex-air force general, others murmured appropriate phrases. "Sometimes it just takes the right eyes to see what can so easily be missed."
"It may not work;' Aarens said as he slowly let himself be eased out of
hangar. "I mean, we may not be able to get through the Bubble from this
side:'
"The idea remains a smart one even if it doesn't prove feasible;' Ray said and then the door closed behind the two men. Ray cleared his throat.
"It certainly would be a help," John Beverly said.
"He's a damned good mechanic---a genius at some things;' Ray Scott said.
"But he's not a team player," was Bull Fetterman's assessment.
"Exactly;' and Ray sat forward at the table, shuffling notes. "I wouldn't trust him not to jump ship at the first chance. Where were we?"
"I think we just settled the Maasai for the time being," Yuri Palit said and settled back in his chair.
"I suggest we see how fast Aarens can fix a connection to the array,"
Zainal said. "I will help. And so will Kamiton:'
"When we have that, the rest of what we were going to discuss tonight
will be easy enough. So let's see if Aarens' idea works. I think
this'll be all for tonight," Ray said and, placing his hands on the
table, pushed himself to his feet. "Thank you, gentlemen, for your
reports and attention:'
A kOT OF JURY-RIGGING WAS NEEDED on the Bubble side of the Eosi array, with both Zainal and Kamit6n working in space suits. One of the NASA communications personnel uneasy at doing an EVA finally solved the problem of the connections. They pulled and tugged at the material of the Bubble until it was as thin as they could make it. Then they rammed into those frail holes the connecting linkages. Dick Aarens had wheedled himself on board with the communications crew and made such obnoxious comments about how ineffective, stupid, fumble-fingered everyone else was that Zainal shoved him into the spare space suit Aarens had to crouch to fit and complained that the helmet was wearing grooves in his skull---and closed the air lock behind them. There were those who wished that Zainal had not securely attached the safety line.
Aarens had known that he didn't like heights. He'd screamed enough when they had to haul him up to the command post to see what he could make of the control panels. He'd been so damned keen to say he'd been in space in an EVA suit that he didn't realize that his height phobia would also include vast, black open spaces where, in every direction, there was nothing.
The other space walker had to push the rigid man back into the air lock.
"Take him inside. He's useless."
But that incident happened early on. The completed connections were initially attached to the Baby's com array to see if they could actually use the Eosi equipment through the thinned skin of the Bubble. They could.
And great cheering and congratulations resounded between Botany and Baby. The next step might take longer since a com sat had to be built but Kamiton sampled the messages that were audible through the link and smiled with great satisfaction at what he learned.
"We can proceed with our plan," he told Zainal in Catteni. Then, in thickly accented English, he added to the rest of the group on board who did not know much Catteni, "Is good. Works. Hear good."
"I told you it would work;' Dick Aarens said, clinging to the door frame, and still very pale from his disastrous EVA. "So how soon can you get this crate back down to Retreat?"
"Soon;' Zainal said and turned back to Kamiton, speaking in rapid Catteni. "We will leave on the KDL as soon as we return. I want to get back to Catten as fast as possible."
"Understood."
WHEN chris's NAME APPEARED on the list for KDL and a return to Catten, she did some counting on her fingers. Well, if they didn't have any delays, she'd be back in time for Zane's first Botanical year birthday. Zainal did not anticipate any delays with the plan he had filed with Ray Scott. He had been amused by the request from the ex-admiral but, with the other ships also departing in opposite directions, he filled in the data.
"Did I do it right?" he asked Kris, shoving the paper toward her across the table in their main room.
"You'd better have," Kris said with mock threat, "or you're no advertisement for my teaching."
He printed in bold letters, using both capitals and lower case as required.
But he spelled properly and, even if he used short sentences, they were correctly phrased.
"You get an A."
"Just an A?" he said, pretending to be disappointed.
"Oh, that's the best you can do;'
"Oh?" and he leaned across the table and neatly lifted her out of her chair and high enough so that, when she bent her knees, she cleared the surface.
"! must lesson you, too, to see if you can achieve the A:'
Zane was long since asleep, so they could indulge in the intimacies that would be impossible for the duration of the trip.
"! hope to bring out my sons," Zainal said, when they lay side by side,
mutually satisfied. "You must not treat them---at first---as you would a
Human child;'
"How old are they?"
"They are nine and seven."
"Same mother?"
"No. Good Catteni blood in each."
"They will have a lot to learn, won't they?" And, while in one sense Kris felt able to accept the challenge, she hoped she would be able to meet it. Another aspect of it was that Zainal would trust her with his own children.
How badly would they have been treated because Zainal had failed to accept the family's obligation to present himself as Eosi "chosen"?
"We all have a lot to learn," Zainal said and, pressing his face against hers, turned her over so they could sleep, spoon fashion, his heavy arm warmly against her.
"Now COMES ThE FuN PArT," Zainal said to the crew of the KDL, all assembled on the bridge. They were orbiting in to one of the most desolate-looking planets: how could anything, or anyone, live down there?
They had first let Kamiton off at the asteroid belt and lingered long enough to hear him report that the spy sats he had released in the belt confirmed the fact that there had been quite a few ships poking around the field: more likely, for traces of where Zainal/Venlik might have stored the remainder of his cargo.
Kamiton would then proceed back to Catten with the report that he had found no suitable planets in the three systems he was supposedly exploring.
He would have the opportunity to get in touch with any of the other dissidents and assure them that Zainal's refuge was invulnerable. He would also visit Perizec, Zainal's father, and, hopefully, locate the whereabouts of Zainal's two sons. Since the family had supplied so many "chosen," they had acquired many assets on the planet. The two young males could be anywhere.
With a purloined cargo, Zainal would arrive. This time they would have to dock at the space station.
"It will be easier for you as the station is not on full Catten gravity," he had told Kris who had not been looking forward to a second period of feeling more like a piece of compressed stone than a human being. "But you may not leave the ship. You are not Catten enough;' and he had tousled her cropped re-dyed hair.
The rest of the crew was the same. Gino, Ninety, and Mack Dargle had learned to speak, and understand, much more Catteni. Kamiton even taught them a few so-called Catteni jokes which, when translated, left the audience wondering what possibly could be funny about them.
"Old slap-stick routines is what they remind me of;' Kris said. "Sort
of Marx brothers without any of the same class. More like the Three
Stooges:'
"They were never as good as the Marx brothers," Ninety said.
"Speak Catteni," Zainal said, scowling at all of them.
"Does not translate;' Kris said with mock obedience in a very deep rasping Catteni voice.
WITH-tHE KDL BEARING THE ID OF A SHIP, which Kamiton had found, its forward section embedded in an asteroid it hadn't been able to avoid, they orbited the desolate planet and made contact with the mining station. This was a huge, scarred globule planted like a ravaged blister on one of the main raised areas. This particular station had been chosen because it had no processing plant in which to refine the ore. So their purloined cargo would match Zainal's story of finding such ores in an asteroid belt. Once this planet had evidently had oceans that some unimaginable catastrophe had drained or boiled away. There were other, smaller blisters set in deep ranges of what had once been ocean trenches. As they were given clearance and descended, they could see heavy vehicles drawing numerous, and immense, carts of ore toward the main depot, for that was what Kris decided it must be.
Several such vehicles were already drawing into parallel lines by the facility, which Zainal said was where the cargo levels would automatically be loaded.
"By what?" Ninety said. "We don't have enough space suits..."
Zainal grinned and held up his hands. "That is why there are space locks between the main compartments of the ship and the cargo area. The K-class is a versatile carrier, cargo, slaves, whatever."
There was a bit of a scene when the station Drassi wanted Zainal to take on board three Catteni who had been so seriously injured they were no longer any use to him. All this while the ramps from the loading platform were being extended through the KDL's open cargo bay, and while Ninety, suited up, handled the controls.
"As soon as the decks are full, Ninety, we're taking off," Zainal told Ninety. "So be sure to hang on to something the moment we're full."
"I hear and obey, Drassi," Doyle said, slapping one fist to his chest in a Catteni salute.
"Won't you get into trouble?" Gino asked nervously.
"Just plot a rapid ascent. This station has no weapons," Zainal assured him.
"But can you just refuse to take injured men aboard?" Gino asked.
"Not for a two-week journey back to Catteni with them on board," Zainal said. "This station has frequent cargo ships in. The next one can take them. I won't."
So, when Ninety signaled that all four cargo levels were full, Zainal gave Gino the nod to lift just as three space-suited figures, two helping the third who did not seem to have legs, exited from the surface loading facility.
Zainal reached over and shut off the com board, silencing the threats of the infuriated Emassi in charge of the mining operations.
"We couldn't afford the risk;' Zainal said, aware of the shocked look on the faces of his crew.
WHEN THEY WERE AGAIN IN SPACE, Zainal and Ninety who had come to enjoy such EVA outings, changed the ID symbols on the KDL's hull to match those used in their first trip to Catten. Once more in communication with the immense Catteni Space Station, Zainal became Drassi Venlik again, cheerfully (for a Catteni) back with the ore he had to leave behind in the asteroid belt.
There were some scary moments for Kris, however, when the space station sent officials on board to see if the KDL's cargo should be unloaded into drones for transport to the surface or allow the ship to land at the manufactories needing the ore. The rest of this trip depended on Zainal being ordered to make planetary delivery. One of the officials seemed determined to figure out the site of this rich load.
"It is my site. By right;' Drassi Venlik said, standing with legs parted in a fighting stance, hands at his sides. This semi-belligerent posture was not lost on the officials, even if they were Emassi.
Finally they admitted that they had orders for his ship to land on the surface at the refining plant awaiting these very fine metals. Zainal and his crew saluted the officials off the KDL and received immediate clearance from the facility and the location of the refinery.
"Couldn't have been better if I'd cut the orders myself," Zainal said in English, grinning at his success.
"Yeah," Ninety began skeptically, "but would you really have laid into the Emassi?"
Zainal laughed. "There are many Drassi who are Emassi who did not pass Eosi standards to be chosen. They have family who would come to their assistance. Those station Emassi know only what they need to know," and he dismissed them with a contemptuous flick of his fingers.
Kris decided that Zainal became more Cattenish the nearer he got to his natal planet. She wasn't sure she liked that change in him. Then they landed and the weight of Catten gravity pulled her down, until she felt her belly would end up near her knees. And ordinarily her stomach was as flat as Zainal's. It had a decided bulge to it right now.
She spent the hours the KDL was being unloaded on her bunk, on Zainal's order, being "off-duty" as the corridors swarmed with Rassi and Drassi. Zainal, with Chuck and Ninety in full Catteni dress, eyes, and hair, went to the refinery office to complete the forms required and get the credit voucher for the ore.
It was evidently most unusual for a cargo vessel to require a credit voucher, but Zainal had a story ready for that. They needed special equipment to mine the ores on this asteroid and had been given permission to make such purchases, but would have to show a current voucher to verify that the ship's account would stand the expense.
"THAT DEPOT'S LIKE ALl BABA'S CAVE," Ninety said, returning after the first day's scrounging through the supply warehouse. "Mind you, a lot of the stuff was made on Earth," he added in a sour tone. "But I located most of what the com sat boys ordered."
With great determination, Kris had made a huge stew of the meat Coo and Pess had gone out to the nearest marketplace to get for her. It had taken almost all the energy she could muster with the constant pull of gravity on her muscles and bones. She was sure she'd shrink: she certainly felt compressed.
Zainal did not return that first night. The Catteni diurnal cycle was only an hour longer than Earth's but, to Kris' intense relief, he was back just past dawn the next morning with Kamiton and two other Catteni making a surreptitious dart up the ramp of the open cargo bay.
The men were introduced as Nitin and Kasturi. Bolemb could not leave as yet andTubelin was going to bring Zainal's two boys as soon as the ship was ready to take off again. For Catteni they exuded enthusiasm for the chance to relieve their world of Eosian domination. To believe that Zainal's crew was really Human, every one, including Kris, had to take out their yellow lenses and show the natural shade of skin on their upper arms and legs. Kris was on watch at that moment and thus did not have to reveal her subtly different limbs.
Nitin looked older than Kasturi but later Zainal told her it was the other way round. Nitin had had harder duties than Kasturi, and so looked his years of service to ungrateful Eosi. Nitin said little but Kamiton's exuberance made up for his silence.
The next day the three real Catteni assumed other identities and went about acquiring more of the material that was on the shopping list. Nor, to the Humans' surprise, did they question that they had to buy such odd items in unusual quantities: like the huge iron kettles (which were used by the Rassi to cook their mashes in---about the only thing, Nitin said, that they could manage to do without constant supervision). The kettles were destined for the Maasai who were much, much smarter than most of the Drassi Kris had encountered. She stood her shifts on the com desk and had to deal with the calls of merchants who wished to check on the ship's account and its current position. She had also managed not to reveal her femininity to new members of the Catteni. If Zainal did not think to men· tion it, she would not.
The KDL had been parked to the side of the refinery's double-ballpark of a landing site to allow other vessels to unload. Zainal had neatly maneuvered them close to one of the refinery's secondary gates, to allow access for his "equipment" to arrive without upsetting the regular traffic in and out.
"It's a good place to be," Zainal had said in explanation. "Many ships come and go. It is also the last place where any Emassis would be found."
With their cargo levels full, they waited for word from Kasturi. Kamiton fretted more than Zainal did and paced up and down the corridors, cursing at the com unit which did not utter so much as a burp. They waited two full days, until Zainal, too, showed signs of stress.
Both men were on the bridge when a low, sputtering ground vehicle came through the gates and trundled around behind the KDL.
"It has stopped," Chuck said, swiveling around in his seat at the com board. He flicked on the exterior camera. "Three, two smallish, one not so small."
Instantly Zainal and Kamiton were on their feet and pounding down the passageway to the cargo air lock.
"Prepare to take off," Zainal called over his shoulder, and Gino hastily started the preflight checks as he had done from time to time as something to occupy them during the long wait. "And turn the ship slightly to starboard to incinerate the vehicle." That came through over the intercom from the cargo level.
"Right ch'are, captain," Gino muttered, fingers busy tapping in the necessary code and engaging the rear thrusters to be certain the object was reduced to an unrecognizable lump.
As they were at the refinery, their leaving would go relatively unnoticed.
They lifted and were well above the atmospheric envelope of Catteni before Zainal and Kamiton came forward, both grinning broadly.
"We got them," Kamiton said as Zainal motioned for Gino to move out of the pilot's chair. Kamiton oddly enough dressed in a space suit, and carrying his helmet, positioned himself against the bulwark.
So as not to be seen, Kris thought, when Zainal had to make visual contact with the space station for clearance out of Catteni space. But why was he suited up?
"I'm parked right by net four," Kamiton said as if he had heard her mental query. "Head slightly in that direction now."
Contact was made, clearance was given, and Zainal said that he was going back for another load of the fine ores he had carved out of the space debris.
"Of course, they'll come after you again," Kamiton said. "See you back on Botany;' he added before he put on his helmet and stumped down to the air lock. "Can you read me?" he asked a few moments later.
Kris stuck her finger harder than she needed to on the pad---her body didn't realize she was out of Catteni's depressing gravity---and gave him an affirmative.
Zainal made a small adjustment to his direction, seeming to head directly for the center of net four---large Catteni glyphs had been plastered on the net fabric---one could not miss "4" unless one was totally blind. He also slowed so that when the air lock lights came on, he was almost stationary.
He allowed the KDL to drift a count of two hundred, because Kris was counting right along with him, before he gently teengaged the thrusters and pulled away. Then he made a drastic course alteration and signaled to Gino to pour on the power.
There was a little time for Tubelin to meet the Human crew and for Bazil and Peran to get accustomed to the idea of Humans, and Humans who could speak their language and were not slaves. Kris almost wept at the condition of the two boys: they had come on board filthy, in clothing that was a shred away from being indecent, with many bruises on their limbs and visible through the remaining scraps of their tunics. Their ribs were showing and their faces had the gaunt look of the starved. What they asked Zainal for first---once they had recognized their father---was water.
"They wouldn't take anything from me;' Tubelin explained. "They did not show fright, Zainal. They have your blood and courage. In my opinion, many cruel and vicious things have been done to them."
Zainal himself bathed the boys, carefully tending their hurts and seeming to count every healed scar. Kris handed him Botanical medications, and they had flinched, even from their father's very gentle touch. She was close to tears for how they had been treated... worse than even the Rassi she had seen so casually whipped to work.
All the time Zainal spoke softly to them, not gently, not as he would speak to Zane, but as an adult would speak firmly and reassuringly to a frightened animal.
Tubelin put his head around the door and both boys stiffened, their yellow eyes dark and wide with the fright of surprise, which his unexpected appearance provoked before they could conceal their reaction. Once they recognized Kamiton, they relaxed a little.
"I have clean clothes, Zainal. I'll space those rags if you'll hand them to me, Kris;' She did, holding the mess by the tips of her fingers and letting them all fall into the receptacle Kamiton offered.
"Have you any clear soup to give them, and perhaps some journey bread," Zainal said as he gently pushed the boys ahead of him toward the galley. Coo and Pess were alone at the table but the boys merely glanced through them, as if the two Deski did not exist.
Well, Kris told herself sternly, they've probably been taught that Deski are little better than Rassi.
When Coo and Pess made to rise, Zainal gestured for them to remain where they were. Someone had already put some clear soup in the heater so all she had to do was pour it in cups and get out the travel bread. Zainal raised one finger to show he'd have some, too. Lord, those kids were messed up bad, Kris thought. How will we ever get through what they have been conditioned to expect? Or, having been roughed up so much, would they rough up her son?
Zainal sat opposite the boys, beside Pess, and dipped the bread into the soup, blowing on it to cool it. The boys did nothing, though Kris saw the tongue of the older boy, Bazil, protrude slightly between his cracked lips.
Then Zainal put his bread first in Bazil's cup and then Peran's before he ate it as if to prove it was not only edible, but harmless.
"Eat. You need food. This is good."
Peran, being the younger, could not contain his hunger at that invitation and nearly burned his tongue to get the bread into his mouth. Bazil gave him an almost contemptuous sneer, but he was no less quick to take his first bite.
When they had finished their meal, although their eyes darted back to the heater unit, which they knew still had soup in it, they waited. Peran's lids wearily descended over his eyes, but he shot bolt upright again as soon as Bazil pinched him.
"No more now, Bazil," Zainal said in a neutral tone. "You need sleep, too. There will be more soup when you awaken. That I promise!" Zainal rose and, still not offering them his hands as he would certainly have of-feted one to Zane, he pointed the way for them to go.
Coo leaned across the table and patted Kris' hands; Pess offered a square of fabric when she started to sniff and then to cry.
"Being Emassi not easy;' Coo said.
When Pess' thin arm came about her shoulders, Kris just leaned into the female's embrace and let the tears flow. She didn't even care if one of the other Catteni came in and saw her weeping.
So, by the time Zainal returned, she was over the worst of it. He knew she had been crying because her eyes always turned red.
"They have suffered much," Zainal said. "That shall be considered when this is ended." He reached for the Hooch bottle and poured himself a large tumbler full, taking a big gulp of it.
"Tubelm is a good Emassi but even he did not like what he saw when he
visited the farm where they had been made to work like Rassi:'
"Is that why they were so dirty?" Kris heard herself asking with great indignation. "But why were they beaten? They're seven and nine?
They've been starved, too:'
Zainal took the hand she was waving about in consternation and clasped it firmly.
"I had not thought Perizec capable but it may have been the idea of my
brother's mate. She is such a good Catteni mate;' and his emphasis on
"good" was sarcastic. "It will take longer than it should but they will
learn much on Botany and want to know more:'
THEY FOLLOWED THE TORTUOUS COURSE into the maze of their infamous and rich asteroid belt and once again, while Nitin, Kasturi, Tube lin, and Zainal's two sons watched with varying degrees of consternation during the twisting route, made contact with Kamiton at his hollowed-out asteroid.
Then Zainal poured on all the power at the KDL'S disposal on the way back to Botany.
The two boys did not speak unless spoken to, and Tubelin, whom they knew almost better than their father, would tell them stories in a decidedly avuncular and uncharacteristic manner. Zainal put them on a feeding schedule of every two and a half hours, each time little meals until their cheeks began to fill out and flesh appeared over their ribs. He also taught them how to print their names in Catteni glyphs and then in English letters. What astonished Kris was their absolute obedience.
"It's been beaten into them to obey without questions, Kris," Ninety said when she voiced her distress to the Humans. "We'll just be sure they never hear another discouraging word on Botany, that's all."
Chuck tilted his head sideways. "I've seen whipped puppies a time or two. It's going to take a lot of patience to make that a happy pair again."
"If they ever were," Kris said glumly. "I don't think Catteni have happy childhoods. Or expect to."
"Now, Bjornsen," and Chuck Milford patted her shoulder, "we'll all help."
And so he contrived to make a checkerboard from a bit of stiff packing casing, coloring it in, and then neatly scissoring out the counters from another piece.
"What makes you think Catteni kids play games?" Gino asked when he saw the finished product.
"Ah, a zemgo board," Kamiton exclaimed in surprise as he entered the mess room.
"What makes you think there wouldn't be something similar in such a warlike culture, Gino?" Chuck demanded, grinning at Kamiton. "Will Bazil and Peran know how to play... zemgo?" he asked in Catteni.
"Hmm. I shall soon find out. Or will you teach them since you made the board?"
"It might be good if I teach, and you tell them the moves at first," Chuck said. "I wouldn't know the right words and they should learn the proper words."
"I will return with them. A good idea, Sshuk," Kamiton said and went to find the boys.
"They were on the bridge, standing watch with their father," Kamiton said when he returned with them. He pointed at Bazil to sit at one side of the table next to Chuck and Peran to sit on the other. Then he sat beside Peran and asked if the boys knew the game.
Bazil managed the barest of negative head shakes. Peran just stared at the bright colors of the board and the round white counters on his side.
"This is a good game for Catteni to know," Kamiton explained. "It teaches how to form your troops for battle and how to win against an equally matched opponent. You are white, Peran, you must start first."
Peran kept his hands in his lap, his little body stiff with indecision.
"Why don't we play, Kamiton?" Chuck suggested.
"He is Emassi," muttered Bazil, glaring up at Chuck.
"So he is;' Chuck said, amiably. "And so am I."
Bazil darted a surprised look at Kamiton and received a confirmatory nod. Bazil sank in on himself in dismay.
"All on this ship are Emassi," Kamiton said.
"Even the little one?" Bazil asked, his dull yellow eyes flickering with doubt. But his tone was more courteous.
"All," Kamiton said.
"So we shall play, Emassi Kamiton?" Chuck asked as demurely as only a sergeant of marines could.
"Yes, let us show Bazil and Peran how this ancient game is played,
Emassi Sshuk:'
THE TWO BOYS WATCHED Chuck and Kamiton play four games (ending in two wins each), every time explaining the moves and discussing the game so the boys would know why. Then Gino played Chuck and won, but when he played Kamiton, the Catteni won. The boys showed the first spark of interest. It wasn't until Zainal entered the room and saw that the boys only watched, making no move to play at all, that he pointed to the board and said in a hard voice: "Play! Need to know!"
He left the room and Kris followed, furious with his so-Catteni manner that she almost couldn't speak as she dragged him into the captain's quarters. She slid the panel shut and told him off, madder than she had ever thought she could be with him.
"Those boys have been so mistreated," she railed at him, "could you not show a little give?
He listened, with his Catteni face.
"I've never seen such bruises, nor such constant brutality on boys so young. What were your folk doing to them? Systemically brutalizing them as punishment for what you did?"
"Yes." And his quiet reply, and the sad look in his eyes, silenced her.
"Then why aren't you, their father, from whom they can expect some affection..."
"But you are with Zane!" She was flabbergasted. "How can you differentiate like that? All three are children and need love and kindness and care . . ." And when he opened his mouth to speak, she advanced on him so infuriated that he recoiled slightly, not trying to evade the hard finger she poked into his chest as emphasis to her words. "And don't tell me Catteni children cannot expect such treatment, too."
"From their mothers, not from their fathers."
"And, I suppose, now you'll tell me that Bazil and Peran are too old to be with their mothers." When he nodded, she made a sound of total disgust and frustration. She was so mad she couldn't think of what to say next. "If you ever... ever... take a Catteni line with Zane, I'll... I'll kill you!"
"Or Pete Easley will," Zainal replied calmly. Mad as she was, she could see the shadows in his eyes. He might have expected the treatment his sons had received, but that didn't mean he liked it.
"Oh, God, Zainal, why am I angry at you?" And she put her arms around him in apology and returned affection.
Hesitantly, she felt, with great relief, his big hands gripping her shoulders, pressing a response to her expression of regret.
"We must treat them for now---as Catteni boys are reared, and gradually, when they have settled, teach them that there are other ways, and that they may learn whatever they want, not just what they 'need to know: I want them to be more Human, too."
"Well, that's better;' she said, sniffing back the tears that pricked her eyes: tears of frustration and relief. "I couldn't stand it if you turned all Catteni on me suddenly. And if you ever..." She raised her finger threateningly.
"Zane is Human. He is your son and I will always treat him as I see
Human children treated:'
"When in Rome... huh?"
He repeated the phrase without comprehension.
"Oh, I'll explain later, Zainal." And she cupped a hand on his head.
"Must we all be hard with the boys?"
"For now. We must give them the orders they need to know..." And a ghost of a smile pulled at his finely shaped lips. "To make them sure of how to act and what to do. But we will be fair, where others have not. And, if we can get them to play zemgo, it will help. And if you are not as firm as we are, they will not respect you. And they must for they will find out that you are a woman and therefore, now that they are becoming adult, they will need to see you as a being who commands respect, too."
She leaned against him, accepting the burden of such an uncharacteristic manner for her.
"Reinforce that as often as possible, for when we reach Botany, they
will see that you are also a woman and a mother. And wonder;'
"They'll have an awful lot to learn on Botany;' she said, ruefully.
"They will have the need to know;' Zainal answered, a lilt of rueful laughter in his voice.
"So, if I preface remarks with 'you need to know this,' it will be all right?"
"They'll... how do you say it... catch on quickly. Neither is stupid."
"Of course. They're your sons."
CHUCK HAD CAUGHT ON to Zainal's method of treating his sons.
Which must have been easiest for Mitford, Kris thought, having had to train recruits in the marines. Gino, whose Italian background was totally at odds with Catteni child rearing, had to be talked into playing it Zainal's way. Coo and Pess had no problem, and Mack Dargle taught them how to carve things out of pieces of wood and how to assemble useful equipment.
They knew how to handle knives but returned the blade immediately after they had finished their turn with it. They liked the assembling best, though, and their fingers were quick once they'd been shown how the first time.
The other Catteni ignored them, save for Kamiton who kept trying to get Bazil to make moves against his counters on the board.
When they were within the Botany system, all stations were on the alert for any possible Eosi presence.
"The work on the moon base has stopped," Zainal observed.
"They were sent the useless materials," Nitin said with a wry expression.
"My contribution. They will be stopped for some time as the regular shipments have also been diverted. They may even run out of oxygen and water."
Kris' sense of fair play was assaulted by such doings, and she had to keep her mouth shut. Catteni could deal with Catteni as they wished...
just so long as Botany was safe from their methods and ethics.
THEY ENTERED THE BUBBLE on the equatorial line, just out of the range of the geosync satellite. Prior to that they had spotted a distant "V" formation of Catteni ships headed directly toward Botany.
"See if we can get through to Retreat," Zainal asked Gino who was sitting at the com controls.
"Oh, you're back, are you?" said a female voice. The visual was not clear so only a hazy picture came through the thinned Bubble material. The voice sounded slightly filtered but intelligible.
"Who's this?" Gino asked.
"Jane O'Hanlon, here. Now we can use the array, someone has to man the com desk all the time. Or woman it as the case is today. Gino Marrucci, right?"
Fortunately only Kamiton, of the five Catteni on the bridge just then, had enough English to catch some of the words he knew. But the other four exchanged surprised looks that a female had answered.
"We're expecting them. Baby returned last week with her piggyback
G-class ship to warn us of the traffic to come. She may have to go back
and lead some through the Bubble. You may be needed, too, as the other
K's are still wandering around;'
"How many ships were hijacked this time?" Zainal asked, frowning slightly. He was still nervous, despite assurances from Kamiton, Nitin, Tubelin, and Kasturi that, with due care, the disappearance of the ships would not be immediately noticed.
"Catteni ships are all over the galaxy and some never come back," Kamiton had said repeatedly, waving his hand indifferently at such losses.
"It works to our advantage. We must have enough to be able to strike at
Eosi before they know that death approaches;'
Since that was not the strategy which Ray and the other head council members were advocating, no one on board contradicted Kamiton, not even Zainal.
"There are three G-class coming back from one of the other colonies where Terrans were dropped. The K's are coming back with supplies and equipment and only a few refugees."
"If the G-class are full;' Zainal said, "we will be very busy."
"Preparations are being made," Jane said, "and Ray Scott is thinking of the closed valleys as safe interim sites. With the K's coming back with food and equipment, what we have won't be spread so thin."
Zainal nodded, occupied with slowing the forward speed of the KDL so that it could gently nudge its way through the Bubble. Immediately the picture of Jane's duty station cleared up.
"That's better," she said, smiling and then caught sight of the four Catteni just visible behind Zainal. "Ah, we have guests," and she added in good Catteni, "welcome to Botany, Emassi."
"How does she know we are Emassi?" Nitin asked, as if slightly offended by being addressed as an equal by a woman.
"Why would I inflict Drassi on Botany?" Zainal asked. "The ones we have
are more than enough:'
"The ones you have?" asked Nitin, surprised.
"The crews of the ships we have captured have been placed in an isolated area."
"You did not kill them?" Nitin frowned.
"And ruin Catteni uniforms when we needed them?" Gino asked, though there was an edge to his question.
"Those who disobeyed died," Zainal said in a tone that did not leave any need for further questions.
Chapter Eight.
BIG AS THE FARMERS' HANGAR. WAS, IT could no longer accommodate the "fleet" Botanists were assembling. Jane informed them that they could unload there, but might have to take some of their supplies to other locations, thus cutting down on the transportation problems.
"We need more ground vehicles with heavy load capacities. Doesn't do any good to steal trucks from Earth because we have no gasoline or diesel here. So you'll have to do the transporting.
You don't happen to have a list of your cargo, do you? Then we can figure out where else to send you."
"It's in Catteni," Zainal said with a chuckle.
"Okay, then Sally Stoffers will be supercargo;' Jane replied. "Send it down and safe landing."
And it was. Immediately the stevedore contingent and several of the large flatbeds, plus a forklift which had been "acquired," surrounded the KDL. There was only so much gasoline available for it so the engineers would have to convert it to solar power. Aarens and Pete Snyder were there since Zainal had indeed brought back some of the elements needed by the engineering group. Sally Stoffers was acting as supercargo with two assistants to check off what was to be offloaded as she translated the manifests from Catteni.
She smiled a greeting at the three new Catteni and added Kamitoffs name to her general welcome. Then she saw the two boys, looking in much better condition landing than they had in boarding. But Kamiton signaled to her to ignore them: a signal she obeyed.
"Zainal says medic for these. We walk."
Ray Scott came hurrying out of his office and took charge of Nitin, Tubel/n, and Kasturi.
"Whose are those?" Sally asked when Kris made her way down the gangplank, avoiding those carrying some of the lighter cargo.
"Zainal's," Kris said, "and we have to treat them as Catteni boys are treated." She gave Sally a sour grimace.
"What? On Botany? Bring up another generation like the one we're trying to educate in new ways?" Sally was indignant.
"To begin with at least," Kris said with a sigh. "You should have seen the state they were in when Kasturi brought them aboard?
"'The sins of the father' sort of stuff?" Sally asked, perceptive as ever.
"In spades," and she broke off, hearing Zainal's familiar step on the cargo ramp.
Zainal looked around and spotted Karoitoh, on his way to the infirmary with the boys following a discreet two steps behind him, and nodded.
He gave Kris a squeeze on the arm but one that subtly suggested that she should not accompany him, and went to join Ray Scott and the new Cat-ten/recruits.
She struggled with an uneasy resentment and won.
"D'you have any questions, Sally? Chuck and Mack marked much of the stuff with English subtitles, as it were, during the return. I can help if you need me," she said.
"Nonsense, girl, go soak somewhere and come back looking completely Human. Here," and she handed over a com unit, 'Tve a spare. If I need you, I'll contact you."
All the Humans on the KDL had removed their yellow lenses as soon as they were safely out of Catteni space: that had been surprise enough for the newcomers. As the supply of water was limited, no one was able to wash the Catteni gray off from more than their hands.
KRIS WOULD HAVE RATHER GONE WITH KAMITON and the two boys to see what their general physical condition was but Zainal had vetoed that. There didn't happen to be any children the ages of Bazil and Peran on Botany, so Kris wondered how on earth the two could be integrated with a peer group.
Zainal solved the problem and took his sons down to the Maasai encampment.
"They are warriors. They have boys the right ages. They will learn Ter-ran ways."
"Not in a Maasai camp;' Kris objected vehemently.
"Why not?" ZainaI was surprised, believing he had made a good decision.
"Because they treat their women the same way Catteni do. I mean, they practically starve a pregnant woman so she'll have a small baby and no problem delivering."
That part of the Maasai culture had been a shock to most of the medical staff for several of the Maasai women were in the last trimester of pregnancy. How the embryos had survived the trip was a matter of considerable speculation at the infirmary. All the women tested had been anemic and undernourished. With some skilful diplomacy on Hassans part, he managed to get the Maasai leaders to allow the women normal pregnancy multi-vitamins on the grounds that they would not have the usual herbal digestive medications. These would replace what the women were used to using. Hassan insisted that the tablets contained no milk, which was a taboo for Maasai pregnant women. That the multi-vitamin contained calcium as well as trace elements was not mentioned.
Kris canceled a half-formed mention of the other extreme racial differences.
There were boys the right ages. The Maasai were warriors, even if they used only spears, and their height would ensure the boys respected them.
"But they won't learn English;' was the only other protest she could summon.
"Not now. That will come. When there are males their ages here in Botany."
They were his children. She had no right to tell him where to send them or how to raise them. The Maasai at least would be fair to the poor waifs. Which was a distinct improvement.
The boys were kept overnight at the infirmary in a separate room.
They both had intestinal parasites, which could not be spread on Botany.
"Considering they have been half-starved for a number of months, they're
sturdy boys," Leon reported to Zainal. "At least the Maasai are also
eating well now and that can only improve the general health;'
If Leon did not concur with Zainal's disposition of his sons to the Maasai, he said nothing to that point. He did mention that word had reached him from one of the incoming ships that Joe Marley had managed to secure a fair number of the plants the Maasai considered essential, including the olkiloriti though he could give no reassurance that they would survive on Botany. The boys could go on the transport with the plants when they arrived.
"I will go with them, too," Zainal said.
As such matters sometimes work out, it was Kasturi who took them as Zainal was needed to pilot Baby which, with the two K-class ships that had already been "accepted" by the Bubble, was needed to get the G-class ships past it. But Zainal delayed his flight long enough to give instructions to his sons.
"You are going to a warrior camp to train with your age group as befits your rank," he told them in Catteni. "They are different folk but known for courage and (a word which Kris did not recognize.) But you will consider them Emassi as I am, and you are. You will learn from them as you need to know their ways, too."
Small bruised fists hit cleanly clothed chests in the Catteni farewell gesture and, without a backward glance, Bazil and Peran boarded the float and sat among the various bushes, shrubs, grasses, and two saplings in their plastic-covered cans of hydroponic solutions. They each wore a replica of Zainal's Catteni face.
One day, Kris promised herself, they would learn to smile and use expressions instead of those awful alien deadpans.
GETTING THE G-SHIPS THROUGH took all the available Botany fleet to bring them into Botany space.
"We sandwiched them in," Gino said when he returned. "Even then, we had to push the stuffing well back of the bread. That Bubble doesn't fool easy."
"What happens when we want to get them out again?" Bert Put asked.
He'd been piloting one of the G's and privately confessed that he thought he'd never get home. It was his ship which had brought back the Maasai plants as well as others: roots steam cleaned and tested to be certain they brought in no Terran parasites. Seed as well had been irradiated to ensure purity as a much more varied diet was needed, especially the complex proteins.
Rocksquats bred fast but not as fast as the population of Botany was growing. Loocows produced one calf at the height of the Botanical summer.
The actual birth took place in a tight, deep circle of other loocows, all tramping round and round the female to deter nightcrawlers reaching the newborn, attracted by the bodily fluids also exuded by the birthing female.
The wonder was that the newborn was not inadvertently stamped to death before it could get to its six wobbly legs.
Not so many refugees had been accommodated on the G-ships, but some families of those of the First Drop had been located and there were happy reunions, as well as tearful ones for those relations who had not been found.
There was a celebration for the placement of the permanent Botany com sat when it was connected to the inner arrays. The NASA folk had managed to jury-rig one to serve in the interim.
The infirmary, which now had satellite clinics dotting the continent, had received much needed diagnostic equipment, an ex-ray machine, and generators large enough to power them. And sufficient oil and gasoline to run them. (Empty barrels were then recycled as anti-night crawler defenses and the bases for stilt homes.)
Nitin, Tubelin, and Kasturi began to learn enough English to respond to greetings. They would not conduct meetings with the Head Council in anything but Catteni. Kris often sat in as translator, so did Chuck Mitford, Mack, and Ninety. Their trips had at least improved vocabulary and usage.
Though there were a few phrases which none of the men would translate for Kris. She decided they must be so pejorative and anti-female that she'd rather not know.
Nitin was agitating for speedy returns, to acquire more spaceships---and missiles. He wanted to see the total destruction of all Eosi on Catten.
He dismissed the problem of getting armed ships past the space station that guarded the planet from attack, even a sneak one, by units of its own space force. The ships used in attack missions were based in another system. He pointed out that he knew all the code words to gain access to naval ordnance: there was even a high-ranking officer who was a member of their covert group. But he had been an administrator until he had been dismissed from his post and a much younger junior with excellent blood and Eosian connections had taken his place. That had been sufficient for Nitin to wish to retaliate against a hierarchy that had not rewarded his many years of devoted service.
"Almost Human of him," Hassan Moussa said with a chuckle. "Happens often in Israel."
"But does that attitude assure us of his loyalty?" Ray bluntly asked Zainal.
"Considering that his family bloodlines date back to the Original Hundred, yes, it does. He needs to wipe that dismissal from his family's history," Zainal replied.
The latest news from Earth was both good and bad---the good being that the Eosi had given up their mindwipe program. The bad was that they were now concentrating on razing cities, towns, settlements of any size, to the ground.
ZAINAL SEEMED TO HAVE NO TROUBLE playing with Zane in the affectionate way he had always used with the child who was walking without assistance. If he fell down, he got himself up. If he bruised himself in doing so and started to cry, Zainal would cock his head and the tears would dry up.
Kris didn't approve of Zainal's attitude toward perfectly reasonable tears. They had another fight over that.
"If he is badly hurt, he may cry," Zainal said. "But, on Botany, he must learn to take tumbles and get up and walk on," he added. "As you did on our initial treks."
"I was an adult, not a baby;' She was also stung that he would bring up those incidents, so long ago she'd forgotten them.
"If Zane walks, he is no longer a baby."
"He's my child and I'll dictate what he may or may not do."
"Tell him not to bother me then;' "Bother you?"
"He seeks my company."
"And you never push him away."
"No, but I will if you do not like the way I treat the son of my mate."
Zainal's face had assumed the cold Catteni look that devastated her, and she caved in.
"I want you to be fatherly toward Zane. He couldn't understand you changing," she said more meekly than she meant to sound.
"I do as I see other fathers here do, Kris;' he replied in a quiet, kinder tone. Then he caressed her cheek. "And when my sons learn that you are really Emassi in spite of being female, I would like you to be elder mother to them."
"Truce?" she said, holding out her hand.
"Truce? Yes, truce. We two should not be angry at each other over nothing."
"Nothing?" That was enough to get her back up all over again but Zainal stopped the incipient quarrel by kissing her so thoroughly that she had to cling to him to keep upright.
He was learning some other tricks of Human males, too, she thought as he carried her to their bed. It was nearly midday but neither was due for duty for another hour so. Zane was already in the crche. They had not been together often enough recently, she thought. No wonder they were fighting.
When they had finished a very satisfactory passage in arms, Kris asked Zainal how plans were going for the next series of "raids." Despite the inconveniences of masquerading and enduring the heavier gravity of Catten, she realized there must be a piraticalcertainly aViking---streak from her ancestry that gave her such enjoyment in these forays. It was so very satisfying to sneak :m under Catteni noses and get away with such good plunder.
Though she gave a little shudder thinking what might happen if they didn't get away with their deceptions. She quickly gave up thinking about that.
"The Council thinks hard about the next step. We," and Zainal turned his thumb in on himself so that Kris knew he meant the other Catteni, "must make additional contact with those who can help with our challenge to Eosi domination."
"Will that mean only you go?" she asked. After being with him again, she hated to be separated. Not that they could indulge in intimacies aboard even the larger KDL, but she would miss him acutely no matter how short a separation.
BY THE FALL OF NIGHT THAT DAY, the residents had another problem.
Some of those brought in on the last G-class ship were young folks, aged between five and twelve: children who had grown up knowing nothing but the Catteni domination. Most of them were either orphaned or had been separated from their parents, and three could not even remember their names. Dorothy Dwardie turned the most violent over to Dr. Hessian since his Freudian training would be valuable in these instances. Their childhoods, if one could use the word, had been so traumatic that, unless therapy was used, they would be neurotic by their teens.
"Children can survive the most appalling circumstances;' Dorothy said as she addressed those who had volunteered to house the orphans, "but the one thing they have, which adults often lack, is resilience. Shown kindness, especially fair play, will do much to show them what we, here on Botany at least, consider 'normal' behavior."
Some of the wildest had had to be sedated throughout the trip. Laughrey, who had been captain of the purloined ship, said his crew had been totally unable to cope with this group.
"We did find out that, when we brought them to the ship . . · the first time;' and he grimaced, "we were Human quislings and were taking them to work to death as slaves. When we rounded them up again, we had to sedate them. Most were covered with infected sores---well, you've seen their scars---and wounds. In my opinion, they're worse off than the Victims. And they're just as much Victims of the Eosi as the mindwiped."
Every attempt was made over the next few weeks to integrate the children.
The placements were not universally successful, though Sarah and Joe lurked out with a five-year-old girl. Once she realized that she was safe, she refused to be separated from her foster parents and either Sarah or Joe had to have her in tow. She also didn't speak, but Dorothy Dwardie felt that, once she felt really, truly safe, she would talk.
"Children pick up speech patterns from their carets. If they've had no carers, of any kind," and Dorothy shrugged. "There's certainly no impediment in her vocal equipment."
The psychologist grinned, reminding the foster parents of the screams the child had uttered when she was given her three-in-one injection. Two of the children on board the G-ship had had measles so preventative shots were essential.
Maizie, the name Sarah and Joe had given their waif, was derived from her constant look of amazement at foodmall she wanted to eat---and dean covers on a bed that only she occupied. She did take to carrying the fluff-filled pillow with her everywhere. That was a useful habit, not only reinforcing her sense of security, but because she was inclined to take unexpected naps, both hands clutching the pillow.
"I don't think she ever slept on Earth;' Sarah told Kris. "At this rate, you won't have to have a second child," and she cocked her head at Kris.
"Especially now Zainal's got his two sons here."
"Kasturi hid his family away before he defected, and he wants to bring them in. He has daughters. I just hope he doesn't do a Maasai on them;' Kris said in a jaundiced tone of voice.
"If you ask me, it wouldn't hurt some of our latest drop-ins to be sent down to Chief Caleb Materu;' Sarah said.
"I believe that's also occurred to our noble leaders. Dorothy's against it," and Kris paused.
"So are you," and Sarah snorted. "But I catch any of them bullying some of the littler boys again, I'm going to thump 'em."
There was a hard-core group of eighteen who had banded together: six black, eight white, two Japanese, one Chinese girl, and one French lad: ranging from seven to the eighteen-year-old black lad, Clune, who was their acknowledged leader. They had actually been rounded up by the Catteni, as they were old enough to survive the drugged journey. Laughrey freed them from the DC-area holding pens where they awaited transportation.
They had become a unit, fourteen males and four females, calling the Diplomatic Corp. They were still a unit, despite being as-to foster parents. They refused to work but managed to acquire food whenever they wanted it. Several sessions in the stocks for Clune, and his two "consuls," Ferris and Ditsy, failed to correct their attitude. Twice their unit disappeared from Retreat and had to be tracked down by Rugarians and Deski, with Chuck Mitford in command. The second time, he marched them back without a single rest break.
Not even demonstrations of what night crawlers could do seemed to deter them from defecting from Retreat. The supplies they had acquired on both occasions showed that they could access anything they chose to have: including com units. And they were clever enough to have opened secure premises to get the weapons they wanted. Oddly enough, among the goods they took from infirmary supplies were condoms. One of the group, the seventeen-year-old who called herself Floss, had insisted that none of the girls should get pregnant: an unexpected display of common sense.
It became clear within the first two weeks that they had no intention of integrating. They were not, in Leons medical opinion, physically well enough---after four or five years of eating whatever they could scrounge for the unit---to look after themselves in one of the closed valleys. Which had been suggested as one remedy to their recalcitrant behavior. Floss had been acting as their medic, since she had taken a first-aid course before the invasion, but she would not be capable of dealing with the serious wounds nor the various infections, external and internal, which plagued the young folk.
"We can't let them go half-healed, and that Floss needs a D and C," Leon reported. "Mary said it's not urgent... yet. But fibroid growths have a tendency to keep growing unless there's a curettage."
"Why don't we see if Chief Materu would take them in for a spell," was
Laughrey's suggestion. "Let's make it really basic for them:'
"Haven't they endured enough 'basic'?" Dorothy asked, though she could come up with no other suggestions. Almost all the other children that had been rescued were settling in or responding to trauma therapy.
"Not a structured basic," Ray Scott said. "I'd rather they had enough
training to survive on their own, if that's the course we have to take
with such a hard-nosed bunch. I'll give Chief Materu a call;'
Chief Materu accepted the challenge. It didn't surprise Kris, though that Zainal decided to go along with those marching the Diplomatic Corp down to the southern settlement of the Maasai. She chuckled, thinking of the pace that Zainal would set. Chuck, the two Doyle brothers, Joe Latore, Coo, and Slav came along "for the exercise."
When Chuck met Kris on his return, he said that the trip had been instructive for all concerned. "Chief Caleb's segregating the girls who certainly don't like that part of it. Nor working with only women. But work they will. Good thing those Maasai are so tall." He grinned with satisfaction of an assignment suitably fulfilled.
Chuck eyed her. "They are. Even manage to chatter some in Maasai.
Zainal allowed a smile for each of them, and you'd've thought they'd been turned loose in a candy store. They've picked up some sort of skin problem but the Maasai now have the medical plants they need to cope with almost every ailment."
That reassurance gave Kris enormous relief.
"Were our renegades similarly impressed by seven-foot chiefs?" she asked.
Chuck laughed. "What's that word that Ninety uses? Oh, yes, gob-smacked.
They were that in spades. Turns out that two of the black kids were Africans from their countries' respective embassies. They knew the Maasai, certainly by reputation, and enough Swahili to understand basic orders."
Chuck took a long pull on his beer and then folded his hands across his stomach. "Yup, that was a good idea Laughrey had."
THREE DAYS LATER there was an urgent com call for Zainal and Leon from Chief Materu. The skin problem for the two Catteni boys had not responded to Maasai cures and the boys had developed fevers that could not be reduced. Kris offered to come, too, and Zainal was worried enough to want her company. Leon brought what he felt would be the appropriate equipment, carefully strapping the microscope box into a travel net on Baby, as well as a variety of medications.
"It's unusual for Catteni to have skin infections," he murmured to Kris as Zainal drove Baby at its best speed. "Or fevers. Zainal's never shown any toxic reaction to anything here on Botany. That I heard of?" the Australian looked inquiringly at Kris. She shook her head. "Well, we'll just have to wait and see. Not that, with this speed, we'll be long waiting."
ZAINAL LANDED BABY as near to the chief's high-set platform as he could. Materu had heard the noise of the approaching ship and beckoned them to follow him to where the boys were being cared for.
The fevers were high, even when Leon adjusted the thermometer reading to CatteN levels. The sores exuded yellow pus that had a nose-shriveling odor to it. Leon quickly made slides and, taking his microscope out in the light did a quick investigation. He was shaking his head when he returned.
"I've never seen anything like it. It's some sort of... allergic
reaction that's causing the skin to erupt like this:'
"Will antihistamines work on Catteni systems?" Kris asked, hands denched into fists with anxiety. Zainal wore his worst Catteni face, and she was sure he thought the boys were dying. So did Chief Materu and his medicine man, or whatever they were called in Swabill.
"It's the one thing I can try. The only Human equivalent to those sores is pyoderma gangrenosum," Leon said. "And that may be the result of a col-iris.
Neither lad had any sign of that sort of problem when I checked them over." Then he asked what the boys had been eating, but he shook his head when the listing was complete. "Nothing they didn't have on board the KDL except for fresh rocksquats and fish, and they haven't bothered Zainal.
It was the medicine man, introduced as Parmitoro Kassiora, who said something in Maasai to the chief.
"He says he gave them a very, very small dose of olkiloriti because they
ate too much and had bellyaches. Much less than he would use with our
boys because they are different;'
"Isn't that from the acacia plants that were just brought back?" Leon asked.
Parmitoro added something else.
"He says that some of the Catteni who rounded them up took ill like this, with sores, and died;' the chief translated, looking exceedingly pleased.
"Hey, you could be right about allergy, Kris." He checked through the medications he had brought with him and found several, looking from one bottle to another. "Their metabolism runs at a different level despite other similarities to our own body mechanisms. Give me your arm, Zay," he said.
When Zainal had bared his arm, he did a quick reaction test of all three possible medications. Leon whistled under his breath as he timed the testing. Behind him the boys muttered in their fevers, tossing and almost, but not quite, crying with the pain incurred by moving.
"Not a damned thing;' Leon muttered after the required reaction time was up. "At least you're not allergic to antihistamines;' Then he looked Zainal straight in the eye. "Do I have your permission to try, Zainal? At least I believe they will take no further harm from the shots."
Zainal nodded. Leon bowed slightly to the Maasai medic, who had been observing with close interest but no reaction to what Leon had been doing. Chief Materu had murmured some explanations in Maasai.
Caleb Materu gave them a wide smile of very white and even teeth.
"Not at all. The boys have been good boys, and they are not Maasai so perhaps Maasai medicine could not work on them." Materu turned to Zainal.
"For that he apologizes."
"None needed." Zainal nodded once to Parmitoro in acceptance.
"That takes care of the medical ethics," Leon said in a wry tone. "I'll give one to Bazil here, and another to Peran. Then we've one spare.. :' He made the injections.
And they waited. Some of the women, and that included a rebellious and surly Floss, brought food and cool water. The hut was not only stuffy but also reeked of the suppurations. Kris did edge toward the opening of the hut.
"I want out of here, bitch," Floss muttered as she and an older Maa-sai woman returned with a fresh bucket of cold water.
"Only when you're no longer one, dear," Kris replied in a low tone.
"D'you know what they do to women here?" Floss said, and there was a certain desperation in her eyes now.
"All the more reason for you to reform your outlook on life on Botany;' she said, for she had heard about the female genital mutilation practiced by some African tribes. Were the Maasai one? She couldn't remember.
Floss made a sudden movement toward Kris, which, in retrospect, Kris decided she deserved for the taunt, and immediately the tall Maasai woman grabbed hold of Floss and threw her from the hut. Kris could hear the thud of the girl hitting the hard ground. She thought she'd better make certain that the girls of the Diplomatic Corp were not required, during this reed-ucation period, to adhere to all Maasai customs. They should have brought along one of the Swahili speakers. How the hell was she going to explain this one?
They waited. They could and did try to ease the boys' fevers with the cool water, laying fresh cloths carefully over the sore-covered bodies.
It was dark before Leon extracted a thermometer from Bazil's armpit and exclaimed. "The fever's coming down."
Kris was in the process of changing a cool cloth when she noticed that the sores were no longer oozing. In fact, the smell was lessening, too.
"Hey, look!" And she pointed to the nearest sore. "It's drying up."
Zainal immediately stripped the coverings from Peran, and the younger boy also seemed to be responding to the medication.
"It's four hours. Time to give them another shot."
During the next four hours, the sores seemed to dry up in waves, starting from the chest working downward to the limbs. The boys' temperatures dropped to normal, and they each fell into a deep sleep.
"Empirical but you Catteni are not impervious to the minor ailments to which Human flesh is heir," Leon said as they all left the hut and stood in the fresh night air.
"This acacia? They swallowed it?" Zainal asked.
Materu said. "It is ground fine and a small amount taken with water."
"Do I know what you're thinking, Zainal?" Leon asked, eyebrows twitching and the gleam of a smile on his face.
"The problem would be 'how.""
"Yes, it would, wouldn't it," Leon said.
Kris had no trouble following their line of thought but she also couldn't figure out how the olkiloriti could be administered to the Eosi.
How could they possibly get Eosi to swallow sufficient to kill them? Or at least give them an awful allergic reaction?
"Were the boys in real danger from just an allergic reaction?" she asked Leon. She'd never even had a bad case of poison ivy.
He cocked his head. "If the antihistamines hadn't taken effect, I don't think they'd've survived the night." He looked back at the hut. "They'll still need a lot of care... and no further herbal medications. I hope Parmitoro won't take offense."
"He would take more offense if you had come and the boys had died," Caleb Materu said with an amused snort.
"I do have some salve I used on Catteni wounds," Leon said, dragging his medical bag out into the cool night air. "To heal the sores. I know it doesn't react on Catteni. The sea, too, will help. Can they swim, Zainal?"
"They do now," Caleb said in his deep voice, and in the torchlight, his eyes sparkled.
"When the sores are closed, have them swim in the sea. Salt's still a
superb cure-all;'
"You wish them to remain in my care?" the chief asked Zainal.
"I do," Zainal said firmly.
"How are the others doing, chief?" Leon asked and his eyes danced with mischief.
Kris pulled at Leon's sleeve, to get him to listen to her whisper. "Floss is terrified that the Maasai will do something . . . down there;' and she pointed to the correct spot.
Leon covered a burst of laughter. "I imagine she would be. Don't worry. Hassan made it plain that the females must return in the same physical condition in which they arrived. He also said that Chief Materu is one of the more modern leaders."
Kris let her breath out with a whoosh.
"Don't reassure her, though," Leon went on. "Being real scared is effective conditioning as negative conditioning. Dorothy and I did discuss an aversion state, like intense fear, to be used to cancel out a lesser, unpleasant state... like choosing to be cooperative if you're angry. If there is something that does terrify that hard-boiled little minx, let's let it stand. Right?"
"Right."
LEON GAVE THE BOYS A THIRD INJECTION. He measured out tablets, which he put in a jar for Parmitoro to give the boys orally during the next ten days. Then the two medical men shook hands.
By common consent the three retired to Baby to sleep for the Botanic night wasn't even half over when the boys began to improve. In the morning, when Leon had gone over to check on his patients, Kris heard an odd noise, small but definitely not a regular sound.
She caught Zainal's attention and pointed to the passageway. Two of the Diplomatic Corp girls, and one of them was Floss, were attempting to squeeze into one of the storage compartments. It was the opening of the panel that Kris had heard.
Zainal had no sooner made it to the doorway with Floss under one arm---and Kris behind him with an arm lock on the other, younger girl than four Maasai women arrived.
"If you behave, Floss;' Kris said sternly as the Maasai women took firm charge of the wouldbe stowaways, "you'll come back in the same physical condition you arrived here. But if you continue to misbehave... well," and Kris spread her hands wide to indicate the outcome would be out of her control.
Floss turned dead white under the tan she was acquiring. Then she gathered herself up to snarl back and, before she could utter a word, she was pinched so painfully by the headwoman that whatever invective she had been about to spit out at Kris was lost in her yelp. Zainal drew Kris back in the ship. He was grinning.
"Doesn't like you, does she?"
"I can't blame her, but tough love works;'
"Love?" Zainal queried.
"Well, discipline meted out fairly for failure to obey." And she pointed to the tableau of Floss. Balancing a big basket on her head with both hands, she was bracketed between two tall Maasai women who moved with a grace Floss had yet to achieve. The younger girl was sobbing softly, her arm in the grasp of the headwoman.
Kris didn't at all like the sexism practiced by the Maasai but, if it taught Floss discipline and respect, she might even become a useful colonist when she returned to Retreat.
THE CIRCUMSTANCES of this medical alert were immediately reported to Ray Scott and the other Catteni were hastily gathered together. When Zainal had explained what he hoped to achieve, Nitin and Kasturi both started shaking their heads.
"Eosi are well aware that even the Emassi who surround them might seize an opportunity to use a poison. Anything they consume is first tested by a Catteni," Nitin said gloomily.
"Perhaps it is effective only on young bodies which have not matured enough to deal with dangerous substances," Kamiton said.
"Care to try it?" Leon said, taking out a vial containing some of the powdered olkiloriti. The Australian had an odd sense of humor.
Zainal held out his hand for it but Kamiton snatched it first. He pulled out the cork top and sniffed deeply.
"See?There is no danger.. :' His yellow eyes turned up in his skull and he started to have such severe convulsions that he jerked off the chair he was sitting in.
Leon sprang into action. Fortunately he still had his medical kit handy and, muttering under his breath about what dose would be sufficient to counter the reaction, he filled a syringe. Zainal and Kasturi were trying to keep Kamiton from hurting himself with the severity of the spasms that beset him but, strong as they were, they were having difficulty holding him.
Leon tried twice to pierce the tough Catteni hide with his hypodermic needle, cursing about elephant hides and crocodile scales, but managed to plunge the medication in.
The convulsions did not immediately cease, though Kris, watching anxiously for she had come to like Kamiton, thought they were not as violent.
Leon readied a second syringe from a different bottle with the longest needle Kris had ever seen.
"Let's hope your hearts can take this kind of convulsion;' he said as Kamiton's spine arched grotesquely. "Here, hold this, Kris. Hold it up:' He gave her the hypodermic and got his stethoscope out.
"Keep his arms out of my way, can you Zainal, Kasturi?" he asked in
Catteni. Over Kamiton's inarticulate cries, whatever he managed to hear
worried him. "I don't like the sounds in his lungs. Inhalation was a
damned foolish idea. Cardiac arrest is possible. Kris, call the
infirmary and send the team down here fast as possible;'
"I've already called in a medical emergency," Ray said, com unit in his
hand as he stared down at the writhing body of the Catteni. "I think
that shot is beginning to work:'
"It is?" Leon said, surveying the contortions. "You're right. The spasms are reducing in intensity."
"Eosi must breathe, mustn't they?" Kasturi remarked in Catteni to Nitin, their eyes still on the slowly relaxing body of their colleague.
"Yes, even Eosi breathe," N/tin observed. "But their living quarters are so carefully guarded..."
"Crop dusting might do," Leon observed with the fingers of one hand on Kamitoffs neck. "Pulse still racing. Damned fool thing to do with a drug he knew was dangerous."
"A very Catteni thing to do/' was Kris' rejoinder, her pulse racing as well from fear of the consequences of Kamiton's rash impulse. "Do I need to keep this?" she asked, meaning the syringe she still held.
"We might. I'd rather have conducted a controlled experiment but the empirical test was certainly conclusive," Leon added in an admiring tone.
Kamiton's body twitched only slightly now but his breathing was still labored, and he had not regained consciousness.
"Crop dusting?" Zainal asked, looking up at her, not having understood Leon's remark.
"A term for an aerial application of fertilizer or insecticides over large areas. Airplanes are used," and she made a sweeping gesture with her free hand.
"What has she said?" Nitin asked, his English being almost nonexistent.
When Zainal explained, Nitin once again shook his head. "No aerial traffic is allowed over Eosi compounds."
"There's more than one way to kill a cat without choking him with butter," Kris said.
"Say again?" asked Zainal, blinking with a lack of comprehension.
"'There are nine and sixty ways of singing tribal lays/" Leon chanted, "'and every single one of them is right.""
Ray Scott laughed. Kris wouldn't have thought he'd know Kipling that well. But they needed a spot of relief after the anxiety over Kamiton.
"I'm sure we'll think of some way," Scott said.
Just then the cardiac arrest team arrived.
"There has to be some way," Kris said.
"We will find it," Zainal said, stepping away from Kamiton as the emergency team moved in on him.
Leon was explaining what had happened and what precautions he wanted taken when they got Karoiron to the infirmary. Almost as an afterthought, he took the syringe from Kris' hand as he followed the team, with Karoiron carried on a stretcher out the door.
"If this stuff is spread through the air circulation, it would kill everyone on board," Ray said, putting the stopper back in the vial and placing it well away from the remaining Catteni.
"More will be needed, too," Zainal said, regarding the little container with considerable respect.
"Why?" asked Nitin, returning to his seat. "There is no way it can be spread for Eosi to inhale."
"There must be;' Zainal said, giving the table a pound with his fist that rattied the vial of olkiloriti. Ray immediately steadied it.
"We will somehow contrive," Kasturi said, giving Nitin a dire look for his pessimism.
"Meanwhile, we have other problems," Ray said, "and, while I am relieved
that your sons survived their ordeal, Zainal, we've a meeting later
today to decide how to cope with the growing destruction of our own
planet;'
With a nod of dismissal, he pulled his keyboard to him and began to call up a program to consider.
Zainal, Kris, Kasturi, and Nitin left the hangar office in thoughtful silence.
"WHAT'S THIS ] HEAR about a lethal drug for the Eosi?" Raisha asked when Kris came to collect Zane from the cr&he.
Kris paused in lifting her jubilant, and heavy, son into her arms. "Boy, the grapevine works faster than light."
Raisha grinned broadly. "Well, we did see the cardiac arrest team
speeding down to the hangar and then back... so naturally, we had to
find out the details. And thank goodness, Zainal's sons are all right:'
'%u or Sarah?"
"Actually, Mavis rushed down. She was collecting her daughter after her shift." When Kris, busy with her son, was not forthcoming, Raisha added more curtly than her usual manner, "Wellll?" and she raised the elegant curve of her fine brows in query.
"Yes, there is a substance that produces a violent allergic response in Catten/, young and old. But whether it can be got to the target area is the moot point. Don't get your hopes up."
"I will try not to, but it will be hard," the pilot said. "There simply has to be a way..."
"We'll find it. Maybe we'll hear from the Farmers. It's been long enough," Kris said, hoping to distract the woman.
"Huh! I have come to believe more in your Yankee in-gen-oo-ity," and Raisha grinned, parodying Zainal's use of the word.
"See you, later. Say goodbye, Zane and thank you to Raisha."
"Goo-by, t'ank," the obedient child managed.
"You should have another before he is much older," Raisha said.
"Ha! Won't need to if we import more kids."
"Has that wild group settled in with the Maasai?"
Kris chuckled. "They've had no choice."
Raisha nodded with satisfaction.
"I think Zane'll have to spend the night here . . . a big meeting
this evening. I'll feed and bathe him first:'
"This good boy's always welcome."
ZAINAL WAS NOT IN THEIR COTTAGE so Kris let Zane wander about the place while she cleaned up from their hurried departure the previous day.
All the time her mind kept working through possibilities, but any bright ideas that occurred required more knowledge than she had of Eosian habits and habitats, information she did not have on hand. Even if Nitin was so pessimistic, she had the feeling that Zainal and Kasturi were not.
Her com unit buzzed, and Beggs informed her in his prosaic manner that her presence was requested for twenty hundred hours at the hangar for an emergency session of the complete Council. She opened her mouth to thank him when he closed the connection. She didn't like him and he knew it, but Beggs was the sort who would do his duty though it choked him.
And he was efficient. With the com unit in hand, she called the infirmary to ask how Kamiton was.
"He's left," was the report from the agitated receptionist. "Dr. Dane tried to keep him in for observation, but he just walked out."
"He's all right then," Kris said, chuckling. No Cartertl worth the rank of Emassi would let a thing like a near brush with death keep him abed. So he'd be there at the meeting. That meant that Tubelin would probably side with Zainal, so it would be three Catteni for and one against.
No, she shook her head, correcting herself. The meeting was about other matters entirely. While wiping out the Eosi would be the answer to many problems, that wasn't the panacea for all the woes that currently beset Humanity.
That was the subject of the meeting.
John Beverly addressed those who crowded into the hangar. When the numbers attending exceeded space available, a com system was hurriedly set up to allow those outside to hear what was being said. Kris noted with approval that the four Maasai chiefs were there, with Hassan Moussa whispering translations.
"Our last trip to Earth showed us what the Eosi are doing to our planet... stripping it of anything valuable and destroying what they do not understand. They are also systematically shipping Humans out as slave labor. The old, the very young, the infirm, the injured or sick are being left to fend for themselves and many will die. We cannot, here on Botany, continue to provide succor to those, much as we would like to. There is a finite limit to what Botany can provide.
"However, Kamiton has been able to supply us with the information of the other planets---some of them as habitable as Botany---where Humans have been dropped, as we were, to make the best of what was avail able. We want to check on these. If necessary, support them with tools, medicines, and other supplies. That will mean healthy people to take back to Earth when it's ours again. I'd like volunteers to go with our---"and he paused to emphasize the recent acquisitions"---G-ships to show them how.
There are five other drop"---and he grinned to use the term"---planets that we know of and we want to visit each. We also know of four installations where, according to Kasturi, Humans are being used as slave labor in appalling conditions. Some of our Maasai were sent to an ice planet. We want to free those we can. Right under Catteni noses, so to speak;' And Beverly flashed a smile when someone demanded to know how. "Pretend we're Catten/shifting work forces. We've inside help now besides Zainal."
And he turned to indicate the four dissident Catteni seated to one side of the table. "We can't emancipate---" and again that roguish grin on the air orce general s face"---all the slaves but we can try.
"Why?" someone roared. "They'll be half-dead. I don't mind helping now and then, but all the time?"
There was considerable support to that complaint.
"I know, I know," John said. "Altruism can go too far. And if we can, we will disperse these folk on some of the other planets we know about.
"Don't lose sight of the fact that the reason for these forays is to spread confusion among the Eosi and the Emassi in charge by a series of totally unexpected shifts of personnel and material which will disappear completely.
The Eosi don't like mysteries."
"Yeah, but won't they just retaliate by killing more of us back on Earth?"
"They might, if they could see the connection;' John Beverly said.
"We'll be using Catteni ships they haven't yet realized we have. How can they hold Earth responsible when Catten/are the only ones involved?
"Meanwhile, Catteni dissidents will be mobilized-and there are many Catteni who want to be free of Eosian domination just as much as we do."
"You going to use that dust to kill those bastards?" someone shouted.
John Beverly paused a moment, smiling. "Doesn't take long for rumor to circulate Retreat, does it?"
There were goodnatured chuckles.
"We now have a means, but we don't have a way."
"Set up a Ways and Means Committee then;' some wit shouted and laughter greeted that suggestion.
"We have. Any ideas are cheerfully received. Now," and John looked down at his notes, "we're making another foray to Earth, to collect supplies, visit the other planets where Humans have been dropped, so I'm asking for some of the First Drop to come along in case we can help. Zainal's making another run to contact other dissidents."
Suddenly Gino Marrucci, who had been in the bridge on com link watch, came rushing up the steps to the platform and whispered something in Ray's ear.
He rose. "We may not be able to implement those plans just yet;' he said. "Gino says there's a massive attack force approaching. We may just have annoyed the Eosi too much."
"What do we do now?" a woman wailed in the silence that followed the announcement.
Kris had no trouble identifying the wailer as Anna Bollinger.
"I think we go out the back door NOW ;' Zainal said, gesturing for John Beverly to nominate his crews.
"What if the Bubble bursts?" Anna screamed.
"Don't be so stupid, woman." And Aarens was on his feet and faced her.
"The Farmers design much better than the Eosi do:'
Kris smothered her laugh. Anna's panic did spread. Those at the head table rose to try and restore calm. Beverly didn't waste any time, but pointed out those he wanted as crews for his ships. He took them off with him, gathering other men and women as he went. The hangar was emptying rapidly, with many running outside to look up in the darkening sky to check on the Bubble's distant nebulosity.
Many watched the barrage all night long. In some places, the force of the repeated assault turned the Bubble a glowing orange. There is no noise in space, of course, but there was plenty on the com sat link. Those who gathered in the bridge rooms of Baby and the two K-class in the hangar lis tened to the sharp exchange of Catteni and Eosi commands. Kris had joined Zainal and the other Catteni at the bridge installed in Ray's office where the ex-admiral and the rest of the Council followed what they could of the attack.
"Mentat Ix seems to be in charge," Ray said, looking at Zainal. "All the orders seem to be issued in his name."
Zainal only nodded as he reached for paper and pencil and, with Kamitons help, listed the force trying to batter down the Bubble.
"Both the new AA-ships;' Kamiton said, "and five of the big H's that
have been refitted with missiles;'
"Ah," and Nitin was cheered up slightly. "I hear Niassen is commander of one of the H's. He's useless."
"All he has to do is follow orders," Kasturi said, grinning.
"Isn't Redinit on that H?" asked Tubelin.
"Yes, I believe he is," Nitin said. He had supplied Zainal with the captain and crew complements of most of the ships the Eosi had been using against the Bubble.
"Don't we have three on the HHT?" Kasturi asked.
"Not in command posts, unfortunately," Kamiton said with a sigh.
"Can you give me some idea of how larg a dissident group you're talking about?" Ray asked.
"Roughly three thousand, spread throughout Eosi-dominated space;' Kamiton said.
Nitin regarded Kamiton with some apprehension, but the Catteni shrugged the implied reprimand away.
"Only three thousand?" Ray said, having hoped for a much larger subversive element.
Zainal laughed. "It is the nature of our group that's far more important than the number. Most of them are in strategic positions. Quality counts more than quantity."
"I suspect it could;' Ray admitted.
"Oops," and even Gino recoiled when the Bubble above the com sat area turned a livid shade of red. "They're obviously hoping the fabric of the Bubble is weaker around the array."
"Is it holding?" Ray demanded with a hint of anxiety in his voice.
"It'll hold," Gino said, "but it's taking a beating."
At some point during that long vigil, Ainger arrived, much annoyed, with a folded note from John Beverly.
"I resent being used as a messenger simply because I happened to be on hand;' he grumbled as he handed over the paper.
"John's taking all the G's out the back door," Ray said, frowning a bit.
"Isn't he exceeding his prerogatives?" Ainger said with an expression of deep censure. "Unless, of course, you intended him to attack the Eosian?"
"With G-ships carrying a minimum of weapons?" Zainal asked, surprised.
"No, he's going to provide further distractions, as was planned."
"He's away," Gino said, grinning.
"He broadcast?" Ainger was livid.
"In Morse," Gino said, laughing. "I just caught it. Thought it was only static at first, but he's got it on repeat. I'd best tell him his message was received."
He manipulated some toggles on the com board and then, listening intently to the chaotic Catteni messages, finally nodded. "Yeah, he got it."
THE BARRAGE OF THE BUBBLE WENT ON all the long Catteni night and into morning, but the fabric of the sphere did not collapse. The sun blotted out the colors the bombardment made but Bert Put, working the dawn shift as com officer, said he could hear the orders for continued barrage.
"This should infuriate the Mentat Ix," Zainal said, a smile of intense satisfaction on his face.
"Too bad there's no way to use that anger to our benefit;' Ray said.
"Ah, but there is," and Zainal held up one finger, his smile deepening.
"How?" Nitin said. "There's no way to get that dust..." and Kamiton gave an uncharacteristic shudder.
"Having failed, the Mentat will have to explain its defeat to its peer group," Kamiton said, rubbing his hands together. "And such a convocation can be of benefit to us."
"How? We have the dust but not how to disperse it to kill 'em all off, even if they are in one place together?" asked Ray.
There was a long and thoughtful pause, which Jim Rastancil finally broke.
"Where are they likely to assemble?" he asked.
"Ah, now that is something we should find out," Zainal said, "and as soon as possible." He jerked his head at the other dissenters. "Nitin, what's your best guess?"
"My guess?" And Nitin seemed surprised to be asked such a question.
"Where they seem safest, of course," Kamiton said, flicking his fingers.
"Where?" Jim asked, looking at Zainal for a translation.
"Catten itself," Zainal replied.
"Most likely," Kasturi agreed, nodding.
"No," Nitin corrected him, frowning. "The space station where everyone
can be searched and monitored. Security will be very, very thorough,"
and Nitin looked more pessimistic than ever. "You won't be able to get
in;'
"They will, however, need missiles to replace what they have wasted against the Bubble," Zainal said with a satisfied grin. "Emassi Venlik and a cargo of very useful ores would be made welcome."
"You don't have more than a few immature bushes of the olkiloriti down south," Kris felt obliged to point out.
"Baby could sneak in and out without being noticed, couldn't she?" Ray asked. "To get more from East Africa?"
"You'd better take someone along who knows where to find enough bushes," Kris added.
"It only took one sniff to disable me," Kamiton said with a grin.
"You must have more than a sniff to get all the Eosi"' Nitin grumbled.
"It will take some time for all the Eosi to assemble, you know," Kasturi said. "If this requires a full inquiry."
"Oh, it will," Nitin said, once again sunk in his usual gloom.
"I'm counting on the full inquiry and the time it will take to assemble
a sufficient number of Mentats," Zainal said, addressing Nitin. Then he
turned to the others. "As for gathering the substance, I think
Parmitoro Kassiaro, or even Chief Materu, might assist;'
"Don't the women do the actual work?" Kris asked for she couldn't construct a mental picture of Chief Materu pulverizing leaves in a mortar with a pestle.
Zainal shrugged. "We use it as a weapon. That may alter his mind."
"The Maasai have declared war on the Catteni, you know;' Ray Scott said with a wry grin. "! don't believe you'll have any trouble getting the stuff."
"That is," Jim added in a cautious note, "if there's still enough available.
The mission report had trouble finding what they did bring back."
"Then we must send for what can be found immediately," Zainal said.
"I will go myself to ask the chief's help."
And, Kris thought to herself, to make sure that Bazil and Peran are fully recovered. In his own Catteni way, he did care for them.
Chapter Nine.
RETREAT BUZZED WITH A BARELY CONtained excitement when Kris brought Zane up to the crlche before reporting to her shift on the com watch in the hangar. Some of the buzz sounded ominous but then there had been a lot of criticism about taking on more problem groups: like sick and disabled ex-slaves. The Victims could not have been left on Barevi: everyone admitted that. Now! Especially since all but thirty of the original group had responded to the trauma therapy. The remainder, Dorothy sadly reported, had been too damaged to reach.
But the psychologist felt that the ratio of recoveries was very good indeed. Even Dr. Hessian had had to admit that her program had been the proper one... in this instance. He was happily at work helping the disturbed children in a blend, Dorothy had said with a perfectly straight face, of both traditional therapies.
Kris always allowed ample time to walk Zane up to the crlche so she had some to spare and stopped in the main mess hall to sample the general temper.
"Are they still trying to burst our Bubble?" asked Fred Gambino, who was serving coffee. "Only one cup allowed, you know."
"That's better than none. I've really missed my caffeine hits," she said.
"And no, the Bubble's holding."
Fred leaned across the counter. "I got a place picked out where I'll never be found."
"You do?" Kris managed to imbue her tone with surprise and amusement. "I doubt you'll need it."
"Sure as I can be about anything apart from death and taxes, and we don't pay taxes here, now do we?"
"Hmm. Well, it may come to that... taxes, I mean."
"Weren't you among those who met the Farmers, Fred?"
He gave her a long look. "Yeah..."
"Haven't they done what they promised? Kept us safe here on Botany?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, hold that thought because that Bubble's there to stay."
"Yeah, but where are the Farmers if we need them? They don't have any satellites buzzing about us like the Catt---'cuse me---Eosi do."
That brought his eyebrows up but she put one finger to her lips and winked. A harmless enough white lie if it helped reduce panic.
"They were. I suspect that they have a lot of other planets and systems to manage, too. If we really get into trouble, they'll be back. They don't approve of injuring any species."
"I know one I'd like to take apart, bit by bit," Fred said, making tearing motions with his hands.
Kris merely smiled at him, took her coffee and a hunk of fresh bread, and found a table at the side where she had a good view of those eating.
Fred had probably expressed what many were thinking or fretting about.
And he had a hidey-hole picked out? Interesting.
Fragments of arguments, some of them heated, reached her. Most concerned the possibility that the Bubble would be breached. She heard snatches of complaint about being saddled with more groups who wouldn't pull their own weight. Community service hours were long enough as it was and why did they have to keep on increasing the population. There were already enough here. Some were earnestly discussing the deplorable conditions on Earth and would they have to go back and help rebuild, just when Botany was beginning to have at least some amenities. Where would coffee grow on this planet? All right, rationing at least gave everyone a cup a day but when you were used to having as much as you wanted, a cup barely got you started. How much more food crops would they have to plant to feed more new arrivals? What would happen if a Catteni warship did manage to sneak through the Bubble? Or one of the ships that left so precipitously got captured and was used to penetrate the Bubble with all the Eosi ships right after it? That could happen, couldn't it? There were Humans who were vile enough to collaborate with the Catteni, weren't there? Shocking to turn against your own kind like that. One of the nearer tables composed of women only were discussing how best to cope with the outrageous behavior of their foster children. The waifs had initially seemed so happy to have the basic essentials instead of having to scrounge whatever they could, you'd think they'd be more grateful to be well fed, well housed and not complain about the chores they were assigned. Everyone worked on Botany. This colony didn't tolerate freeloaders. Didn't hurt anyone to sweat? Making bricks wasn't that hard. Or weeding.
Then Kris realized she'd better make tracks for the hangar and her shift.
BABY WASN'T THERE, but then, the plan had been for it to be used for a fast roundtrip to obtain sufficient olkiloriti. One of the K's was gone but not the KDL, which she had crewed on so often with Zainal. She took over the com watch from Matt Su.
"They're still pounding away," he told her as he rose from the station.
"My ears burn from some of the stuff they're saying about us and... what they'll do when they get in."
"Well, they can't and they won't," Kris said because there was just the hint in the Chinese's dark eyes that he was worried. "They have tried the heaviest stuff they have, haven't they?"
"Then why haven't they just left?" Matt asked, dubious.
"Well, the shah will hit the fit if they fail. More likely, they just don't know when to give up."
"That Mentat Ix is some mule," Matt said. "It's roaring more and more, and I think it axed some of the captains. I'm hearing new names."
"Maybe it'll have another fit and die," Kris said, very much wishing that was possible. Though how Lenvec's subsumed personality could have had any' effect on his host Eosi, she didn't know. She'd ask Zainal. The Ix was certainly the b&e no/re---wanting Zainal's hide for sure.
SHE STOOD HER WATCH, collected Zane, and took a turn at playing with other children: some of the five-year-olds who had been rescued. Most of them had to be taught games that children seemed to know instinctively.
"Well, none of them had a childhood, did they?" Anna Bollinger said,
treating Kris in a very stiff and almost insulting manner, as if somehow
this were Kris' fault. "Some of their personal habits are revolting:'
Ah, thought Kris, she doesn't want her litde darlings corrupted, does she?
"At least they have good role models now," Kris said mildly, pointing to Anna's wellgrown youngster, nattering away to two boys, so undernourished at five that her three-year-old appeared older.
"I'd prefer that Jackie had proper children his own age to play with."
"Jackie seems to feel that it is his job to rectify their ignorance;' Kris said. Chattering away, Jackie was showing the others how to build a little cabin out of the small logs that had been whittled as toys. They watched, their faces expressionless, even if their faces were now clean and their cheeks rounder and tanned.
One of them sent a foot into the log cabin and scattered the blocks.
Anna gave an exclamation of concern but Kris caught her arm. "Let's see
how Jackie handles it first:'
"Really, Kris, you exceed your authority. I'm in charge of the.. :' Her voice trailed off as Jackie's reached the two women.
"Now that was very naughty of you," he said, hands on his hips and sounding exactly like his mother. "You collect them, and we'll start over. On Botany, we make things. We don't break them. That's what the Catteni do and you don't want to be Catteni, do you?"
The boys glanced over at the two women watching: Anna's expression was stern enough to frighten anyone. Kris grinned and made a gesture that suggested that it was wiser to obey. After a little more hesitation, possibly to show that they were making up their own minds about this, they bent to gather up the logs.
A little girl caught her finger on something sharp and she came rushing over to them, sobbing. Anna's whole countenance altered to one of concern and sympathy. Kris let her handle the consolation and first aid. For all her other faults, Anna was a very good mother and the children---at least the Botany-born---trusted her.
ZAINAL WAS IN THEIR CABIN when she returned with Zane and their evening rations from the main mess hall. He was busy with lists and diagrams and a curious gadget on the table, which, when she picked it up, Kris recognized as an inhaler bulb. The sort she'd seen asthmatics on earth use to forestall an attack.
"Think you can get close enough to a Mentat to give him a dose of this?" she asked.
Zainal looked up, saw the bulb, and took it from her. He squeezed it.
"There's nothing in it," he said as she instinctively swatted it away from his face.
Zainal chuckled.
"Baby got off all right? The Ix was still at it when I finished my shift."
"They must have ordnance---that's the English word, isn't it---"
"Right on;' Kris grinned.
"Resupply vessels. Only a Mentat would continue like this," he said.
"The Mentat, who once was your brother," she said and when he nodded, she continued. "Is there any connection? I mean, would... the Lenvec personality have any influence on the Mentat?"
Zainal leaned back, idly sliding a pencil through his fingers, up and down on the surface of the table.
"It could, but I'm,not certain how. The subsumation takes in the entire personality and then the dominant Mentat is in total control..." He paused. "Although it was the Ix Mentat, once my brother, who investigated Ayres Rock and then seemed to be searching over the sea we were safely under... possibly for me."
Kris began to assemble dishes and utensils to serve their meal. Zane was playing with his goes-inters---the shapes that Zainal had made for him to fit together. These afforded the child hours of pleasure. As she leaned over to put a glass before Zainal, she got a better look at the diagrams.
He nodded.
"When is the brave captain Venlik and his crew likely to set out for another mining expedition?"
Zainal gave a shrug. "First Baby has to return. Then we have to wait to see what Beverly finds out about the other drop planets.
"There's a good deal of feeling that Botany's population is large enough right now," she said.
"We know," he said and jotted down something else in a combination of Catteni and English. He gave her a wry smile as she chuckled at the mish-mash. "It is difficult for me now to remember which language to think in for the words I need."
The barrage of the Bubble continued but in nowhere near the force that had been first launched against it. All four Catteni found that amusing as well as reassuring.
"It takes time to call in sufficient Mentats and senior Eosi to deal with an obsession like the Ix's," Zainal explained. "I will worry more when it stops," OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, certainly while Baby was on her mission, Kris sensed that Zainal was hiding something. She couldn't think what because they had had no previous secrets from each other, and he was as willing as ever to talk about any subject: especially the upcoming forays.
Several times Zainal was dragged out of bed in the middle of their sleep period to race to the hangar to speak to some of the Catteni dissidents on the com link. He used a code that had proved successful. At least none of their group had been arrested by Eosi, or suspected by High Emassi supervisors.
The bombardment turned sporadic and occasionally a force tried to penetrate another point on the Bubble, or several at once, since they had failed to pierce it with all their might.
Kasturi, Tubdin, and Kamiton---not so much Nitin, though the older man, for all his pessimism, seemed to be a vital key in the subversive actions-were able, by means of careful codes, to be in contact with many of their adherents. What was being set up, Zainal did not say, or if even something was. Contact had to be made, though, especially with those dissidents in command positions on other Catteni-dominated planets.
"We have to be sure our people are warned, and ready, to take over.
They must take control;' Zainal did tell her. "We could lose one or two but more would be disastrous. We've worked so long and hard to get our men where they are right now."
"A good point. Have you someone on all the Eosi-controlled planets and installations?"
He shook his head. "Hardly. There are a great many more than we have personnel to cover but the most critical positions are."
BABY RETURNED with the harvest of olkiloriti leaves. Raisha had reminded Chief Materu that this dust was a weapon of significant power so he helped to make it on that condition. Parmitoro had shown them how he preferred to prepare the powder and taken his turn at the mortar, working alongside the other Humans of the crew.
Although the back of the job had been broken on the way home, Leon had off-duty personnel from the infirmary helping to complete the manufacturing process. There was also a small, very dirty, and scraped box of inhalers among the supplies Baby had had time to collect, but the bulbs had not been broken.
"We went all over the place," Raisha said, presenting it with due ceremony to Leon. "I thought we'd have to scavenge from drugstores, where we could find any not already cleaned out. But we got in touch with the underground, and they found us these. Are they enough?"
Leon rubbed away enough of the mud to check the quantity. "Three dozen ought to be enough."
"Enough for what?" Kris asked.
"For the job to be done."
"There are a hundred Eosi," she said.
"Catch 'em all in the same spot and that'll do it."
"And here, we got the nose plugs in a scuba diving place Bert Put suggested."
And Raisha handed over a smaller rectangular box.
"For them who shouldn't breath deeply;' Kris said, quite relieved to know that Zainal and his friends weren't going on some sort of a suicide mission, sacrificing themselves to get all the Eosi.
JOHN BEVERLY RETURNED with cheering news, having left behind some volunteers to help. And bad news, because two of the planets were inimical to Humans. Remnants of the usual Catteni crates and supplies had been found, bits and pieces of gnawed leather but no sign of a Human, even when they had done a low-altitude search for life signs. Nor any Deski, Rugarians, Turs, or other known "slave" species. On the other three planets that had been used as experimental colonies, people had made the best of what was available. Although on one, even the Human groups had widely separated and wished no contact with others, especially the other species.
The other two had not turned to any form of anarchy or lawlessness but formed communities not unlike Botany's.
"Common sense prevailed," John Beverly told those who assembled in the
open hangar to hear him, "although they were very grateful indeed for
some of the supplies we brought:'
"Did they give you any shopping lists?" Sandy Areson called out.
"Oh, yes," John agreed. "Our compatriots on Dystopia.. :' some of the audience groaned, others laughed, "offered the most amazing amount of metals, gemstones, gold, silver, and stuff to purchase any spare ship we'd give them."
"Do 'em no good unless they have an Emassi," someone else said, and Kris smiled appreciatively at this oblique salute to Zainal.
Since Kris was privy to so many of the Head Council meetings, she knew that the medical situation on Dystopia, NoName (because no one had come up with a name which a majority could approve) and Dorado's attitude toward alien species made it low on the list of help. Dystopia and NoName were at the top for whatever could be spared of medical instruments and medicines that would supplement what the colonists had found useful and effective by the same sort of trial-and-error method the colonists on Botany had used. That meeting concluded that basic medications, part of the results of their raids on Catteni-held Earth, and what extra medical equipment could be spared should be delivered as soon as feasible.
"When we explained, they did say that they'd even consider working with an Emassi, if this is what resulted/' and he waved over at the G-ship.
"So we got friendly neighbors, establishing the banners of Humankind.
Kinda good to know."
NATHAN BAXTER had been one of John's crew in his professional capacity as photographer. He had brought back pictures of the other planets, both from space and on the surface, including some group photos of inhabitants and examples of how they had settled in. When these were developed, there were lines of those waiting to see the pictures up on the bulletin board outside the mess hall.
The infirmary actually treated more work injuries than diseases so, between what Kris had got on Barevi and others had found on Earth, they had enough to share. A second trip, and three cargo holds of wheat and dried rocksquat and loo-cow flesh, was planned. Microscopes, surgical tools, and other basic supplies were packed. Dystopia had only Humans while both NoName and Dorado had mixed populations. So some plursaw was sent along for the Deski inhabitants. The Turs had killed each other off in some sort of a bloody battle that had also taken many Human lives.
There had been no official census taken on any of the other planets but, during his flyby of the surfaces, John Beverly estimated that all three had more inhabitants than Botany.
"Basically, we're way ahead on the amenities," he told the Council. "I'd suggest we try to set up some sort of a com link..."
"Not with the Catteni ships likely to make more drops," Rastancil said.
"Which reminds me, John/' Ray began, "did you see much Catteni traffic in space?"
"We kept our com open all the time and there was a lot of chatter on the various channels, but I'd no really fluent Catteni speaker aboard. There was a lot of interference, too. Jamming, I think."
"Possibly high-security messages," Zainal said, after asking Kamiton a quick question in Catteni. To which Kamiton nodded. "Many?"
"com officers logged them if you want to check the records," John said.
"Oh yes," Beverly grinned toothily. "We figured you guys might be able
to understand them;'
"You have them?" Kasturi stood up, eagerly holding out his hand.
The ex-air force general laughed as he reached for the sack that he had deposited on the floor at the beginning of the meeting and handed it over.
"We leave. We listen. Where?" Kamiton asked Ray.
Ray glanced at Kris, jerking his thumb toward his private office, and she pushed back her chair to lead the way. She stayed to help because while Kamiton had been learning English with almost the same speed that Zainal had, neither could write English without a lot of false starts. So Kasturi made the initial transcriptions and then she and Kamiton translated them.
"They are convening the Mentats," Kamiton said suddenly, when they had gone through about half the recordings. He raised both arms, waving his fists with great satisfaction. He and Kasturi exchanged broad and gratified smiles.
"So how are you going to dust them?" Kris said, leaning back to rub the taut muscles of her neck and shoulders.
"Dust?" Kamiton asked.
She pantomimed inhaling and then fell to one side, twitching, as Kamiton had done.
That was the same answer that Zainal gave her later that night when they finally returned home. Once again she had had to leave Zane to sleep over in the crlche but instinctively her head had turned to where his crib was when they entered the door.
"He is safe," Zainal said gently, circling her shoulders with one arm and drawing her toward the bedroom.
"I know that," she said, almost peevishly. "Sorry," she added instantly, rubbing at her neck again. "All that thinking in one language and writing down in another gave me a headache."
His strong fingers pushed hers out of the way and he began a restorative massage, all the time easing her toward their room. She chuckled. But she was not at all unwilling. Especially when the fingers of his other hand began to massage elsewhere.
WHEN SHE WOKE the next morning, and it was morning, not dawn, so she had been very tired indeed, his space in the bed was empty. She allowed herself the luxury of a leisurely awakening. She needed a shower so she took that, since the solar panel would have warmed the cistern water by now. Her hair was growing out from its last crop but she'd have to endure that again for the KDL's next spurious trip back to Catten. It was while she was soaping herself that she noticed a bulge in her abdomen and felt it. Firm and... She stopped and didn't move until the water turned cold once the tank had emptied. Her mind rapidly did a series of figuring, taking into account the length of the Botany day, the number of days since her last period and when she had had it."Could she have been fertile on Catten? Could she be pregnant by Chuck Micford? He'd been too drunk to... hadn't he?
But when she began to fasten the belt to her overall, she realized that she was buckling it two holes up from the usual one. She sat down heavily, as much because she needed to sit to put on her boots as to gather her stunned wits. Not that she would really mind having Chuck's child. But she hadn't been nauseated or had any morning sickness and her breasts weren't that tender---yes, they were a tad sore, but last night could account for that.
"Stop fooling yourself, Kris Bjornsen," she said out loud.
Well, it could be worse. But she couldn't tell Zainal. At least not yet.
He wouldn't let her crew the KDL, not if it was going back to the heavy gravity of Catten. Though gravity oughtn't to interfere with her pregnancy, not if she wasn't even showing the usual discomforts. She figured again. She was well into the first trimester. But she didn't want to have to admit a preg nancy, just when things were getting so interesting. And Zainal would need her help, wouldn't he?
She looked at the time. She did a swift deduction for the longer Botany day, reset the watch to what would be the local hour and figured she had time to see Zane, take him along to the mess hall and get her cup of coffee and something to eat while she played with her son. Boy, there'd be some explaining later on when each separately sired child wanted to know why.
No, why should they know why? That was the Botany way of doing things, not the Terran one. And even if they did manage to get Earth back---no, Kris Bjornsen, not if but when Earth was returned to its proper owners and governments---she intended to stay here on Botany. Catteni, even erstwhile heroes like Zainal, might not be appreciated on Earth for some time to come.
TODAY she had to comply with Botany ethics, which required everyone to do some "dirty work." She had drawn KP but that happened so infrequently that she could almost consider it a vacation day. Well, a change was as good as a rest.
She had her breakfast with Zane who was a vacuum cleaner at breakfast time the way he gobbled his cereal. Sarah joined her with her three children and offered to take Zane to the crche.
"Maizie's getting to be quite a help," Sarah said, smiling at the much-too-sober-faced orphan she was fostering. "Will you hold Zane's hand?"
Maizie nodded after a quick, too-mature evaluation of Zane. Then, with what was for this five-year-old an almost daring action, she picked another piece of toast from the plate in the center of the table. In an absent fashion, Sarah passed her the jar of sweet berry jam. Sighing with relief, Maizie slathered the jam over her piece.
"Yes, I saw that;' Sarah said without turning toward Maizie. "She is improving.
Now if we can get her to talk. I know she understands every word I say.
Maybe I should have made her ask for the toast;' and Sarah made a
grimace, then sighed. "It's hard to know:'
Sarah made a second, self-accusing grimace, "That I shouldn't just give her what I know she wants but make her ask for it." Then she laughed in a selfdeprecating way. "When I think how firm I was with Tony here..."
and she broke off with a weak laugh.
"She may just start talking all on her own once she knows she's really, truly, genuinely safe, won't you, Maizie dear?" Kris said, smiling as she leaned toward the girl.
"Yes," Maizie said quite distinctly and continued licking the jam off her mouth with a pink tongue.
Kris and Sarah exchanged stunned glances.
"Would you like another piece of toast, Maizie?"
"Yes;' She reached toward the last one on the plate.
Sarah immediately snatched it out of reach, and Maizie sort of crouched in surprised terror. Quickly Sarah shoved the plate back in reach but Kris intercepted.
"First, it's good manners to say, 'yes, thank you: Can you manage that after 'yes'?"
Maizie, her face recovering its color, looked from Kris to the plate Sarah still held.
"Thank you;' came the almost inaudible reply.
"You're quite welcome," Kris said formally and removed her hand.
Still watching her, Maizie took the piece of toast but she didn't pick up the spoon to spread the jam.
"Would you like more jam with your toast?" Sarah asked.
"Yes... thank you." This time it was more audible.
"You may have jam with your tea, too," Kris said, as proud of Maizie's little step forward as Sarah was.
As it was time for Kris to start her day's work, she hunkered down by her son.
"Maizie's going to take you with her to the crche, Zane. Give me a hug and be a good boy."
Zane threw his arms about her neck and she could tell she had jam there for she had missed a patch earlier in wiping his mouth. Then she put his hand into Maizie's and watched, with a deep sigh, as the two small people followed Sarah who was carrying her youngest.
BABY REACHED THE HOLLOW ASTEROID where Kamiton had stashed his spaceship. They could take no chances with a ship of dubious identity. Nitin, ever the pessimist, had voiced a serious concern that, especially with a convocation of Mentats requiring extra security measures, a vessel that had supposedly been destroyed or lost could not suddenly appear. Security checks could be extremely thorough. They must cover every contingency, including the two nonCatteni crew members. Chuck Mitford at least passed, and his knowledge of both Catten and Barevi was an asset. Lean and tall, the Australian Bert Put, who might have to pilot Kamiton's ship, would never pass as a Catten. A hide must be constructed for him.
It was Bert who suggested it. The lower crew bunk in each bank had three drawers for the personal belongings. That meant just enough space under the lower bunk to accommodate Bert if the drawers were left ajar. As the general mess in any crew quarters, short of an inspection by a High Emassi, was never very tidy, half-open drawers, with contents half-in and half-out would be unexceptional. The credentials which Nitin had supplied for the unquestionably Catteni members had been genuine with support documentation on the files of the administration. There were even a few more that would pass the most rigorous inspection.
It was as well that such attention to detail had been observed for Kamitons vessel had to pass five separate full inspections to be passed to land on Catten. There would have been more had the conspirators tried to land on the station.
There had, however, been a very tense moment when an Emassi captain who knew Kamiton quite well was the inspecting officer. He had given the vessel and the documentation only a cursory inspection but settled himself in the mess for an update on Kamiton's latest exploration.
Kamiton had played out his part with laudable indolence, ordering Chuck and Nitin to provide food for their guest.
Bert, sweating in his hiding hole, worried about Zainai, Tubelin, and Kasturi on the KDL. But it was laden with ores---all in the useful platinum groups---that would make it so welcome any suspicion of its genuineness would be overlooked. Nitin had also supplied the nonCatteni members of the crew with equally authentic documentation. Since their destination was the refinery area of the planet, well away from the main city, they ought not to be in any danger.
Nitin had so picked at that first part of the overall scheme that even he had come to be satisfied with its high chance of success. About the rest he was only certain that he had done all he could to ensure the possibility of success: not, he was quick to add, the prot, ahility.
"Too many things could go wrong. Our group could have been infiltrated and our plans known..."
"Only so much of the plan," Karoiron interjected. "When"' Karoitoh
stressed the conjunction, "we get down on Catten and when we have
contacted the rest of us, I think you will raise the odds in favor of
probability:'
Karoitoh turned his head ever so slightly to see ZainaI taking a few more sips of water, all that he was allowing himself since he had designated his role in their plan. He hoped that Zainal would not overdo the starvation he had deemed necessary to the success of their stratagem. One did not underestimate an Emassi of Zainal's proven ability.
He was however glad to change into his own ship and let others do what was necessary to improve on Zainal's disguise.
Well, as soon as this niggit left, Karoitoh thought, they could proceed.
This appeared to be the last of the space inspections. He had never seen so many security shuttles and craft zipping around the planet before. Ah, well, there hadn't been a full convocation of Mentats during his lifetime.
And, with any luck, this would be the last. The most that ever had assembled since he had taken up his adult duties had been ten; He rather doubted that some of those farthest from Catten would make the journey but who ever came would receive a lasting reward for their trouble. He did spare a thought for those on the KDL. He really wanted to get the dependents away to the safety of Botany. Good idea of Zainal's on several counts: one of them being that Kasturi had a girl child and so didTubelin: mates for Bazil and Peran. That way some of their families would survive the blood bath that would be certain to follow a failure. But this time, they would not fail.
Karoitoh grinned and fortunately his smile coincided with some fatuous remark of the security Emassi, and Karoitoh rose, able to signal that they really had best end their conversation.
They landed on the field they had been directed by security to use.
Then proceeded, as planned, in a ground vehicle to Kamiton's quarters in a secluded area of the city where many Emassi kept temporary units. As Kamiton disarmed the alarm system, it blinked its message that persons still within the apartment had recently deactivated it. Kamiton warned the others by silently pointing at the message and took out his stun weapon, setting it on medium.
"Kamiton?" and, as that was Zainal's voice, Kamiton reholstered the weapon with relief.
He stopped in the doorway to his main room, shocked at Zainal's altered appearance, and quickly looked beyond the haggard man to the other members of the KDL group and ignored Zainal's battered and nervewhip lashed body.
ZAINAL REMAINED IN SECLUSION when the others went out on their individual errands of contacting other dissidents and setting in motion the next step of the scheme. If some of the dependents objected to being forced to leave their comfortable homes in the middle of the night, carrying only basic necessities, they were silenced by the dire consequences of ignoble deaths or futures if they chose to stay behind. By dawn, the empty ore carrier, the KDL was aloft and received only the most cursory of queries by security patrol ships as it proceeded at a leisurely speed out of Catteni space. As soon as it was in relatively empty space, the KDL would run at maximum speed, red-lining if necessary to be sure the dependents were safely at Botany before the last of the Mentats arrived, and more were assembling in their fast and comfortable ships every time period.
ON THE FIFTH DAY after the KDL had departed, Kamiton received the short burst of code from their space station colleague.
"Ugred;' said Kamiton when he had translated the message, "says that there are only two more Mentats and four juniors scheduled to arrive. All should be in place by morning."
"Everything else is ready?" Zainal asked. He spent a lot of time on his belly buffered by the softest material Kamiton's quarters contained since his back had been lashed by nerve whips. He rather thought Kasturi had enjoyed that exercise a little too much, but the disguise had to pass any close inspection. He wasn't sure, at this point, which annoyed him most---the necessary wounds or the equally necessary starvation.
The medic among their secret group had injections ready to sustain him---but these would only last so long and would have to be administered in the last safe moment on the space station. If they made it that far.
"Everything essential to the operation is in place, or so Ugred said in his last message. The presence of so many Mentats has everyone nervous, agreed, but one more security vessel is not likely to cause any unnecessary attention. And Ugred will have issued a special clearance to the duty officer in case he cannot himself be there."
"Waiting is always hard," Kasturi remarked to no one in particular.
No one had an answer for such a truism.
"Any message from Chuck and Bert?" Zainal broke the silence to ask.
Kamiton shook his head. "No message is good:'
Zainal fell into a light dose, which he did more often than he liked, but it helped him to conserve energy. He went over and over the plan, fretting that Chuck and Bert who had remained aboard Kamiton's ship might be discovered. He reassured himself that the ex-marine sergeant, with his knowledge of both Barevi and Catteni, could handle any eventuality. He would be able to move about the huge field, would be able to listen to any rumor in the mess on the field where other Drassi were awaiting the return of their captains. Most of the talk was about the Mentats coming to Cat-ten and everyone wondering what it was all about.
The variety of speculations amused Chuck, but he added a few little tweaks to find out just how popular Eosi rule was. It was not. No one said so in so many words, for that was dangerous, but many lowly Drassi were unhappy with their lot, with their Emassi, and the crazy planet that was resisting unexpectedly. Some Drassi boasted of the loot they and their officer had come back with, though a lot of the stuff that wasn't edible or potable hadn't seemed worth the fuel to transport it back to Catten.
As it was normal for a ship to be securely locked when empty, Chuck did so, which meant Bert had some freedom of movement. Chuck had arranged a code remark so that Bert would know to resume hiding if someone might be snooping about the scout ship. And Bert was also there in case they received emergency messages and had to hightail it back to Botany. The package containing the new ID decals had arrived by special messenger on the first day, a fact that they confirmed to Kamiton in an innocuous report by his Drassi that the ship had been serviced and was awaiting his convenience.
Chuck never found waiting easy, and it was almost twice as bad in the heavier gravity of Catten. At least, when he and Bert were safely alone on the ship, they could play poker. Right now, Bert owed him a small fortune and had suggested bezique as a change of game. Chuck had learned that game from an English commando and, though he didn't win as often, he didn't lose much either.
WORKING KITCHEN DUTY on Botany had a few rewards, like first samplings of the day s baking and first serving of lunch, before the crowds started in. There were always options: sandwiches which people could take to eat elsewhere, or a quick snack of soup and bread at a table, or a more leisurely meal. On a fair summer's day like today, many chose to take their food outside and enjoy the fine weather. That meant less washing up to be done. Paper plates had once been discussed but paper was too valuable for other necessities to be wasted when pottery was available. Pottery and some finer china as well, now that Sandy had a full kiln again, bigger than her first ones at Ayres Rock on the Farmers' continent. Those who had bartered for a fine china plate did not use it to eat off ofespecially the hand-painted ones, which were hung as wall decorations or displayed on the mantelpiece.
Since this sort of mechanical work required no great mental effort, Kris occupied her thoughts with whether or not she should say anything about her pregnancy. She had imaginary discussions with Mavis, who did a lot of the midwifery, about the effects of heavier gravity on an unborn child. She ran several scenarios on telling Chuck that he was going to be a father---even if both of them had been too drunk to know what they were doing.
That was almost a pity, in a way, but in another, a relief. Chuck might well be mortified to think he had abused her---but, hell, she hadn't resisted and she could have---since he seemed to be seeing a lot of Dorothy Dwardie.
Kris rather hoped her having Chuck's child wouldn't complicate that arrangement.
She'd be quite willing to explain the circumstances to Dorothy. It certainly hadn't been premeditated... not in that gravity! She shook her head because she kept trying to imagine how they had managed, both of them damned near wrecked with the heaviness and alcohol. But not completely wrecked, Kris told herself. Let's face that fact squarely. I'll simply have to give up drinking any more than a glass of hooch unless Zainal is with me.
About then, she realized that she had seen none of the Council eating in the mess hall. She'd been out in the main hall often enough, making sure that surfaces were clean for the next diners or picking up stray cups and glasses. There were still folks who did not know to clear their tables off.
She had an hour's rest before she was expected to help with the supper.
So, though she had half an urge to go spend it with Zane, her feet and legs were aching and, if she wished to be efficient this evening, she'd better put them up now.
She almost fell asleep but someone dropping a kettle in the kitchen roused her, and she jumped to her feet and went back in to her duties.
She was tired enough when she got home to shower with Zane, who loved mommy showers, before stowing him in bed. Then she stretched out her weary legs and aching feet up on the bed and arranged the pillows behind her. In broad daylight, she thought in selfdeprecation, but she'd just take a short nap.
She was roused, in the dark, wondering what had awakened her. Zainal wasn't back yet from wherever he'd been working that day. He'd been on the duty roster in the hangar with the other Catteni. Probably kept late at a session of the infamous Ways and Means Committee. That thought amused her as she turned over on her side, the one that would face Zainal when he came to bed, and she went back to sleep.
She had the next morning off, but was due on shift at the com unit for the afternoon. But when she and Zane reached the mess hall for breakfast, the place was full of the exciting news that, sometime during the night, the Eosi ships had given up their attack and left.
She was as excited as everyone else and wondered where Zainal and the other Catteni were. Everyone was as dizzy with relief as she was. But that didn't mean she'd have the shift off. For all anyone knew, the Eosi had only taken a breather to reload or something.
She did look around for Chuck, but didn't spot him. She should inform him of his imminent fatherhood. She should also, she told herself sternly, make an appointment for a prenatal checkup at the infirmary. And find out, if she could, about the effects of gravity on the unborn. What had that tide been: "The Effects of Moonlight on Man in the Moon Marigolds"? No, no, no. So she bored around in her memory for the exact title. She'd read the book-oh so very long ago now. In another life entirely. "The Man in the Moon Marigolds.. ;' no, that wasn't it, either.
Suddenly Mavis rushed up to her. "Kris, can you help us? We have a concussion patient. Needs someone with him, and we're short of staff since John took a bunch off on his run to Dystopia and the other two."
"I'm due on com watch," she said, and Mavis waved that aside.
"Beth can take that. She's got enough Catteni. It's Bart, and I know you like him and he likes you."
"Bart?" Kris was instantly on her feet. "What happened?" she asked as she and Mavis made their way out of the hall. 'I'll just drop Zane off.
"Fell off his ladder putting slates on the roof. Nearly splattered his brains on the flagstones. He should pull round but we need some one to monitor him in case there's a significant change."
"That's me."
Maizie was at the gate into the fenced area, and she blinked in pleasure at the sight of Zane in Kris' arms.
"One day that child will surprise herself and smile;' Mavis said.
"Maizie, Maizie, Maizie;' Zane chanted, reaching for her and Kris lifted him over the pickets.
"Yes, thank you," Maizie said very distinctly.
"You're quite welcome," and to Sally Stoffer, "I'll be at the infirmary."
B Y THE FIFTH H OUR, Kris would have changed duties with anyone.
Glad as she was to sit after yesterday's kitchen duty, enough was enough.
Bart was on one of the cardiac monitors but that didn't give much indication of what was happening in his cranium. His color, generally a dark creamed-coffee, was not tinged with any lividity. The wound had been sutured and sealed with nu-skin, another of the items "liberated" from hospital stores on Earth. She'd seen enough of Mayock's neat handiwork to recognize it. Nine stitches from just above the hairline, skewed to the right brow. Quite a gash but it would be the fracture under the skin that would be worrying. Whatever X-ray had been taken was at the nurses' duty station.
Did no one notice that a state-of-the-art X-ray unit had gone missing on Earth?
IN HIS AIR-CONDITIONED OFFICE ON EARTH, Emassi Plovine, struggling with the printouts of ship IDs registered as landing in Catteni fields across the globe, was puzzled by some anomalies in the records. He had received a stern reprimand from the Mentat who had ordered the use of three G-class ships for the bombardment of that wretched enclosed planet, and Plovine had been unable to locate them. He had had interviews with four indignant Emassi who had reported, as ordered, to the bays where the G-ships should have been awaiting them, to find them gone.
Two from the main Catteni landing site, once named Houston, and one from the eastern continent. Reports of the departure of these ships seemed perfectly normal and the ships had taken off with no untoward problems.
Except that the duty officers had been told that the crew assignments had been altered. Since that happened frequently enough these days, with the Mentats being more erratic than ever, no one had questioned the changes.
Until the Ix Mentat had demanded, not requested, the Mentat in charge of subduing the Terran rebellions, to deliver all G-and-over-class ships available to help bombard the planet, which was defying Eosi control.
Plovine's search had been thorough but the results mystifying. Indeed, one cargo vessel full of slaves, due to be sent to one of the cold planets that had far too many slave deaths, had taken off with them on schedule but never arrived at its destination. The Emassi governor of that planet was now demanding more slaves or he would have to close down operations. Even Rassi could do this sort of work. Probably better. But, by edict of the Eosi, no Rassi was ever taken from Catten.
There was also the matter of huge charges made against the accounts of three K-class ships which he finally discovered have been written off as no longer in service: one had blown up in space, with suitable debris to make a positive identification of the KDL. Another had disappeared on a routine voyage. The third had taken off from Barevi with a full cargo but never arrived at its destination, and it had been in the company of a KDI of which there seemed to be two by that designation.
Not to mention the duplication of cargo vessels, both sent to a mining planet to collect ores. The cargo had been duly loaded onto a carrier, and later the ore had been logged into the refinery on Catteni, but a second ship had arrived at the mining planet two days after the first, expecting to load up immediately. The captain had lodged a formal complaint since he had had to wait until the mine superintendent had been able---by increasing the hours of his workforce---to extract enough ore to fill the second ship, as the Emassi of the cargo ship had no wish to return empty of goods and receive reprimands from his superiors.
"Very irregular, very irregular," Emassi Plovine said as he wrote up his findings. At least he had concrete proof that what he had discovered could be verified. Only where had so many ships disappeared? And did it matter?
WHEN ORDERS HAD COME from nineteen Mentats that the Ix Men-tat was to cease and desist its attempt to penetrate the Bubble, the juniors expected it to have a second seizure. The Ix Mentat could not, however, disobey such an order. It had to issue the commands to cease the barrage, despite the fact that resupply ships were on their way to this quadrant.
The Ix replied to that desist order by issuing a demand for a general meeting of Mentats to discuss an alarming and dangerous situation: one, which must be countered as quickly and efficiently as possible.
As the Ix Mentat had the power to call such a meeting, and most of the others of its age and service were as desirous of a meeting to find out why the Ix Mentat was wasting so much in its attempt to penetrate an obviously impenetrable barrier, the summons were sent out in coded bursts to those who would comprise such an assembly. Such a convocation of Mentats occurred rarely enough to provoke considerable speculation among the Emassi who zealously guarding their Mentats. For some, it meant a rare chance to visit the home world and families unseen in the decades of their service to a Mentat. For others, it meant giving up comfortable quarters to squeeze into whatever accommodations might be available on the space station. Of course, the Mentats would be safe on the station. Safer than they would be in the luxurious homes they kept on the surface of the planet.
Many other Emassi, not in personal service to the Eosi, decided to take the chance of arranging for personal interviews with Mentats about this favor or that new condition. So, many ships converged on Catten over the next few weeks while the Mentats returned from their far-flung dominions.
Codes had been set and, if the incoming ships properly answered these, the guardian ships protecting the space station allowed them to pass. A few could not and were immediately taken to one of Cattens moons until the Mentat convocation had ended.
Had Emassi Plovine been recalled from Earth, some of the anomalies he was searching for might have been solved: two vessels, a K-class and an exploratory scout, both listed as lost in space, would have been of particular interest to him. But he had forwarded his report to the Mentat Governor of Earth.
Ships that left Catten outward-bound were neither stopped nor searched by the patrols, though their departures were noted on the duty sheets.
BY THE TIME THE KDL RETURNED to Botany with the mates and families of fifty Emassi, Kris had already discovered that Zainal with his Catteni colleagues had left Botany and that the Ways and Means Committee had been disbanded. A lot of her usual friends, who had never been used as crew, were also missing. She finally cornered Coo who gave her a big Deski smile and said, "All gone. Fix valley."
"Fix? Fix for what, Coo?" Although images of Eosi trapped in an enclosed valley for the rest of their unnatural lives had a certain appeal to her, she did not think those were the intended "guests."
"I go help fix. Good idea."
No one else seemed to know, even Bart, who usually heard rumors other people didn't. He was on light duties since he was still on the sick list from the skull fracture.
"I don't know, and I gotta tell you, Kris, I hate like hell not knowing."
She agreed completely with Bart. Leon Dane was missing from the infirmary, and all Mavis could say, and she was telling the truth, was that he had taken off for a few days' rest.
She had Zane and, when she discovered that Sarah and Joe had gone off as well, leaving Maizie and Tony in the crche, she opted for a change of duty and worked in the crche instead of hangar duty. Maizie seemed to like her and, because Zane was learning to speak, it seemed a good idea to include Maizie in her informal lessons.
Ray Scott didn't avoid her and she could almost believe him when he said he didn't know where Zainal was, but that they'd gone off to make personal contact with other crucially situated dissidents.
"Every important position has to be covered by an Emassi who can be trusted, you know."
"That I don't know. Zainal got very reticent about his strategy," Ray said, and he seemed a bit annoyed with such reticence.
Bull Fetterman didn't know. Jim Rastancil was wherever everyone else had gone. Ainger was so annoyed that she wouldn't have asked him if he'd been the only person who did know.
Maizie learned to say "please," "thank you," "may I have . . ." and some other useful words and enunciated them more clearly than Zane did.
Clearly Maizie felt safer with him and Tony than with any of the other children, even those who had taken her into their orphan group.
Then one morning at the crche, Kris' com unit bleeped. It was Beggs.
"Admiral Scott requests that you proceed immediately to the hangar, and be prepared to stay at your destination for several days."
"I have given you the information I have, and no, the child would not be an asset."
Just like Beggs to consider Zane an "asset" but she gave him a long smacking kiss and told Maizie that she would be back soon and left Maizie clinging to Zane as if he were the elder of the two. That didn't do her mood any good but she borrowed a runabout, slammed into her cabin and, as she was throwing a change and other needs into a pack, realized she had liquid dribbles drying all down the front of her. Fortunately she did have a recent issue of clothing and changed, cursing under her breath as she hauled the belt tight and then had to let it out over her expanding middle. As she stormed out, she got madder and madder---with Beggs and Scott. She was only halfway to the hangar when she heard the familiar sound of a spaceship coming in to land. Her heart beating faster, she threw the speed bar as far across as it would go and had the pleasure of being on the landing field when the KDL landed.
"Now, Emassi Zainal' she murmured, "you've some explaining to do."
"Kris, come on. It's only touching down to pick us up," Scott called over the loud noise of the idling ship engine, beckoning her to hurry. He looked her up and down with a very admiralish stare that made her realize that he was sharply dressed, too.
"If you don't tell me what's going on, Admiral Scott.. :' she began as the ramp extruded partway: enough to jump up to the personnel hatch open in the cargo door.
She did because he was hauling away at her arms, and she refused to be manhandled even by Admiral Ray Scott.
She caught just a glimpse of a lot of people sitting or lying on the cargo level, and then he was guiding her toward the bridge, past Ninety who seemed to be standing guard. Which he well might have been because she realized that all the faces had been Catteni.
"What the hell..."
"They're the women and children of the dissidents who were based on Catten and therefore at risk;' Ray said, briskly urging her toward the bridge.
Well, she could understand the wisdom of getting dependants safely away from Eosian retaliation. The abuse that Zainal's two sons had suffered certainly made that a priority.
"Ah, more or less. We're installing them in the largest of the enclosed valleys. They'll be safe there."
That made sense because not all of the Headquarters valley's buildings had been taken down, so expanding that facility was a perfect solution.
Then there was another aspect of a shipload of Catteni arriving at Retreat.
One Catteni, even four, wouldn't raise much resentment at Retreat, but an influx of mates and children could be a source of irritation.
Gino waved a backhanded "hi" in her direction, and Raisha shot a quick look around as the two pilots lifted the ship from the hangar field.
Everyone else on the bridge gave her a nod or a smile. They were all, Kris noticed, those who had a fair knowledge of Catten.
"Kris," Gino began in an odd voice and paused to clear his throat, "the plan is that you'll act Emassi to our... guests. Zainal said you'd had practice. He said them knowing there was someone in charge of them might help in the long run."
"What long run?" Kris asked casually.
There was a long pause.
"Oh, it's just a contingency idea."
"Gino, you don't lie very well," Kris said, folding her arms across her chest and glaring around, her gaze ending at Ray Scott.
"It is a contingency," Ray said, but he stopped right there, without
specifying for what. "We agreed to give sanctuary to relatives of
Kasturi, Tubelin, Kamiton, and several other key dissidents. A
precaution. When the dust settles, they can return:'
"I've a letter from Zainal explaining.. :' Gino paused again. "It's in my cabin. Just let me land, and help us get these people settled. It explains everything. Ah, see, we're nearly there."
"I'm not a fool." And Kris swept the entire bridge complement with a stare.
"No one has ever accused you of that]' Ray said. "But you're tall, imposing, you speak good Catteni, and you act Emassi without half-trying.
It'll make settling the dependants easier. I will pretend;' and Ray accorded her a smile and a little bow, "to be under your command. Now assume it!"
His last three words were tantamount to an order that he intended she would obey. She looked him in the eyes long and hard, and he did not flinch. He did, however, steady her when they landed with a little thump.
Wheeling, she looked out to the quiet scene of the HQ valley. The main hall, only half-finished when she had last been here, was completed.
There was even smoke coming out of the chimney. Several large houses, with half dormers for sleeping lofts, were interspersed with small accommodations, scattered throughout the lodgepole forestry. It was certainly a lot better housing than the First Drop had had. She took a deep breath.
"Ninety]' she called, turning again on one heel and moving back down the corridor.
"Yo!" was Ninety's unexpectedly army response.
"Prepare to unloadS' she said in Catteni, having no trouble at all sounding harsh. "Is there a list of who's who?" she asked in English over her shoulder.
Ray offered her a clipboard, presenting it to her with a smart bow, thus showing the women that Kris was the superior officer. Kris looked down at the board. All the names were in Catteni glyphs, which she couldn't read, but also in English and she recognized the English script was written in the bold, forceful style Zainal used. Unexpectedly her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away, pretending that the sun was glaring in her eyes and shielding them as she took a position at the head of the ramp.
Ninety had opened the cargo hatch and the loading ramp was down.
"just this level, Drassi?" she asked in Catteni.
"Yes, Emassi Khriss," he said, staring straight ahead.
Emassi Khriss turned to the passengers, the sunlight streaming in. The women were all standing now: the children, the youngest showing some fright, the others very silent and wary, grouped around them.
"As your name is called, come forward and leave the ship. Follow the Drassi who will lead you to your quarters." She noticed that each name had a number after it, indicating the number in the party. Flipping the top sheets, she noticed that each family had already been assigned quarters.
She had only to call them out. She had no trouble remembering Catten/ counting. She also remembered enough of what Zainal had told her about Catteni women: that they were almost as subservient as Drassi or Tudo and would have to be shown what to do. "You will be safe here."
One woman stepped forward and cleared her throat, bowing her head for addressing an Emassi without first being spoken to.
"You are ..." and Emassi Khriss impassively awaited an answer.
"Sibbo, Kasturi's mate. These are his sons and his child." She bowed again.
Well, at least one of them had some guts, Kris thought with relief.
"Ah, I know Kasturi well. He has been here," Kris said. "Eosi have not been able to penetrate the shield that surrounds this planet;' she added with as smug a smile as she had ever seen on any Catteni face. "You are safe. We have made you safe. Go with this Drassi to the quarters prepared, Sibbo.
Place twelve."
Sibbo and her children picked up their bundles and they started down the ramp after Ninety. Crew members stepped forward to escort each group called.
It took a while to work her way down the list. She had one interruption, an older woman, who bowed.
"Drassi Khriss," and she bowed an almost embarrassing depth, "are there no Rassi or slaves to assist us?"
Kris was so surprised that she blinked, her mind racing to find an answer. She pretended to consult her list. This was the oldest of the women... ah, Nitin's wife. How like him to have a critical mate!
"Rassi do not leave Catten, as you know, Milista. There are no slaves on this planet. You will do what is necessary yourselves."
"But;' and there was real consternation on the woman's lined face as she
spread out her hands in a helpless appeal, "we have never been without
slaves:'
"Oh, my God," Gino muttered behind Kris. "Never thought of that."
"Well, by God," was Scott's equally low but quite firm addition, "they're going to damned well learn how to cope without them."
"All the food is Catteni, with pictures on the sacks or boxes," Ninety said. "We did that special."
"With recipes?" Gino put in hopefully.
"I dunno. Can't read that much Catten," Ninety added.
"Bummer," was Gino's final remark.
"Any ration bars?" Kris asked.
"Yeah, lots of those."
"Let them eat rations, then," Kris said, startled to find herself paraphrasing Marie Antoinette. She turned back to Milista. "It is enough that you are safe and have food to eat and shelter. You will take what is provided and be grateful."
Kris didn't have any trouble acting Catteni just then. She was thoroughly annoyed. Surely Kasturi or even Tubelin would have thought to tell Zainal, or someone, that the women were accustomed to servants. Not that she'd ask anyone to serve Catteni women. They could bloody well learn how to do for themselves as the colonists had.
"All work will be shared, Milista. Learn that now." She gave a curt dismissal to the woman who backed away before she turned. Indignation and fury were obvious in the way she stalked down the ramp, carrying a very small bundle, which she kept hitching or changing from hand to hand.
Briefly Kris wondered what Milista had brought with her that could be heavy. She didn't know if Catteni women had jewelry, and if that was all Milista had brought, instead of clothing, she was going to get very tired of the one wrap she was wearing.
With mixed emotions of chagrin and irritation---and the latter was stronger---Kris crisply called out the next name. The gall of the woman, wanting servants as well as safety. Maybe once she'd had a taste of---Shut up, Kris, it's not Milista's fault.
She got through the rest of the unexpected and generally unhappy guests. She'd been so busy ushering them out, she hadn't seen that there were Humans boarding the KDL on the far side of the ramp. Some carried just tools while others humped excess building materials aboard.
The last few arrived as the final Catteni family of seven was led off to cabin thirty-five. So Kris nearly gasped when Sarah passed her with a wink.
Joe was right behind her, carrying carpentry tools. Sandy stalked up the ramp last.
"They wanted servants," Kris muttered savagely to Sandy, who burst out laughing.
"That'll be the day. Did you hear what Kris just said?" And Sandy was spreading the remark, causing both chuckles and exclamations of surprise.
Kris was about to turn away, to retract the landing ramp, to get away from her before she lost her cool entirely. Then she paused, looking out at the tranquil valley. The scene was all wrong, even disturbing. Not a soul was in sight and the mess hall and quarters looked as empty as when they had landed.
"Kris?" Sandy came to stand beside her. "What the hey?" And she frowned. "What's wrong with them? Sulking?"
Kris listened intently, but apart from an odd mechanical creak or a hiss from a vent, she didn't even hear crying or angry voices.
"Hell, any normal kid would have been out and snooping about by now."
"Maybe when we leave," Kris said. "They've had a bit of a shock."
"Ha! About time!" Sandy took Kris' arm and drew her inside. "D'you know how to close this?"
Almost absentmindedly, Kris depressed the right switch and the ramp slid up and inside, and the cargo hatch made a low, well-oiled rumble as it slid shut.
Kris strode along the corridor to the bridge.
"We're ready then?" Raisha asked, looking up from her preflight check.
"Can I have a rearview screen as we take off, Raisha, and do a slow ascent, huh?"
"Sure, Emassi Khriss, whatever you say, Emassi Khriss," and Kris managed a little smile for Raisha's teasing.
"You do a swell Emassi act," Gino said, entering from the captain's ready room. He had an envelope in his hand and his expression was carefully neutral as he gave it to her.
"Positions, please, for takeoff;' Raisha said in warning. Not that strapping in was needed with the smooth vertical lift she achieved.
Kris watched the rearview screen as long as she could but the valley might have been uninhabited for all she could see. Then the KDL was over the enclosing wall and beginning to level out for the flight back to Retreat.
"Well done, Kris;' Ray said, clapping one hand lightly on her shoulder.
Then silently he gestured toward the captain's room Gino had just vacated.
Kris looked down at the envelope in her hand as she walked toward the privacy the room would offer. She had an awful feeling about what the letter would say to her. Sliding the panel shut behind her, she sat on the nearest surface and looked down at the message. It was upside down and Zainal's distinctive script made an interesting pattern of her name from that angle.
She turned it around. "Kris." She spoke her name aloud.
"Well, waiting's not going to change a single word inside," she said and, with a decisive nail, opened the edge of the sealed flap and then ran her finger up, spreading the paper. She also tore the corner out of the envelope with the force of her action.
There were two sheets. Well, he tended to sprawl his words across a page, even if the sentences were exceedingly straight... as if he'd followed a ruled line.
Kris, love, Don't look back in anger or be angry with anyone if I do not come back to you.
It was my plan.
She stopped reading, her eyes filling with tears, terrified of what he would say next.
There is only one way to get into the Mentat meeting, and we shall take it.
"We," he had written. He had specified "we," not just himself. But which we? Had the old pessimist Nitin been included in that plural noun?
You will understand why the mates and children must be sent to safety.
The Ways and Means Committee agreed as Scott will tell you.
Somehow Kris couldn't really believe in that plurality. Zainal led the others.
He would lead them into whatever it was he had decided to do. But that didn't mean "he" would be safe.
We know that, should things not turn out as we have carefully planned, You leave him alone, now, you hear, Murphy? Your damned Law doesn't operate in Catteni space, d'you hear me, Murphy?
you and the rest of the Botany colonists will allow them to live in peace. The Council has promised us that and you will understand why Humans must learn to live with Catteni for the good that really is in us as a species, misguided by those who have controlled us for so long.
If we fail, and I do not (she gave a sob when she saw that fierce underlining) return to Botany, this letter authorizes you and Chuck Milford to be guardians of my sons, to rear them as near as your hearts will let you to be good Catteni hut better Botanists. They will need to know all they can learn from you and Chuck. He will teach them what young men need to know.
Chuck and Bert will be able to get home in Baby. We have every intention of being in that ship on its way back to Botany.
I did not like keeping the plan from you who have invaded my heart and spirit.
I never expected the wealth of love would be mine. And I have been so very happy with you that even this Catteni can ache with longingfor you. You would have insisted on coming. I could not allow you to be in such jeopardy.
You have been my only love.
And the final letter was the bold crossed "Z" that he liked using.
"Well, you were right, weren't you, Kris, m'girl," she murmured aloud, her voice sounding scratchy in the quiet cabin. "He was planning something dire. And he really doesn't expect to survive."
She folded the two pages with very careful motions and replaced the precious letter in the envelope, smoothing the ragged edges down, over and over, until they remained flat.
She opened the door and, although everyone was studiously looking elsewhere, she flagged Ray Scott and beckoned him into the room.
"Okay, I've had my Dear John letter. What are he and those other madmen planning to do?"
Ray exhaled and gave her a long look. "I don't know either;' he said slowly. "Unless I was sure of its success, he knew I'd try to talk him out of it. Therefore, he's taking unacceptable risks." Ray sighed again. "They left before they could be stopped." Another pause as Ray looked down at his hands and dug something from under one fingernail before he made eye contact again. "! didn't think I'd ever say it of a Catteni, but I admire that man. I will always admire that man. And I hope to hell he gets away with whatever it is he went to do."
"I'm glad you're rooting for him, too, Ray. More than you would have done when you first got here, but better late than never," Kris said wryly.
Ray took one step to the wall units and pulled out a drawer. She heard the click of glassware as he extracted two glasses and a bottle of the somewhat ale-pale alcohol.
Solemnly he filled the glasses and handed her one.
"Down the hatch!" Ray said, lifting his in a toast.
"Murphy," Kris said raising her glass, "stay the hell away from my man!"
They both knocked back the toast and turned as one to symbolically smash the glasses against the outer wall.
Chapter Ten.
"WE HAVE THE PRISONER," SAiD THE Emassi commander, dressed in security uniform.
He jerked his head back at the limp figure, which had been dragged on the knees between two members of the rather strong detail. The slimed skin of the naked captive showed a crisscross of angrily red, raised welts from frequent lashings with a nerve whip, and his legs and arms were bloodied from other wounds.
"Prisoner?" asked the duty Drassi. "I have no knowledge of a prisoner summoned by any Mentat. The convocation is in session," he added as if this was a sacred occasion.
"Mentat Ix has been searching for this man;' and the Emassi stepped back, lifting the drooping head to display a gaunt, half-starved face, "for months. The name, I believe, is Zainal." A smug smile suggested that the name was enough to secure admittance.
"Zainal?"The name was certainly familiar to the Drassi guard and produced an instant conference between him and the other door guard.
"I will inform the Junior Pe. It is just inside."
The door was opened just wide enough to admit the guard. It remained slightly ajar in his haste to deliver his news.
The security Emassi tapped his foot impatiently, sighing. Then he stepped closer to the second guard, raising his right hand as if to muffle his words and the guard leaned closer. A slight breeze crossed his nostrils and he gave a reflexive sniff.
"How much longer is the security going to be..."The security Emassi began conversationally. Then he caught the suddenly convulsing body of the door guard as he fell to the ground. Instantly two of his detail slipped out of line; one dragged the guard off down the corridor while the second stood in his place at the door just as it was thrown open.
The grotesque body of the Junior Pe came out and went straight to the prisoner. It pulled up the head and stared into the grimed and bloodied face.
"Revive him. When he is conscious, tap on the door and bring him in immediately." The Junior Pe's face shone with an awesome light and it washed its hands vigorously in anticipation of the delightful culmination of a long search. It reentered the room. As soon as the panel had closed, the limp prisoner got to his feet unaided, though his breath hissed from stretching muscles and flesh made extremely sensitive by the nerve whip. His dirt-and blood-grimed hands, restrained by Catteni manacles, were oddly cupped together.
"Long enough?" The Emassi asked softly.
"The rest have been deployed.>" the prisoner asked as softly.
"Yes."
"Then let us proceed;' and he stepped back and, as the two guards took hold of his elbows again, he nodded once.
The security Emassi tapped and the door swung outward smoothly, giving the detail a good view of the many Eosi within the long narrow chamber where Eosi faced Eosi. A quick glance showed that there were very few vacant seats. If he experienced relief at the numbers within the room, he gave no hint of the elation he felt. Indeed, his expression was studiously impassive.
"BRING HIM TO ME!" And the Mentat Ix, halfway down one side of the rectangular room, rose to his feet and pointed to the floor in front of it.
The security Emassi beckoned to those holding the prisoner to follow him forward while the rest of his squad stopped at intervals on both sides, trotting beyond the Ix to complete a security cordon, formally protecting the Eosi. The Emassi then stepped ahead and turned to gesture dramatically at his prisoner.
"As you have commanded, Mentat Ix, the chosen who chose not to serve is here. His physical records confirm that he is indeed the Zainal you have searched for."
The Mentat Ix looked down at the figure in front of him, head bowed as if in submission. The Ix towered above the captive, and the triumph of this moment seemed to expand the huge Eosian head.
"Look at me, Zainal," the Ix commanded, its voice rich with an anger that had grown moment by moment over the years since the subsumation of Lenvec.
"At you, Lenvec? Or at the Ix?" Zainal said calmly, as he looked up,
not at all the submissive and cowed prisoner. "Do you envy me any
longer, brother, that it was I who was chosen? For you have succeeded:'
Then he raised his hands in what appeared to be supplication. The Ix inhaled at such a reaction just as a puff of mist issued through Zainal's fingers, curling up to the Mentat's nostrils. He turned to the Mentat beside the Ix and repeated the puffing of mist.
The restraints fell away from Zainal's hands. Then, with an energy surprising for one who was rib-gaunt and had been savagely beaten, the former prisoner began squeezing his bulb at the next Eosi who had jumped to its feet and opened its mouth to protest. The other soldiers of the detail, following Zainal's example, were vigorously making use of their bulbs and the startled Eosi, never expecting to be attacked in this sanctum on the security-protected space station, inhaled the deadly mist in their surprise.
Indeed, the long room was soon filled with particles, shining in the brilliant illumination of the room, as they slowly sank to the floor.
The Ix was the first within the room to collapse, its body writhing and arching in agony as the dust it had inadvertently inhaled reached its lungs... reached and filled them with lethal allergens. Others were catching at their throats with despairing hands and reacting with the convulsions that the substance produced in Catteni bodies.
"What is happening?" cried a voice from one of the screens at the end of
the room. Not all the Eosi were in the long room but the fourteen who
had been unable to attend in person had been viewing the proceedings on
a visual com link. "Ix! Pe! Co! Se! Answer, one of you:'
In the long chamber filled with Catteni bodies skewed in the rigors of death, Zainal strode forward and, hands on his bare hips, answered the impatient query.
"These Eosi are dying. We, Emassi Catteni, have executed them for the twentyfive hundred years of exploitation and enslavement, for the heinous crimes you, and they, have forced us to commit against helpless planets. You had better find a new sanctuary for we, the Catteni," and he brought his fist to his chest, "will hunt down and destroy you as we have destroyed these.
There will be nowhere safe for you in this galaxy. Leave it."
He turned his back on the Eosi whose horrified expressions were probably the first honest reactions they had shown in centuries. He heard several gasps at what was an insult to their dignities.
"Are they all dead yet?" Zainal asked, padding down the line of the Eosi who looked more like collapsed bags of shuddering and putrid flesh to the one that had been his brother. The Eosi host that had subsumed Lenvec still retained some of its genuinely youthful, and recognizable, facial appearance.
This was fast turning to a viscous mess and to the size of the original host before subsumation. There was so little of Lenvec left even after the short time the Eosi had inhabited it. But enough to have waged a stupid and futile war against the planet which sheltered Zainal.
"I think that does it;' The Emassi security officer said, tipping back a
helmet to reveal Kamiton, a mightily relieved Kamiton. "I didn't think
we'd bring it off. I really didn't:'
"I always knew it was the only feasible way of eliminating them all," Nitin said, stepping around a slow-moving rivulet of varicolored fluids.
"We didn't," Tubelin remarked, pointing toward the screens, some already blank.
"Those fourteen will be scrambling to leave. They do not have enough power to regain command," Zainal said. "Now, all we have to do is get out of this level. The sooner the better."
He moved toward the door---staggered would be more accurate since his emaciation and the nerve whip welts were real, if the wounds were somewhat exaggerated by dramatic additions of blood and excrement.
Leaning against the wall, he shook the bulb that had been secreted between his "force" bracelets.
"Who has the stuff?" He looked around, one shoulder resting against the wall.
"I do," and Kasturi came forward, holding out the flask and the little tundish with which he carefully added the lethal dust to Zainal's innocuous-looking device.
"Better do it all round," Kamiton said, "while we're where we can't be observed."
Tubelin shook his head. "Even with nose plugs, the stench is awful.
Will the doors keep it out long enough?"
"Call the other guard in;' Zainal suggested.
Nitin was nearest and, opening the door enough to see the real guard, beckoned him in. The smell wrinkled the man's nostrils but he was too well trained to show either revulsion or hesitation. He had time to take in the scene of the mass execution. In fact, he caught his breath in astonishment and terror. And that was sufficient to inhale enough of the free dust particles in the air of the long room to ensure his demise.
Quickly, the detail assembled outside again.
"You did it? I can smell you did it;' their bogus guard said, touching his nostrils to make sure his nose plugs were in place.
"Anyone passed by.>" Zainal asked, and their colleague shook his head, looking relieved.
"Then let's get out of here;' Kamiton said, settling his helmet correctly on his brow. He looked about as the security detail formed up and nodded as Zainal resumed his inert posture between his "guards." He had no trouble at all assuming an expression of intense and smugly self-congratulatory pride as he led his detail back the way they had come.
The dissidents were by no means in the clear yet. Anyone with some urgent message for a Mentat could arrive in that corridor. The absence of guards at the door would be the first thing noticed and then, undoubtedly, the presence of an incredible putrefying stench would seep into the corridor.
Since this was a space station, there were devices all over that should detect unusual alterations in air circulation.
On the space station, down on the planet and across Catteni-occupied space, other dissidents awaited news that the execution had been successful.
There had been enough to secure the most important Eosi installations.
Once deprived of orders, many other Catteni would be so totally confused that they would not protest Emassi rulers. They had been trained too well to operate on orders and not on their own initiatives. As Zainal had said, there might not be that many Emassi dissidents but most of them were in critical positions, or could assume them. One of their number ranked high in the security section, and he had deftly changed assignments on the station to include more rebels, as well as preparing himself to take control of the space station if the executions were successful. He could do only so much until he knew the coup achieved its prime objective.
It was Ugred, in the central communications and security section of the station, who could then send the coded message to those waiting to hear, and act upon it. On receipt, those who had waited almost a lifetime would go into action and initiate actions that would forever end Eosian domination.
First, they had to escape the station before loyal Catteni discovered the deaths and, in turn, eliminated the perpetrators. The Emassi in control could do only so much to assist the dissidents. And it would take time for the others to complete their takeover.
THE FIRST SIGNAL was the return of the prisoner detail.
"Was the Ix finally satisfied?" a High Emassi fleet officer asked, pausing to watch the prisoner dragged by, leaving a trail of blood.
"The Ix went into spasms again;' Kamiton said smugly. He had to swallow against the nervous laughter inside him at the so accurate remark.
"What'll happen to him?" The Emassi nodded down at the prisoner.
Kamiton barked an unpleasant laugh. "You know the games Eosi will play with those who displease them. I am glad I can hand him over;' and Kamiton pointed to the floor, "to the cells. He's got until the convocation ends."
With a suitable bow to an Emassi of superior rank, Kamiton curtly gestured for the detail to move forward again, across the main corridor of the space station.
If his glance took in the high-security window of space station control overlooking this space, it was more part of a general survey than a signal.
He did settle his helmet more securely on his head as he crossed to the gray shaft that would take his detail and its prisoner to the lower levels.
Reaching the appropriate level, the detail marched along, still dragging its prisoner, down the corridor and to the ship bays that ringed this level of the station, the security Emassi paid no attention to others going about their duties.
They reached their destination. Kamiton tapped in the security code for the locked room, and he curtly beckoned to the two carrying Zainal to bring him through first. The others hastily filed in. As soon as the panel closed, Zainal was swung up on his feet. Kamiton passed him moist towels to clean off the blood, grime, and also the slime, which was actually an antihistimine cream to protect him from the lethal dust. Kasturi peeled off some of the multiple nerve whip welts---carefully---since the first layer was genuine. Tubelin washed down his legs, while Zainal did his own arms: both used some degree of care for the gouges and slices that were visible were also genuine, if realistically enlarged. Nitin was opening a cabinet and taking out the Drassi security uniform and passed the helmet to Zainal. The erstwhile prisoner quickly inserted into his now clean cheeks the pads, which Sandy Areson had made for his first impersonation. He pulled off the unkempt wig, wincing as the glue stuck to the skin of his forehead a moment, revealing a properly trim Drassi hairstyle underneath. He put his legs through the trousers, his arms through the tunic, stood first on one leg while a boot was pushed on and tied and then on the other for the second boot to be shoved on his foot.
The change had been achieved in seconds. No one would have suspected a delay of any kind as a detail marched out of that antechamber and toward the shuttle on which they had arrived.
"You got a reward?" asked the Emassi in charge of that section of the hangar deck, intercepting their path to the officially marked security shut tle.
"I expect to be honored at the next official ceremony," Kamiton said, swelling his chest. This was quite truthful, as Kamiton's reward was the command of the planet.
Kamiton merely nodded as Zainal, posing as an alert Drassi, opened the shuttle door so his officer could enter. The rest of the detail---and the hangar section Emassi didn't think to count or he would have come up with the wrong number for patrol strength-filed in. The hatch slid closed and was locked on the inside and the hangar Drassi waved them off, opening his com link with hangar control to assure the security guards that all was in order for the departure of this shuttle.
KRIS MANAGED TO KEEP GOING though the days seemed even longer and the nights were even more dangerous with her longings for him. Until she began to do silly things in her assigned duties, like garbling messages on the com unit. Or weeping over Zane when he had only a scratched knee, not a broken leg, and Sarah had to pinch her sharply to end the incipient hysterics. Dorothy Dwardie suggested a mild sedative. Even in the daze, which seemed to surround her during the long weeks, she did notice that someone was nearby: Sandy, Sarah, Dorothy, and occasionally Peggy and Marge. The presence of ex-Victims among her watchers afforded her a little private amusement: the caret being cared for. But she hadn't the energy to smile over the irony. Dorothy's presence was soothing, especially after Kris surfaced out of her self-absorption sufficiently to realize that Dorothy was probably suffering, too. Chuck had been seeing a lot of the psychologist but, as Dorothy was somewhat of a private person, Chris wasnt at all sure if the "seeing" went both ways.
"I apologize, Dorothy," she screwed up enough courage to say one afternoon when she was assigned to help Dorothy teach the orphans some basic R's.
"Not of handling my emotions."
"Oh?" Dorothy smiled kindly at her. "You're very Human, Kris, and this is a very trying time for you."
Kris thought for a moment she had exceeded propriety, but then Dorothy flushed and turned her face away.
"You have the right to be worried about Chuck. I am, too, when I stop being selfish enough to realize that he's in jeopardy as well."
Dorothy looked down at her hands, which picked at a frayed seam in her coverall. "There's nothing been said... I mean, I do like his company.
In fact, he's a surprising fellow. All that ruggedness, and he's not badlooking either, though not the sort of man I'd say was my type...
Kris managed a wry smile. "Chuck's not what he appears to be."
"No;' and Dorothy gave a wistful sigh, "he's not. Yes, Dick?" And her tone abruptly altered to her professional manner as one of the orphans held out his slate for her to correct.
That ended that exchange of confidence but it was Zane who pulled her out of her depression. It upset him terribly to see Mommy in tears when he asked where Daddy was. So he stopped asking and that made her heart ache even more. When she realized that he had stopped asking, she began to tell him tales about Zainal every evening as she put him to bed. He liked those stories a lot more than the ones she read to him. Relating their first explorations together helped Kris get a grip on herself. It also made the missing man not half as "missing." The discreet observation tapered off and people were nice to her in whatever jobs she was assigned to do.
Not too nice, for she would not have tolerated condescension from Janet or Anna Bollinger. Those two must be secretly delighted with her situation: "only what she deserves, carrying on like that with a... Catteni male."
So as the days dragged into a week and the weeks to the month, and then days beyond that elapse of time, she became almost inured to his absence and refused to believe that his absence would be permanent. Zainal would survive as he had survived so much: such as the flitter crash he had walked away from the day she first met him. She clung, also, to the rationalization that because they had been so close emotionally as well as physically, she was certain that a lover's prescience would have subconsciously known he had died. She really didn't think she was assigned most frequently to com desk duty in the bridge because she could translate Catteni messages.
She decided even Ray Scott had a heart after all. She might even be the first to hear his voice. But there was little enough chatter via the com sat. Amazingly little. But this was as close as she could get to Zainal, wherever he was and whatever he was doing.
She was asked to sit in on all the Council meetings, so she forced herself to listen to what John Beverly could report. Dystopia had been very grateful for the supplies and so had NoName. Beverly had brought back a delegation from each planet, and they had been welcomed. If there were ironic comments from some who envied Botany its advantages, that was the luck of the draw. Of course, they wanted to know every detail about the Farmers, saw their machinery in action on the big continent, saw what had been contrived of the parts, and envied the Botanists their Bubble which awed them, one and all.
None of them spoke Catteni or even Barevi, and some of those on NoName eyed the Deski and Rugarians with suspicion. (John said very little in those meetings about the inhabitants of Doradoat least until the KDM took the visitors back with more supplies and equipment, which Botany felt it could spare.) When Laughrey and his crew set off to return the visitors to their respective planets, he told the Council that Dorado was off his list. He had been proudly told how all the ET's had been killed, generally as soon as possible after they had been dropped.
"Seems that the 'aliens' had been killed because they were 'different' and not mentioned as God's creatures anywhere in the Bible," John said.
"And I won't say I got the courtesies my rank can expect. In fact, they
ignored me whenever they could, but my crew wouldn't let 'em, thank
God:'
"Let's cancel them out of consideration then, shall we?" Jim Rastancil said and tore up the sheet headed DO,ADO. Others did the same and Kris felt a small twinge of satisfaction break through the numbness that she carried around with her.
She had to, in her capacity as Emassi in charge of the refugees, visit them in their valley. Mostly she listened to complaints about their lack of amenities, the need for additional clothing since none had brought sufficient with them. She supplied them with Catteni ship suits, which appalled Milista. She also supplied them with needles and thread as most of the women, and certainly the children, would swim in the standardized garment.
Sarah made her include some lengths of fabric since the last "shopping" trip had brought back great rolls and bales found in a warehouse.
Sarah had included a child's sewing book with sufficient illustrations to give even the Catteni women useful instructions.
Sandy Areson had done an inventory on supplies in the mess hall and came back, looking both exasperated and amused.
"They've been living off the ration bars of which there are none left."
Sandy shook her head. "As useless a bunch as I've ever seen."
"I could cook for them," Bart said who'd volunteered to come along on this "light duty."
All three women pounced on him.
"No way, Jos!" Emassi Khriss said. "But who knows enough Catteni to teach them how to cook? And it has to be female. I'm not going to let them know that Human males can and do cook."
"Zainal makes a mean grilled rocksquat," Sarah said and then flushed,
having inadvertently reminded Kris. "Sorry, luv;'
"I wish you would all stop pussyfooting around the subject of . . .
"Ha! None of them are starved, and the kids at least are playing," Sandy said.
"Only the younger ones," Kris pointed out.
"Maybe we should send the older ones down to keep Bazil and Peran company in the Maasai camp," Bart suggested.
Kris considered that. She had even considered bringing the boys up to the valley. But... she didn't have that authority yet... and hoped she really wouldn't have to deal with that pair. Well, Chuck would be handling them as "males"---if Chuck got back. She found her hand halfway to her belly and drew it back. No sense in giving anyone any more to talk about.
"What about making Janet teach 'em?" Bart said, his eyes twinkling.
"It'd be her Christian duty."
Kris burst out laughing and almost went into the weeps because she'd let go of the rigid command she'd been exercising on herself. Sniffing and wiping at her filled eyes, she plastered the grin on her face after the initial and genuine outburst of laughter. The others looked so pleased with her reaction.
"Now that was plain mean of you, Bart Tom/," she said. "I just wish I had the nerve to order it."
"I think," and Sandy cocked her head at Kris, "you could just about order Ray Scott to jump rope with those kids and he'd do it."
"Beth Isbell cooksoes a lot of the pastry in the hall, at least---and
she's a Catten/speaker," Sarah said. "Let's check in and see if she'd
take the duty on. I think we'd better leave Bart and a couple of other
men here to be sure she's safe;'
"Why should we fuss over them, if they're so stupid they even let the fire go out," Raisha asked, pointing to the chimney. She'd come aft from the bridge with Joe Marley to find out how long they'd be on the ground.
"Zainal," and Kris didn't hesitate on his name, "promised to keep them
safe and that means keeping them fed, too, so they don't have a real
complaint to lodge against our hospitality. And dothed. Some of us had
to learn to do basic things when we got here. I'll go check in and
ask;'
"None of us were lords, or ladies, of all we surveyed either/' Raisha said, and then sighed. "But you're right. Why should we fault them for ignorance when all of us are ignorant of something or other that we've never had to do before."
Sally Stoffer agreed to accompany Beth who was a good friend. Sally liked to sew, was teaching some of the older orphans, and her Catteni was excellent. Lenny Doyle, Dowdall, Bart, three exsoldiers from the last drop, and Patti Sue returned and set up tents for themselves and the three female instructors.
And that minor hiccup was smoothed over. Not that the Catteni women were pleased to be forced to do slave work. The three soldiers instructed the older boys on how to catch fish from the stream. They'd been sitting around doing nothing since they were old enough to have started some sort of training for their 1ife's work. They were happy enough to form a small detail and marched up and down. Their mothers also seemed happier to have them occupied.
"I don't say I'd ever want to eat what they cook/' Beth said when they returned, "but at least they can now build a fire, open a can or unscrew a jar, make what they call 'bread,' fry fresh fish which they do like, by the way.
One of them will make a good seamstress. At least she figured out how to take in the ship suits. The rest were happy enough to wear something new even if they did have to learn how to sew up the edges to keep the lengths from fraying. Who would have suspected that Catteni women would wear sarongs?"
"Makes most of them look like boxes," Sally said, grinning. "Even the ship suits have more shape."
"The Catteni women sure don't," Lenny remarked with a wry grin.
THE shuttle reached Cattens atmosphere and dropped speed quickly, homing in on the main government buildings. It hovered over the roof, though a surveillance guard ship instantly appeared to inspect it, recognized the security markings on the shuttle, and retired without questioning its presence.
"There is something to be said for protocol," Kamiton said with a grin. He was now attired in a fresh Emassi uniform, smartened with tabs of the highest rank available to Emassi. "Have Tiboud and Valicon reported in yet?"
"Just got their signals now,"Tubelin said from the com desk. "They're in position."
"Tell them to proceed," Karoitoh said coolly, knowing that several more unsuspecting Catteni who were dedicated to their Eosian masters would shortly be dead. He turned to the others, checking to see that his former security detail were now all dad in uniforms similar to his. It amused him that all members of the prisoner detail had been rewarded with major steps in rank. "We all know how to proceed." He checked the nose plugs once more and then indicated to Zainal, in the pilot's position, to land.
He gestured for the others to precede him before he turned once more to the pilot.
"Good luck, Zainal. I'Ll keep you informed."
"You had better. I need to return your families. They will undoubtedly tell you how mistreated they were on Botany."
"Of that I have little doubt for they have been accustomed to luxuries not available on your home planet."
Zainal answered Kamitoffs rueful smile with one of his own.
"Go finish the business, Kam."
Kamiton stiffened then and gave Zainal not only a salute but also the low bow that indicated great respect. He jumped off the ramp and Zainal shut the hatch.
Zainal swung the shuttle away then and flicked on the com unit to wide range so he could hear what was going on... and know when the shock hit the sleeping planet.
Nitin might be a pessimist but he was also a realist and they would be following his plan of reconstructing their world, and the worlds the Eosi had once dominated.
They had not been able to get a dissident into a prestigious position on Earth, but he rather thought that once the news was out, the Terrans would double their efforts to regain control of their own planet. Nor were there sufficient colleagues on the various fleet elements to take control of the AKs or some of the great H-class, but Catteni were so accustomed to being told what to do and how, that Kamiton's forceful manner, the backing they did have, should eventually result in capitulation. Surely no Catteni had enjoyed the Eosian domination even if many, singly or in family groupings, had benefited by their loyalty to entities they had never before attempted to supplant.
Often enough during Zainal's flight to the main security landing field did he have to shield his eyes from the spotlights of other guardian vessels.
But the purloined ship did have the right markings and permission to be aloft in night hours. Zainal put the vehicle down at the edge of the force-field-protected landing area.
He rose, stiffly, hissing against twinges from the nerve whip. That had been a necessary ordeal, as had his starvation on the way to Catteni, but he had to look the part and whole-skinned and fat would not have been credible.
His knees hurt from all the dragging but at least that posture had allowed him to keep his head down and his eyes closed as he faked unconsciousness.
Now, all he had to do was find Baby, which should now bear the security markings of yet another authorized vehicle. He had to stride out purposefully and each heel jarred the various tormented parts of his body, from the scratches to the long welts of the nerve whip. Kasturi had not struck as hard as he might have done to a real offender but hard enough. Whippings endured from his father had been lighter. His stomach ached with hunger and, by the time he passed the first rank of unlit ships on the pavement, his mouth and throat were parched. He took time to drink from the flask he had brought with him from the ship, first swirling the water about his mouth and letting it trickle down his throat. Then he took the stimulant from his pocket and, with a big swallow of water, let that go to work in his empty belly. He'd have food soon enough. Fourth rank east, Chuck had said, second ship. Chuck had managed that discreet parking but it was a long way from first rank west.
He walked inward now, shielded from casual notice from the parked vehicles, made it past a wide turning circle and on toward the distant fence and fourth rank. He had to lean against the side of the scout to catch his breath. At least there was a light on inside it to reassure him that this was right. He tapped out the code on the door to alert them to his arrival.
The hatch opened immediately.
"Keep back, dammit, Bert," Chuck said and the Australian vanished from the brightly lit hatch. Chuck was down the steps, instantly supporting the sagging body, his eyes wide and then closing in relief as Zainal's nod as well as his presence told Chuck that, so far, all had gone smoothly.
"We've got to get out of here, and fast," Zainal said, striding back to the scout.
"Yeah," Chuck said, his voice unsteady with relief as he helped Zainal
up the short flight to the hatch, "it ain't over 'til the fat lady
sings;'
"What fat lady?" Zainal asked, realizing that the sergeant had answered him in English as he made his way forward. "Why a fat lady?"
"Explain later;' Chuck closed the hatch with a clank. "You got 'em? All of 'em?" Chuck persisted with his questions as Zainal made a slow way to the pilot's compartment. Bert was now in the other chair, having let Chuck help Zainal.
They'd had the harder job, Zainal knew, waiting without being able to use the com unit for fear the position of the scout ship might be discovered.
"We got all but the fourteen who were not present;' Zainal said, noting that a course had already been laid in, preparatory to his arrival. He nodded approval at Bert, who was completing the last of the preflight checks. "They are unlikely to remain where they are. They're too scattered to unite. In any event, once the news gets out, they may decide to leave the galaxy as we suggested. Coded messages should have gone out from the space station to our other colleagues who are waiting for our signal. Kamiton got to the center before the execution could be broadcast . . ." He shrugged and grimaced at such an unwary and painful action. "If it has. Or Ugred has managed to give us more time by deferring an announcement.
Otherwise we couldn't have landed at the building. But we were able to.
Kamiton gave the word and those who could not be trusted have been eliminated by now. But let's get out of here. Just in case."
"Only after Zay gets something into his belly;' Chuck said, thrusting a ration bar over Zainal's shoulder.
"I need that," Zainal said and tore off the wrapping, taking a huge bite.
And the sergeant leaned across to the com board. They had to wait for a reply.
"They're all bored;' Chuck said while Zainal impassively chewed.
Bert was chewing, too, but on his lip as they waited until the line was opened.
"Schkelk," Chuck said in his hoarse Catteni voice, "Emassi has called.
I go. Clearance?"
"Given;' was the bored response and the line went dead.
The ship lifted carefully out of the crowded parking area and turned away from the city.
Having finished his slowly consumed meal, Zainal opened the com link, pausing at the various channels to check on the tone of exchanged messages.
They were, in fact, in space and heading obliquely away from the vicinity of the space station before the first report was aired.
"This is the Supreme Emassi Kamiton, informing you of a change of
government on Catten and the execution of eighty-six Mentats and Juniors
on the space station which is now under my control. High Emassi Ugred
is now commander of the space station.. :'
"Supreme Emassi?" Chuck asked, wideeyed and grinning.
"That is the title he picked."
"What'd Nitin get?"
"Oh, he's speaker for Parliament.. :'
peer. Bert said in astonishment.
"You guys don't have a parliament," Chuck protested.
"We will soon enough;'
"You learned a lot we didn't know about on Botany, didn't you?" Chuck replied but his tone was admiring. "Uh-oh, look! Bogies at three o'clock and coming in awful fast. Can't we pile on some speed? We might be able to miss KRIS WAS ON COM DUTY: she had requested the assignment and, except for those weekly visits to the closed valley and the Catteni guests, that had been her duty. Now she didn't even answer Catteni complaints but impassively saw that supplies were unloaded near enough to be easily carried to the mess hall for storage. So, she just happened to have the duty in Scott's office that evening when Ray Scott and Jim Rastancil rushed in.
"What's going on up there, Kris?"
"Up where?"
"Up near the Bubble."
Kris gave her head a little shake, reset the earpiece. "Nothing. Nothing that I can hear since all those coded messages stopped shooting back and forth."
"Well, there's something coming down. Gino says there's some sort of
shooting stars. And there aren't any of them in this sector of space,
especially not with the Bubble.. :'
Ray stopped mid-sentence and rushed outside, Rastancil right behind him.
Kris didn't know whether to stay on duty or join their exodus to see what had made Ray and Jim move that fast. She heard startled cries, some panicky, others, loud and incoherent cheers. Her curiosity roused her from apathy. She abandoned duty and joined the others outside the hangar on the landing field. It wasn't full dark, but the bursts of flame or brilliant light were obvious to the naked eye. The shower---of whatever it was that Gino now said was burning up in upper atmosphereidn't last very long even with several tiny late flashes. What was obvious was that the Bubble was gone. The sky above them was as clear as it had been before the Bubble had been woven into place. One of the moons was even visible, the one on which the Catteni had tried to build a base. Kris gulped, frozen to the spot. Unable to grasp the significance. There hadn't been any more bombardments.
Those had ended just before the surreptitious departure of Baby and the KDL. She strained her eyes, trying to locate any glitter that would be their com sat or even the roving spy satellite the Catteni had placed in the thirty-hour orbit.
Why had the Bubble come down? Were the Farmers about to visit them? But surely they didn't need to remove the Bubble to get in. Or did they?
Ray gave her a little shake. "Back to your post, Kris. Tell us what you can hear?"
"But there's nothing up there. The Bubble's down. How could the Eosi dissolve it..."
Now Ray gave her a shove toward the hangar. "Tell us what you can hear.
We need to know if the com sat's still operating."
Kris didn't ask how she could tell from just listening to static. Or maybe that, in itself, was proof the com sat was still operating? But it had been connected to the Eosi array that had been sheered off their ship in its attempt to exit. Surely, if what they'd seen burning up in the atmosphere were the bits and pieces dropping now that the Bubble no longer held them in place, everything would come down. No, no, that wasn't quite right. Pete Snyder had told them that the com sat was independent, with vanes trapping solar power so that it functioned all by itself. But, what about what it had been attached to? She had this vivid image of an umbrella with a crooked handle, the rain shield pointing downward and the crooked handle pointing out toward empty space.
Ray now hauled her with him back to the office and then took up the earpiece himself, frowning as he listened. Jim Rastancil, Gino Marrucci, and the others who had been in the hangar office stood about, anxiously waiting for his report.
"All ! get is static;' Ray said, handing the earpiece to Kris who put it on and sat down, listening to the same sort of static, which might be very faint messages. "So it is still up and functioning. Nevertheless, Gino, get a skeleton crew and the KDL up to check."
"With the Bubble gone. ncmo s normally swarthy skin paled.
"Yes, damn it. To see if it's gone. We've got to know what action to take if it is. That is, unless the Farmers vouchsafe to give us some indication that we don't need it anymore."
"Look!" And Jim was pointing to the bridge screen, which showed the moon that was coming up, and a small sparkle that couldn't be debris since it moved with astonishing speed on a steady, inward-bound direction.
"Oh, my God;' and Ray's voice was an awed whisper. "Have they been watching all along?"
"Does it mean that Zainal succeeded?" Jim Rastancil asked.
For the first time in her life, Kris fainted.
SHE CAME TO, lying on the cot in Ray's spartan accommodation at the hangar, with a folded towel on her forehead. She could hear male voices beyond the open door. Carefully, hoping the attack of vertigo had passed, she sat up, holding the towel in place as it felt good on her forehead, and swung her legs over the side of the cot. However did Ray get a decent night's sleep on this thing? Then memory flooded back, and she whimpered.
An anxious Ray Scott was instantly beside her. "Sorry, Kris."
That was when they both felt the almost electrical tingle that they had experienced before.
"We need more than that," Ray shouted, raising a fist above his head in challenge.
But that was all they got, and everyone they checked with over the next half hour confirmed the sensation. The Council called a meeting of its main members in the hangar as soon as they could get there. Fortunately a good deal of Retreat's population was asleep and might even have been oblivious to the mild shock. Others called in, having seen what they thought were "shooting stars:' Blandly, Gino had agreed that that's what they were.
Few realized that the Bubble was gone, and Ray thought a general announcement could wait until the Council could figure out what to do.
Dorothy Dwardie took the chair next to Kris at the end of the table.
The psychologist had been studying notes on her day's clinical sessions with some of the more unresponsive orphans when she'd felt the tingle. Unusual enough a sensation to make her want to find out if anyone else had experienced this phenomenon. She wasn't far from the infirmary so she opened a com link to the duty officer at the infirmary who had just been told to inform Leon Dane of a special meeting at the hangar. Dr. Dwardie ought to go, too. She was Council, wasn't she? And, yes, she'd felt the tingle, too.
It had happened once before that she knew of. Then she excused herself to answer another message. No sooner had Dorothy closed the link than she was buzzed, and hurriedly informed that she was needed at the hangar.
Walking down from her cabin, it took Dorothy a few hundred yards to realize that she could see the stars. Then the moon came shining through a gap in the lodgepole trees. She ran the rest of the way to the hangar. She arrived breathless and took the first available seat, which was beside Kris.
"The Bubble's down?" she murmured, and Kris nodded without looking directly at Dorothy.
Then everyone heard the unmistakable sound of a ship taking off, and the brilliance of the propulsion units in the darkness of the landing field made them cover their eyes.
"Who's going where?" Dorothy softly asked, trying to squelch a feeling of anxiety.
"Checking on the com sat. Everything else up there came down in a shower;' Kris said.
"I felt the oddest tingle, like an electric current running through me," Dorothy added.
"The Farmers do that now and then. Counting noses," Kris replied.
"The Farmers? Have we had a message from them after all?" She leaned toward Kris, having just realized that Kris sounded very subdued. "You look awfully pale." She paused a moment, blinked as she came to a logical conclusion.
just then Ray Scott's characteristic calm deserted him, and he banged his fist on the table.
"How the hell can we construe a reassuring message from one goddamned short tingle!" he said in a loud, frustrated voice to Judge Iri Bempechat beside him. "Are they so goddamned busy monitoring the rest of the universe that we don't qualify for an explanation?"
Judge Iri Bempechat raised a gentling hand. "The message, I would think, is clear. We no longer require the protection of the Bubble.
They've done a planet-wide search and counted noses again. It is my
opinion that we should be grateful for what they have done, instead
of---if I may be allowed to use the vulgar expression bitching about
it:'
"The Judge is right;' And Kris rose to her feet, having heard all the
wrangling and speculation she could stand. Not even the calm Dorothy
had been oozing in her direction had helped. "And it took the Bubble
away because Zainal and the others succeeded in... doing whatever they
planned to the Eosi:'
"JUST.. ;' Ray raised his voice above the immediate babble of comment, "in case, I want the crews of all the other ships standing by and ready."
"Why?" Dorothy asked, almost amused. Obviously that was what an ex-admiral immediately thought of as appropriate. "There're too many of us now to be evacuated and where would we go?"
"Earth, of course," Geoffrey Ainger said, disgusted with her obtuse ness.
"I dropped. I stay," Kris said and walked out of the meeting.
Chapter Eleven.
AFTER. THAT SCARE WITH THE THREE bogies looking as if they were coming straight at them, the ships had not so much as hailed the scout, so they had proceeded on their return to the asteroid belt.
"I don't see why we need to pick up Baby now," Chuck said since that would lengthen the journey home.
Bert nudged him in the small of his back and held up one finger, making a grimace, and two, altering his expression of a beatific smile.
Then he gestured to his whole body and winced.
Chuck Mitford had never considered himself slow/n comprehension but the fright of that squadron bearing down on them---and then passing by, close but no cigar---made him interested in getting back to Botany as fast as possible.
So Zainal wanted Baby back. Hell, why would Kamiton want this ship returned? He had a massive navy to pick from. But Bert's other point---that Zainal wanted to be as fully recovered as possible from his "disguise"---made more sense. Although Chuck had been there when the first layer of the "disguise" was laid on, so to speak, he had been shocked when he'd seen Zainal in the cabin light.
They hadn't dared bring any Botany foods on Kamiton's vessel but there were some on board Baby. Chuck had some fresh goods in the galley, having enjoyed the daily haggle with the scruffy providers who brought their carts and baskets around to the occupied vehicles. A lot wasn't very fresh, probably rejected from the main markets in. the city, but it was better than what was served in the mess where Chuck was permitted to eat as a Drassi crewman. Years of eating marine chow had inured him to practically anything remotely edible. Some of the messes served to the crewmen were definitely remotely edible. But he pretended the same lip-smacking enjoyment the others did, even if he didn't eat as many servings as the others did.
He ate more slowly, though, so as they slopped food into their mouths, he seemed to be keeping pace with them.
He made a stew of the vegetables, then whipped it into submission as a puree which Zainal's abused intestines should be able to manage. He served the meal in small portions and often.
Then they encountered a squadron of mining vessels, and Bert had to scramble for his hiding place as the larger ship informed them that they were sending over a pinnace.
"We could outrun them," Chuck said, thinking that their luck must have run out. The bogies hadn't bothered them but mining ships could only be searching for the precious metals that had been found by Emassi Ven-lik.
There were times when one could get too clever by half, Chuck thought.
"No. They have missile launchers and tractor beams. We're a sitting duck for the one and too close to avoid the other," Zainal said and opened a line to the DMV, the leading ship, jovially awaiting the arrival of the pinnace and any news they might have.
The news was, indeed, that the Eosi had all been executed and every captain was free to do what he wished from now on.
Captain Kabas was half drunk when he arrived, and he and his pilot, Wenget, who was completely sober, brought the same nauseating stuff which Chuck remembered all too well from his stay at the boondock field they'd first landed on at Catten.
It was in character for Zainal to demand all the details.
If some of them didn't quite jibe with the facts as both Chuck and Zainal knew them, that was all to the good. They did hear, which was excellent news and their cheers were genuine, that most of the High Emassi who had not been part of the coup now backed the Supreme Emassi Kamiton to the last male of the line.
When finally the conversation got around to Zainal's presence in this area, he replied that he had been exploring in a distant quadrant, had seen the asteroid belt, and wondered if he should report it when he got back.
Some of the bigger rocks looked as if they might contain useful ores.
"Well, now," Captain Kabas said, "you can leave that to us. We're all our own masters now, you know. I wouldn't stop you going your own way."
"Good of you:' Zainal turned to Chuck in a semi-confidential air.
"We saw a place we'd rather like to be masters of, come to that."
He lifted his mug, its opacity hiding the fact that Zainal's apparently hearty use of the contents had been faked, in a toast. "May you find what you deserve, captain," he said.
The captain who had continued to sip while he gave details of the momentous news had now gone through most of a new bottle. He laughed raucously at Zainal's toast and tipped back the last of his current glass. Gave a huge burp and, bloodshot yellow eyes turning up into his head, slumped slowly over the table.
"Help Wenger get him into the pinnace, Drassi;' Zainal said, slurring his words as if he had had more than enough, too. He waved them to remove the unconscious man.
"Were ! you," the pilot said, "I'd get out of this area as fast as you
can fly this thing. Captain ain't the only one is worried about you
being nosing around this belt:'
"Agreed," Chuck said as he carried the captain's feet and helped the pilot arrange him in a seat.
When he returned, Zainal was already in the pilot's chair. "Fasten up,
Chuck, we're making all due speed out of here;'
"The pilot suggested that, too."
WHEN THEY FELT they had put enough distance between them, Zainal did insist on turning back, to collect Baby, despite Bert taking Chuck's part in trying to dissuade him.
They used a huge rock to hide their return, but their encounter with the miners had also skewed them far from the course that would bring them to the hollow asteroid. There had been a specific way in and through the belt to reach their destination. So they were forced to prowl counter to the spin of the belt until, just about the time they would have been in danger of being spotted by the miners, they found it.
Chuck insisted on remaining with Zainal.
"You need feeding. I'm not going to answer to Kris if you return like a goddamned scarecrow."
Chuck explained. "Maybe even, you'll get a chance now to see one on Earth. Boy, while I was glad to be in the thick of it on Botany, I wouldn't mind seeing a scarecrow again, or having a rock in the porch hammock. If it's still there."
Piloting Baby, Bert kept on their port side, as escort, so that when Chuck noticed Zainal was having trouble keeping awake, he suggested putting on the auto-pilot and having something to eat. In the spicy rocksquat stew he'd heated up, he mixed into Zainal's plate a few dollops of a sedative that Leon had included in the first-aid supplies as a painkiller.
It did take some maneuvering to hoist the inert Catten from behind the table and into his bunk. Chuck took off the boots, loosened the belt, and covered the snoring man. He caught himself wondering if Zainal always snored and how Kris... he censored the rest of that and went forward to inform Bert what he'd done.
"Good idea, sarge, even if he will give you hell when he wakes. Okay, now here's how I pilot both ships," Bert said and gave Chuck detailed instructions.
"We've some days to go on this leg so let's arrange a schedule for each of us to get some shut-eye. I know Zainal was going to do one with me. We're unlikely to run into another thing in this zone. Nothing but planet-less primaries. No good to anyone."
"I got enough sleep at the field;' Chuck said. 'I'll take first watch for us both. Okay?"
"Right."
And that is how they managed during the twenty-two hours Zainal remained asleep.
He was mad as hell at Chuck for dosing him but he calmed down when he realized that his energy had improved, as had his appetite. And that each of the pilots had also had some sleep.
Chuck's much vaunted six-hour requirement had him up and ready to take over from Zainal who tried, but not too hard, to continue for a full eight hours. Bert was asleep in Kamiton's ship but Chuck insisted he could handle anything, and besides, he'd wake Zainal if there were any alarms.
THE FIRST that the colonists at Retreat knew of the success of the mission was when a cruiser of the Catteni navy contacted them via the com sat, requesting permission to land on Botany.
"RAY!" Matt Su roared and grinned at the scowl on the ex-admiral's face as Scott careened into the bridge room. "We got a cruiser of the Catteni navy asking permission to land."
Ray ran to com desk. "Identify," he snapped in Catteni."
"Can't you clear up the visual, Ray?" asked Matt.
"Tikso;' Ray ordered.
"We... kum... frum... Catten. Supreme Emassi Kamiton. We...
coleckt Catteni feee-males and male young;'
Ray and Matt exchanged startled glances. A Catten was addressing them in English... or trying to.
The visual flowed clearly on the screen. "This is High Emassi Captain Tiboud," and there was relief in the Catten's voice for being able to speak in his own language. The man beside him had a sheet from which he had obviously been reading phonetic English. "All Eosi dead or gone. Catteni now own Catten... and all previously owned planets and itallations..."
"He's making sure we got that.. ;' Matt muttered sotto voce.
"With the exception of the Human planet, Earth and, of course, the impregnable Botany. Earth is gratefully returned to its rightful owners and inhabitants in view of the help given by Humans to end Eosi domination.
Botany's extraordinary defense against the might of the Eosian navy has
been admired---if silently---by many. We Catteni honor bravery;'
"Damned white of them;' Matt added sotto voice, avoiding the kick that Ray directed at his shins to shut him up.
"That is very good news, captain," Ray said with great poise and solemnity.
"The news was relayed by Supreme Emassi in person over a special com
link:' Tiboud bowed respectfully. "Good news to you, I am certain;'
"Indeed it is, and thank you for relaying the message;'
"He's not here," Ray said, and his elation at the news of Earth's liberation evaporated. Matt looked shocked.
"Not there. Then the shot Drassi who had read the English message spoke
a quick word into his superior's ear. "Ah, the Excellent Emassi Zainal
was aboard the scout which does not have the speed this vessel has. He
will doubtless arrive very soon now:'
"Then he... he is alive and well?"
"That is our understanding,"Tiboud said, again with a respectful bow.
"We... all Catteni... owe our freedom to the Excellent Emassi Zainal."
"We here on Botany owe him as much," Ray said, returning the bow.
Then added, out of the side of his mouth, "For God's sake, go tell Kris Zainal's alive while I deal with this."
Matt nodded once, eyes round in his face, and departed at speed. Ray heard him shouting at someone in the hangar and then heard the tools dropping and the cheering as the good news was absorbed.
"We have the honor to collect the mates and offspring of those to whom you gave sanctuary," the High Emassi Captain continued.
There were shouts at the door now, which Ray turned to silence. This planet was run properly and wild demands for details would have to wait until he'd finished the interview with the incoming ship.
"Cool it, guys, I'm doing the diplomatic but tell the Council to get their asses down here on the double." He turned back to the screen. "Do you need the coordinates of the landing field?"
"They would be welcome. We understand that the continent on which the original shipments were made is no longer available."
"That is correct," Ray replied with a wry twist to his lips and then supplied the landing field's coordinates. The appropriate protocols were being scrupulously observed.
"Received," the captain said with another bow, "and course laid in. We anticipate touchdown in two of your local hours."
The contact was broken. Ray felt the need to seat himself at the desk, wondering why success always weakened you whereas imminent defeat caused you to stiffen in protest. So Zainal's crazy plan had worked, whatever it had been. And Kamiton had snatched away the leadership. Well, perhaps Zainal hadn't wanted it. Not with a woman like Kris to come home to. But maybe he'd take her back to Catten. No, not with that sort of gravity to combat on a daily basis. Mitford had mentioned how she had coped, but only just. Mitford hadn't been too happy with the problem but marines could handle anything.
Just where in the new power structure, Ray Scott wondered, did an Excellent Emassi fit, if there was now a Supreme Emassi? He wondered what plums had gone to Kasturi, Nitin, and Tubelin. As Catteni went, they'd been pretty straight guys.
He had only those few moments before people once again plagued him for details. He gave them what he knew and warned them of the impending arrival of a "friendly." Beverly and Judge Iri arrived together, Rastancil close behind them, and the four had decided that first there would have to be some sort of honor guard. Now that Botany was liberated, it had the right to its own protocols.
"Why didn't you just tell them where those bitches were and just get them away from here?" Beverly said, his brows knitting with displeasure.
"When I think what a rough time they've given Kris... ah, Kris;' for she was standing in the doorway, looking white as a sheet. Behind her, Matt was making all kinds of incomprehensible gestures at him. Warnings, Ray realized, and noticed that Kris was dressed in her Emassi uniform. But the look on her face... He strode over to her.
"He's all right, Kris. He survived. He's on his way back. The cruiser that's going to land here was just faster and came on a direct line.. :' Her hands, when he took them, were freezing.
"Kris, he's all right," he repeated and, without thinking what he was doing, he embraced her, patting her shoulders and stroking her hair as she burst into tears. Ordinarily tears were enough to drive Ray Scott as far away as he could take himself, but this was Kris. The long and difficult wait was over. "He did it, Kris. He did it and Earth is free. Botany, too." He held her off. "Do you understand? Earth is ours again as well as Botany."
"Botany, too?" She'd taken a deep breath as he started to cajole her.
"Botany, too. And they asked... asked... for permission to land, which is damned well the first time they've done that." He wondered if Zainal had traded rank in the new government for the freedom of the human colonized planets.
"That's a change," she replied with a crooked smile. And burying her face in her hands started to weep again.
"Come, Kris, my dear." Dorothy Dwardie took her off to one side, giving Ray Scott the dirtiest look he had received since he got his junior grade bars.
So THERE WAS TIME to plan a proper ceremony when the cruiser landed. Drums, pipes, and two bugles were assembled, and the Council put on their best clothes since they now had some from the same shipment of purloined materials that had gone to clothe the Catteni exiles. Kris decided to keep on her Catteni uniform since she would officially hand over that duty to Captain Tiboud. And relieved to do so.
The cruiser was so new that there was not so much as meteor gashes on its side, and it bore a much different design on its prow than vessels had displayed under Eosi management.
Not very artistic, Kris thought, but probably the Eosi hadn't encouraged the arts and at least the runes used were in different, bold colors. She just ached to be able to ask Zainal what they meant.
When the crew, Captain Tiboud leading the formation, drew up in front of the Botany deputation, Ray embarrassed her somewhat by introducing her first. High Emassi Captain Tiboud startled her when he bowed with unexpectedly deep respect to the female introduced as Zainal's life companion.
"Excellent Lady Emassi," Captain Tiboud said, his eyes keenly inspecting
her. Then, with an unexpected show of Catten amusement, he pointed to
her shoulder tabs. "These are incorrect." He snapped his fingers,
rattled a command to the aide who jumped to his side and then bounded
off to the cruiser, almost hitting the top of the hatch he had so
misjudged his stride. "Zainal is on his way here or so the Supreme
Karoiron himself told me when he dispatched his fastest ship to retrieve
all those you were good enough to protect:'
Kris couldn't stifle her reaction but hoped Tiboud would not see that relief was the main one. "We secluded them in the safest place on Botany but I fear that the accommodations could not meet what they are used to."
The aide was back, bowing as he opened and presented a large box with many pairs of fancy rank tabs. But the pair he selected was the most lavish in terms of the use of platinum, gold, and a fine dazzling diamond.
"I was ordered by the Supreme Emassi as well as High Emassis Nit/n,
Kasturi, and Tubelin that you, Kris Buyorzen (which was near enough for
a Catteni trying to enunciate a Scandinavian name) be the first to
receive the honors which I have brought:'
With a quizzical look for permission, he stepped forward and made a quick job of replacing her shoulder tabs. The new ones sparkled with the diamonds that capped the platinum half-spheres. She saluted, feeling that was an acceptable gesture. He bowed very low and she followed suit though did not bow as low. After all, she figured, an Excellent was higher in rank than a High Emassi.
Then he stepped to Ray and frowned slightly as he realized that Ray was not wearing a uniform-type tunic on which it would be easy to af pounds the rank tabs. But Ray held up one hand before the Captain could start any presentation speech.
"One small matter, Captain Tiboud," Ray said, clearing his throat.
"You mentioned that Earth has been returned to its rightful owners and governments and that Botany has independence. There are three other Human settled worlds that we know of. What disposition has been made of them?"
High Emassi Captain Tiboud managed an expression of amused understanding.
"Your altruism is only to be expected of a Human, Ray Scott. It is not in my authority to deal with that issue but, since so much is owed to Humans in general, I would anticipate a similar courtesy of independence may well be granted those three."
"Thank you;' Ray said, barely heard above the cheers and shouts and whistles from the crowd of settlers.
"You are welcome. But to the matter at hand, Admiral Scott, for your
assistance to the Supreme and High Emassi in their bid to overthrow
Eosian domination, please accept these and the honorary title of Highest
Emassi:'
The Captain then handed Ray a splendid set of tabs, crowned by rubies that flashed in the sun.
The rest of the presentations went all the way from High Emassi Leon Dane for saving Kamiton's life down to Emassis Sally Stoffers and Beth Isbell for their translations and to Emassis Dick Aarens and Peter Snyder for jury-rigging the com sat on the wreckage of the Catteni array.
By then, everyone welcomed the drinks and other refreshments, which the cooks had managed to make and serve on the two hours' notice.
"They don't seem in a very great hurry to get those bitches and leave, do they?" John Beverly said in Kris' ear.
"Do I have to do the bloody honors there, too?" she asked.
Beverly grinned down at her. "Oh, I think you should, Excellent Lady Emassi. Duty before pleasure." Then his grin faded, and he gripped her shoulder firmly, his expression reassuring. "If everyone says Zainal lived through it and even got promoted, he'll be here soon now."
Chris, Is WAS NOT GIVEN AN OPTION, except that she was escorted on board the cruiser with Leon Dane, Ninety, Ray Scott, Dorothy, and Judge Iri Bempechat who would make the journey with her. Raisha followed in the KDL, using a quickly assembled skeleton crew to take the Botanists back to Retreat. CaptainTiboud had requested permission to launch on his return flight once he had the refugees safely aboard.
"I trust you have suitable accommodations for the Emassi ladies," Kris couldn't resist asking.
The Captain's yellow eyes glittered. "They will be made comfortable, I assure you. They will find their new quarters on Catten all, or even more than, their fondest dreams."
"I have," and there was that in his eyes that suggested to Kris that perhaps all Catteni women were like those he was required to restore to their men.
They, especially Sibbo and Milista, did not wish to be collected, even after repeated assurances, and handwritten rune messages from their respective male partners. They were terrified that it was some kind of Eosian trick.
"Is your com link strong enough for direct contact with Catten?" Kris asked, thoroughly fed up with these antics. "Then call . . . High Emassi Nitin and have him confirm your orders to Milista. She's the one who has to be convinced."
Milista said nothing when High Emassi Nitin, annoyed at being interrupted and taken out of an important government meeting to reassure his mate, gave her what had to be a tongue-lashing. She blanched almost ecru and began to bow apologetically, her bows getting lower and lower to exhibit her willingness to comply. She said several short, sharp, lowvoiced phrases to the other women which Kris thought she must have misinterpreted.
As soon as they were boarded and being led to their quarters by obsequious junior ranks, Kris signalled to her companions that their duty was done. Perhaps Zainal had made it home while she'd had to dally here with the wretched ungracious Catteni females.
The captain, however, paused, looking out OVer the valley, once again tranquil, despite bits and pieces dropped or discarded en route to the cruiser ramp.
"I do not think the females will have appreciated the beauty of this valley," he surprised her by saying. He sighed. "But I would.
Goodbye, Excellent Lady Emassi Kris;'
They exchanged bows, she keeping hers to the shallow dip that indicated the difference in their ranks. Then she went down the ramp. Maybe the Farmers had used the valleys as vacation spots for corporeal enjoyments.
That wasn't such a wild notion. Raisha was circling above in the KDL because there wasn't room enough for two ships to land without knocking down either the houses or the lodgepole groves. The cruiser lifted over the retaining wall and discreetly sped up, allowing the other ship to land. That was when Kris noticed that someone had painted new ID let ters on its prow: BSS 2. Was Baby to be BSS I ? And where was Baby? Her momentary lapse into amusement at the newly styled ship quickly dissipated.
Once aboard the BSS 2, Kris sought refuge on the bridge while those who had come with her stopped at the mess hall for coffee and to unwind.
"Oh, yes," she said in a weary voice. Half of her did not believe she would ever see him again. The other half wondered what his rank of Excellent meant in terms of the work he'd now have to do. Would he take Bazil and Peran back to Catten with him, to be raised properly as young Catteni males were? "Nice touch, renaming the ship," she said after a moment and because she knew that she ought to make some reference to the alteration.
As RAISHA PILOTED THE BSS 2 over the hill above the landing field, she had a clear view. No Baby perched there.
"When you get your hands on him, eh?" Raisha said, cocking her head at Kris, as if she'd known how much Kris hoped to find them there.
"You'd better believe it!" Now she was angry with Zainal for this un-conscionably long delay. How could he keep her in such unending suspense?
Did he have any idea of how she had suffered during his absence? Especially since the moment she had figured out that he was going to be the sacrificial lamb? That he would deliberately put himself in the ultimate danger as the only way of gaining admittance to the Mentat Ix?
Raisha landed the ship and did all the after-flight checks.
"It can stay out tonight: the visible confirmation of our change of status.
Frankly, Kris, I'm exhausted after so much good news and emotion and all that wearying ceremony. Aren't you, Excellent Lady Emassi?" She turned one of the shoulder tabs on Kris's shoulder. "Those are really fine diamonds."
Kris was as tired, too, weary beyond belief. Raisha had gone down the passageway and seemed to be gathering up the others for their voices drifted away.
Afterward THE NEXT TIME A FARMER UNIT scanned Botany, it reported that the population had increased five-fold. A decision was reached since these newest, and unexpected, protgs had proved so innovative and independent. When the maintenance vehicle reached the planet, it lifted not only the food that had been harvested on its cultivated continents but also all the equipment, vacating their premises to allow the indigenous population to expand as populations had a habit of doing.
An unusual species had done well, and they could devote their attentions where similar discreet and carefully limited assistance was required.
Kamiton's messenger came in a Babytype fast scout, and Jerry Short, the duty officer in the hangar, immediately informed Zainal of its imminent arrival and request to land.
Zainal, in turn, called Kris, Peter Easley, and Dorothy Dwardie, as members of the Botany Management Board, to join him. He had good relations with Kamiton and wanted to keep everything "aboveboard," Kris's oftenused idiom for openness. He recognized the call sign of the scout as one that Kamiton frequently used so he was somewhat prepared for bad news but did not warn the others, preferring that they take whatever news came with this messenger without any predisposition. It might not be bad news. But why else would Kamiton be sending a messenger, which suggested something he did not wish broadcast on the Botany comm lines?
Kamiton had chosen a nephew of Zainal's, firstborn son of Zainal's favorite sister, which confirmed Zainal's premonition that the news was bad. As Kris often did, she compared the new arrival to her beloved Zainal. She did not expect any familial resemblance, although she noticed as the young man probably in his midtwenties approached that he was slightly shorter than Zainal but still tall for a Catteni. He had the heavy build of the true Catteni, born and
adapted to Catten's heavier gravity. His grayish skin and yellow eyes were expectable. Zainal's Botany tan had altered his skin tone to a more vibrant shade of taupe and made Paxel seem drabber by comparison. But it was in the features that the main difference was plainly visible. She had always liked Zainal's nose, which was not as fleshy as most Catteni. Certainly, Zainal's mouth was better shaped, not as thick as Paxel's and far more flexible, often giving her hints as to his mood. It was severe enough right now, though; she noted the little flattening of his lips, indicating that he found this situation disagreeable and wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. She suspected then that he was anticipating a problem.
So, in his capacity as one of the governors of Botany, Zainal greeted his nephew Paxel affably and offered him coffeea great new favorite of Catteni. Paxel grinned, showing three gold caps, a sight that caused Kris to have to hide an astonished grin. Zainal covered her astonishment by introducing Paxel, name and rank, first to Dwardie. "This is a sister's firstborn, Emassi Paxel. I make you known to Eminent Dwardie, and my mate, Excellent Lady Emassi Kris, and Peter Easley." He reached for the message, which Paxel somewhat reluctantly handed over.
It bore Kamiton's name, plus the characters that confirmed that other Catteni officials were aware that a message had been sent to him. That did not bode well. He waved Paxel to a chair at the table in the hangar office. Then he broke the seal and could not suppress a grunt of dismay. When he had digested its import, he tossed the letter across the table to Kris, who could read some Catteni, though probably not all the diplomatic terms and courtesies. The gist of the message stood out as if written in red: "Barevi merchants will not surrender any Terran goods retrieved by the Eosi or Catteni captains."
Paxel's eyes had mirrored astonishment when Zainal gave the message first to Kris, rather than to Peter. Very few Catteni women were ever consulted on matters of significance.
"You mean, they need a bribe to give us back anything?" she demanded, outraged. "And sent your sister's firstborn with the news so you wouldn't kill him out of hand?"
Zainal managed not to grin at her quick understanding of the ploy. She flicked the message across the smooth table toward Peter. "What?" Dorothy Dwardie was equally incensed. She read the note over Peter's shoulder.
"They're very acquisitive, the merchants of Barevi," Kris said, having dealt with them during her enslavement on the trade planet and more recently during her clandestine visit disguised as a Catteni officer.
"They don't mind dealing in stolen goods?" Dorothy asked, frowning at the message that Peter peered at in a total lack of comprehension, for it was in Catteni script.
"Most if not all of what they sell has been 'acquired,' one way or another," Kris said, watching Paxel's reaction.
"Business is at a standstill now that there is no new material coming in from Eosian"Paxel cleared his throat" development." "Development?" Peter echoed, glaring at the young man. "Polite terminology for forced acquisition," Kris translated composedly. "However, knowing how Barevi operates, this doesn't surprise me," she said, indicating the message. "I didn't think we'd get anything back without a quid pro quo."
"A what?" Zainal frowned at words he didn't understand.
"Old Latin saying. Something for something," she told him in a low voice.
"But we must have the loot returned to us," Peter said, "since the production lines for many essential parts are no longer functioning. The spare parts that the Catteni 'acquired' could rectify a great many useless vehicles:'
"Agreed, to the necessity to repossess the parts, especially those communication elements," Kris said.
"Business on Barevi is at a standstill, and the merchants refuse to surrender trading goods," Paxel repeated, as if that was the most important consideration.
"Even if we used the same technologies . . ." Peter began, irate. Kris held up her hand. "It's a fine sample of Catteni psychology," she said, smiling at Paxel. Being a firstborn was some protection for Paxel as far as his treatment as the messenger was concerned, but Kris did not intend to mince words or exchange false courtesies. "It drops, it staysuntil it's paid forone way or another," she went on, using the slogan facetiously in an effort to relieve the tension in the office. "We were promised restitution of materials forcibly removed from Earth's manufacturing facilities," Peter said. She gave him a long, cool look.
"The merchants require compensation." "That's piracy," Dorothy said, equally annoyed.
"That's business," Kris said. "I know the merchants. They love haggling. It's a way of life. Besides which, we've already made use of many pirated commodities that the first Barevi expedition brought back." She gave Dorothy a quelling look. Dorothy probably hadn't considered those goods as "loot" since they had been paid for, at least at the Barevi market. Now Kris could wonder if the merchants had been paid for the tab run up against a bogus ship's account. Oh well, that was for the Catteni accountants to resolve.
"But Kamiton" Peter began.
"Supreme Emassi Kamiton," Paxel said, "promised in good faith what regretfully he cannot now deliver. He is trying to resolve a delicate situation for all concerned." His bow to Zainal was full of respect.
Zainal was impressed by Paxel's poise and tried to hide his disappointment at finding many of his own, perhaps too ambitious, plans now being thwarted by Barevian highhandedness. Establishing easy communication links between Botany and Earth was vital as the present connection was fragile and subject to more delays than mere
distance. The "spurt" technique of communications, developed for contact with the Martian colony, was ideal for shooting wads of messages from Earth to Botany and reduced, somewhat, the time lag, but he had hoped to install similar links to the other forced colony worlds that would strengthen Botany in the new balance of power in this part of the galaxyat least in having easy communication with likeminded, Terranpopulated worlds.
The restoration of some basic commodity manufactories in the food industry, flour mills and food preservation, was essential not only to revive local economies and open the infrastructure of the damaged urban areas, but also to provide trade goods to the now hungry markets of Barevi. The setback of having to ransom what the Barevian merchants had lying about useless in their stalls was a further insult. Of primary importance was the repair and recommissioning of power sources that had fallen in the initial Catteni onslaught, or later when the Resistance forces were trying to force the Catteni conquerors off Terra. The restoration of easy communications was vital to the reconstruction effort. It was imperative to know where relief supplies were most critically needed as well as how to help relieve local emergencies. Priorities had to be assessed by appropriate experts and onsite information was needed to do so. He would like to see comm sats above the other nine Catteni worlds and links to Catten and Barevi. He grinned at Paxel: messages would then be easier to send and less dangerous to give. He wondered idly if Kamiton had quite anticipated the problems he was facing as the new leader of the Catteni. Certainly, when the man blithely promised the return of looted materialand Zainal had specifically mentioned what had been transported to Barevi, since he already knew how many captured goods were on display in. that marketplaceZainal had been dubious, even then, about the possibility of an easy repossession. Kamiton was obviously not enjoying as much support as he had anticipated or Zainal had hoped for. So Kamiton had dumped the problem back in Zainal's lap.
Zainal could bluster and threaten but, as he had no retaliatory power or armed forces, his threats were empty. Zainal had no effective way to force Kamiton to comply. His priority had been to secure Botany's autonomy and that of the other Terran forcedcolony worlds. The martial arm of Catteni was still intact even if the Eosi had been destroyed, and Botany was in no position to succeed against the formidable Catteni fleetespecially now that the Farmers' remarkable and impervious bubble had been removed from the space around Botany. Kamiton would not have permitted an armed and defensible Botany nor had Zainal suggested it. He had aimed instead for restoring all the forced immigrants to their home worldif they wished to goand independence from Catteni interference if they elected to stay. Botany was the most tenable and developed of the enforced colonies, so this had been quite a concession on Kamiton's part. Possibly it had come under review and criticism from the conservative Catteni, who were now in charge of their home world.
"But we have nothing more than food stores to ransom the goods we need," Dorothy said, adding, "that is, if I have properly understood what you said. A quid pro quo. Something for something."
"'Ransom' is the right word, Dorothy," Zainal replied, nodding graciously at her.
"And we can't in conscience use the Farmers' stores," Kris replied. She and Zainal had been leading opposition to that. "At least not for such a purpose. Feeding the hungry on our own world is one thing."
"Feeding the greedy on Barevi is not," Peter said firmly. "Have we nothing else with which to barter?" Peter was fascinated by Paxel's dental work, Kris noticed. He caught Kris's eye. "See what Mike Miller has in."
She nodded, understanding what he meant.
"An ounce for what quantity of goods?" Zainal asked in quick comprehension. "Kris, if you would be good enough to contact
Mike?" He jerked his head toward the main communications bank in the hangar. "First we have to know what we have. And perhaps, Paxel, you would be good enough to suggest commodities."
Kris smiled at Paxel and rose gracefully. "Be right back." She couldn't help lapsing into a provocative stroll since Paxel was obviously watching her. She was by no means vain about her tall, lithe fig ure or her long, blond, attractively arranged hair. She didn't consider herself beautiful even if Zainal often told her that he thought she was but she knew that she wasn't unattractive.
She made her way into the main hangar where Jerry Short was sitting, looking extremely nervous.
"It's all right, Jerry, we aren't killing the messenger," she said with a grin.
"I heard tell the Eosi did allatime," he replied, not completely reassured.
"The Catteni is a nephew of Zainal's."
"I don't think that would have bothered the Eosi."
"Neither do I, but Zainal is not Eosian. Would you please see if you can get Mike on the comm?"
"Mike Miller?"
Kris took what looked to be the most comfortable of the three battered chairs facing the comm unit.
"The very one."
"Why? Do we need more gold for teeth?" Jerry asked over his shoulder as he looked up Miller's communit number and tapped it in. "Now, you know, that's a very good notion, Jerry," she said, smiling at him. One of her private priorities was going to be new chairs for this place so no one would have back and coccyx problems from long hours on duty. "I wonder how many sparepart packages we could get for an ounce of dust?"
"How much dust does it take to build a gold cap? And do we have any dentists on our roster?"
On another board, Jerry tapped in a sequence. "I'll find out." Just then Mike's gravelly voice answered the prime call.
"Miller here. What can I do you for?"
Mike was in a good mood, Kris thought at his jocose greeting, and she hated to spoil it.
"Kris here, and it's what I can do you out of again, Mike. I'm begging. Have you mined anything valuable enough to use for ransoming our equipment back from the merchants on Barevi?"
"What?" The force of that simple word reminded Kris that Mike had a reputation as a brawler: a big energetic man who had done hard physical labor all his life and would have been a match in a brawl even with a Catteni. Maybe they should take him with them to Barevi. By the same token, maybe she should not. While Zainal had not yet mentioned a large mission, Kris knew that it would be necessary and would require every other Cattenispeaker. "As I heard it, all they've got is goods they looted from Earth. Thought they were supposed to give it over to us."
"That was the general idea, but it evidently doesn't work for the Barevian merchants."
"Thought Zainal had figured out how to make them," Mike said and started cursing under his breath.
"They've got crates of stuff they can't use, which they won't release until something is paid over. So we just have to cut bait and ransom what is most needed, Mike. I don't like it any better than you do, and Zainal is apoplectic." Which was hyperbole but she knew that Zainal was not at all pleased by the situation. Terrans had had to swallow considerable amounts of pride since the day the Catteni invaded Earth, and most people had had to do worse.
"You're in luck, Kris. We've been mining that diamond pipe Sergei found. Beautiful stones. Collectors would pay a premium rate for them," he added, with an upward inflection that suggested im
mense curiosity. "Uncut, of course, but it's the 'water' of the original carats that's important. Let someone else have the stress of cutting the stone to make the most out of it. Didn't think they'd be useful so we've been screening for industrials. The big stones are not something anyone here would want to spend colony credits on."
"Why? Could you put your hands on more?"
"Why? It was the Eosi who collected gemstones in the Catteni economy. I heard they were all gone."
"I wonder who'd want gemstones if now they're all gone." "Good question, Kris. Anyone got answers?"
"There were a few who hadn't come to the big Council and are still alive and free, somewhere in the galaxy. But I doubt they'd know where the others kept their proceeds."
"Would they put in an appearance where they could be caught?" Mike asked, surprised.
"Not likely. All I care about now is that the Barevian merchants will take what we have to offer in exchange for what we need. We'll sort out the ethics later."
"Well, caveat emptor, then."
Kris chuckled to hear Latin for the second time that morning. "Yes, indeed. Have you much gold?"
"Actually, we do. Bart Crispin was keeneyed enough to spot some nuggets and flakes in one of the streams up here and we've had the devil's own time keeping everyone at work in the mine shafts. I let them go prospecting in the evening. Ain't much else exciting to do up here." "D'you speak any Catteni, Mike? Does anyone else up there? We might need to muster you for the aid of the party."
"New faces would be nice, even if they are Catteni bastards. In fact, you can put me on record as saying that if I could suss out what they are selling, I might be able to suggest other likely items to secure what we need."
"I'll tell Zainal of your willingness to be in the ransom party," she said, knowing that Mike would not be a prime candidate, though she might be doing him a disservice. He managed difficult miners handily enough. If he could keep his temper, he might be an asset.
There was also the minor problem that she didn't think Barevi merchants would deal with a woman, beyond selling her food or fabric. She'd managed before only because she was in a Catteni uniform, disguised and bearing proof of her captain's authorization. She didn't care to be in disguise again unless it was absolutely vital.
"How much gold is available?"
"Its value depends on the rate of exchange, but I've over thirty pounds of dust, a bagful of fortyfive nuggets of various sizes, and a couple of bars where we melted down the little stuff so we wouldn't lose the flakes." She quickly jotted down a note about the variety of raw materials. "About a hundred pounds each of tin, copper, and zinc. I'm told the Catteni are in chronic need of raw materials."
"Thanks, Mike. I'll get back to you," she said, signing off the line. She gathered up her notes, thanked Jerry with a nod, and went back to the office, where she passed Zainal the note without comment. When he pointed to her scribble of "gold," she tapped a front tooth. "The main point is, Paxel, if we bring goods, will the merchants trade?"
The young Catteni leaned forward, opening his hands wide in entreaty. "Any business will be welcome right now, I think." He gave Zainal a knowing smile. "With the Eosi gone, and no new devel opment available, they are feeling a pinch they haven't known in decades."
If Kris said "too bad" to herself, she smiled winningly at Paxel. "Can Kamiton guarantee their 'cooperation'?"
Paxel shrugged diffidently. "He expected their cooperation before now, especially since your people have provided so many unusual items for Barevi markets and Barevi wants to continue the influx.
Barevi has a reputation to maintain." He grinned. "So the need is always to have many new items to intrigue and entertain customers." "I wouldn't have taken the Catteni culture as consumeroriented," Peter remarked.
"Never mind that they can't use half the stuff they have in storage," Zainal said, leaning back in his chair and smiling. "They always did display a wide variety of goods."
Paxel grinned back. "There are always Emassi to supply. Our scout ships, as you should know, Zainal, often use trade items when encountering a native species."
"Ah, yes," Zainal murmured.
"I always wondered," Dorothy remarked with an acidsweet smile, "what they first offered Terrans in trade. Beads?"
"Those records are sealed," Paxel replied, but his eyes sparkled. "Do you think someone sold you out to the Catteni?" Zainal asked, giving her a sharp look.
"'Take me to your leader' was never a headline prior to the invasion fleet," she said noncommittally. "But that didn't mean there weren't private deals made."
"Nor that it was a very equable trade," Peter remarked, "whatever was offered."
"Beads probably, or was it tomahawks and firearms?" Dorothy said with a very bright smile.
Paxel's reference to scouts and ships reminded Zainal of a very important fact. All scoutingmission reports as well as booty were processed through Central Barevi Air Traffic records, as well as where slave ships had taken their cargoes, so all the records they needed to repatriate Terrans were on file at Barevisomewhere. Now that he had a legitimate reason to go to Barevi, he could possibly accomplish a lot more than just reclaiming loot. A gold nugget in the appropriate hand and he might be able to review those records. The Resistance movement had lists identifying which ships had landed in which major population centers on Earth, and now he could find out where the various ships had deposited their cargoes. So he'd be able to repatriate specialists vitally needed back on their home worlds. Zainal had no idea how he might accomplish such an exchange.
Lives were wasted on the mining planets. More workers had always been available to the Eosi "development" program. New supplies of workers had been one of the primary aims of Eosi searches. The other had been finding planets with the raw materials necessary to supply the everincreasing requirements of the Eosi. The Turs had been the first reasonably intelligent species the Eosi had found and were almost as difficult to deal with as Catteni. The Rugarians had been slightly more cooperative, but the Deski had been physically unsuited to the hard labor required of captives. The Terrans were physically more suited to such arduous work. It was likely to prove difficult to exchange the current laborers at those facilities.
This Barevi trip might provide him with more information than Kamiton wanted him to have, but since the opportunity had been dropped into Zainal's lap, he would "stay" with it. It was also a chance for him to take his sons into a Catteni world where, he hoped, they would absorb more of the training they would need to function as adults. The Masai on Botany, where he had sent the boys to study a warrior culture, had done well with them, but they needed more than that to cope successfully in the Catteni culture. He would find a tutor for them at the hiring hall in Barevi. He was pleased that they had learned Englishalbeit with a Masai cadencebut they needed to acquire an adult Catteni vocabulary and adult Catteni skills. Kris always wanted to see more of his sons, and this would be a good opportunity. They had toughened and she would no longer feel "sorry" for them and treat them with the softness so often exhibited by Terran mothers. Not that he doubted Kris's sincere desire to do well by her mate's offspring. He had a lot to get under way now that he knew what the situation on Barevi was and how Botany could mitigate the
problem. He would wind up this conference with Paxel and send him backunharmedto Kamiton, he hoped not much the wiser of how things were progressing on Botany: save that there were Cattenistyle cargo ships, KDLs, lying idle outside the landing field.
"Well, Paxel, delighted to see you and do give my greetings to your mother, my favorite sister, and your sire. And to Kamiton, of course. I expect there will be no trouble if I arrive in one of the cargo ships?" "No, none at all. Kamiton asked me to encourage you."
"To solve the problem, no doubt."
"I believe he hopes you can," and Paxel leaned in a little on the final word, and then realized that might have been less than diplomatic but had the sense not to try to retrieve the error.
"I'm sure he does," Zainal replied amiably, smiling. "Expect us within five days."
"Or perhaps a little later," Kris said. They'd particularly need Chuck Mitford's assistance and possibly that of some of the others who had returned to help rebuild Earth. "There's a lot to organize, es pecially as some of our more fluent Cattenispeakers are currently on Earth and will need to be recalled."
"That is all too true, Paxel."
Paxel nodded. "It is up to Zainal, and you, to set the time of return, Excellent Lady Emassi," he said, giving her a polite but stiff nod of his head. Plainly he was surprised that a woman would enter into
a conversation with a male, especially one of Zainal's status. But, even on Catteni, certain mates did have special privileges, and doubtless he knew her reputation since he had addressed her with her honorary Catteni title.
"Then we shall collect the members of our delegation," Zainal said, straightening up and looking Paxel in the eye, "and inform Kamiton that we shall presently arrive on Barevi and settle this oner ous problem once and for all. I need the security codes presently in effect at Barevi."
If Paxel's eyes widened at Zainal's demand, he placed one hand on his chest and bowed again.
"I return with all speed, Emassi."
Retrieving the message he had delivered, Paxel jotted down a few words and figures and passed the notation to Zainal. "That code will continue for the next five weeks."
Kris thought that Zainal had impressed his young nephew and hoped there would be no repercussions when Paxel delivered the response. Zainal shot her an amused glance as if he suspected her thoughts before he turned back to the other Botany colonists.
"We must first recall those Cattenispeakers who have gone to Terra. Does someone have the list?"
As there was no such list and Zainal must have known it, Kris made a move to the file cabinet and started flipping through documents. Peter urgently tapped a command on the nearest keyboard, and Dorothy was industriously writing notes.
"A safe journey, Paxel, and again, my regards to your mother and your father," Zainal said as Paxel made his way out of the hangar. A backward wave from Paxel acknowledged the civility even as Zainal turned to ask Kris, "Who is most drastically needed to return from Terra?"
"Without prejudice, I'd say Chuck would be invaluable," and Dorothy nodded from where she sat, grinning broadly.
"Maybe he even thought to make a list of the most urgently needed items. Won't we need to know which cartons to ransom?" Peter asked. "Wouldn't want to buy a pig's ear for a purse."
"Would it be quicker to take Baby and go to Terra and collect the people we need?" Kris asked.
"Might be in the long run," Zainal agreed. "We do have destinations for most of them. Like the Doyle brothers. I'll need Ninety, Gino, and Mack Dargle, and you, please, Kris. Can you leave your daughter?" He knew how she doted on sixmonthold Amy but she
nodded a quick reassurance. This mission had a priority she couldn't ignore to play Mommy. Besides, in her absence both Amy and Zane would be well taken care of at the creche.
"What about our military?" Peter asked, referring to various admirals and generals who had been dropped on Botany and were now busy with the reconstruction of Earth's facilities.
"Hmmm." Zainal considered this. "I'd certainly like their thinking on this ransom business. Especially Ray Scott and John Beverly." "Yes, Scott has a reputation as a strategist but he has no Catteni." "No, but I'd value his opinion. I'll take any help I can get on this one."
"Good idea," Dorothy and Peter said simultaneously. Peter was plucking at his lower lip, a trait that most recognized as "Peter thinking."
"It's also a problem in public relations," Peter said. "We can get there with ransomables, but how do we know the merchants will then be willing to trade?"
"Kamiton said they would."
"Ha!" Peter sat forward with his hands clasped in front of him. "He didn't read the signs right when he thought he could get them to make restitution. I think we need a little more to make sure they'll exchange." "How would you suggest we do that, Peter?" Kris asked.
"I'm thinking about it," he said with a grin. "No better man."
"Wish your people had advertising or a publicservice radio channel. Get word about."
Zainal grinned. "Actually, a few rumors wouldn't be hard to start." "That's what we need. How?"
"By the very people we want to trade with us." "The merchants?"
"They tend to trade gossip, too," Zainal said with a cunning smile.
"And spread news."
"And?" Peter prompted him.
"And we can prime them, as it were."
"So they'll be lusting after our goods," Peter said, rubbing his hands in anticipation.
"We can hope," Zainal remarked, slightly skeptical.
"If we put out the right lures, they'll come. Especially if they are becoming consumeroriented."
"We could also bring Botanical specialties," Kris said. "Like rock squats. Remember how our refugees liked them?"
"No, but I'll take your word for it," Zainal said with a grin, as he had been absent from Botany during the period when the colony had been a sanctuary for the families of Emassi who wanted them safe prior to the attack on the dread Eosi leaders.
"Even managed to get the boys to hunt with us," Peter said, amused by the recollection.
"Well, we should arrange a hunting party, then."
"And perhaps gather some of the tubers. I suspect that food is in short supply on Earth. Invasions do wreak havoc on crops."
"So, what needs to be done first?" Dorothy asked just as Peter reached the printer that had several sheets in its tray.
"Got a list here of Cattenispeakers who are away," he said and handed it to Zainal.
"And I have the list of possible barter goods," Kris said, pointing to her scribbled note listing what Mike Miller had told her.
"We do have a dentist," Jerry Short said, stopping in the doorway. "Name of Eric Sachs. Used to practice in New York. He's been on call at the hospital but doesn't have much equipment here. I've asked him to join us as soon as he can."
"Thanks, Jerry." Zainal made a check on his own notes and then paused. "How do you spell 'dentist'?" he asked.
Everyone told him at once but he got the word down on his pad,
grinning as he wrote. "Thanks. I think these 'dentists' will be very useful. And we can get the equipment. What is generally needed?" "I've never needed much dentistry except to have my wisdom teeth pulled," Kris said, looking around.
"Well, I haveyou know the Colgatebright smile," Peter said and exposed his white, even teeth. "A good smile is essential in public relations. However, to preserve the image I wanted to present, I did get my front teeth"he tapped them"capped as a business expense. Good teeth are a lifelong investment."
"What about gold ones?" Kris asked.
"That's not part of my culture," he said. "But a sign of importance or affluence in others. In present context, if it works, it'd be wonderful." He paused, raising his hand for silence. "To be Johnnyonthespot, we can also possibly provide the essential professional."
"Essential professional?" Zainal was totally confused.
"We bring our resident dentist with usand he makes crowns on the spot?" Kris asked. Peter's wide smile answered her. "But a dentist needs a lot of equipment and supplies we don't have."
"Aren't we planning a trip to Earth anyway? We can pick up what we need, and sell the Catteni those gold teeth they're so fond of."
Kris snapped her fingers. "Just like that!"
"Why not? Who'd be stealing dental equipment?"
"Point," Kris conceded. As if on cue, there was a tap at the door
and it swung open.
"I'm Eric Sachs," the man said, peering around the door. "Back on old Earth, I used to be a dentist. I was informed that I was wanted in here."
"Ah, good of you to come so quickly," Peter said, jumping to his feet and gesturing for the man to enter.
Aware of the scrutiny of everyone in the room, Eric Sachs moved with athletic ease toward the chair that Peter waved him to. He was of medium height, stocky build, dark hair cut close to his skull, as was the current trend on Botany, pleasant features, and brown eyes that sparkled with amused intelligence. He took the seat, facing Zainal, stretched out his legs, and folded his hands across his waist. Kris could see that the nail on his right thumb was distorted. He caught her glance and smiled at her.
"It wasn't my patients biting me," he said, "though some of them have. But my silly habit of holding dental X rays in exactly the position I want. Bad case of health and safety in the workplace but useful in obtaining clearer films. I'll probably lose more than the nail but. . ." He shrugged, philosophical over the price he would have to pay for that lack of attention to proper Xray procedure.
"Thank you, Dr. Sachs:' Zainal said. "Let me ask you a few questions about some procedures which may have more than ordinary significance for us right now"
"Such as?"
"Do dentists use pure gold for gold caps or tooth replacement?" "We use seventyfive percent or eighteencarat gold, which expands and contracts almost identically with tooth enamel, so gold is the best material. In some of the newer procedures the range is thirty percent gold supplemented by platinum and mostly silvernine to forty percent."
Zainal looked askance at Kris and she nodded, after checking that platinum was one of the metals that Mike had on hand.
"What sort of equipment would you need to practice?" Peter asked. "Is it portable enough for you to set up your office where needed?"
"Well, as I have currently no equipment whatever, beyond a toothpick and specula, any office will suffice. There are portable dental units. Armies travel with them," Eric said with another easy smile. He obviously intended to enjoy this unusual interview.
"Would you know where to find the equipment you would need for a working 'office'?"
"Back on Earth, you mean?" Eric leaned forward eagerly.
"Yes, and no. Yes, to obtain the equipment you would need, and no, not to practice back on Earth."
"Where did you have in mind? Though we could use a facility here on Botany, with all these youngsters and oldsters needing effective dental care," Eric replied. "I used to specialize in orthodontics."
Zainal looked inquiringly at Kris.
"Orthodontics usually means repair work to crooked teeth and/or false ones."
"Dentures, please," Eric said with a friendly grin.
"False ones? Dentures?" Zainal didn't comprehend the distinction. "For when people are required to entirely replace the ones they've lost to either age or caries."
"Caries?"
"Dental decay," Eric replied quickly, nodding an apology at Kris. She gave him a quick flip of her fingers to accept his reply.
"Dental decay?" Zainal looked surprised.
"Don't you Catteni ever have tooth problems? Apart from losing the front ones in your brawls?"
"The only ones we lose are in combat," Zainal replied. "What other way is there?"
"Bad bite, poor nutrition, lack of calcium, pregnancy, too much refined sugar. . ." Eric shrugged as he listed the main causes.
"If we could obtain equipment for you, would you be willing to dentify ... Catteni teeth?"
"I have nothing against your species," Eric said. Then his expression turned eager and his eyes glinted. "Mind you, I would never use my professional expertise to cause unnecessary pain. Though, until I got here to Botany, I might have entertained a few vengeful ideas from time to time."
"At mercy in your chair?" Kris asked, grinning at the thought of a Catteni bully in helpless jeopardy in a dental chair. Sometimes, ethics went the way of other civilized behavior.
"I admit to some rather fanciful daydreams at a particular time; however, that's not only immature but also against all dental ethics. From what I've seen of your people, they aren't much in need of my skills."
"What about cosmetic work?" Kris suggested, pointing to the tooth in her head that was in the same place as Zainal's broken one. "Ah, cosmetic work! That's something else again, and I fancy myself quite skilful in both orthodontia and cosmetic repair."
"What would you also need besides the basic dental drill?" Kris asked.
"It would be quite a list," Eric said tentatively, but with a dawning eagerness in his expression.
"But you'd know where such supplies could be found on Earth?" Kris asked.
"I'd know where there used to be suppliers in the Manhattan area, certainly. Whether they're still there or not, I couldn't, of course, be certain."
"Of course."
There was a pause that Eric broke. "Does this have anything to do with the rumor I heard that Catteni were investing in gold caps?" Kris laughed, easing the tension that had been growing in her, partly because of the whole notion of having to ransom what was rightfully Earth's and partly because she was beginning to understand this bizarre element: providing a skill and treatment the Catteni certainly didn't have on their home world. Whatever worked!
"It does," Peter said.
Eric rubbed his hands on his thighs. "I am indeed your man, then,
Easley, Zainal. And I'd be happy to repair that incisor of yours, Zainal, for all you've done for us." He jerked his damaged thumb at his chest. "Then you could see firsthand how skilled I am."
"We don't doubt your abilities," Dorothy said, "especially since you made those marvelous repairs to Brenda Samuelson's dentures." "The dentures were easy. All I needed was a decent adhesive." Eric twitched one shoulder. "So when do we go?"
"I suspect it is now necessary to figure out a flight plan," Zainal said, nodding to Kris, "to cover as much territory as we need to as quickly as possible. Please make a list of the items you would require. And where we'd need to go in this Manhattan. . :'
"Also known as New York."
Zainal shot him a look. "Is Manhattan the only place to acquire what you need?"
"No, but it's the one I know best. And, if they haven't been demolished in the Resistance, I could quite honestly retrieve the equipment I had in my office."
"Please give me the location," Zainal said, holding his pencil over his pad and looking intently at Dr. Sachs for his answer.
"My office was in the main city, on Fiftyninth Street at Columbus Circle."
"Fiftyninth Street?" Peter echoed. "I don't think it still exists, Dr. Sachs. Would you have any other ideas?"
"Well, quite a few dentists had offices in the general area."
"If you will agree to accompany us on this 'adventure,"' Zainal said with a little chuckle, "I'm sure we can locate what you need to take with you."
"With me?"
"Yes, to Barevi," and before Eric Sachs could rattle off the questions that must have flooded his mind, Peter told him what had to be done and how Eric was essential to spurring the merchants to action. "By offering to those who want them immediate gold crowns?" Eric asked, his eyes merry with appreciation of the scheme. "I must advise you that making a gold crown is not an 'immediate' proposition." "The simple fact that you are there and an expert would allow us to charge them not only for the metal necessary to make their teeth, but for the expert to do the work, and would provide another reason to barter for the goods we desperately need which they are holding back!" Eric was stunned by the explanation and then grinned broadly. "I like it. I like it. But as I said, it takes time to make proper crowns, and if I am to do the work, I insist on doing proper work."
"Of course, of course," Zainal and Peter agreed.
"I know there's gold available on Botany," Eric said, excitedly bouncing about on the chair, jotting down notes, "and platinum, too, I've heard." He rubbed his hands together enthusiastically before set ting down more scrawls which probably only he could read. "What I need more than anything," he flushed and grinned sheepishly, "more than the equipment, is certain materials without which I cannot succeed. Such as an alginate to take good impressions and accessories like the carrying trays to secure the impressions. The gold caps would take time to prepare. One has to pound the gold into fold leaf. Rather fun to do, actually, and oh, well, you don't need a blowbyblow description of the process right now. But I remember the dental supply house I used, and quite possibly no one bothered looting such items."
"Alginate?" Dorothy asked. "Seaweed. We have seaweed in quantity."
"I'd also need a mixing gun to deliver the alginate where I need it." Eric flapped his hands. "And a whole lot of stuff if I'm to do this properly."
"How did you hear about the gold and platinum?" Zainal asked. "Same way I heard about gold crowns on Catteni teeth," Eric said. "Hey, could we get more than one set of office equipment? And find a few more dentists while we're about it?"
"And we will be about it!" Zainal said. He pushed back from the table and rose purposefully, gathering up his notes and the letter from Kamiton that he seemed to be rereading. "Kamiton will never know what hit Barevi." He grinned with total satisfaction at the prospect.
"Ahem, Zainal," Eric said, raising one finger to attract the Cattem's attention. "It would be useful if I had a trained dental assistant. Speed things up."
Zainal glanced at Peter. "Would you handle that detail, Peter? I'm going to draft the Cattenispeakers who are still here. We will have to go after some of the others who've gone to Terra. We can get what you need on that trip, too, Eric. Will you come with us?"
"Yes, and I think I'd better take some lessons in your language. I'll need to be able to give simple instructions to any patients you might wish me to attend."
"Like 'open,' 'spit,' 'close'?" Kris asked, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
"And some basic instructions about what I'll be doing. I'll also need analgesics like Novocain and procaine"
"Oh, you won't need painkillers," Kris said, grinning broadly. "Catteni would disregard mere pain as beneath their notice."
"Not if I have to work close to nerves. Catteni do have those, I believe."
"Check with Leon Dane," Kris advised.
Eric wrote that down and then began to jot down more notes. "I'll need so much to even get started."
"A list of your requirements is a good start."
"There are talented scroungers on Terra," Peter remarked. "If it still exists, they'll find it for you."
Eric gave him a long, hard look. "I thought 'scroungers' were what put us in this position?"
"Oh, not those who will scrounge for us," Peter said with a grin. "I'll see if I can find you a dental assistant. And a technician. You'll need one of those, too, won't you?"
"If business is brisk, yes."
"Oh, it will be brisk," Zainal said emphatically. "No one ever developed tooth restoration under the Eosi."
"Did they have teeth?" Kris asked, shuddering as she remembered the awful grotesquerie of the one Eosi whom she had seen.
"Surely every species has teeth of some kind," Dorothy remarked. "Eosi didn't eat as we do. They used some form of matter ingestion . . ."
"Osmosis?" Eric asked, startled.
Kris giggled and Dorothy smiled as she shrugged and replied, "Well, it's often been suggested as a possible means of nutrient absorption. But we don't have to worry about them anymore, do we?"
Zainal gave her a startled look and Kris frowned. "Not all the Eosi were ... ah ... terminated."
"They will be far too busy making certain they survive," Zainal said, "wherever they have taken refuge. And it won't be nearby." "How many Cattem worlds are there, Zainal?" Peter asked.
"I know of nine. There may be new ones. That's one of the details I need to find in the files at Barevi, Peter. Scouts were constantly finding new worlds, for resources and colonization. I know many of them, but not all. And it is essential to have accurate information."
"Would the Eosi have taken refuge on a distant world?" "Possibly. But they had strongholds on suitable moons as well as planets. I've no idea where the survivors might be. But it's wise to find out, if we can."
Peter nodded agreement with the sentiment. "I'll go find out if we have any other dentists or assistants or technicians on our roster." "If you will gather what will be needed for my sons, Kris, I'll collect them first before things get busy."
"Let me come, too," Kris said. "It shouldn't take me long to set up two cots. But we should also, I think, bring some thankyou gifts to Chief Materu "
"As you will," was Zainal's reply. "And yes, presents are in order. Can you do that for me?"
Remembering the bright prints she had seen the Masai wearing, she thought there was at least one bolt of a tropical floral print that they might like in the cargo she had brought back from her last trip to Barevi. She supposed she should take something for Chief Materu, though she hadn't a clue what would be appropriate.
She borrowed the cots she needed from the day care center and told Sara McDouall that the boys were coming, and also told Zane that he would be seeing his two halfbrothers while she gave her daughter a cuddle. Amy was a pretty baby but Kris could see no resemblance in the heartshaped face to herself or to Chuck, apart from fair hair, blue eyes, and the long bones of her legs. Leon Dane, the chief medical officer, had commented that she would be tall. Kris borrowed a land cart, got the mattresses and the blankets down to the cottage, and set them up in the living room. If the boys wanted to sleep in the loft that had been built for that purpose, they could haul their beds up there to suit themselves tomorrow. She also put the bolt of wildly patterned dress material on the cart along with the leather belts, which Astrid had recommended as an appropriate gift for the chief.
Zainal and Kris took the fast scout Baby to make the quickest possible run down the coast to where the Masai had chosen their new home. She hadn't been there in a while and was impressed by the neat huts within the kraal enclosure. Amazing that the Masai had found substitutes for their traditional materials. Their encampment, despite the night crawlerresistant flagstone flooring, looked like her memory of African settlements from National Geographic magazines. The tribe came filing out, men with their spears and long shields, arraying themselves in front of the curious women. The preadult children were ranged in their own age groupings in which they learned responsibilities and tasks suitable to their ageset. Camp dogs bristled and daringly ran at the ramp as Zainal and. Kris walked down it. A shrill whistle called the dogs off but they sank to the dirt, still on their guard and not entirely happy to be called off the intruders.
Kris saw the bright gold hair of Floss among the women and realized with some remorse that she had only just then thought of the girl again. Floss and her band of abandoned and orphaned kids, call ing themselves the Diplomatic Corps, had enjoyed the undisputed freedom of the Occupation and the leadership of a devoted band of
young men and women. Sent to Botany to recover from their trauma and make a new home, they had been so undisciplined and rowdy that the Botanists were all for sending them back to fend for themselves on Earth. However, Dorothy Dwardie had suggested an alternative: place them with the disciplined Masai culture until they lost their wildness and were ready to "settle down." The Masai had agreed. Floss had been the most recalcitrant and reluctant to leave Retreat, but she was mostly to blame for being exiled. Across the distance separating them, Kris made eye contact. Turning back to the men, she noticed the unmistakable figure of Clime, solid among all the lithe, gaunt Masai, with his two former lieutenants, Ferris and Ditsy, standing beside him. Those Diplomatic Corps kids had survived the Catteni invasion and the roundup of Terran inhabitants. That was very clever of them. Idly she wondered if any of them had learned some Catteni. Such survivortypes might be useful.
Greetings and giftgiving aside, Peran and Bazil were called forward from their ageset by Chief Materu and sent to pack whatever they wished to take with them. Both boys had put on inches, vertically, and the deep tan that Botany's sun was giving everyone. Her glance strayed to Floss, who seemed to have improved. Chief Materu was examining the leather belts, noting the buckles and testing the straps with great interest.
Almost as if compelled, Kris wandered in Floss's direction and, when she was close enough, signaled for her to approach. Floss shot the older woman beside her a beseeching look while Kris made a formal gesture of asking for the girl to help her with the bolt. The head woman gave Floss a push in her direction. Floss corrected her balance and all but ran to assist Kris with the bolt.
"Hello, Floss. It's good to see you again. Do you happen to speak any Catteni?"
"Yes, Lady Emassi, I do. I had to learn enough to stay alive, you know. Just ask Peran or Bazil. I've learned a lot more words from them
while they've been here. They aren't bad kids for boys!" The last word was spoken with the usual contempt of an older girl for a younger male. Then Floss hoisted the bolt onto her shoulder, balancing it with unexpected expertise, and walked with Kris back to the waiting women. There was no question that the fabric would not be put to immediate use.
"Do any of the others in your Diplomatic gang speak Catteni?" "Besides Peran and Bazil? Sure, Clune did all our negotiating for us. Ditsy and Ferris knew enough to listen in to some int'rusting conversations. Saved our necks a coupla times." Then Floss cocked her head and looked at Kris with eyes far wiser than her years. "Why? Will it get me outa here?"
Kris held up a hand to indicate she did not wish to explain but she saw hope flare in Floss's deep blue eyes. "Please tell the head woman that this is a gift offering for her care of you." She ignored Floss's snort, then gestured her to follow her back to Zainal and Chief Materu, who were deep in conversation. Floss kept well behind Kris, trying to look invisible, Kris thought.
"Floss said she's been keeping up her Catteni with Peran and Bazil. Clime did their negotiating with Catteni. Back in DC they managed their own little trading enterprises. Could sell you your own teeth. Those two skinny boys standing with him also know the language."
"Really?" Zainal gave a snort that was half skepticism and half amusement. Just then Peran came racing back, a square of cloth, held tightly in one fist with a spear while he had the framework of a Masai shield in the other. He came to a halt by his father, respectfully silent as Chief Materu was awaiting Zainal's pleasure.
"Does anyone here speak Catteni, Peran?" Zainal asked him. "Yes, that one by Kris does and a couple of the other Terrans. We talk with them sometimes," Peran said with a diffident shrug. "Their names are Clime, Ditsy, and Ferris," Kris murmured.
In Catteni, Zainal asked for volunteers who could speak the language. Clime, his expression astonished, made his way to the front of his ageset, as did Ferris, hauling the thinner, wiry Ditsy with his free hand. He had a finished shield and two fine spears in the other. Floss, taking no chance of being overlooked, held up her hand, waggling it at Zainal.
"Volunteers for what, Emassi Zainal?" Clime asked, glaring at Floss and urging his friends to catch up to him.
"A special mission to Barevi," Zainal replied.
"The trading planet?" Floss exclaimed and won points, Kris thought, by Zainal's response to her knowledge.
"What else do you know about Barevi?" he asked her.
She made a moue. "Not much except it was a place to avoid if you were captured by Catteni." She gave him an apologetic smile. "And it was low gravity. That's why the Catteni used it as an RandR place."
"It's where the Catteni took Terran slaves to be sold," Clime said, frowning. But he spoke in Catteni, his young baritone voice able to growl out the words with a good accent.
"They took a lot of stuff off Earth to Barevi," Ferris remarked. "And we have to reclaim it," Zainal said.
"They're going to keep all the stuff they stole and be allowed to
get away with it?" Ditsy muttered in a petulant tone.
"No, Ditsy. But he has the priorities right," Zainal murmured in an aside to Kris, and she grinned back at him. Now he stepped over to Chief Materu. "Chief, these young men and that woman speak my language and may be of use to us all. Will you allow them to accompany us?"
Judging by the fleeting expression that crossed the chief's face, Kris thought he would be glad to see the last of Floss, but he seemed more reluctant to part with Clune and the other lads.
His answer was a ripple of words that Kris didn't understand. Zainal looked at Peran for a translation.
"Father, he says that they are not yet in the ageset to be trained for a man's skills and responsibilities."
"Will you answer him for me, Peran, as I do not know his language, that they are trained in the skills I need for an important mission."
Peran did not smile as Kris thought a Terran boy might, pleased to be translating for his father. He rattled off phrases with a respectful air and waited for the chief to reply.
Materu shrugged but with a wave of his hand, agreed.
"Run, get your things," Peran said in Cattem to the three boys and, almost as an afterthought, included Floss. She angled her hips provocatively and stood closer to Kris.
"I won't need anything they gave me once I'm back in civilization," she muttered under her breath. But redeemed herself in Kris's good opinion by turning toward the group of women and making a broad gesture of farewell, giving the older woman a dignified nod. "Can I board the ship now?" she asked Kris.
"Can't wait to leave, can you?"
"You better believe it," Floss replied and sauntered, still swinging her hips in a sexy manner, which Kris thought was provocative; she disappeared up the ramp and into the ship. By the time Kris, follow ing her, had made her way to the flight deck, she heard more feet on the ramp and the whine of machinery as the ramp was retracted. Zainal came forward to the pilot's seat. As if it were his prerogative, Peran took the secondary seat. Kris took the jump seat behind Zainal and motioned for the boys and Floss to strap in. As they took off and Zainal dipped Baby in a farewell salute over the Masai EnKang, Floss heaved a long sigh.
"Thank God you came. They were going to marry me off to a bag of bones and shriveled skin," Floss muttered to Kris.
Kris felt a pang of guilt for having forgotten Floss for so long and wondered how the girl had coped. There was little doubt in Kris's mind that Floss had filled out in a very womanly fashion, and she was glad they had rescued her from an ancient spouse. That would only have caused more problems and indubitably Floss would never have waited passively to enjoy marital bliss.
"So what's the caper?" she asked, leaning toward Zainal, her eyes glittering.
Zainal responded in his best Emassi manner but the only words Kris recognized were "know" and "time." Floss had no trouble understanding and leaned back in her seat, folding her arms across her breasts. Full breasts, Kris noticed, and hoped they could get the girl off planet and to Barevi before she caused havoc among the unmarried males at the Botanists' main settlement at Retreat. The girl was much too young to settle down, although she seemed to have learned manners and deference among the Masai. Oh Lord, they only had spare beds enough for Zainal's sons. There were, however, bunks and cabins aboard the Baby, which must have been Zainal's thought because he landed in the clearing he had used before, not all that far from their cabin.
"Well, this is a step up," Floss said and winked at Clune.
"You boys can bunk on Baby tonight," Zainal said, gesturing down the companionway to the crew and officer quarters. "Floss, you'd better stay in the main house."
"Main house?" Floss echoed, glancing negligently at the cabin. "Our home," Kris said with a quelling glare.
"Well, it beats a straw but all hollow," Floss replied with more deference as Kris ushered her inside. "And I really do like the decor. Informal, rustic, but neat!"
"Thanks," Kris said. She sniffed, aware of an enticing aroma, and noticed the stew pan on the stove. "That was kindly," she said, picking up the spoon and stirring the mixture.
"I smell spices," Floss remarked, an anticipatory grin on her face. "Smells sort of like home and holiday." And her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
"We don't have many spices but this is one of Dorothy's pots, so we'll know who to thank. There are knives and forks in the second drawer in the chest, Floss, if you can remember how to set a table. I'll call the others," Kris gave Floss's shoulder a gentle squeeze.
Bread had also been left for them so they could make a good meal, which was devoured with much smacking of lips. Floss had forgotten which side forks go on but she had found glasses and poured water and put out plates. She was obviously accustomed to assisting, a definite improvement over her attitude before she was sent to the Masai camp.
Clime had asked where to wash his hands and the other boys followed his example, despite their obvious desire to eat. Kris dished out spartan servings since whoever had brought the food had not antici pated eight people dining on the pot's contents. She had some slightly stale cake to serve for "afters," which the boys and Floss consumed avidly.
"Sorry about the hard rations. But there's usually plenty to eat at the dining hall," Kris said. "We generally eat there and take our turns cleaning up."
"That was lovely," Floss said with a replete sigh. "Human cooking." , "We ate well enough with the Masai," Clune said, almost embarrassed by her remark.
"There was always enough," Ditsy blurted out, as if the quantity was far more important than the quality. Then he glanced at Clune as if he regretted having spoken.
"There were plenty of times we didn't have enough in DC, Floss," Clune said with quiet authority.
an airy shrug. "You guys were good scroungers, and Jerry could make nothing taste like something!" She gave a sigh for "times past."
"I've always preferred to eat regular," Ferris added, speaking almost for the first time. He had a very husky voice and there was an old scar along his throat. Kris resolved to have Dane check all of them over before they were enlisted for this mission. They probably needed to be wormed: Kris squirmed at the thought.
"'Scuse me, ma'am," Ferris went on, his brown eyes troubled, "but does anyone know who's left on Earth?"
"You had family there, Ferris?" Kris asked.
"Think they escaped the roundup but I don't know. Any way I can find out?"
"We've some survivor lists, Ferris, and a long one from the DC area. We can check for you later. What about you, Floss?"
She gave an indifferent shrug. "Knowing my father, they'd've survived in fine style. Somehow, somewhere."
Clune leveled a stern glance at her. "You used to worry about your mother and your sisters."
"Oh" he twitched her right shoulder"I did but I had to give that up as a lost job, didn't IF'
"You do know not to walk about at night, don't you?" Kris asked. "Sure do. Never want that to happen to me," Floss said in a more subdued tone and grimaced at the notion. Night crawlers were indigenous creatures on Botany that would attack anything animal, or human, in the night and ingest them. "Thought there weren't as many night crawlers up north."
"You do know to stamp a lot at night if you are caught off the stone paths?" Zainal continued. And all six kids nodded solemnly. "You boys can stay in the ship but I'm locking everything else down. I don't want anyone flying off on us."
"Emassi Zainal," Clune began formally, "what exactly did we volunteer for?"
"Translating Catteni into English and English into Catteni," Zainal replied. "And a little grunt work. The rest I'll explain when we get to Barevi and when you need to know"
"Oh, the old needtoknow routine," Clune said with a longsuffering sigh.
Zainal laughed and clapped him so firmly on the shoulder that, sturdy as he was, Clune rocked on the bench. "And now, boys, come with me," and he urged them all out the door and toward Baby.
Without being asked, Floss rose and started clearing off the table, taking the dirty plates and utensils to the sink. She turned on the faucet and crowed with delight. "Hot water!"
"Yes, we have all the comforts of home."
"Would you also have a shower? And maybe some shampoo?" Floss asked in a hushed voice, a look on her face of such keen anticipation that Kris felt all the more guilty for having forgotten the girl.
"Yes, but I think you'd better shower first and quickly. Zainal likes a wash in the evening, and we don't have quite enough water for two long showers and the dishes, too. Come with me." Kris paused only long enough to get a towel out of the cupboard and some shampoohomemade though it wasfrom another cupboard before leading Floss to the shower room.
"Oh, if you knew how I've dreamed of this," Floss murmured, stripping off the wraparound garment.
"I'll have to get you some clothes tomorrow but for now I have only a clean, spare jumpsuit, Floss." Kris retrieved one from the closet as well as a spare leather belt, which the slender Floss might need around the much too ample waistband. "Nothing I own would fit you."
"Yes'm," Floss replied courteously and without a touch of sarcasm. Somehow, Floss contrived to give the utilitarian garment an air of style.
peared in the main room. "It's kind of bare up here," and she touched her throat.
Kris had never cared much about fashion but she could see that a scarf of some sort of color would reduce the uniform look and also draw attention to Floss's bosom, which was certainly ample and push ing against the confines of the dull fabric. She wondered if there were any brassieres in the main commissary. With the ratio of four men to one woman, this nubile girl could be at risk. Maybe that was the real reason Floss had wanted to be released from the Masai encampment, where females were zealously guarded until a marriage had been arranged for them. Albeit Kris wouldn't have agreed to her being wed to an elderly man, she didn't want her to whore around Retreat either.
Zainal's appraisal of Floss, now clean with her blond hair gleaming in the last of the daylight coming in the window, only consolidated Kris's observation.
"Did the boys settle down?" Kris asked, opening a neutral topic. Zainal grinned. "Being allowed to sleep in a scout?" He gave an indulgent laugh. "They are excited but Clune said he'd listen for them. He's more than able to handle them."
"Clune is respected among his ageset with the Masai," Floss said with a little smirk, as if she denied that status. "But he's worked a lot with both Peran and Bazil and they will obey him. This elder stuff works with impressionable boys." She shot Zainal an inquiring look. "It is a Catteni attitude," Zainal said in his language, and she inclined her head to show that she understood him.
"I have put out an extra blanket for you, Floss," Kris said, wanting to be private with Zainal. "It is much colder up here than it is in the south."
The girl yawned and stretched, an action that showed off her lithe body in the jumpsuit.
"Oh, I'll survive," she remarked and sauntered, again with swaying hips, over to the cots. "It'll be such a relief to have a place to myself, with no one snoring or shouting in nightmares." She gave Kris a smile and picked up the spare blanket, to flip it deftly across the bed. "Even a mattress. A great luxury, I assure you."
Somehow she managed to make slipping into the cot a voluptuous action. Zainal grinned and turned his back on her, walking toward their bedroom. Kris waved a good night and followed him.
"We'll have trouble with that girl," she murmured when she closed the door behind her.
"Trouble's name is Clune," Zainal said. "He made it clear to me that he considers her, and her behavior, his business."
They were both tired, and although Zainal took a quick shower, muttering about lukewarm water, Kris wondered if Floss's presence in their living room had something to do with her own inhibitions, for she made no attempt to entice Zainal into her arms and he was equally reserved. Well, they needed the sleep.
loud and eerie ululation woke them both the next morning. Zainal was on his way to the door before Kris stopped him, pointing to his naked body. He cursed but stopped long enough to don his trousers before he exited. She dressed more slowly and was relieved when Zainal poked his head into the room.
"It seems the Masai keep to daylight hours and it is daylight!" She finished dressing and found that Floss and Zainal had put bread, cheese, and fruit on the table. Zainal called the boys in. Clime looked clean and neat and must have found the nearby stream for his hair was still wet. Peran and Bazil must have bathed also, for their faces were fresh and the fringes of their hair damp. Ferris needed to shave and Ditsy could have used a shower. There wouldn't be much hot wa
ter yet as the solar panels hadn't been recharged, but she wanted them all cleaned up before they went up to the main buildings.
Before they took off for Barevi, they would have to get some suitable clothing for Floss and the boys, who were wearing only the minimum required for Masai modesty. Breechclouts would not be acceptable on Barevi. If they wished to be seriously considered as negotiators, they had to look more presentable. This whole ransom business meant that Zainal would have to suspend his plan to seek out the Farmers' home world, or at least whatever depot they used to store the grain and the meat they farmed on Botany. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed that he would be denied that opportunity. However, it was only spring here and the Farmers' cargo containers did not come until after the fall harvest. He had some time to spare. And his plans for Botany, and the repatriation of Terran slaves, were certainly as important to him, she knew, as his somewhat grandiose and quite possibly dangerous scheme to track the Farmers' vehicle to its destination. She did wonder, as Zainal did, why the Farmers, with their advanced robotechnology, needed so much produce. She sighed. Every time she thought she understood a lot, she came smack up against something else unknown, tantalizing, unfamiliar, and, she sighed again, more than likely very dangerous.
Surely the Farmers would have had to have the means to supply themselves on any one of a number of Botanytype planets. Since the Eosi and Catteni had already explored neighboring space, surely they would have come across some vestige of the Farmers' culture. She wondered if indeed the Eosi had and merely kept the knowledge secret. Having secrets made people feel superior and secure. Or perhaps Human frailties were not part of Eosian characteristics. They certainly had extended their life spans by subsuming young hosts. For years, Humans had been investigating the possibility of cloning to sustain characteristics and supply body parts that would not be rejected in
transplant. She shuddered. She could not, in conscience, go along with that. There was a reason for a life to have a span, predestined or not. How she would feel if she needed new organs to remain alive, she didn't know as she herself enjoyed vigorous health.
She caught the almost proprietary look on Clune's face as Floss swanned up to him, offering him more bread. Yes, she would have to speak to Dane about this young couple. She had no doubts at all, from the expression on Floss's face, that she cared very much for the young AfricanAmerican man. It had been at Floss's instigation that her Diplomatic group had practiced birth control when they'd been running loose and free after the invasion. The same contingencies were not now in force but discretion was required until after the ransom negotiations were concluded. That is, if the youngsters proved as valuable as she thought they probably were, considering the success of the covert operations that had kept them free when most of the populace had been rounded up and carted off on Cattem slave ships. That might have been just luck but this mission needed that in quantity.
veryone at Retreat pretended to be pleased to see Floss, approving the change in the girl from the intransigent, loudmouthed brat of her first introduction to Botany. She was not overly enthusiastic about the garments produced for her to wear at the stores house. Most of the women had been making their own blouses and dresses out of the fabric and accessories that Kris had brought back from Barevi. Kris had to admit that utilitarian was not the style a girl Floss's age would appreciate, but she was offered fabric to make her own clothing, patterns, and even the use of the one sewing machine that Retreat owned.
"I learned how to sew skins together," Floss said with some contempt, "not how to cut and fit them. I wouldn't want to waste good material."
That won her some points with the stores keeper, who was a good seamstress, and Kris saw the two in conversation and hoped something would materialize. A girl in her teens as attractive as Floss would certainly want something pretty and well fitting to wear. Someone did produce a silk scarf for her and she spent time in front of a mirror deciding how to tie and drape ither longing for pretty and becoming things quite obvious to others in the room.
Beth Isbell offered to trim her hair, which Floss instantly accepted. "You don't happen to have a conditioner, do you? I had to use a very strong soap at Masai camp and it's just ruined my hair."
"We do have an herbal rinse that will help," Beth said. "A local herb but much like rosemaryit brings out the sheen."
"Oh, that would be marvelous. I almost hate touching my hair, it's so brittle and dry."
"It works with mine," Beth said, fluffing out her blond hair, sunstreaked but shiny with health. "C'mon. The shower water should be hot. I'll shampoo and trim it, and it will be much improved."
"Oh, thank you very much," Floss said, showing a genuine warmth and enthusiasm.
"Why did you bring that renegade back?" Sally Stoffers asked in a discreetly low voice when they had left.
"She speaks Catteni and so do that gang of hers." "She's a troublemaker, born and bred!"
Kris turned, almost defensively, to Sally, who also was a Cattenispeaker. "Zainal's option. Remember, those kids survived in the postinvasion turmoil, so they were either very lucky or very clever. Clune, the oldest boy, has negotiated and bartered with Catteni before and we will desperately need that type of experience. How are you at driving bargains?"
"She seems more biddable but she's a flirt, that one," Sally repeated, her tone and expression spiteful.
"Clune will watch out for her," Kris replied firmly and began folding the new clothing that would constitute Floss's improved underwear. She didn't think they would find any purloined clothing in the Barevi stores but perhaps there would be some. The Catteni had been magpies as to what they loaded on board their cargo ships. When she was nineteen, she had wanted to look well dressed at college so she appreciated Floss's lack of interest in longwearing, sturdy work garments. The scarf would be treasured. She had noticed how Floss had run it through her workhardened hands, savoring the feel of the silk. A sapphire blue would look very well on Floss, and Kris tried to recall the bolts she had seen, of silk and satin, the last time she was on Barevi. But then, she hadn't had Floss in mind when she'd bought fabric. Well, they'd have a look with Floss in mind while they were there this time. Who knows who would trade fabric for gold? She wished she knew what was most in demand at Barevi. Maybe Chuck could remember something. Gold teeth were simply not enough of an "inducement." What they needed was a real crowdgatherer: something that even the most conservative of the Catteni would not ignore. Would kill to have!
Leaving Floss in Beth's hands and saying that she could be found in the mess hall, Kris went for a cup of coffee. The work roster, prominently located as one entered the mess hall, listed her as assigned to Zainal's mission with no concurrent duties. Their latest recruits had been listed at the bottom as being part of the Barevi team. She was glad that she didn't have to sign Floss up for mess hall dutiesat least not immediately. Maybe by the time they returned from Barevi, Floss would be more willing to take her turn at the less glamorous duties. Even KP would be more appealing than marital duties to an old man.
As she entered the big room, she glanced around and saw Eric, hunched over printouts. She waved at him, indicating a wish to join him and he nodded vigorously. She got her one cup of the rationed coffee, some fresh rolls, inhaling the aroma of the drink and fresh
bread. She also wondered how much longer this treat would be available and if they could possibly search out additional supplies, possibly as trade goods since the Catteni had come to appreciate the caffeine hit. How many coffee beans and/or cups of the brew would buy a carton of stolen goods? She wondered, not for the first time, if the merchants had set any value on the cartons of spare parts they were now trying to sell. She had seen such a diversity of goods on display on her last trip. Surely not all of themtoasters and electric frying panswere viable on Barevi. Much less automotive parts and spark plugs. Well, you never knew what would capture another species' interest. Certainly not the Catteni, who now evidently prized coffee, chocolate, and gold caps. Did any of them realize how easily they had picked up Terran vices like coffee? She smiled at the notion of the conquerors corrupted.
She made her way to Eric's table and was cordially greeted, noticing that some of his paperwork included maps: maps that showed the destruction of vast areas of New York City.
"I think I might be lucky. The building remains standing," he began, tapping the map. "And there is relatively little damage below Fourteenth Street, where the dental supply house is. What'll we be able to use for barter back on Earth?"
"I think we'll be able to take some wheat with us. Possibly even the rock squats, as fresh food would be appreciated," Kris replied. "There are hunting parties out today to see what they can gather and, from the smell of the kitchen, some are being broiled even as we speak. And I smell fresh bread cooking."
"Now, all we need to figure out is how to hump heavy equipment down eighteen flights of stairs," Eric said with a despondent sigh. "Oh" he smiled at him"you didn't know that the Catteni have 'lift' platforms that handle that sort of thing quite comfortably?" "No, I didn't, but see me grinning," Eric replied, and he was, his eyes sparkling with relief and humor. "Glad I asked. Those units are
very heavy and even with a lot of manpower, getting them down to where they can be loaded was worrying me."
She patted his hand. "Well, fret no more. That was actually the least of our problems."
"What's the most?"
Kris was thoughtful. "Being sure we have the right stuff to trade with the Barevi."
"Count on me, Kris! And, if we can find him, I know another dentist who does splendid work. Also in my building. He has the sort of personality that would deal well with the Catteni. Even as allies, they would be tricky, I suppose." He gave her a shrewd glance.
"Some more than others," she replied, grinning.
"Answer me a question, if it's not out of line," Eric went on, cocking his head to one side. "Why is Zainal seemingly working against his own people?"
"It might look that way, but it was the Eosi that he wanted to overthrow"
"And did, I understand, with no small effort on his part." His manner was that of someone hoping to be told more than he had actually asked for.
"When he was dropped here as an unwilling colonistwith the rest of us"her gesture included everyone in the dining room"he wanted to free his people from Eosi domination."
"He did that," Eric agreed, wanting her to continue to explain a situation she really didn't have an explanation for.
"There were other likeminded Catteni Emassi, remember. He couldn't have pulled it off without their help."
"This Kamiton being one of them?"
"Yes."
"So?" Eric prompted, lifting both arms in a gesture of perplexity. "I think the situation was not as simple on Catten itself and obviously not on Barevi. The Catteni are set in their ways, and Kamiton
may have overestimated support from other Emassi. Zainal achieved freedom for Botany and the other enforced colony worlds. It wasn't just Botany that the Catteni dumped people on, you know"
"No, I didn't know," and Eric slightly stressed the last word. "There are three other planets that the Eosi were colonizing the same way.
"Those planets that worked out were then taken over by the Eosi?" Kris nodded. "We were exceedingly fortunate, you know"
"To have someone like Chuck Mitford, you," and he pointed a finger at her, daring her to deny his role, "and Zainal."
"We were lucky," she amended, "to have the right mix of people to work with."
"I like your positive attitude, Kris Bjornsen."
"I dropped, I stay," she replied, with a broad grin, pleased that he was willing to accept Zainal and work with him.
"Is that Botany's motto? I hear it often enough," Eric said. "It's been a rallying slogan as well as a promise, Eric."
Eric glanced around, from the duty roster to the glass doors opening outside. "I like the promise! If I could just practice my profession here, I'd stay."
"Don't you have family back on Earth?"
"Nephews; my wife, Molly, was in Florida when the Catteni invaded so I've no idea what happened to her. Her name hasn't appeared on any of the Florida lists of survivors."
Kris touched his hand sympathetically. "Not all the survivors are listed yet, Eric. We'll be picking up the updated lists when we touch down on Earth. One of the goals of this ransom trip is to widen the communication channels so we can find where survivors areand get back those who were taken."
Eric's eyebrows rose high. "That's a large job to undertake."
"The Holocaust survivors managed to trace their relatives. And we have just as many dedicated folk!"
"Why don't you just relax and raise your kids?"
"I can't." She gave a selfdeprecating grin. "Zainal feels responsible, in a bizarre way, and so do I:"
"Responsible for entire worlds? Oh, c'mon now, girl. Be reasonable."
"I don't think 'reason' has much place in my feelings, Eric. People who are unreasonable sometimes achieve more than those who are totally rational!"
"Admittedly. Ah, here comes Zainal now."
Kris saw him entering, with his sons and Clime, Ferris, and Ditsy, obviously showing them around. The boys all wore new clothing, suitable to the cooler weather at Retreat, and had packs slung carelessly on their backs or over one shoulder.
She tried to keep Eric at the table but he rose, gave her a little bow from the waist, and, smiling at the approaching group, made his way out of the hall. Zainal waved for her to stay where she was as he took the boys to the serving tables and introduced them to the people on duty. With laden trays, they all converged on her. Zainal thoughtfully brought her an extra cup of coffee.
"The boys don't drink it yet," he said when he saw her expression of doubt. "You might as well enjoy a cup of their ration."
"We must get more coffee, even if instant is all we can scrounge," she said, turning the cup around to get the handle to the left for her to lift. "I see everyone is spruced up." She nodded to the boys as they took seats.
"Boy, this grub looks good," Ferris said, picking up his fork and digging it into a mound of mashed tubers. "Oh, it's not potatoes," he added, both surprised and outraged by the unexpected flavor.
"It's indigenous but not a bad substitute," Kris replied, grinning as he swallowed the big mouthful.
"Hey, it is pretty close! Will we be able to grow potatoes here?"
"I believe so, but we'd have to import seed potatoes, if we can find them. I believe it's high on the list of 'wish' items."
"You got rock squats up north here, too?" Clime asked, slathering a portion on his fork with his knife in the English manner. "Principal source of protein," she said. "They were the main course in the first hot meal we had on Botany."
"Who named it Botany?" Ditsy asked, disgusted.
"We all did. After another colony of transported folk on Earth," she said.
"You mean, Australia?" Ferris asked, wrinkling his nose. "Not very inventive."
"What would you have named it?"
"I dunno," Ferris admitted, and then attended to the task of eating. "I'm not good at naming things."
"We put it up for a vote and everyone had a chance to put forward their names," Kris said, remembering the occasion very well. "Botany won, hands down. A good choice, I think, since it reminds us of a similar experiment that was successful."
"Yes, but that was excons."
"What do you think we were considered?" "Well, you weren't criminals."
"Most of the English and Irish who were transported to Australia weren't really criminals. There was great poverty at that point in history, and a person could be transported for stealing food to feed his family."
Kris wondered just how many of the present colonists had not finished secondary school or knew even highlights of world history. Maybe evening lectures could be instigated, just to disseminate vital information. Daytimes, there was so much work to be done only the créche kids were being given lessons. She jotted down a little note to herself. Something else to be remembered and inaugurated!
She gave a little sigh. There was never enough time for everything, was there? When Zainal gave her a curious stare, she smiled back at him and took a sip of her extra cup of coffee. She wondered if she could make a habit of it ... bring the boys with her for breakfast. But that was not the Botanic way: one didn't take advantage of a flaw in a system. If she did, she lost her right to criticize others. Conscience was burdened enough as it was. If Council members didn't toe the line, why should others have to? Transgressions could mount to a woeful state, just as they had elsewhere. One had to show responsibility. Just as Zainal was. Though really, he could carry the burden a little too far! However, she could see that someone had to do it, as far as reclaiming needful things was concerned.
Jerry Short paused in the main entrance to the hall, scanned the diners until his eyes rested on her. He waved at her and, excusing herself, she went to see why he had singled her out.
"Just had a message from Chuck. He's on his way back and he's very pleased with himself," Jerry said, grinning because he had good news to tell.
"Chuck? Oh, that's great!" He'd gone to find out if his elderly cousins, Rose and Cherry Mitford, were still alive. He'd also dropped other Botanists where they could hunt out kith and kin as well as start work repairing damaged infrastructures.
"Knew you'd want to know soon as possible," Jerry went on. "And oh, he said to mention that he'd stopped on Barevi on his way home to pick up a few things."
"Oh, goodness. What's his ETA?" "Next hour."
"Do tell Dorothy Dwardie, Jerry. She'll want to know, too."
"I thought of her first, actually, and told her on my way here," Jerry said, grinning broadly.
thought to bring back from Barevi," she muttered to herself as she made her way back to the table where the boys had finished eating. "That will save us a lot of time," Zainal said, very pleased with her news. "Especially as he'll be able to give us a report on conditions on both planets. Wonder what he stopped off at Barevi for that would have been important enough for him to detour so far off the direct line to Botany. And how and with what did he pay for it?"
"We should know soon enough. Shall we go meet him?"
"Yes, and show him our newest translators. Union, lads." He signaled for the five boys to follow him.
Chuck emerged from the spaceship accompanied by two women, and beside Kris, Dorothy inhaled sharply.
"Don't worry, Dorothy," Kris said quickly. "Look at their faces. They're Mitfords or I'll eat a night crawler!"
The family resemblance extended not only to the facial features but to the physical proportions of the two women: the same sturdy bodies and lanky stride, and a way of looking directly at people with an assessing look in the eye. The two women were equally weatherbeaten, their eyes squinting from years of filtering out sun and wind.
"His cousins, I presume," Kris said, for Chuck was urging the pair to where Kris and Dorothy were standing.
"Dorothy, these are my cousins, Rose and Cherry, and I'd be much obliged if you'd welcome them. They've had a rough time lately, and I won't let them out of my sight until I know they've re covered completely." He gestured to the ground cart. "Dorothy, would you mind taking them to Dane for a physical? It was a bitter winter back in Texas."
take seats in the cart. "I'd be happy to. And we'll have a lot to talk about, I'm sure."
"Dorothy Dwardie will see you're comfortable, Rose, Cherry" and he kissed each on the cheek. "But me and Zainal here have to have a conference. This is the guy I was telling you about. Who freed Earth and his own planet."
Rose extended her hand. "Charlie here bent our ears out of shape telling us all you did to save both the worlds." Cherry was a little more reserved but she shook Zainal's hand in as hearty a fashion as Rose had and murmured something about unforgettable heroism.
"We know you're busy, Chuck, and we're mighty glad to be here, Dorothy. We've heard so much about you, Kris. Will we see you later?" "You will indeed, Rose, Cherry, and welcome to Botany."
"And who are these young men?" Rose asked, opening her hand in the direction of Peran and Bazil.
"They are my sons, Rose Mitford."
"I am pleased to meet you, too," she said, extending her hand. Peran took it, giving her a rather stiff bow, which caused her to blink at the unexpected courtesy. Doubtless, Kris decided, the women hadn't ever encountered Catteni with good manners. Still, it proved that the Masai had trained the boys to respect age and females. "May I introduce Clune, Ferris, and Ditsy, Misses Mitford?" Kris said to complete the introductions.
"Rose is a pharmacist," Chuck said, helping the older of the two up the first step. "And Cherry's a physiotherapist."
"You could have brought them if all they could do was knit," Kris said, dismissing Chuck's comment and smiling warmly at them.
"If you're of a mind to put your skills to use," Dorothy said, climbing into the driver's seat, "you'll be thrice welcome once Leon has cleared you. He's our chief medical officer." And she nodded goodbye to the reception committee.
As soon as the cart was off the field, Chuck turned purposefully to Zainal.
"I lucked out. Traded four tins of Nescafe instant coffee for some of those satellite parts we were trying to find on Earth. What we need is on Barevi, you know"
"We suspected that."
Chuck pulled a hand recorder out of his jacket. "Got a Jet Propulsion Lab director to give me a list of what we need. He said that there were some built most recently with switchable units. That would make it so easy to maintain those already in orbit. The ones the Cattem used for target practice. I did a quick survey of the loot on Barevi and they've got the replacements we need."
"We're organizing a ransom party" Zainal said.
"A ransom?" Chuck stared at him. "Yeah," and his shoulders slumped, "and I hope you got stuff they want."
"For their teeth?" Chuck's surprise was obvious. "How'd you hear about that?"
"Doesn't matter how but we did." Zainal gave an indolent shrug. "Though vanity has never been a Catteni problem. Still, no one ever thought lost teeth could be replaced. We also have a dentist."
Chuck's laugh was hearty as he gave Zainal's massive shoulder an appreciative buffet.
"I was wondering how I was going to break the news to you," he said, "about ransoming our own equipment back from those Barevi looters. And we gotta make tracks there, fast. Too much is being ground into the mud in the marketplace by those bozos working off steam." He shook his head. "When I think of all the hard work and the material we can't reproduce. . ." He stopped, took a breath, and then went on. "You wouldn't believe what they've achieved on Earth."
"Reconstructing?" Kris asked.
"More than just infrastructures. You'll be proud. Look, Zainal, can we call a meeting of the colonists?"
"One is set for this evening. We have to get permission to use the colony's assets as ransom, you know"
"Good. I'll grab a shower and change. Oh, and I got some crew with me." He looked over his shoulder at the open ramp of the KDL. "Inservice training but boy, do they know their stuff. Of course, they should. Many of 'em are exNASA." Chuck's grin was broader. "Brought more than I needed for the KDs but we do have other ships." He gestured to the ones parked on the field. "They learn real quick and I had space available." He turned and called, "Ollyolly in free. Welcome to Botany, guys and gals."
Out filed a line of men and women looking very smart in flight gear. They made a double row in front of Chuck, who was still grinning from ear to ear.
"Sir, Excellent Emassi Zainal, Botany airforce recruits reporting for duty" said the man who took two steps forward toward Zainal and saluted smartly. "Sam Maddocks, with eight volunteers, all with flight and space hours. Not many of the latter but we stood shifts with Sergeant Mitford on the way here!"
"Delighted to have you on board, Colonel Maddocks " The colonel stiffened his spine still further as Zainal used his appropriate rank, having noticed the silver maple leaf on his collar.
How Zainal had learned to differentiate rank insignia and the service forms Kris didn't know, but it stood him in good stead now. "What a beautiful planet you got dumped on, sir."
"Luck, Colonel, sheer luck! This is Kris Bjornsen, my mate, and these are my sons, Peran and Bazil. Clune, Ferris, and Ditsy, who will be accompanying us to Barevi on a shopping mission. We may need your services to accomplish the mission."
"Anything we can do, we will, sir."
"I am known as Zainal, Colonel, not sir. Now, if you will introduce me to the rest of your group, we'll take you back to the main settlement and find you quarters."
"We don't mind staying on board, Zainal, if there is any shortage of space. The sergeant said that things are pretty basic here."
"There are people you should meet, Colonel, and we will have a lot to discuss and plans to make."
"Yes, Zainal." With a perfect aboutface, he marched to the first person in the line behind him, a woman.
"Captain Jacqueline Kiznet, sir, with twentyfive hours of flight time on F122s. She was to be mission pilot on the Mars 10 Supply Rocket. Captain Kiznet has had training in the KDL series and stood five watches as duty officer on our inbound flight."
"Captain Kiznet, my pleasure," Zainal said, shaking her hand and returning her salute. She was medium tall, darkhaired, with a pleasant face and a twinkling eye.
"Captain Katherine Harvey also made herself familiar with the KDL and the KDM specs, did simulations on both in flight and was duty engineer." The captain was a tall redhead, with freckles on her nose and cheeks and a decidedly reserved manner about her.
"Lieutenant Gail Sullivan is a communications expert and has fluent Catteni." Sullivan had short blond hair, a stunned expression on her face, and was small beside the tall captain.
Zainal clasped the lieutenant's hand with vigor. "Welcome to Botany, Emassi, and are you familiar with docking and parking protocols?" he asked in Catteni.
"I listened to all the tapes on board the KDL, Zainal, and feel confident that I can park or dock the vessel at any space facility," Gail responded in Catteni, her alto voice managing to growl in a respectable accent.
"In fact," Maddocks interposed, "she has already done so at Barevi " "Very good, very good indeed."
Perhaps it was only Kris who noticed the tension easing in Zainal's face and shoulders as he moved on to the next man, one who had the squint of someone accustomed to peering at small print or monitor screens. "Lieutenant Ed Douglas here can even read Catteni."
"You are able to read Catteni?" Zainal asked in the language. "Slowly, sir, but I am also working on a CatteniEnglish glossary of technical terms, which I feel will be extremely useful."
"It will, it will. Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Douglas," Zainal said, pumping his hand with considerable vigor. Kris had to fight to keep her face straight.
"I'm apt to be slow with the really technical stuff, but ordinary messages are a snap." He emphasized this by snapping his fingers. "Lieutenant Mullinax, astrogator, and Lieutenant Mpatane Cummings, also communications, sir, and both are fluent in Catteni. Last but not least, Major Alexander McColl, the most senior pilot." "Where on earth did you find them, Chuck?" Zainal asked, though his delight was now apparent.
"There, on Earth, of course, sitting on their duffs, trying to decide if they could find some sort of a job. Airplane fuel is a low priority, you see, consequently most pilots are jobless. Gasoline/petrol is strictly rationed and goes mainly to ambulance or emergency vehicles. What airplane fuel is left in airport tanks goes to searchandrescue copters, but I hate to see good resources like these sitting idle. You know me." Chuck gave one of his cryptic shrugs, implying any waste was intolerable. "And they wouldn't sit still long enough to be painted. Besides, I knew we had the birds but not the fliers. 'Course, they'll have to be checked out but they're right willing."
"Your timing is excellent, as usual, Sergeant."
"I also brought you two top flight mechanics, Dutch Liendgens and Dirk Fuhrman. They might not know much Catteni," he added, gesturing for the two men to come forward, "but they sure know their communications stuff and my 'friend' at JPL says they'd know inventory, too, for all the big manufacturers like Teledyne and Motorolaand they also have some clues as to the very hightech stuff JPL and NASA were experimenting with for the Mars Base. Mainly, they can help us service the KDs."
"Is the Mars Base still operational?"
"And manned." When someone behind him cleared her throat, Chuck added, "And womaned. Their gardens have been well weartested. Oxygen and food."
"That'll be good news to spread," Zainal said.
"The invaders were so smart they forgot to cut the Atlantic phone lines. And, as I'm told, most comm techs managed to hide the more important elements when they realized they were under attack from space. Those units are coming back into use as more power plants come online. Hell, in some places, like Kansas, they're using windmills to generate power. Hawaii and California are damned glad they have the wind farms.
"I got a lot more to tell you but maybe we better get the new crews organized, Zainal."
Zainal slapped Chuck across the back, displaying his delight in this surprise. "Welcome to Botany, ALL of you!" he added, throwing both arms open in the most expansive gesture, his mouth wide in a smile. "This way to Retreat."
"Retreat?"
"Don't worry," Chuck said, "it's not a fallback place. It's a cometo."
"Lead on ... and our chariot awaits!" Zainal added as Jerry Short arrived, driving the commodious pickup sled.
"Hey, neat, Zainal," Sam Maddocks said. "Ground transport. Pile in."
"Pile" was nearly the right word, since all the newly accepted members of the Botany Space Force vaulted or jumped neatly onto the wide truck bed. Kris was hauled up by two of the lieutenants and decided that
this bunch were all fit. She wondered if any of them had been trained in handtohand combat. That would be handy, she thought, especially for the women. Maybe they could teach her some good selfdefense moves. She was beginning to feel better about this ransom mission. The Council would have to agree especially now they had reinforcements. She spotted Zainal talking amiably to the astrogator and the tall, willowy Mpatane comm lieutenant. Then he burst out laughing at something the woman said, which had everyone who overheard reacting with glee.
By the time Jerry reached the main building, someone had warned them because there was a crowd waiting, everyone wanting answers to their shouted questions.
Zainal stood and held up his hands "More reason to be sure you attend tonight's meeting, my friends. Right now, we have some tactics to plan. Okay?"
With some reluctance, the crowd was dispersing when Captain Kiznet cupped her hands to shout, "I have new lists of survivors and I will tack them up where you can see." Immediately people pointed to the duty roster board beside which there was a bulletin board for such notices. "Nineteen major cities in Europe and Asia, and some hometown news from fortyseven towns in the US of A," she added and was awarded another rousing cheer.
Kris slipped from the back of the load bed to guide the captain into the mess hall and help her put up the sheets with the tacks available. Then she maneuvered the captain out of the crowd that homed in on the new information. Would it ever be reduced to just one or two anxious seekers? Kris wondered. Zamal had given her a sign to bring the captain to the conference room, just off the main dining hall. Grabbing the captain's arm, Kris pushed her way through those thronging to check names into the relative quiet of the private room. She grinned when she saw Dorothy and Chuck hugging each other. There would be plenty of time to introduce him to their daughter, Amy. Right now, he looked as if he'd never let Dorothy go.
Zamal braced himself across the door of the conference room to be sure only the people he especially needed crowded in to see the new arrivals. He sent Peran, Bazil, and Ditsy to get coffee rations and whatever sandwiches might be available at this hour in the kitchen. When Kris was able to take his place after Zainal gave her a hurried list of those he wanted inside, he cleaned off the big blackboard and started slowly printing out headings for discussion. That done, he printed the list of his Catteni translation team. She was pleased to note she headed the list, which included Floss, Clime, Peran, Bazil, the Doyle brothers, Ferris and Ditsy, Chuck, Sally Stoffers, Gino and Mack Dargle, as well as Pete Snyder. He also chalked down the names of the nine new arrivals and she was delighted he had also grasped the spelling of the crew names.
"All right, folks, may I have some quiet?"
But just then, Chuck, holding Dorothy's hand, slipped into the room with the boys and laden trays right behind them.
"Get yourself your cup of coffee and some food first," Zainal invited, and Kris slipped over to the boys and snitched coffee and a sandwich, which she took to him. He lounged against the nearest table and ate almost ravenously. Then Beth Isbell approached to hand him a clipboard, which he perused while chewing his sandwich. She waited quietly at his side and then Peran brought her a cup of coffee from the tray. She was going to refuse but took it with quiet thanks. Beth was usually punctilious about having only her share though she had once confided to Kris that she was a caffeine addict and the worst problem with being "dropped" was the deprivation of coffee.
Zainal scrawled initials on the first page on the clipboard and extracted what must have been a copy, which he folded and slid into his shirt pocket, before handing it back to Beth. She started to leave but paused to chat with a group.
"Mike just brought in the planet's treasures, and they have them in safekeeping at the hospital," Zainal murmured to Kris, touching the
paper he'd put in his pocket. "We're rich," he added with a mischievous wink. "Enjoy it while we can."
"Rich enough?" she asked in a whispered response. He shrugged. "If we bargain closely enough."
"I'll shave the hair of anyone who cheats us."
"Glad I'm on your side, Kris love." The loving light in his yellow eyes stirred her deeply. She hoped the others would stay in the ship again that night.
Now he stopped lounging and held up his hands. Silence quickly fell on those in the room, abetted by a "shushing" noise.
"I have some better than good news, folks. We do have ransomable items, we do have the services and cooperation of Eric Sachs, DDS, to give all the Catteni gold crowns that wish them, and we do have extra flight personnel to man the other cargo vessels. What is your saying, 'we're loaded for bear'?" That got an appreciative chuckle. "We're mounting this expedition as fast as we can. Chuck Mitford, as ever resourceful, took a side trip to Barevi on his way back and checked warehouses there to see if they really do have the components we need. He seems to feel that they do. I must abide by the Council's decision in this but we'll know tonight whether or not we have the colony's permission to make off with its valuables to buy back what parts we most need to upgrade and repair our communications systems so we can remain in contact with other worlds. Meanwhile, I need the three KDMs spaceworthy, so will those crew members please start the preflight checks NOW" He waited while various people made their way purposefully out of the conference room. "I'll need food. And any and all rock squats we can acquire between now and tomorrow morning at ohnine hundred, when I hope we'll have the required permission to take off. As you can see, we have new faces, recent recruits to the Botany Space Force. Be sure to welcome themlater.
"Dick Aarens, I'll need you to converse with Lieutenants Mullinax,Cummings, and Douglas and those of you here who have had experience with our satellites and communication units. I may be anticipating the Council's decision"
"I doubt that," someone remarked, and another cheer resounded. Kris saw Zainal take a deep breath and smile in relief.
"I do thank you for your generous support," he said with a slight and dignified bow around the room. "I got us all into this spot, and I intend to get us out of it!"
"How the hell do you figure that, Zainal?" Leon Dane demanded as he entered the conference room on the end of that remark. "Yeah, wasn't your fault the Eosi and Catteni invaded Earth," Peter Snyder said almost angrily.
"I should have known that the Barevian traders would throw a spanner in the works."
"You're not a mindreader," Peter snapped back. "And you got most of what you wanted, didn't you? Botany and Terra free? And the other enforced colonies? And the end of the Eosi domination of your own people. Why should you continue to carry the burden?"
"I consider myself responsible!" Zainal said firmly.
"You got no reason to, Zainal," Leon Dane said, his voice carrying over other disclaimers.
"But I do!" Zainal replied. "And I can repair that oversight. I intend to."
"You've done more than anyone thought you would or could," Kris said defensively.
"Not as much as I think I should have or could have." He made a slicing movement of his hands to make that the end of the argument. Kris made no further protest, knowing it would be futile, but there were others who were quite willing to deny him guilt. She knew him better, for she knew now that he was set in his path and nothing would distract or delay him from achieving what he consid
ered his duty and responsibility. Catteni were relentless, if nothing else. She admired that in him, but she'd be glad when he felt he could relax. His sons looked adoringly at him but she knew he wasn't posing for their approval.
"Lieutenant Douglas, did you bring that glossary of technical terms with you? And could we make copies of it?"
"You have a copier?" the darkhaired officer asked in surprise. "Any number of them who write a fair Catteni hand," Zainal said. "In handwriting?" Douglas was dismayed.
"What's wrong with oldfashioned methods?" Zainal imitated someone writing with a pen.
"Nothing except that mistakes in copying are more than probable and some of those terms have to be precise."
"We have very good typists, Lieutenant," Kris said. "Not a problem. Beth?" She beckoned to the woman, glad she hadn't left yet. "How many typewriters do we have? And paper?"
"Depends on how much has to be transcribed and by what time." "Takeoff tomorrow?" Kris asked, almost wistfully.
"If we can divert some power to the machines, I'll have typists work all night in shifts. Where's the copy?"
"I'll have to get my notes from the ship," Douglas said, a trifle rattled though he gave a shake as an animal might to settle ruffled fur. Kris thought wistfully of the family cat, which by now was either feral or eaten. "You move with awesome speed, Emassi Kris."
"We've had to, Lieutenant."
"Do you have computers here?" He was expecting a negative. "The best I could find at Barevi the last time I was there," she said, wishing her tone hadn't been so defensive. He didn't look annoyed and grinned at her.
"Plenty of RAM and speed, Lieutenant. Kris got only the best and we do have printers," Beth went on proudly, "but not that much ink. Lordy, we've only just been able to find a source of pulp so our production of paper is still inadequate to the need. You'd think this planet ran on paper."
"I'd say you were speedy enough for an enforced colony, Miz Isbell."
"You ain't seen nothin' yet, Lieutenant. May I borrow a land cart to take the lieutenant back to his ship, Kris?"
"Of course."
"We may actually have enough paper in the stores on board. Ships publish a lot of paper, too, you know," Ed Douglas was saying as Beth Isbell gestured for him to leave the room with her. "What sort of printers did Kris liberate?"
"HewlettPackards, of course," Beth replied as they made their way out.
"Good for her!" was Douglas's approving reply, and then they were gone.
"I studied typing in high school," Clime murmured to her. "And I have a good speed and know Catteni so I wouldn't make mistakes." "Thanks, Clime, but you may be needed for other priorities. Don't know what Zainal has in store for you and the other boys."
"Any damned thing he wants, Kris. Some guy!" Clime was clearly in awe. "Ditsy even says so and Ditsy don't waste words, you know" "Did you boys have it rough with the Masai?"
"Not rough, Kris, but different. Masai have a much different culture than we do. Sure am glad you got Floss out of there when you did. You shoulda seen the old man they were going to tie her up to."
"I heard." Then she gave Clime a stern look. "You get Dane to give you some condoms, you hear me?"
"I hear you good, Emassi Kris." His face tightened suddenly. "But you don't mind it's me, do you?"
"Why should I? You have longterm loyalties I wouldn't think of challenging. And I appoint you Floss's undercover bodyguard."
"I've been that for six years, even before the Catteni landed. My father was a chief of his tribe." He tossed his head in a defensive if proud fashion. "Of all his sons, I was sent to the States to be educated."
"I should've guessed something like that," Kris said at her most approving. "You've an air about you, you know. You'll need that to deal with Barevian merchants. Floss said you've already done a lot of negotiating with Catteni?"
"Had to, Kris, though some thought we were trucking with the invaders, but we weren't. We were staying alive and out of the roundups." His expression changed to one of intense concern. "Where did all those thousands of people get dropped, Kris?"
"We'll find out, Clime, we'll find out. Another thing to investigate on Barevi."
"They'll be sorry they ever invaded our system."
"The Eosi already are," Kris responded with an ironic laugh. "Barevi will be sorrier soon."
"I hope."
"Me too. Indeed I do," she said in a brightly positive tone, squelching once again that tiny fear of failure she refused to entertain. When she recalled all they had managed to do, she didn't think she was be ing too optimistic. Well, maybe a little. This expedition was going to be difficult even if all the breaks were on their side. What she really looked forward to was less adventure, dull as that might be after all that had happened to her in the last six years. But there was more, as Zainal had said so emphatically, that somehow had become her responsibility as well as his and Botany's. Well, that was Life, wasn't it? She hadn't even graduated from college yet and she had a lifetime career already!
The newcomers were mingling with the residents now, with questions of their own to be answered. Chuck's cousins were also in the room, looking bewildered. She was about to approach them when she saw Dorothy and Chuck gather them up. She also saw that Zainal's two boys seemed to be talking comfortably to a group of people, so she didn't have to worry about them. Even Ditsy was involved in a conversation, so she didn't see where exactly she might be needed. Then Chuck, Dorothy, and his cousins made a beeline for her.
"Do you have a minute, Kris?" Chuck asked, his face flushed. "I'd like to be introduced to my daughter."
"Oh, Lord, in all the fuss I forgot you haven't seen her. Let's go right away, before someone catches me for something absolutely essential right now"
Flustered, Kris started for the door, wondering how to explain her maternity when she had been introduced to the cousins as Zainal's mate.
She felt someone touch her elbow and realized that Chuck was striding right beside her. "Don't worry. Dorothy explained about the colony's decision to widen the gene pool."
Yes, thought Kris wildly to herself, but she didn't have to get drunk while stuck on that ship on Catten and all but seduce Chuck when he had been almost legless from drinking the local hooch with the airfield commandant.
Kris wasn't sure that explanation would sit well with two older generation women who obviously adored their cousin.
"Don't fret, Kris. They're just so happy that I have a baby at all." He kept them a little distance ahead of Dorothy, Cherry, and Rose on their way to the créche and continued his lowvoiced explanations. "Leon says they'll improve here on Botany. Texas had a hard winter with more snow than usual and they hadn't any transport to get into the town when the community started. They didn't lack for much, but when they ran out of flour for bread, they put up a bonfire and attracted a rider who took Rose to town and then they were fine. Even had canned stuff to barter for flour." He looked extremely proud of his relatives. Then he swung his chin in Dorothy's direction. "They've always wanted me to marry, and they seem to like Dorothy."
"She's easy to like, Chuck. We don't know whom Amy looks like. Neither you nor me."
"She's pretty young to look like anyone but herself, ain't she?" Kris was laughing then as she led them into the créche. Amy was in a playpen, lying on her back and whirling her arms in response to the babble of sound around her.
"Great Lord above, she's the spit of your mother, our cousin Mary," Rose said, clasping her hands to her mouth in feminine shock. "Why, just look at her hair, and the darling shape of her face. I re member one of the photos in the family album ... and that child is Mary Mitford to the life! Oh, may I cuddle her, Kris?"
"Certainly," Kris replied, delighted. Rose knew how, and Amy settled into her arms as if she'd always known them. Growing up as she had with many people attending her, she had never been shy. Few of the créche kids were. Even Daisy, whom the medics had once thought might be muted by the traumas she had lived through, now babbled away without inhibitions.
Cherry began to sniffle and gulp back tears. "Oh, she's adorable, Chuck. How did you two ever manage to produce such a lovely girl child?" Then she, too, put hand to lips, widening her eyes in consternation at what she had blurted out.
"A happy match of compatible genes, I'd say," Dorothy replied quickly. "We've actually seen a lot of that since we started increasing Botany's indigenous population."
Zane, who seemed to have a special antenna for his mother's presence, came bouncing into the infant section of the créche and pounced on her. So she introduced him to the Mitford cousins.
"This one looks so much like his dad," she said, ruffling Zane's hair, "that I'm relieved we've found how Amy got so pretty." "You're pretty, Mom," Zane said loyally, daring anyone to defy him. "Who does Amy look like?"
"Very much like Chuck's mother, God rest her soul," said Rose,startled at the boy's question. "Oh, we do have a very old picture of Mary. One of the things you must rescue for us, Charles, the next time you're back on Earth."
"In the parlor?" Chuck asked, watching her cuddling his daughter. "Of course. In the breakfront. Lower cabinet, first on the left. Where else?"
"I should have looked there first, without having to be reminded," Chuck said defensively. "Look, I gotta get crackin' on the mission. You two are in safe hands here, in case I don't get to see you before I go off"
"You be careful, Charles," his oldest cousin said, shaking her finger at him.
"Don't worry about Chuck," Kris replied, unable to restrain the urge. "I'll protect him."
"Yeah, you and who else?" Chuck demanded, halfway to the door, shooting her a droll look.
"You don't need more than my mom," Zane responded defiantly. "That's all too true, lad, all too true," Chuck said with a final wave of his hand as he left.
"Would he be going into danger, Kris?" Rose asked timorously. "No more than any of us," Kris replied. "Now, don't you fret, ladies. You are safe here and we're so glad that Chuck found you." After listening to the two cousins cataloging his halfsister's graces, Zane returned to whatever game he had left when he'd heard his mother's voice.
"What a sturdy child he is," Rose said. "Oh, how can you leave such dear children?"
"Only because I have to," Kris said. "But knowing that you might look in on Amy will relieve me a great deal."
"Of course we will. You may be sure of that."
"Then, if you'll excuse me, I have some details to organize," Kris said and, with a little bow, left them. She had to organize some notes
for the evening's meeting, but first she had to find out some details and so she made her way to the library.
"Yo, Betty? What stack are you hiding under?" she called as she came through the front door.
"Betty's not here," said Dr. Hessian. "What can I help you find?" Since the doctor's recovery from being brainscanned by the Eosi, he had taken on extra hours at the library, helping to catalog and shelve the rather bizarre collection of books they had liberated from Barevi.
"I need to know which countries on Terra produced coffee." "Now, that is an odd one. As it happens, I once did a survey of the coffeeproducing countries. Brazil, of course, was the major producer. Coffee beans take a tropical climate, you know"
Snatches of old television advertisements flashed through her mind. "Which type? Arabica or robusta?"
"Coffee beans by any name."
"There are, or should I say were, twentyeight coffeeproducing countries. Asia, Africa, Indonesia, South America, the various islands in the Caribbean"
"Twentyeight?" Kris breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. "Why?" asked the doctor, mildly curious by her relief.
"Because there will be coffee beans somewhere that haven't been seized by the Cattem. They're addicted to coffee, you see."
"Not quite, but I'm glad to know my errant memory could supply you with information. If you'll wait a moment, I'll just look it up in the encyclopedia."
"Not necessary right now, Doctor, but if you could bring the reference with you to the meeting tonight?"
"Yes, yes, of course."
"It's the roasting that does it, you know," he added in a helpful tone of voice. When she gave him a startled look, he expatiated. "Raw coffee beans have to be stripped of the exterior fruit pulp, which makes a good animal feed, the beans dried and roasted before grinding, you know. The coffee bean is a drupe."
She did remember about grinding, and the thought of freshly roasted and ground coffee made her inhale a deep breath, recalling just how good roasting beans smelled. Unforgettable as well as indescribable.
"Yes, yes, that isn't as important as knowing where to get more is." "Get more?"
"Ransom, Doctor, ransom!" she said and left on the echo of that cryptic remark.
She fortified herself by chanting "twentyeight" all the way back to the hangar, which was now as crammed full of busy folk as it had been empty earlier. She let herself into the office she usually shared with Zainal and plunked herself down at the first available station, flipping on the computer. She only needed to type a few lists. Like all twentyeight countries and the major producers of finished coffee products.
What measure should they use in figuring worth? Would coffee beans be as valuable to the Catteni as gold? Hmmm. Imagine a scoop of freshly roasted beans being as valuable as a similar weight of gold? She chuckled to herself and began to type. "There are twentyeight coffeeproducing countries on Earthin South America, Africa, Indonesia, Asia, and various Caribbean countries and they can't all have been ransacked by the Catteni."
The noise of happy laughter made her look up and peer out of the open hangar door just as an air sled, crammed with young people, every one of them festooned with the limp bodies of rock squats, lurched by.
And how much were rock squats worth by the pound? The ounce? The individual critter? Had anyone ever opened a shop with such diverse commodities?
"A carton a carcass?" The slogan slipped into her mind. Well, that would do until another crossed her mind.
veryone turned out for the Council meeting. She had expected that much but she was delighted to see that even Mike Miller's miners and farmers from the northern reaches of the Retreat continent as well as Chief Materu from the south were present. As she hovered by the steps to the raised dais, she saw that Clime and Peran were escorting Chief Materu and introducing him to others. She couldn't see Floss but she did spot Bazil, Ditsy, and Ferris.
Chuck came in with Dorothy on his arm, his two cousins right behind him, looking excessively proud of him. They had more color in their faces this evening so she hoped they hadn't got too much sun, then reminded herself that they were from Texas and would know to be careful of too much sunning. Zainal arrived with Peter, Iri Bempechat, Yuri Palit, and Walter Duxie, the mining engineer. Sev Balenquah followed them, and uncharitably Kris hoped no one would include him on this mission since he had so nearly jeopardized them all the last time. But he was a qualified pilot and had flown the KDLs. Some people just brought bad luck with them and he was one of those. Like Pig Pen, you could almost see the aura of dirt and dust surrounding him.
Zainal escorted judge Iri Bempechat up the steps and held out the middle chair for him. The ever courteous judge waited until Chuck had seated Dorothy and Chuck returned to his place by his cousins.
Immediately the chatter in the mess hall diminished. The new Botany Space Force additions filed in with Peter Easley, who gestured them to seats on the left before he came up to the dais. Kris took her usual end seat, nodding to the judge, who smiled sweetly back at her and took the gavel that he used for such meetings out of his pocket and put it conspicuously in front of him. Conversations went down yet another decibel and there was much scraping of chairs as people settled themselves. The last of the council members, Leon Dane, rushed in late as usual, as did Worrell, Beth Isbell, and Sarah McDouall.
The judge gave his gavel an authoritative smack on the wooden block and silence prevailed.
"Since all council members are clearly present, I shall ask Chuck Mitford to report on his recent trip to Earth. And a special welcome to the Misses Mitford. Glad to have you here."
The sisters twittered, somewhat embarrassed by the official greeting, then both smiled happily up at the judge.
Chuck took center stage.
"I got good news and I got bad news, folks. The bad is that most of the spare parts we need desperately to get other systems up and running on Earth are stuck as loot at Barevi.
"The good news is that there is a powerful swing to 'sharing' on our home world like nothing we've ever seen before. But then, we hadn't seen," and he swiveled to nod apologetically to Zainal, "Catteni either. Remember how the Red Cross and the other emergency units would go to disaster areas and sort things out? Well, of course you know we had disaster all over the world but that same sort of helpful, cooperative spirit got invoked.
"It started out with local communities banding together to help each other and discuss what was needed where. It's gone on to deciding where to spend effort and material to cause the greatest good for the greatest number of folk. I mean, guys and gals, it ain't like who should get more, but we all should get according to the need. The greatest help has been the Internet, mobile phones, and, as usual, ham radio folk. The first thing that was done was to reinstate the power supply, and that meant instant communication and also the ability to send drastically needed supplies where they needed to go. And we're solving as many problems as possible in the districts where it's critical. I've never seen anything like it, even with the worst of the earth
quakes or hurricanes, or forest fire disasters. It's like we all turned over a new leaf. All national boundaries are down. I don't say they'll stay down, because people take pride in what they are and where they come from, but I'd say there's been a real forward step that looks good for world relations.
"Which is why we gotta make sure communications are established in all parts. We got this magnificent opportunity to sink a lot of petty little differences, and I'd say Earth is going to succeed. It's an ill wind that blows no good.
"Sorry to spout off at you like that," Chuck managed a selfindulgent grin, "but we did something like that here on Botany, and what we learned here we can now translate to old Earth and see it putting the right foot forward."
"But you need what the Barevis are sitting on, is that it, Chuck?" asked Mike Miller.
"Yeah, I did a recce, and it looks like the merchants are sitting on things they can't possibly use. As I'm sure everyone here knows," and he threw one arm out in an expansive gesture, "or should know, Zainal is mounting an expedition to Barevi to talk them out of stuff" He unfurled a rolled paper that fell to the floor of the dais. "This is Terra's shopping list." Then he let another, much shorter one, loose. "This is Botany's. Both are needed to make the necessary revival."
"Talk isn't what Barevis buy," someone yelled. "So, who pays them?"
"We'd like to, since we have things the Catteni want," Zainal said. "Earth is going to contribute some of what it still has left in storage things that my fellow planetarians didn't realize was important to them, or us. But to start the ball rolling, as you say, we have some Botanical assets that are readily salable, but as they belong to all of us, I can't ask the Council to just give them to me. I need to have the consent of all of you."
"Just how will these communications help us?" Bob Taglione said.
"Not that I'm against anything you want to do, Zainal, but if we are doing everyone good, what good do communications do us?" "Good question, Bob," Zainal said. "I know many of you have families you'd like to hear from regularly. I don't say the mail service will be fast but it will exist. The invasion forces knocked out most of the large number of satellites that relay signals from one part of the globe to another. We could not only replace that vital net, but we could install one above Botany so that no matter where you were here, you could communicate to any part of Earth."
There were appreciative catcalls, whistles, and stompings for that possibility. "You won't feel so isolated from family and friends anymore."
"I'll buy that!" Joe Marley yelled.
"Any chance of some of our families coming here?"
Zainal took a deep breath and, almost in unison, so did Kris. They'd discussed that imminent problem in Council. No firm decision had been made.
"There is a chance, certainly, Astrid." The asker was one of Zainal's own team. "It will depend on their needs and the availability of transport. But certainly some folks, like Chuck Mitford's cousins, would benefit by some months here on beautiful, scenic, doityourself Botany, though I never thought we'd recommend this place as a holiday spot."
"Didn't think you Catteni ever took holidays," Leon Dane said facetiously.
"Living here is in its own way quite a change from what I'm accustomed to," Zainal said with a wry grin. "We will expect that any visitors are willing to put in hours for the general good of Botany or at their specialty if they have specific training we can use. And I can't think of anything we can't use here. Especially elbow grease?" He looked at Kris to see if he'd used the expression correctly, but his ingenuous remark provoked chuckles from many people.
To contain her pride in his response, she crossed her arms on her chest. Could he have been taking lessons from Peter Easley in public relations, or had he instinctively learned that much about how to mollify folks?
"Rose aims to help you, Bob, in cataloging our indigenous plants while she recovers from a winter in Texas." That got a laugh. "She's a pharmacist, too, and Cherry wants to help Ole recover from nearly ripping his arm off"
There were cheers and isolated instances of applause throughout the hall so that Cherry began to blush again and sink down in her chair.
"We've been making up a list of those specialties we could really use up here to balance our skills and technical pool, so we are open to suggestions, especially if you know where we can find such trained folk." He pointed to the bulletin board. "But to do all this, we need those satellites and bundles of mobile phones."
"Lord, spare us!" someone cried out in consternation, and that provoked another laugh.
"I also need a good excuse to visit Barevi, and dealing with the merchants is one way of stretching out my time as long as I need it," Zainal said in an ominous voice. "The records of where the other slave ships went are at Barevi, and I mean to uncover them."
"So this trip is also a cover operation?" Walter Duxie asked. Zainal gave a brief nod. "But I can't go with empty pockets, and what edibles we can provide that might entice buyers would be useful."
"Just how much are you talking about in terms of Botany's assets, Zainal?"
"Mike Miller? Will you report on what you brought for us to barter with?"
"You mean 'ransom,' don't you, Zainal?" Dick Aarens asked bluntly.
"Yes, that is perhaps the more appropriate word, Dick," Zainal replied at his mildest, and there was restlessness from the audience. Leave it to Dick, Kris thought, wishing the man were not so much his own worst enemy as Zainal's ardent opponent.
Mike had to be encouraged by Zainal to stand up. "I brought some of those gold nuggets we've been finding in the northern creeksand don't any of you think you can come up and pan gold so easy. Ask any of my miners. Ask Duxie here. There ain't much of it at best, and, at worst, Botany ain't on a gold standard. We're on a work standard, which is much better for all concerned. I brought tin, lead, zinc, copperbut there's as much on deposit in what we are calling Fort Raps." Another laugh at that sally. "And a quantity of trace minerals. Nothing we don't have more of here and something we can certainly send to be used as barter. I don't know about you guys but I've friends back on Earth I'd sure like to send messages to now and then. That'd mean more to me than all the gold in Fort Knox."
"Hear, hear!" was the supporting cry from the audience.
"How do we know what standard Barevi is working on?" someone demanded.
"Fair question," Dick said.
"We're going to give them a little razzmatazz that they can't ignore," Peter said, flicking one hand in the air as if this weren't a problem.
"I hardly think roast or raw rock squat is what they're looking for," Aarens shot back.
"There's nothing on the list of what we have that can't be replaced with a little sweat and effort," Mike Miller replied, annoyed by Aarens's obvious attempt to disparage Zainal's efforts.
"I find it odd that a Catteni is trying to bargain for us with his own species. Strikes me as collusion," was Aarens's retort, and he included the miner in his angry glance.
"We'd still be under Cattem rule if Zainal hadn't intervened with that Kamiton," Yuri Palit said angrily.
"How do we know that? How do we know this business with the Barevi merchants isn't another way of robbing us and Botany of resources?" Aarens demanded, waggling an accusing finger at Palit.
"Considering what Zainal has already put on the line for us," Chuck said, his face flushed with anger, "your suggestion is impertinent."
"I'm always impertinent," Dick Aarens retorted, pleased.
"You are also out of order," Iri Bempechat said with a crack of his gavel.
"Let me straighten one thing out," Zainal said. "We have a Council," and he gestured to the dais, "to decide matters of planetary significance. Which this is, since it is Botany's assets that I hope to use to get the components we need to put more communication satellites in orbit around Botany and to restore the rest of the network around Earth. If that goal seems wrong to any of you, you have a chance to say so now, impertinent or pertinent. And I want Dick Aarens to come with us since he is an expert in circuitry."
"That's a safe enough offer," Dick Aarens said with a sneer. "You know I won't go out into space again.,,
Not everyone caught the second part of his comment because everyone wanted a turn to speak and the judge had to bang his gavel to restore order.
Zainal raised his hands high for silence, too, and when it was reinstated, he went on.
"We also have several spaceships which are currently not in use. I suggest that one of these could be profitably sold to cover costs." There was a roar of disapproval at that suggestion. Botanists took great pride in their space capability.
"We can dig more gold and stuff, but we can't get another spaceship as easily!"
"We'll all get something useful out of that gold 'n' stuff. Go to it, Zainal."
"I'll dig for more. Just show me where!" "Are you sure this'll work, Zainal?"
"I have been assured it will," Zainal said. "As sure as one can be. You all know my deal with Kamiton, but he didn't figure on the stubbornness of Barevi merchants. Therefore it's up to me to do a private deal with them personally. And I take that responsibility very much to heart. We wouldn't have the problem we have now if I hadn't forgotten how materialistic that group are."
"Not your fault, Zainal," Chuck said, bringing his fist down on the table with a bang that startled everyone sitting around him. "Don't you blame yourself, Zainal," Dorothy Dwardie said, pointing her finger at him. "You made a deal with Kamiton, and it's not your fault that he welshed on it."
"'Welshed on it'?" Zainal asked, blinking at her.
"Couldn't deliver," Kris translated. "Make good on his word. Kamiton seems to have some internal difficulties in his new government." She grinned and then confided to the assembly, "We'll sort it out, I'm sure. And we'll bring some coffee back with us, too."
There was a cheer to that statement.
"They'll be sorry they started on a coffee addiction. We can make that work for us, you know. Demand for goods is always a good incentive to trade."
"What about the gold teeth?"
"It takes a lot longer to make teeth than it does to brew good coffee."
"Ah, coffee!"
"Hey, did they get a taste for chocolate, too?" a woman wanted to know.
"Hey, that can be just as addictive!" There was goodnatured laughter at that.
"You will keep records of where the ransom goes, won't you, Zainal?"
"We certainly will," Chuck answered stoutly. "Every flake of gold, every ounce of copper, tin, and grain of minerals will be accounted for. Won't it, Sally?"
"Am I going, too?" Sally Stoffers asked, eyes wide with excitement. "You were an accountant once, weren't you?" Chuck asked. "Yes, but only on Earth."
"Accounting is accounting wherever it's done," Chuck said emphatically.
"I motion to put the matter of our colony's assets being turned over to Zainal for the purposes of obtaining technological parts to the vote," cried Walter Duxie.
"I second that motion," said Mike Miller.
"All in favor, please stand!" He signaled to Dorothy, as Council secretary, to count the vote.
It was not a unanimous vote but more than twothirds of those attending the meeting approved and that was all, judge Bempechat said, that was needed.
"Let's devoutly hope we succeed," Kris murmured to Peter, sitting next to her.
"That was almost too easy," he replied, "or have such diehards as Anne and Janet changed their tunes?"
Kris had not looked to see if those two conservative women who had such high and righteous morals and little compassion were in the audience. It took her a time to find them, sitting at the back. "They don't look happy, do they?" she said, for she had been certain they'd have a negative response from that pair.
"Well, they do have family back on Earth, as I'm sure you've heard them tell."
Kris nodded and then caught her breath as Janet got to her feet. "I raise the question of relatives being allowed here on Botany. I know that some folk are in terrible physical condition and could benefit by being here, away from the scenes of stress and destruction." Dorothy raised her hand to Iri to be heard.
"We have, indeed, been addressing that problem in the Council, Janet. As you will have heard, Chuck has brought his cousins back, and we will certainly entertain other applications for refuge. But, as you all know, Botany works because we all do. We can, of course, admit a quantity of folk whose mental and physical state would improve by a change of scenery, but we must weigh our resources and staffing levels. If you would like, Dr. Hessian and I will set up interviews with those wishing to offer space available to relatives. Would that be acceptable, Janet?"
"What about those valleys? And the one we fixed up for the Catteni families?"
"It has limited occupancy but it certainly figures in our plans to accommodate affected folk."
"Affected?" Janet retorted, incensed. "I'll have you know" "Discuss what you know with me in the interview," Dorothy said firmly, effectively cutting off Janet's spiel before she could get started. "See me after this meeting and we'll arrange a time, Janet."
Kris would have liked to throttle Janetonce again. Botany was a sanctuary and should be available to those suffering from trauma, but not on a wholesale basis. The recovery of those victims who had suf fered from the effects of the mindmachine had proved that Botany's serene beauty could eradicate stress and injury. Certainly there were people here trainedand availableto help. One more reason to have better communications between the two planets: to forestall a mass exodus from Earth to Botany. This planet could sustain the people already here but not a mass immigration from Earth. She liked Botany as it currently existed, with a good balance of people and skills. If it were to be overbalanced in one directionlike becoming
a vast hospitalit would founder under such weight. Still, it was the resilience of the community that had proved its strongest asset. Then she wondered about the feasibility of constantly running spaceships back and forth.
"Are there any more matters that need to come before the Council and the people?" Iri Bempechat asked, looking around the room. "Hearyez, hearyez," Chuck said, using his paradeground voice to cut through the babble to be sure Iri's message had been heard. "Any more business for the Council and the assembled?"
A long pause answered that query.
"We got schedules to keep then," Leon Dane said, rising to his feet.
The judge gave one more bang of his gavel then, getting to his feeta little stiffer for having sat for so long in one position. Then he put his gavel back inside his official robe and walked off the dais.
The assembled broke up into small groups to discuss the meeting, and Janet was at the foot of the small flight of steps to intercept Dorothy Dwardie.
"Is this townmeeting approach how you've managed so much out of so little?" Captain Harvey asked Kris as she leaped down from the front of the dais.
"More or less," she said and grinned when she saw some of the male Botanists whom she knew were still single homing in on the attractive communications officer.
"Look, don't get yourself stuck with the shiftless corning in droves to live off the fat of the land here," Captain Harvey added, discreetly shielding what she said from the approaching males.
"What do you mean, shiftless?"
"There are always losers who assume the mantle of vulnerability to take the easy way out. What would you do with those who won't perform?"
"Don't know yet. We'll probably try to screen those who come and limit how long they can stay," Kris said. "But staying on Botany will definitely require showing they can contribute."
"That's what old Earth is discovering right now. Who can contribute? Not all in the same degree, but there are many ways of contributing to a common good, aren't there?"
"Yes, Captain, there are. Captain Harvey, may I introduce Bob Sterling, Ben Wately, and Ian Halstrip. You may have a lot in common since they man our communications."
"Thanks, Kris," Bob Sterling said in his unmistakable Aussie accent. "Appreciate the intro."
"Actually, we need the captain's advice if she wouldn't mind?" "Not at all," the redhead replied, shaking hands in turn with each of them. "What have you in mind?"
"Well, if you'd like some refreshment," and Ben managed to take her arm in a courteous fashion as he gestured toward the drinks and desserts that were being served at the main counter, "we thought we might settle a few technical problems."
As the captain allowed herself to be led away, Kris grinned and looked around for Zainal. They still had a lot of details to sort out before the morning. To start with, where were they going first? Earth? The good Dr. Hessian, for all he could be a crashing bore, had turned up a tremendous amount of information on coffee, and if she couldn't find what she needed in Brazil or Venezuela, there were always Zaire and Ethiopia or Java. And she had had several tons of grain released to the expeditionless than a skimming of two silos, so she didn't feel she was plundering anything. It always paid to have more than one string to your bow, didn't it? And if the shine of nuggets wouldn't do it, maybe "black gold" would!
The KDM had its new ID painted on its bow and emblazoned along both sides: Bass1, for Botany Airforce Spaceship 1. Or Baker Alpha Sugar Sugar 1.
Kris thought it looked pretty smart before she became involved in organizing the food supplies on board into the cargo space or the refrigerated unit. Flats and flats of broiled rock squat and loaves of bread were boarded as well as convenient twentyfivepound sacks of wheat and a dozen of flour, enough for her to make bread on the journeys and at Barevi.
All the fluent Cattenispeakers were coming along as well as some specialists like Herb Bayes, an electrician who'd be needed on Barevi, plus Captain Kathy Harvey to complete her pilot training and Mpatane Cummings, who was a communications expert, Eric Sachs, Floss, Clune, Ferris, Ditsy, and Zainal's two boys, who were very excited about going. Kris wondered if Zainal had warned the boys that he would be getting them a tutor on Barevi. Well, she wasn't going to cloy their excitement with a detail that was, in some respects, not her business. Sally Stoffers was along as their bookkeeper and accountant. She was bunking with Floss, a situation neither woman liked but there was only so much cabin space on the KDM.
When they got close enough to Terra, looking much the same as Kris remembered it from NASA shuttle photos, they could also see some of the larger space junk.
"Let's just see what is still operational," Zainal said. "If it's only the spare parts that are needed, maybe we can supply those."
"We don't have them ... yet," Kris reminded him.
Jacqueline Kiznet, who preferred to be called Jax, brought up a screen image of the satellite distribution.
"Earth looks like a porcupine with all that junk," she exclaimed. "'Junk' is probably accurate," Kathy Harvey muttered. "As I heard it, the Catteni used the comm sats for target practice."
"Some are obviously still working since the communications network is functioning, even with occasional gaps," Mpatane remarked. "So not all are gone. Since I'm up here, I can get the working ones to respond to a code I happen to know"
Zainal drifted over to the nearest units, some with three long solar panels and some with only two, and eased close to one whose solar panels on the nearest port side were gone. The same damage was vis ible on the next four they passed. Mpatane kept a record of their IDs.
"They don't look damaged otherwise," she murmured. "Still have their ears."
"Ears?" Zainal asked, surprised.
"Those round objects are actually called 'ears,' and they catch the signals and bounce them on to their coded destinations."
"No power, no work," Gail Sullivan said, a sad tone to her voice. "We shall need to get as many solar sails as we can find, then," Zainal said, as if that solved the whole problem.
Some did answer, feebly in a few cases, others more robustly, to Kathy's signals, each new response raising the hopes of the entire crew. The suggestion of redistributing the operational ones was met with the remark that each satellite had a mission package that defined its parameters so that they were not interchangeable.
"And this next one," Jax Kiznet said from her pilot's chair, "is a loose cannon. See how it wobbles?"
"Looks to me as if it got its controls blasted," Harvey said, peering at the twisted protuberances that would have provided guidance. "Its solar wings don't seem to be damaged."
"This KDM has a tractor beam, doesn't it?" Mpatane asked Zainal, who nodded. "Could we capture it?"
"We could, but why?"
"Well, for one thing, it's small enough to be hauled on board so we could examine it at our leisure. Work experience for when we need to repair other units," she said.
Zainal enabled the tractor beam, which locked onto the spinning comet sat. The jerk of contact went through the scout ship, rocking several folks roughly about. But no one was injured.
Getting the comm sat on board was not as easy, although the cargo area could be sealed off from the rest of the ship so the outer hatch could be opened. Gravity on the KDM could also be turned off, to make maneuvering the unit easier. It was, Kathy Harvey remarked, rather like getting a whale onto a trawler.
"If we just had someone to give it a good push," McColl remarked, smoothing his white brush mustache as if that action generated useful thought. He was the oldest of the pilots Chuck had seconded.
"Do we have any cargo nets left on board the ship?" Zainal asked thoughtfully.
"Yes," Chuck Mitford replied. "Steel mesh, too. Are you going to do a cowboy act?"
Zainal merely widened his eyes at Chuck until Chuck gave a pantomime of a rope being thrown. Zainal snorted. "It is easier to match velocities and park in front of it."
"Snare it in the hatch?" McColl asked, astonished. He whistled. "That will take some piloting."
Zainal regarded him steadily. "I am accustomed to doing such things."
"Wasn't even suggesting you aren't a topflight pilot, Zainal," McColl replied quickly. "But I do want to see you play catch." He grinned to mitigate any slur on his abilities.
"And so you shall," Zainal said. "Chuck, bring that net up to Number One Hatch." He settled himself down at the control panel to do the necessary placement and picked a comm sat that had had both "ears" blown off and much of its impressive span of solar panels cut off short. While he had said it was "merely" a job of matching velocities, it required very careful "puffs" of his thrusters to slow the KDM down and introduce a rate of closure with the satellite of about onequarter to onehalf meter per second.
"How are you going to intercept that much mass at that rate, Zainal?" Kathy asked.
"I do have to allow for momentum, velocity plus mass, but it shouldn't be too high for the mesh to handle if it's standard Catteni issue. As for the KDM, the winches are built much heavier than that. Chuck, have you got the net in the cargo hold?"
"Gimme a few, Zainal," Chuck said, obviously puffing from physical exertion. "Had to stuff it on a lift platform. Unhandy thing." "Steel mesh?"
"Yup, standard Catteni issue."
"That's what we need," Zainal said, feeling more confident about all this. Kris gave him a look, implying that he was doing what she called "showing off" but what he called "proving" his skill as a pilot. "It'll also discharge the static on the comm sat in space instead of in the cargo hold."
"Zainal, got it in place against the hatch. We're getting back to the lock. Ah, now, we're all safe. Ready when you are. The net's rigged to go."
"Grab hold, crew. I've got to go weightless." He snapped off the ship's gravity, then opened the hatch and watched while first a bulge of the net cleared the starboard side of the KDM, and then the rest followed, ballooning into space but still tethered to the vessel. "Parking" the KDM in front of the object he wished to capture, he "puffed" the thrusters just enough to catch the rectangular comm sat in the mesh. There was an almighty flash as the steel mesh encountered the comm sat and discharged static.
Mpatane floated at a porthole, watching the mesh close around the satellite. Suddenly she was blinded by a burst of light, and she clenched her eyes shut.
"What was that? Looked almost like lightning," she exclaimed. "What you saw was the voltage potential on the satellite equalizing. Visible here, too," Chuck explained. "Those things can build up quite a charge sitting there, what with all those solar storms and relativistic electron flux bombarding them all the time. It's a good thing we didn't send someone out on EVA! That would have been nasty." Zainal grunted, as if dismissing the prospect of danger.
"Wow!" Kathy exclaimed, blinking against the sudden bluewhite glare.
"Neat fireworks," Ferris said, awed.
Watching carefully on his starboard screens, Zainal saw the net tighten around its catch and slowly be reeled back to the ship. With a deft hand on his thrusters, he edged the ship so that the netted comm satellite entered the hatch.
"Mitford, make sure you get the satellite on the floor of the hold as closely as you can," Zainal said. "I don't want it smashing our deck plates when I turn the gravity back on."
"Will do. I'll need a minute or two. Got to repressurize the hold and whatnot."
"Take your time," Zainal replied, the model of Catteni patience. After a few minutes of silence, Chuck said, "Zainal, this thing's heavy as hell. Can you push the ship up so it will drift toward the floor?"
"Get clear, and make sure there's nothing between it and the cargo flooring."
After two quick puffs of the thrusters, a dull and satisfying thud echoed through the ship.
"We've got it now, Zainal, thanks," was Chuck's enthusiastic reply. "Wait one while we get it braced with something ... Okay ... good to go now"
"The KDM," Zainal murmured to Kathy, "is a workhorse but you can get it to do more than just haul stuff from one planet to another." "To be honest, Zai," Gino Marrucci said, and he'd already flown KDMs between Earth and Botany, "I didn't believe you could do that with this."
"Can we see what we snared?" Mpatane asked. "I've only seen pictures of the comm sats before they were launched. Never one on site, so to speak."
"Crew, gravity's coming on. Three, two, one." Zainal flicked the toggle to the "on" position. "Mitford, secure the hatch. Don't want that thing rolling out on us."
"Couldn't roll if it wanted to, Zainal. It's too heavy. And besides, it's square blocks stuck together, not a ball."
Those in the lock with Chuck were busy examining the catch before Zainal, Gino, and Kathy Harvey arrived.
"Hey, it's a Boeing 601. We can mount just about anything on this baby. Some of the parts for these things are on that wish list," Mpatane said with respectful delight.
"Can we service it then?"
"If we had the parts, we could," Mpatane said, circling the unit, putting her fingers through the holes some target practice had made in the "ear" and sighing at the blatant vandalism. "I wonder how many more fell to some Catteni's notion of fun. Ooops, sorry, Zainal." "Not to worry, Mpatane. But it can be serviced?"
"If we can find the spare parts, sure. I don't notice any holes in the mission package or the control units, but you did keep a record of its orbit, didn't you, Zainal?"
"Yes, it's logged. So all we need to do is repair it and put it back in space."
"We'll have our work cut out for us," Mpatane said with a heavy sigh. "This one is one of many, you know. Do we get to do them all?" She cocked her head impudently at Zainal.
"As many as we have to to extend the working footprint needed to ensure worldwide communications. We'll need some sort of conference with someone down there to figure out how many satellites will be required to make a big enough footprint."
She exhaled over the enormity of the task.
"Well, it's a job," she said with such resignation that everyone chuckled in semiagreement, semisympathy.
"Check the unit over, will you, Mpat, and see what else has been damaged. I'm hoping we can just unscrew, detach, and/or replace faulty parts."
"Plug in and go," Gino said, pushing a triumphant fist in the air.
"Now, crew, lash it down so when we enter Earth's atmosphere, it doesn't buck its way about the hatch," was Zainal's final remark as he turned to go back to the cockpit.
Part of the inbound journey was then occupied by a full examination of the comm sat by the communications experts, with an emphasis on how to replace damaged solar vanes and restore power to the damaged equipment. They kept a list of the deployment of those that they thought they could repair. If they had the spare parts.
"I never imagined we had so much orbiting the planet," Kris said that night in the mess hall as she served the assembled crew.
"Junk, a lot of it," Harvey said with understandable contempt. "Too far out to be burned up in the atmosphere . . ."
"Raining hot metal down on unsuspecting folk," Gail said. "It did happen, you know. Australia got quite irate over some instances."
"I thought Australia was sparsely populated outside of the major cities."
"There are people and sheep in the outback, as well as Abotiginals who didn't like their turf being pummeled by junk." "Expensive junk," Jax added, "still makes trouble."
Chuck came into the cockpit then with a sheet of notes in his hand. "Look, guys, in the category of 'once bitten, twice shy,' we ought to get contacted soon. Those NORAD boys in the Cheyenne mountains are sharp. Catteni couldn't even budge them."
"You mean, they have a space station backup?" Kris said.
"Of course we do," Kathy said, almost contemptuously. "First world community project, called Watch Dog, with sensors at about fortytwo kilometers from Earth. No one is ever going to catch Earth unawares again. Only, does anyone know what to say?"
"Of course I do," Chuck said, clicking his tongue. "I arranged a code before I came back to Botany. That's why I had a radio put on board. It's all set up. They ought to make contact about now. We are fortythree thousand klicks from Earth's surface, ain't we?"
It was one minute and fortytwo seconds before the radio unit crackled, startling them all even if they were waiting for it.
"This is Watch Dog. What are you doing in our space?" "Not very polite," Zainal murmured.
"To the point, however," Kathy said, pleased, and eyed Chuck Mitford sternly.
"Botany boys are back, Watch Dog."
"Oh, the Botany boys, huh?" was the laconic reply. "You are a green for go, Botany Boy. What's your destination?"
Chuck grinned fatuously around and winked at Kathy. "Newark Airport."
"What's your business?"
"Liaison with New Jersey Coord Dan Vitali." "Roger that, Botany Boy. Is that Mitford talking?"
"Chuck Mitford, aboard the Botany spaceship Baker Alpha Sugar Sugar One.
"Roger that, Baker Alpha Sugar Sugar One. Who's your crew?" "Emassi Zainal, pilot, and Captain Kathy Harvey, copilot; Gino Marrucci, radio officer; flight engineer is Lieutenant Mpatane Cummings. Twelve passengers."
"You are free to proceed. Will alert Newark Airport and Coord Vitali. Over and out."
"Over and outand thanks, Watch Dog."
"Newark radio frequency is 118.3, Ground Control 121.8 MHz. Out."
"Roger."
"Clever Chuck," Kris said with a sigh of relief. "I didn't think about possibly getting shot out of the skies."
"A little late but we learned."
"Was the International Space Station blown out of the skies?" "No, like its predecessor, it had a charmed life. It also had no armament when the Catteni came through and was hidden by the planet so it didn't come in for some target practice. Now it's armed and ready."
Chuck nodded approval.
"Botany boys!" Zainal said with a snort.
"Seemed easy to remember. Newark ain't much, but the airport's one of the few kept manned, and with the KDM being a vertical takeoff and landing ship, no problem to land there. Or anywhere. Newark's also closer to the coordinators we need to talk to."
"Wouldn't JFK be bigger and better?" Kris asked. She'd always been impressed by that huge airport.
"No, too far out in Queens, and we ain't got the right contacts there."
The KDM had reached the atmosphere, and even before Zainal called for a "safetybelt check, people," all were strapped down\_ Peran and Bazil occupied the jump seats and were fascinated by the ap proach to a planet they had heard about but never seen, even in pictures. The KDM nosed into the atmosphere and the bucking started in earnest. Then suddenly it smoothed out and the spaceship was running east with the patchwork of the midwestern states passing beneath them at incredible speed.
Gino warmed up the radio and got the Newark frequency, then nodded to Zainal. Gino's bright tenor sounded amiably bored as he requested permission for Baker Alpha Sugar Sugar 1 to use the runway.
"KDM, you're cleared into Newark," was the calm response. Gino blinked and even Chuck looked surprised at the insouciance of the acknowledgment. "We have you on radar at. . ." The voice suddenly was tinged with near panic. "Jeez! KDM, are you in trouble?"
"No," Zainal replied, "all systems are normal."
"Christ, KDM," Newark Approach responded, and noise of confusion filtered from the background. "You've dropped ten thousand feet in the last two seconds! You're going to be on top of the air
port inhere, I'll patch you to the tower." In the background, very clearly, could be heard "Call out the crash trucks. This one's going to augur in!"
"KDM, this is Newark Tower. You are cleared for immediate landing on runway TwentytwoR. Winds calm at two hundred ten degrees. Your altitude isabout three thousand. We have you on radar. Say your intentions."
"I intend to land, if I may. Main engines will engage in a hover at one hundred feet."
Newark Tower replied, "Hover? Roger, KDM, you're cleared to land." Since the operator clearly forgot to unkey his microphone, they could hear him. "He says he's going to hover that thing. Has anyone ever heard of the Cats hovering? Jeez, duck!"
Right on the mark, the KDM's main engines kicked in and brought the spaceship to a hover a neat one hundred feet from the runway. Zainal had Kathy bring the craft down to a mere ten feet before radioing the tower. "KDM requests parking instructions."
The tower operator was slow to reply. "Uh, roger, KDM, you are cleared to taxi to the West Park area. Take any convenient spot and any route you need."
"Yes, we are taking most direct path to West Park Area."
The tower contact cleared his throat suddenly. "Uh, KDM, what's your port of origin? For the record, I gotta clear you. Your port of origin and flight docket?"
"We are inbound from the planet Botany, wishing to make contact with Coordinator Dan Vitali. Do not have a flight docket, whatever that is these days."
"Inbound from where? Dan Vitali?" Everyone in the cabin could hear the barrage of questions from a number of startled voices in the tower with the operator.
"Ohmigod, get Vitali on the phone. Snap to it. We got I dunno how many tons of spaceship hovering above us."
"Hell, we ain't Bakersfield or the Space Center. What's he doing in our skies?"
"Trying to land, I think. Watch Dog cleared it with the boss about two hours ago. Code just came in. Have you got Vitali yet? This isman, like, urgent. No messing."
Everyone in the cockpit, except the two Catteni boys, grinned at the panic they were causing.
"Baker Alpha Sugar Sugar One, have you a Chuck Mitford on board?" Tower asked a short minute later, this query considerably more courteous than his first reaction.
"Affirmative to that, Tower."
"Please await inspection and escort to the coord. They are on their way. Sorry, it's a bit of protocol."
"Inspection? Good Lord, and when I think of all the alien goods we have on board, we're in trouble," Kris said facetiously. "I wonder how much duty they'll charge for the electronics on board."
"I suspect they are more cautious now," Kathy Harvey said dryly, "than they used to be. And this is obviously a Catteni spaceship, even if you call yourselves the Botany Space Force. So we're not exactly aliens."
"Nor oldtime, just longlost friends," Gino added.
They were landing in the dusk of that day. Runway and perimeter lights came on. As Zainal lightly lowered the KDM to the paving in the Y that formed the international landing area, the view screen showed them the facade of the main facility. Someone wearing a striped luminescent jacket waggled lighted wands, directing them to turn into the appropriate bay, and Zainal obediently turned the nose of the KDM in that direction. As they approached, everyone in the cockpit could see that many people crammed the windows of the facility and the groundlevel doors.
There was no way they could match with an airway but the KDM had an extrudable ramp so one was not needed for the spaceship. As
the KDM came to a halt, Sally Stoffers, showing an unexpected humor, gave the usual flight attendant's warning about remaining seated until the seat belt sign went off and being careful about unloading overhead compartments. Her wit sent a ripple of laughter through the cockpit and the tension of landing eased.
"Well done, Zainal, well done," Kathy, Kris, and Gino said, and Chuck clapped Zainal on the shoulder to indicate his approval. Then there was the hollow sound of someone tapping on the hatch.
"Hey, in there. Open up. Don't keep Coord Vitali waiting." "Coord" had to be short for "coordinator," but they pronounced it as one syllable, "kward."
The announcement seemed to be blasted through the hull of the ship. The ground crew, which had originally been one man with the lighted hand paddles, had grown to a sizable crowd. Someone had a bullhorn, on which the "open up" message was being bawled.
"Let's go meet our hosts," Zainal said on the intercom.
"Can we spare some rock squats for the landing crew, Kris?" Chuck asked. "And some to present to Coord Vitali?"
"Bribery or landing fees?"
"I suppose a bit of both," Chuck said. "Good public relations. Latterday Cattenis arrive bearing gifts. Union, kids." He cocked his finger at Peran and Bazil. They unstrapped their seat belts and obeyed. Kris followed, fretting over whether or not there was sufficient unfrozen rock squat to offer. She found Clune and had him bring up some wheat sacks.
"Don't know if these will be useful," she said when they had all congregated in the lock.
"Wheat?" Chuck grinned. "Always."
Zainal punched the open tab on the lock frame and the hatch slipped up while the ramp extended, forcing people to stand back from the port side.
"Hi, y'all," Kris said, wondering how her embarrassed greeting came out in a slightly southern drawl. She smiled broadly and then offered the tray of cold roasted rock squats to the man who had guided them in.
"These are cooked and taste a little like chicken," she said.
The tray was almost ripped out of her hands and passed around, everyone reaching for a section. The tray was empty in seconds. "Call it a landing fee," she added. "And we have some wheat here, if that's any use."
"All supplies go to a licensed caterer," a stout woman said, charging forward and directing the disposal of the sacks. "Our thanks. And this is good," she added, waving the remains of her portion of the rock squat.
"Did she inhale it?" Kathy muttered to Kris, who shrugged. Zainal led their mission down the ramp, Chuck close beside him, trying to find a familiar face in the dusky light.
"Yo, here, Chuck." A tall man wearing a baseball cap, a faded Levi's jacket, and oilstained trousers with frayed cuffs over heavy leather boots stepped forward, waving both arms.
"Hi, Collin. Can we see the coord?" "Yeah, sure, he's waiting inside."
"Kathy, grab another tray of rock squat, will you? And, Clime and Herb, hoist a coupla sacks of the wheat and flour," Kris ordered to those behind her.
"Can we come, too, Father?" Peran asked, bouncing behind Kris. She let him pass her to stand by Zainal.
"People who come in peace bring kids," she murmured.
By then, Collin was embracing Chuck with great masculine slaps on the back and, in between, broad gestures for the rest of them to come down the ramp. "Botany Boy gets back, huh? Coord Vitali should be here by now," Collin said nervously, resettling his cap on his bristlecut hair as he motioned for everyone to proceed to the airport building. "He sure was surprised to get a note from Biff."
"Bif" Zainal and Marrucci asked in surprise. "Alias for Watch Dog," Collin said with a laugh.
Another man, also capped, strode out of the gaggle of observers to lead the way and hurry people along. Zainal nodded at Gino and Jax to stay behind, on guard, and followed the man, with Chuck and Collin joining the little procession.
They were led upstairs to what Kris identified as a onceelegant VIP lounge, though considerably the worse for wear now, judging by the stains on the upholstery and the general seedy appearance and stale air. Much at his ease in one of the armchairs was the man Kris thought must be this Coord Vitali. As his name suggested, he had an Italianate countenance, swarthy skin, black hair, and a beard barbered close to a strong jawline. He also looked to have been a much stouter person for his clothes, which were of good quality, hung loosely on him and his face was gaunt. But he flashed a genuinely welcoming smile and met Chuck with an outstretched hand, vigorously seizing Chuck's.
"Chuck Mitford, we have all heard of you," he said, his tone slightly awed.
"From your Texas colleague, I hope," Chuck said, ignoring, as he usually did, any reference to the legend of his efforts on Botany. "From him as well. He said you might be paying this part of the Free World a visit."
"And let me introduce the rest of my motley crew," Chuck said, grinning. "Our Cattem friend is Zainal, his two boys, Peran and Bazil; Captain Kathy Harvey, copilot; Kris Bjornsen, Zainal's mate; Gino Marrucci, our radio officer; Lieutenant Mpatane Cummings, flight engineer; and Alexander McColl, one of our pilots; and Clime and Herb, with the wheat sacks on their shoulders. Dr. Eric Sachs, lately of Columbus Circle. Allow us to present a small gift from Botany," Chuck said, taking the tray of roasted rock squats from Kris and presenting it with due ceremony to Coord Vitali. He raised thick brows inquiringly.
"Rock squats, cooked and ready to eat," Chuck said. "We lived on these birds the first few months on Botany. Make good eating." Between his offering and his words, those in the room who had stood back politely while the big men made their meeting looked eagerly at the tray.
"Don't mind if I do,"Vitali said, picking up a half squat and taking a good bite with astonishingly white teeth. "Hmmm, very good. Pass it around," he mumbled as he chewed, his face lighting up with pleasure. "Hey, well, tasty. Nice to have something to sink one's teeth into. Chickens here are scarcer than their teeth."
The contents of this tray also disappeared very quickly, and then Clime and Herb carefully deposited the sacks they had hefted in. "Some wheat and flour for your supplies," Chuck said. "Gift of the Farmers."
"Hey, don't look like no Trojan horse, do they?" Vitali quipped. "Accepted with thanks. Anyone seen Grace so we can turn the wheat over to Catering Supplies, legallike?" There was a bustle in the room and someone had obviously made a hurried call because the same woman arrived, this time with her own helpers and, with another curt nod of thanks, gestured for the sacks to be taken off.
"Well, we got some business we need to take care of in Manhattan," Chuck said, perching on the edge of another armchair. "Can you get us there?"
"Ain't a nice place no more," Vitali said, his eyes flickering over the women and the two Catteni boys in the group.
"Being dropped on Botany wasn't any nicer," Kris said as Kathy came to stand by her shoulder, looking equally firm.
"No, I 'spect it wasn't. Please, sit." Dan Vitali gestured for them to seat themselves and pull their chairs closer to him.
"Dr. Sachs here," and Zainal gestured at the dentist, "would like to take possession of his dental chair and the equipment from his office."
"Oh?" Vitali blinked in astonishment. Then comprehension brought a knowing smile to Vitali's face. "Catteni like gold crowns, don't they? Hey, well, Doc, wish you luck. Where was your office in the good of days?"
"Columbus Circle."
"You're in luck. Big trading there with the Cardinal Coord in charge," he said, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. "And we deal with him regular. Repossessing your equipment will be no problem."
Eric blinked, confused, until Dan Vitali gave him a reassuring look. "I can set up the repossession. No problem." Then he cocked a forefinger at Zainal before swinging it to Eric again. "Heard Catteni got into dentistryreplacing their front teeth. Hear tell they don't have dentists on their planet." Then Vitali tensed, his jaw dropped and he stared at Eric. "You going to Catten to set up your practice? Brave man." Then comprehension brought a sly gleam to Vitali's face. "Well, actually," Eric stumbled and turned to Zainal again.
So Zainal, speaking in a low tone for Vitali's ears only, explained about Barevi and his assignment. As soon as he mentioned the comm satellites, Dan Vitali held up his hand.
"Wendell's the one you need to talk to about comm sats," he said, and waved a man forward. "John Wendell, Chuck Mitford and friends," he added, smiling at Kris, Kathy, and Zainal's sons. "John keeps my phone system working," he said by way of explanation. John acknowledged the introduction as he came forward, rock squat bones in his hand. He was a wiry man, in the Levi's that seemed almost a uniform. He also wore a broad belt from which depended pouches and on which were fixed special loops. Visible as a mound under his Levi's jacket was a mobile phone. He wore a baseball cap decorated with a Motorola M logo.
One of Vitali's cohorts passed around cups of coffee, thanking them quietly for the food. Instant coffee, Kris could tell the moment she had a mouthful, but it was welcome. She wondered if coffee figured in bartering at Columbus Circle. She remembered photos of that New York landmark with artists' sketches and paintings propped up against the Circle's balustrade.
"And you hope to trade dentistry, gold crowns, for spare parts?" Vitali asked.
"We have other things that may be tradable," Zainal said cautiously.
"You're going to need a lot if you're trying to ransom all the loot the Cats took ... no offense, Zainal." The coord nodded courteously. "They got just about anything portable. We could restart some indus tries for the most urgent stuff but we haven't got ores. Mines are in production but it's slow, and we're just beginning to have coal for them. What you got handy 'sides wheatwhich we appreciate, I assure youthat can pay for the gasoline and men to get you safely to Columbus Circle and back?"
Zainal was slightly taken aback by the query but, recovering, gave his broad shoulders a little twitch of acceptance. "Should have brought a lot more rock squats." He glanced apologetically at Kris. "We have some small quantities of ore. What had you in mind?" Zainal asked, his expression bland.
"We can use just about anything: copper, tin, lead, zinc, iron, right here in New Jersey, Zainal. Whatcha got?"
"Gold?"
"If that's all you got." Vitali's reluctance to accept the former standard was an interesting insight into the current economy.
"Could manage some copper and tin, I think," Zainal finally admitted. "How much?"
"Pure ore? Or recycled?"
"Some pure ingots mined on Botany."
"Well, in that case," and Vital' slapped his knees with flat hands, "I think we can do a trade."
"How much?" Zainal repeated. "We didn't think we'd need ores here."
"Here, there, and everywhere. We have some mines open, specially for coal," Vitali went on, "but it's transporting it to where it can be worked is the problem."
"They say they're going back to sail, Coord," one of his minions remarked with the smirk of a mechanically oriented man for such a primitive alternative.
"Don't knock sails, Binjy," Vitali said amiably. "It did Columbus okay."
"Yeah, Coord, yah. Guess it started the whole shebang." "However they get it to Detroit and other places ain't our problem. Getting things started again is. We ain't got tires, batteries, spark plugs, windshield wipers. You know, the stuff we used to take for granted." Vitali waved one hand in frustration. "Some stuff doesn't require much ore but"
"How much ... in pounds, Vitali?"
"Pounds? Well, I'd say ten pounds would be the least I'd be able to accept for the loss of the irreplaceable supplies it'll take to get you all the way to Columbus Circle." He glanced down at the note on his pad.
"Eric has to go here, to get supplies," Zainal said, offering the exact address.
"Oooh," murmured Vitali but he didn't seem too put out. "Subways don't run anymore?" Kathy asked sharply. "Thought they were working on mass transportation as a top priority."
Vitali flung his head up, regarding her with something close to pity. "D'you know how much it costs to run a subway, girl? Even if we had diesel fuel?"
"No, sir, I don't, but we've all been sort of out of touch with what's been happening recently on Earth."
"We do get electricity on at least part of every day, to do water pumps and lights in hospitals 'n' essential things like that. Ain't got no time for fripperies that we used to consider rightful."
"Five pounds each of copper and lead settle our account with you, Vitali?"
Vitali drew in a long breath, regarding Zainal and rubbing his hands on his worn Levi's. "Well, I think it might. Can probably trade them to someone for something. You're sure it's pure?"
"Smelted on Botany, never felt a pick or shovel before we came." "Hmmm, pure stuff's worth a lot more."
"Indeed it should be," Zainal agreed amiably. "And that covers our expedition to Columbus Circle? And our second stop at West Thirteenth Street before we come back to the KDM? Deal?" Zainal held out his hand, hoping to conclude the bargain.
To his surprise, Vitali closed the deal with a shake. "This'll help more than you know. We're out of everything." He waved his hands around his head in frustration. "You bring us a load of tires back and you can name your price.
"I saw sheds full of tires and battery boxes," Chuck said. "All on Barevi. "
"All looted from us, too," Vitali said, scowling. "I'll take anything off your hands you can get ... for anything you ask for ... that we might still have. It's raw materials we need right now, to get industry started."
"We'll keep your wish list in mind," Kris said with a courteous nod. "Our main objective is to get spare parts and repair the comm sats." "Speaking of which, Mr. Wendell," Kathy began, and that man looked around him as if he didn't realize she could mean him. "Are you familiar with the Boeing arrays?"
"Sort of. Why?"
"We have one on board the KDM"
"You what?" John Wendell's eyes went wide with astonishment. "Zainal netted it, neat as you please. But I'd appreciate a professional survey of how best to repair it."
"Antennae and solar panels gone, I'll bet, sight unseen." "Yes, exactly."
He motioned Kathy to one side and the pair engaged in a spirited conversation with many gestures on Wendell's part while Kathy listened, Kris thought, with far less reserve than she usually showed. Wendell was a personablelooking man and obviously well versed in his specialty. At least, Kathy looked impressed.
"Keeps us in contact real good," Vitali said approvingly. "Now, you guys want to go into Manhattan and grab the doc's stuff, right? It's essential to this operation of yours on Barevi, right? Aside from the issues of wear, tear, and personnel, what sort of a vehicle had you in mind?"
"Any sort of truck will do. Pickup, if you have one."
Vitali gave a little snort. "Even one with good tires. You're in luck. So that's the transport and you'll need a guide and some guards, unless you have weapons." He cast a wary glance at Zainal. "And I don't mean those nerve whips either, Cattem."
"We will need your guides, and your guards for we have no weapons, but we're not defenseless," Zainal replied, as he held up his big hand and made a sizable fist.
Vitali cleared his throat.
"We have more wheat, if that can be tossed in to sweeten the pot," Kris offered.
"That's a sure enough sweetener, little lady, being as it will feed everyone, and a full stomach makes people easier to live with. Okay, Zainal, you got a deal, a truck, guide, and guard and my safe conduct for you tomorrow. Night's not a good time for going through the tunnel anyway, to mention only one hazard."
"The Lincoln Tunnel?" Kris exclaimed.
"Yes, ma'am, that and the Holland are the only ways to get to the island. No fuel for ferries, though they may start commandeering pleasure boats soon," Vitali said in the greatest of good humor. "We'd be pleased for you to join us for a meal here."
"We wouldn't want to deprive you," Kris said, having seen the dismay on several faces when Vitali made his offer. "We have enough rations on board and we wouldn't want to tap more of your resources than absolutely necessary." Particularly, she thought to herself, if it takes more of our raw ores.
"You'll sleep on board then?" Vitali asked, beaming appreciatively. "Yes, and be ready to move out whenever you have made the arrangements. We do need to replenish our water tanks."
"Water's still availableand guaranteed," Vitali said. "I'll have to check with the coords involved, as a matter of courtesy and for your security, but I can set up the transport personally," he said, so convincingly that Zainal nodded.
"If you've someone to take charge of the metal ingots, we can unload them tonight," Zainal said, showing goodwill.
"Our pleasure, I assure you," Vitali said. Then he gathered several of his officers around him and gave quick, low, confident orders. The men left to obey them.
Coffee and business finished, Zainal stood, ready to make delivery of the ingots, however much he may have wanted to hold such commodities back to trade on Barevi. Kathy asked to bring John Wendell on board to look at the comm sat, which Zainal thought a good idea. "Finelooking lads, Zainal. They yours?" Vitali asked, rising to his feet.
Zainal nodded and introduced his sons. Peran and Bazil made courteous bows and offered limp hands to the coord, who smiled benignly at them.
board for the trip, I've another I can lend you: my grandson. For the good of our relationship, of course."
"If we were returning directly to Botany, that would be a possibility, Coord Vitali, but we go on to Barevi, and that is not a place I would suggest a young Terran visit right now. My sons travel with us for tutoring there." Peran and Bazil regarded their father with such shock that Vitali grinned.
"I see." There was regret in Coord Vitali's voice but he concluded the visit with a firm handshake, and the two groups separated.
"A tutor, Father?" Peran began as they started back down the stairs to the ground level.
"A tutor, Peran," Zainal said so firmly that the boys bowed their heads in rueful acceptance.
"Oh, and Zainal, have no worries about your ship's safety while here on the ground," Vitali said, pausing in the doorway of the VIP suite. "We have an excellent perimeter security. Sleep well and soundly."
"We're obliged," Zainal said, winking at Chuck, who grinned back. There was no real chance that anyone could break into the KDM. She had good external security devices, too.
Once outside, a truck kept pace with them. As they neared the ship, Zainal opened the ship's comm unit to alert Gino of their return. The ramp was extended and Gino and the rest of the crew framed the open hatch as they watched the re turn of their crewmen. Kris noticed the pessimism on Zainal's face as he cycled the cargo holds to the one containing their metal ingots. He must have been wishing he hadn't said anything about having ores, but she felt paying for a convoy to safely acquire Eric's equipment was worth the swap. Botany did not produce much ore but the deposits were high quality. At least she thought the miners would object less to losing copper, zinc, tin, and lead even though in some instances those ores were far more useful than gold, silver, or platinum. Nevertheless, she could see how it pained Zainal to hand over the ingots and how eagerly Vitali's men received them.
Kris did not seek her bed yet. She was still absorbing the import of their interview with Vitali and other, less obvious information that she had gathered. Earth's victory was a hollow one, despite evidence of recovery. The rock squats had been worth their weight in any metal, and while they still had a few trays to spare, fresh bread might be useful to have on hand for goodwill and any unexpected "fees."
She hauled another sack of flour out of the supply locker and mixed up a triple batch of bread dough. It could rise overnight, have another quick rise as rolls, which would be easier to distribute than loaves, and be ready for their journey.
Kathy was still in heavy conference with John Wendell, who was almost drooling over the comm sat in the cargo hold. She was listening avidly to his remarks, jotting down notes and looking all too brighteyed, Kris thought, and not the least bit reserved.
Kris was grateful to fall asleep once she hit her bunk, and answered Zainal's sleepily muttered "Who's there?" with a kiss, which sent him back to sleep with a smile on his face. She hated to be roused by the alarm the next morning but rose and flicked it off before the noise woke him. It was fair. He often let her have an extra half hour. In the galley, she started the big oven and punched down the dough, deftly separating it into convenient rolls before she made the morning's breakfast of boiled groats. She wondered if it would be hard to find cinnamon and maybe raisins somewhere in Manhattan. She had often longed for a Danish at breakfast.
It was the smell of baking bread that got folk out of their beds before the official Klaxon sounded.
Everyone was dressed and ready when the security sensors beeped a proximity alert. Chuck greeted those who arrived in a battered pickup truck. He eyed the load bed but it looked long enough to hold Eric's equipment. He also tossed in a coil of rope on top of the two lift platforms, which he and Clime carefully loaded, ignoring questions from the curious guards.
The truck had a wide front seat, which Zainal and Kris took. She was seated next to the driver, careful to keep her backpack full of rolls from being crushed against the battered dashboard. She was aware that the driver's pistol dug into her left hip and eased her buttocks slightly to the right. The smell of freshly baked bread vied with the smells of oil, diesel fuel, and unwashed bodies. As surreptitiously as possible,she held the pack closer to her nose. Then a final passenger wedging himself next to Zainal slammed her back into the driver's holster. The door was closed only because someone outside the truck gave it a good push.
"Sorry about the squeeze," the latecomer said, "but I'm Jelco, your official guide on this tour of New Manhattan." He nodded amiably at Zainal and Kris. "Driver's Murray. He don't talk much but he's
a good driver. We were lucky to get him for this job. I believe he claims he knows every hole in every avenue and street in the city." Courteously Kris nodded to her left and was startled by a toothless grin. She wondered if he knew he was driving a dentist to his old office. She also wondered if he could enjoy the nice crunchy bread they had in their backpacks. Murray hadn't so much as glanced at the backpack she held in her lap but he must have smelled the bread because his nostrils flared every now and then and he had to lick his lips frequently. Salivating, possibly. The smell of fresh bread had its own magic.
"Dover and Wylee are our guards, case you wanted to know. Good men."
Which was what Kris hoped they would prove to be. "We'll have Kejas and Potts through the tunnel. They're actually the Midtown Coords men this week. They wear red bands." He pointed to the kelly green one on his upper arm. "We do a week on, a week off tunnel duty."
Zainal nodded.
There were very few people around as Murray drove slowly out of Newark Airport, its vast parking lots empty, except for a few burnedout autos. Then Murray pulled out onto a threelane highway. Along the weedy verge of the highway, damaged bushes and trees were showing growth with new sprouts, and the occasional forsythia had some blooms. Shortly they turned again, off the turnpike onto the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel. Signs had been torn down but the
wide highway, though pocked with gravelfilled holes, was empty except for their pickup and a cart full of what looked like potato sacks to Kris, laboriously drawn by two raggedly dressed men. The wheels were not pneumatic but wooden, rimmed by metal, and the axle squealed for lack of lubrication. Three small boys, walking behind the cart, eyed the truck. From the dirt on their faces, Kris wondered if they had dug the potatoes that were in the cart.
The New Jersey entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel had never been a prime residential area in its heyday and certainly looked wartorn now, the high sidewalls full of pockmarks. Other types of debris, probably from fighting to protect the tunnel approach, had been pushed to one side, leaving two lanes of the once sixlane approach clear, one on either side of the dividing parapet.
"Heavy fighting?" she asked, unnerved by the desolation, and needing to talk.
Murray nodded. "Only good midtown access to the island, ma'am, and had to be defended."
To the last man? she wondered.
"Hmmm, well done," she said, noncommittally. And then the road on the left was free of the bombed buildings. This road had always provided a breathtaking view of New York City, as it swept around in
a long righthand curve to the tollbooths and the actual tunnel faces. But the view of New York was vastly changed from her recollection of it. It was as if all the buildings had somehow been blunted. Oh, the Chrysler and the Empire State buildings were still standing, but others, including the Radio City complex, looked as if they'd been sliced off. The once proud city had gaps in its fabled silhouette. They traveled down toward the huge entrance plaza, swinging past tollbooths that had been shattered into rubble. Pieces of burnedout vehicles had, as on the approach roads, been pushed to the sides but gave mute testimony to the fierceness of attack and defense.
"And to think I once griped about waiting in the lines," Jelco remarked. Then armed men appeared from a galvanized shed, tucked under the shadow of the eastbound tunnel entrance. Murray slowed to a stop and turned off the engine, reaching for a sheaf of papers that had been tucked behind the eyeshade. Jelco swung down from the truck's cab and strode to the approaching guards, whose weapons were slung over their shoulders. Jelco had a slip of paper in his hand that Kris thought was decorated with seals and kelly green ribbons. Jelco had an earnest conversation with a guard, showing him the paper, while a dour man who reeked of sweat was thumbing through Murray's papers. The breeze was, unfortunately, coming across him and into the truck cab. Evidently soap and deodorant were no longer available.
"Would you like some fresh rolls?" Kris asked nervously and held one up for the man to see. She thought for a moment that the rest of his squad would rush the truck but the man with Jelco issued a sharp order and they moderated to a swift walk. She handed Murray the rolls to pass around and noticed that he dropped one into his own lap, though how he would manage without teeth, she didn't know. He simply tore a piece off the roll and popped it into his mouth, his eyes widening with appreciation at the taste.
"Thanks, miss," said the first guard, tipping his fingers in a salute. He passed rolls out to the rest of his unit.
"Klaus?" he yelled, attracting his leader's attention, and lofted a roll, which Klaus neatly hooked out of the air. "Sorry, ma'am, but a search is required. Becky, front and center," he yelled over his shoulder, and a woman soldier quickly advanced.
Kris had never been frisked before but, considering what she had seen of the tunnel's environs, she had no intention of protesting such a security measure. Klaus gestured for Zainal to step out so he could be checked over, too.
"She's clean," Becky said after a fairly cursory feel of Kris's arms
and legs, back and waist. Kris offered her a roll. "Thank you. Ain't had freshbaked bread in ages." She bit into it with an almost savage gusto and chewed vigorously, nodding her approval. In all, a dozen rolls had been passed out before Kris was waved back into the truck. She was glad she'd made the offer, judging by the happy expressions on the tunnel guards' faces and the appreciative thumbsup gestures as the truck was allowed to roll into the eastbound tube.
"I'm Wylee," said a small man who came back to the truck with Jelco. "Tunnel squad. Just wanted to reassure you that the fans have been circulating the bad air out. You got anyone in your group who's asthmatic or has respiratory problems?" He looked at Kris as he spoke, trying to ignore Zainal's solid Catteni form.
"None I know of."
"Well, the air in the middle of the tunnel ain't exactly one hundred percent unpolluted, ma'am. Anybody has any problem, call me, huh? We got respirators." He motioned to the backpack he was wear ing. His expression suggested that he didn't want to use them unless he absolutely had to. Oxygen was still free, wasn't it? Kris thought, feeling almost rebellious. She did not really know what those left on Earth had had to face so she swallowed the smart rejoinder. She felt the tilt of the truck as those in the back hauled up Wylee.
As Murray was waved to proceed into the lefthand tunnel, she had more to concern her. She wasn't claustrophobic but she really didn't like the idea of all the water over her head, and looked at the creamtiled walls of the tunnel to see any signs of lack of maintenance. She didn't know what to look forbut cracks or moisture staining the walls would be obvious signs. Yet if this was one of the only accesses to New York City from the mainland, it would behoove them to keep it in good repair.
She was somewhat surprised to see a huge Dumpster at the entrance and noticed that there were bits of cement and odd pieces of metal jutting from it. Then the truck swerved to the right and she saw the burnedout chassis of a car on the left. This was not the last wreck she was to see in the tunnel. Few had been burned out but all had been stripped down to the chassis.
"Recycling," Murray said around a mouthful of his roll.
"We'll get the junk out of the tunnel one of these years," Jelco said cheerfully. "And sometimes, when we have a group coming through, we get them to hump a chassis out for us."
When they were out of sight of the tunnel entrance she saw that the raised walkway along the inner side of the tunnel had been damaged, though most of the cement and tiles had been cleaned away from the break.
"That's as far in as the invaders got," Jelco said, pointing to where the damage ended with a hint of pride. "But then," and he cast a quick glance at Zainal, "Catteni don't like being underground, do they?"
There was a look on his face that suggested he'd hoped to see Zainal react.
"True enough," Zainal said with complete composure. "You did well to fight off Catteni soldiers. No other species has been able to." "So I heard," Jelco replied amiably.
That exchange seemed to please both participants and the rest of the journey, past other cars stripped to the bare bones of their chassis, passed without remarks. Kris had to keep reminding herself that Wylee had said the air had been circulated so she must be imagining the stink, but the stench of gasoline, oil, and burned tires was heavy enough to keep her taking shallow breaths to keep her lungs as uncontaminated as possible by the stale air. Shipboard air got to smell stale, too, but this tunnel was rank with ancient odors.
"Nearly there, ma'am," Jelco murmured reassuringly. She was undeniably relieved to see more light on the tunnel tiles.
She smiled, turning her head in an almost regal nod in his direction. She would be glad to fill her lungs with clean air again. Then the
truck drove up out of the tunnel. Debris from the old Port Authority Building was tumbled around the exit; she inhaled and wished she hadn't for there was a stench of rot and garbage that almost made the tunnel's air seem sweet. Two huge Dumpsters were on either side of the exit, filled almost to capacity with debris that had been cleared from the tunnel. Maybe they should have used the lifts and brought out more, like one of the car bodies. But Zainal had mentioned that the floats had only so much power in their batteries and he had no spares to replace them with.
Then they had to go through a second security check, and Kris passed out the rest of the rolls she had in her backpack. Again the identity papers were shown, and Wylee swung out of the truck and went to confer with the squad leaders, beaming as he passed out the rolls to grateful Manhattan recipients.
"Green for go," he said, coming to the window. "Roll away, Murray." He added a grandiose gesture for the driver. Murray grinned, crumbs of the roll he had eaten visible on his gums, and shifted into first gear, ignoring the complaints from the transmission. She hoped the truck would last to bring the heavy dental equipment back.
The truck rolled up the curved road at Fortyfirst and onto Tenth Avenue.
"I can detour up Broadway so you can see Times Square," Murray offered. "Won't take much gas."
"I think not, thank you, Murray," Kris responded. She had seen that landmark once when her family had come east for a wedding, and she vaguely remembered the place for the cigarette smoke bill board and the colored lights on in the middle of the day, but she didn't think she could stand seeing it in ruins. Likewise she didn't want Zainal to see it at less than its best either.
Tenth Avenue was really a minefield of potholes, through which Murray drove carefully. It had never been one of New York's finest neighborhoods and looked even grimmer now. Especially when she saw the remains of a huge spit that had been erected over one of the potholes, still black from the fire that had been laid in it. A pile of utterly unfamiliar, and large, bones occupied one corner. And the street sign pole sported a huge skull. She couldn't imagine from what animal it had come.
"Had us quite a party that night," Murray said, grinning at her. "Rhinoceros, wasn't it, Jelco?"
Jelco nodded, a slight smile of happy reminiscence on his face. "Rhinoceros?" Kris couldn't help blurting out the word. "A rather large African beast. How on earth. . ." She looked across Zainal at Jelco for an explanation.
"Well, we couldn't feed the zoo animals," he said with a wry grin, "so they fed us."
"Oh!"
"Miss going to the zoo on a Sunday, though," Murray said. "But we had enough to eat for everyone. Tough to chew, even if you had teeth." He gave her another grin. "But we had soup for a week after wards from the bones. One day, maybe, we can erect a monument on the spot. Sort of thanks for the best meal many of us had had in weeks."
"They were humanely put down, ma'am," Jelco added. "Better than all of us starving to deathand them, too."
"Yes, yes, I quite see the expediency," she murmured.
She was silent as she counted the streets on their way to Columbus. There were one or two street signs still in placeno more with skull adornmentand then the buildings turned from residences, if you could call the old shambles "residences," to the beginning of officetype buildings. By then she realized that very few, except upper stories, retained any glass panes in their windows. Many of the walls and entrances showed the pockmarks of bullets, and not a few entrances had no doors at all.
cle she saw folk hurrying in both directions, some carrying armloads or hauling the little wheeled carts as quickly as possible toward the Circle.
The Circle itself surprised herno longer the place of artistic display but filled with carts and rudely made stalls, some with awnings to keep the sun and rain from whatever merchandise was on offer. She saw additional carts like the potato one.
"We got a bizarre every day now," Wylee said, and Kris blinked at his mispronunciation because the place was indeed bizarre. Not only were there ardent traders making bargains but also swarms of men armed with weapons slung to be brought to bear quickly. They wore brilliant red armbands and berets with some sort of an insignia on them.
"We're in the Cardinal Coord now," Jelco informed her, touching his own kelly green armband. "They keep the peace."
"Peace?" Kris blurted out, astounded.
"You've no idea how hot under the collar people can get when they lose a deal," Jelco said. "Newark runs its own bazaar Saturday and Sunday at the airport. No one really likes the duty but every now and then we get a chance at something fresh and tasty."
"Like the rolls?" Kris asked.
"Those were elegant, ma'am," he said earnestly. "D'you have more?" he asked hesitantly.
"It'll smooth our way here in the Cardinal Coord?" she asked. "Yes indeedy, ma'am. You've no idea."
Possibly, she thought to herself, she didn't. But then, she'd had the reality of Barevi and Botany to open her eyes. Idly she thought of goru pears and how juicy they had tasted during her days of refuge in the forests of Barevi. And she thought she'd been deprived there! She wondered how much she could get trading fresh goru pears at this bazaar.
The truck was swinging around the Circle in the appropriate traffic pattern before Murray drove it up onto the wide concrete apron fronting Eric's office building, which dominated its arc of the Circle. Immediately Jelco swung out of the truck as guards from the entrance to the building came forward to protest illegal parking.
Jelco beckoned urgently at Kris, and she called for someone to bring out a fresh supply of rolls. It was Eric who hurried forward, the straps of his backpack looped over his forearm and a roll in his hand as evidence of the treat. The pack was quickly emptied and then Eric was fumbling in his pockets, producing his license and a business card, which were passed around to verify his bona fides. Several of the guards kept curious people moving along, and it was evident why Dan Vitali had said they'd need guards.
However, Eric was approved and he waved for Zainal, Kris, and the others to join him. If folks eyed Zainal warily, he was in the midst of armed men they patently trusted so they ignored a single Cattem.
"You're in luck," the head guard was saying as they approached, Dover and Wylee unloading the awkwardlooking lift platforms. "We got electricity for another half hour."
"You mean the elevator's working?" Eric exclaimed, staring around at their party, his eyes bright with relief.
"Yup. The weekly dispensation. You guys got good timing," the guard said, taking another bite from his roll and urging them into the foyer.
This was evidently a prime location to judge by the sophisticated stalls set about. "Outta the way. Official business." He had cleared customers away from the stalls to the voluble complaints of the merchants. Then they were at the elevator banks and with a flourish the guard punched the button. The light in the cracked display above the door came on. The elevator had been called.
Kris was not so sure about the noise that was coming from the shaft but she had not thought about having to walk up eighteen flights of stairs, much less coming back down.
"Both ways?" Eric asked.
"Only if you ain't got no more weight than you took up," the guard informed him. "Thing's ancient and stubborn. Has a tendency to get cranky and stop between floors. Passengers get to wait hours."
Eric sighed. "It would have been a squeeze with my units," he said diffidently and was happy enough to step into the car, watching Jelco and Dover as they cautiously entered with the upright lift platforms.
The door creaked shut, and after Eric had punched the floor button with an air of importance, an alarming amount of chain rattling, hissing, and bucking ensued until the elevator began to ascend. Kris's eye caught on the inspection card that most elevators displayed. This was an Otis, which she knew to be a reliable make, and a hastily penned notation informed that it had last been inspected on July 2, 1992.
For the life of her, Kris couldn't remember what date this day should be. The weather had been warm but the forsythia bloom she had seen suggested early spring. Time seemed to have stopped ... at least recordable time. It had been so for so long that she endured one day at a time and was thankful to live through each one, week after week as they added up to months and then years, but she couldn't have said what day, week, month, or yearAnno Dominishe was currently living in. Nor did she wish to embarrass herself by asking. Anyway, Botany time was different from Earth time.
The elevator lurched to a stop, terminating Kris's anxiety about getting stuck between floors. The elevator had not only ascended but also had stopped at the desired destination. There, as proof, on the wall opposite were the figures, gold, framed in black, that identified the eighteenth floor. Eric stepped out first, the others following quickly on his heels as he led the way to the right. Office doors on either side of the dark corridor were ajar, which lit their way, but also showed them that few offices had escaped pilfering. Mostly chairs had been taken though Kris rather thought some of the stalls in the foyerhad once been tables in the upper levels. Torn curtains flapped in whatever breeze whined around the eighteenth floor.
Eric let out several startled exclamations. He did not need the keys he had brought with him, for his outer door, too, had been forced open. But as he charged forward into the inner office, he let out a cry of relief as he spotted his dental chair and the tower, which held the drill apparatus. Relief changed to mild expletives as he saw that the drawers of his accessory cupboards were pulled out.
"They only looked and saw nothing they could use," he cried after a closer examination.
"Now, where's your electrical supply? Like the man said, it's on and I don't want to electrocute anyone, especially me," Herb Bayes said, lumbering forward.
Eric showed him both the panels and then where he would have to disconnect the tower and the chair, which could be adjusted by the dentist as needed. Kris remembered such a unit, with its foot controls, from visits to her own dentist. They had to pull up the carpet and unloosen the bolts that held the two pieces to the floor.
"If you'd help me, Kris," Eric said, "I have more in my workroom." He pushed open the door to a small anteroom with worktops and drawers in wall cabinets, many of which had been opened. As he examined one cabinet, he exclaimed again in relief. "Enough jaw trays, I think, and some of them must fit Cattenisize maws," he was muttering to himself. He opened a wall cabinet and hauled out some paper shopping bags with the Saks Fifth Avenue logo on them as well as some bubble wrap. "Here, help me package these things, Kris. And I've more in the storeroom1 hope." He pulled out the drawers he wanted her to empty and then disappeared into a closet. "Good, good," he said, pulling some of the bubble wrap nearer so he could wrap mortars, pestles, and other items for which she had no names.
"Now, if only Eddie Spivak has anything left, we'll be in business
even in benighted Barevi. you don't know how lucky I feel right now, Kris;' Eric said, almost crowing with success.
"One for our side, Eric," she said encouragingly.
By the time they returned to the main office, the men had finished disconnecting the dental chair and had the lift tilted up to take its burden. Zainal was explaining the controls of the apparatus, embedded in one long side of the platform. They secured the chair with the rope that Jelco had tossed into the truck.
"Hey, don't use it all on this," Eric exclaimed. "The drill rig is more important than the chair."
"Whyn't you say so?" Bayes retorted huffily, tugging at a knot to be sure it was firm.
"See if you can find something else to tie it down with, Kris," Eric said, waving his hand toward the corridor.
Kris went out, as much to escape the tension in the room as to be useful. She hadn't a clue where to find more rope someone would have found such a prize long before they arrived. But she did find some dusty draperies of a heavy fabric, and wondering that they had been left untouched, she hauled three pairs down. It must have been an attorney's office, to judge by the bindings on the books on the shelves. It was almost a travesty to have to use the draperies but once back in Eric's office, she asked him for something sharp to cut with and he provided her with a knife. She didn't ask what it was originally intended for, but with it she managed to tear the fabric into strips, which she then connected into a rope of sorts. She had yards of it, ready in time for the tower to be secured to its platform. Several of Eric's wrapped bundles were secured by adhesive tape (which he had also found a quantity of in his stores) to the empty spaces on the lift. They added a scatter o• text and reference books, nurses'uniforms, and some aprons. There were still more parcels for herself and Eric to carry. Zainal took several from those at her feet and then they felt ready to make the long descent.
The men, with Zainal showing them how to guide their cumbersome bundles, maneuvered into the corridor and toward the stairwell. Fortunately the powered units were easy to manipulate though the first landing on the way down took some angling, but once they found the trick to it, they proceeded at a fair pace down the stairs. Without the lifts they never would have managed. Even so, by the time they reached the last landing, everyone was sweating and winded, even Zainal. Kris leaned heavily into the final stair post, struggling to slow her heartbeat and pulse.
"Not as fit as I thought I was," Eric admitted, wiping his sweating forehead on his sleeve. "You guys have been splendid," he said, beaming at the team.
"Yeah, yeah," Dover said in a caustic tone.
"Free dentistry for your entire family?" Eric asked.
"If you got to start here, you'd never finish, Doc," Dover remarked, "but kind of you to offer." His tone was nearly sarcastic but he caught the look Jelco gave him and nodded his head.
Their reappearance, not to mention their odd cargo, caused a complete silence in the foyer as they reached the ground floor. A few nasty looks were cast in Zainal's direction, but he ignored them. The silence continued as everyone watched the levitated heavy equipment float to the front doors. These were glassless but Dover pushed the frames open, hauling the front of his lift with him.
"Hey, what'll you take for one of those things?" a bearded man asked, pulling at Eric's sleeve.
"No one has that much money," Eric replied.
"I wouldn't insult you by offering you money, man," was the retort. "That's enough, Mac," the Cardinal head guard said, moving swiftly between the two men. Kris idly wondered what the man would have offered as she followed the others out of the foyer. The fresh breeze cooled her face and smelled of newly mown grass and other, less salubrious odors.
"What's in there?" the guard asked, pointing to the Saks carriers. "Oh, there was a sale on," she said whimsically and deposited them in the truck bed on one side of the dental chair. Her wrists and arms ached from lugging the oddments down so many flights. If they hadn't had the floats, how would they have managed? With great relief, she hauled herself back into the front seat and reached for the bottle of water that she had seen earlier. She was parched. She handed it to Zainal when he slid in beside her. Murray pulled another container from the door pocket on his side and took a long swig before a whistle reminded him that a guard was clearing the sidewalk and street so they could depart.
"Where to now?" Murray asked.
"Onethirteen East Thirteenth Street," Jelco said, consulting his notepad. "Eddie Spivak's Dental Supplies."
"A snap," Murray said. "We can go right down Ninth, or would you prefer Broadway or even Fifth?"
"Most direct route, Murray. We gotta conserve gasoline, y'know," Jelco said repressively.
"Gotcher!"
"Murray, is Macy's still there?" Kris asked softly.
"Yeah, but it still don't talk to Gimbels, which ain't," and he bestowed another of his frightening toothless grins on her, reminiscent of Popeye.
"Oh!"
There was more traffic on the street nowmost of it handcarts, many of them heaped with clothing and rolls of fabric. Kris remembered Floss and wondered what she had to trade for some blue cloth. As they passed a cart, she saw the blue had a huge stain down the middle of the bolt and she shrugged the incident aside.
They turned left on Fourteenth to Second Avenue and then turned right, and Kris noticed there seemed to be few vehicles. Maybe oneway streets were no longer required as traffic controls. She didn't remember this area at all, if she'd ever been in it. There were three and fourstory houses, all made into tenements to judge by the fire escapes, interspersed with concreteblock buildings that would house familyowned businesses of some sort. There were two cafes: she could see people at the counters eating whatever it was, and drinking. Coffee? She licked her lips. A cuppa would taste nice right now. Give her some energy. She was beginning to sag with fatigue. She wondered how the rolls were holding up and if there were enough to "do lunch" for everyone. They still had two trays of rock squats.
"One hunnert and t'oiteen," Murray said with some pride, pointing to a threestory building that had a storefront clearly marked EDDIE SPIVAK, DENTAL SUPPLIER.
Eric sighed with relief. Some of the groundlevel stores on both sides of the street looked empty from looting. Eddie Spivak's windows boasted iron grills and there was a pullup aluminum shutter across the front, a certain deterrent to pilfering. Murray pulled over to the side and instantly people's heads popped out of the upperstory windows.
"Neighbors!" he said with some disgust as he turned off the motor. "So?"
Eric had already vaulted out of the truck back and was running down the narrow walk between Eddie's and number 115. He pounded on the door.
"Eddie? Eddie Spivak? It's Eric, Eric Sachs. Are you there? Open up! Is he home?" Eric craned his neck up, looking through the iron slats of the fire escape at the observers. "I'm a dentist. An old customer of Eddie's. Where is he?"
"He's in. Leastwise," an old woman cried in answer, "ain't seen him or his missus today," she added warily.
SACHS!" He rattled the doorknob and then stopped, peering through the grill on the small window set in the door, trying to see inside. Suddenly the door was pulled in and an old man stood in the doorway, staring at what to him was evidently an apparition. He had a scalpel in his raised hand that he immediately lowered after recognizing his visitor.
"Dr. Sachs!" The man came forward, embracing Eric enthusiastically. "I can't believe my eyes and ears. It's been years! Where did you go to?"
"Long story" Eric said, "but do you still have any supplies? I'm setting up my office in a new location and I need a few things ... if you have them."
"Who'd rob a shop like mine?" Eddie said, shrugging. Then he saw the truck and its load. "You really are moving, aren't you? Sudden?" "Sudden," Eric said, grinning as Kris and Jelco joined them, Zainal following more slowly. "These are my friends Kris Bjornsen and Jelco. And Zainal behind them is also."
"What's a Greeme doing on this side of the Hudson?" Eddie asked, suddenly halfclosing the door as if he feared Jelco might barge into his premises.
"Escorting us. We had to work through coord channels, you might say," Eric said with a dismissive flick of his hand.
"Haven't done much business," Eddie said in a gloomy tone. "Who has time for dentistry when the world has gone to pot?"
"I do," Eric said. "How's Suzie? The grandkids?"
"Suzie's been ill, and I don't know where my son, the lazy wretch, has got to." Evidently the shortcomings of his son was an old topic of conversation between them, but Eddie stepped back and gestured politely for Eric to enter.
Kris, a spare pack with more than a dozen rolls in it looped over her arm, followed. There was an acrid smell in the air, similar to the one in Eric's small laboratory. Every profession has a special kind of odor attached to it, she thought.
However, nothing was wrong with Eddie's olfactory senses because he sniffed, probably catching the odor of the rolls.
"I need some porcelains. Some of the good Liechtenstein ones," Eric said. "The darker shades, if you still have any."
Eddie gave a shrug. "Darker shades aren't that much in demand. Come."
He beckoned them farther in and flipped at a wall switch. Lights came on.
"Well! Whaddya know. Lights. Lights, Suzie. She's been doing some knitting, you see. Someone supplies the wool, she supplies the hands," he said, again shrugging off such a necessity. "No one teaches girls housewifely arts anymore, you know"
The lights showed a small foyer with two stools and a countertop. Eddie lifted the edge of the section near the wall and walked back into an area where he stored his wares.
"Good to have light. You'll be able to see the Vitapan shade chart." He rooted under the counter for a moment and then handed Eric a piece of cardboard with what looked to Kris like teeth inserted around the edges. Eric immediately started examining it, glancing from time to time at Zainal. Then, as if recalling himself to the task at hand, Eric pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket.
"I gotta list of other things I'll need. Jaw trays. Sizes one and two, mandibularoh, twentyone through twentyfour."
Eddie gave a little guffaw. "Whom are you doing dentures for? Neanderthal man? Don't know if I have any jaw trays those sizes. But maybe I have. . ." He walked straight to a row of cardboard boxes, neatly extracting one about halfway down with such a deft yank that none of the ones above it were disturbed. It clattered when he put it on the countertop.
"And some bonding gel. Several tubes of that, please."
"Hmm. Got that, and you're lucky," he added a moment later, four tubes flat on his hand. "Last I got and who knows when more will be made. Not that there's such a big demand for this either. Where are you setting up practice?"
"Botany," Eric said, then tapped the porcelain teeth. "I'll have all the colors from Bfour through Dthree."
"Done." Eddie was pulling out yet another drawer: they could hear the clicking of glass against glass, and then he started pulling individual vials out, setting them on a tray.
"Next? You don't know what a relief it is to be back at work," Eddie said with a huge sigh.
"Who's dere wid you, Eddie?" asked a querulous female voice from the small hall that led to the back of the building.
"Eric Sachs, Suzie."
"Eric? But I heard he got transported." Eddie gave Eric a wideeyed stare.
"I was, but I'm back, Suzie. Good to hear your voice," Eric said, raising his to be heard.
"Oy, Eric, you wouldn't believe what we've been through," Suzie said, and a very fraillooking woman came into the light of the foyer. Her hair was skinned back from her face and bundled into a neat chignon. She clutched an old plaid dressing gown around her and her face looked pinched with hunger and sorrow.
"I have a little idea, Suzie m'dear, and it must have been dreadful for you," Eric said sympathetically.
"Don't kvetch, Suzie. This is business," Eddie said, evidently to forestall a litany of disasters.
"How's Molly keeping?" she asked, willing to exchange information as well as kvetch.
"I don't really know," Eric said, darting a glance at Kris.
"We may be able to find out today," Kris said, hoping that Dan Vi\_ tali might have a connection to the Florida coords so Eric could check the registry lists of the area.
"So many friends dead, and gone who knows where?" Suzie said, her tone plaintive. "How are you finding clients these days, Eric?" She pointed with a worn and arthritically gnarled hand at the tray Eddie was filling.
"I find those I can," Eric replied. "It's good to contemplate being useful again." He shot a grin at Zainal, who was still in the shadows of the doorway.
"Useful is good," Suzie agreed and sat down abruptly on one of the stools. It rocked under her and Eric steadied her by the arm. She wasn't a big woman but awkward. She hauled a handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose. "Always a cold. Never am warm enough these days. I could have gone to visit Becky in Florida before it happened. At least I would have been warm."
"Stop with the kvetching, Suzie. Who's been warm this winter? No one." He evidently asked and answered many questions out loud, for she shrugged and inched herself to a comfortable position on the stool, hugging her thick dressing gown around her. Then she sniffed, looking around.
"I smell bread. Oh, God, I'm going out of my mind. I can smell bread." Then she looked at Kris. "I haven't smelled bread in months!" "We have brought bread and some other food to trade for these items," Eric said. "We thought that was better than money."
"Never thought anything would be better than money," Suzie said, rubbing her fingers together in an ageold gesture.
Though neither Eddie nor Eric had mentioned paying for the items that were now displayed on the countertop, Kris opened the backpack and, indeed, the odor of fresh bread wafted out. Kris offered Suzie a roll.
"I baked them myself," she said, almost apologetically, and passed
her a roll. The old woman tentatively reached out for the bread, glancing at her husband as if she didn't dare complete the gesture until he had agreed. He nodded.
"Take it," Kris said and extended her hand until the roll was nearly in the woman's fingers. They closed on the bread as if the woman was afraid Kris would snatch it away from her.
"Would you excuse me?" Suzie said, holding the roll protectively against her chest as she backed out of the room.
Kris placed the backpack on the counter and offered a roll to Eddie, who eyed it as Murray had, with longing.
"I've nothing to offer you to drink," Eddie said wistfully. "We have all we need," Eric said soothingly.
Eddie took another deep breath. "You could charge for the smell of it, you know," he murmured. "What else?" he asked, hands on the edge of the counter.
Eric named a few more things, which Eddie scurried to find from his supplies.
"Now, I gotta tell you I can't charge it, Eric, though you were always one of the promptest to settle your account," Eddie said, eyeing the roll. "And two rolls ain't enough."
Kris peered into the backpack. "Fifteen, sixteen rolls." "Well..."
"And some other food. Zainal, ask Dover to bring in a flat of the rock squats."
"Rock squats?" Eddie asked, surprised.
"A sort of avian from Botany that is very tasty. Game bird. It's been cooked."
"Kosher?" Eddie asked.
"You're asking kosher?" Eric said, surprised. He rested a hand on Eddie's and squeezed reassuringly. "I know God is everywhere and sees all, but you look like you need a few good meals. However, to re assure you, this is a koshertype game bird and hunted, which is permissible, even if it is alien. Are you going to go kosher on me when I have good food to offer you in return for all this?"
"We do have gold," Zainal suggested.
"Gold, smold, what good is gold with shortages like we got?' Eddie demanded.
"You were never that orthodox, Eddie," Eric said so firmly that Eddie Spivak gave a little shrug.
"No, but I still got my ethnic pride."
Eric blew an exasperated breath out just as Dover came in with the rock squats. He had judiciously covered the tray with one of the clean bread towels. With a flourish, he flicked off the towel to show the browned halves of rock squat.
Despite longheld principles, Eddie peered at the display. Kris could see his lips moving, not so much from hunger as from counting. The flat held twentyfour portions. And, when he achieved the total, Eddie clasped his hands together, almost reverently.
"Enough food for days!" he said on a happy sigh. "And the bread, too?"
"Both. Enjoy and have good health," Eric said. " Is this enough for what I have purchased?"
"More than enough. Can we make soup out of it, too?" he asked Kris, pointing to the rock squats. "They look like chickens."
Kris laughed. "Chicken soup is good for colds. I don't know as we ever used it specifically for that on Botany, but it does make a good soup."
"You have saved us, then, Eric," Eddie said with great solemnity, clasping his hands together against his chest.
"The backpack isn't ours to trade," Kris said when she heard Jelco clear his throat. "And I could use the flat tray back, too, if you don't mind."
"A minute, please," Eddie said and, flipping up the counter leaf, stepped out. He started for the hall down which Suzie had disap
peared and then whipped back, neatly picking up a rocksquat half before he was off again.
They could hear a shriek and then a gabble of excited comment before Eddie came back with a tray and a bread basket. He upended the backpack into the basket and carefully transferred the roasted meat to the tray, licking his fingers when he had finished the operation. "Hmm, not bad." He grinned like a happy gnome. Eric held out his hand. "Then we have a done deal?"
Eddie grasped it, shaking firmly. "Best deal I've been able to make in weeks."
Then Eric carefully packed away his supplies in the canvas carrier and pulled the loops over his arm.
"Will you be back again from this Botany place, Dr. Sachs?" Eddie asked as everyone shifted toward the door.
Eric gave a diffident shrug. "Who knows?"
They exchanged more good wishes as Eddie saw them to the door. Once in the alleyway, they could hear him closing bolts and turning keys.
Urchins had gathered around the truck, Murray trying to shoo them away while Wylee stood, legs spread, in the truck bed, trying to look fierce.
"Let's get this show on the road," Jelco said, motioning for Kris and Zainal to get back in the front seat. "Didja get everything you needed, Doc?" Jelco asked as Eric carefully handed the backpack up to Dover, advising him to place it carefully.
"Actually, more than I hoped I'd find," Eric said, swinging up onto the back of the truck. "Eddie Spivak always kept his inventory current. Nothing here is close to its useby date."
Kris gave a chortle. "'Useby' date has probably lost its significance. And I don't know about anyone else, but I'm hungry. We've enough rock squats for lunch, you know. And about two dozen more rolls."
"Let's do this down the road a bit," Jelco said, motioning to the kids who were now standing back from the truck. "I don't want to cause a minor riot, being seen to have food."
"Oh!" was all Kris could say. "Maybe we should. . ." she began, thinking of the wizened, hungry little faces.
"Charity begins at home," Jelco said so firmly that Kris put her usual compassion on hold. They really didn't have enough to share. They pulled up farther down Thirteenth, where there was no audience looking out of upper stories. Murray almost gulped down his portion of rock squat, licking his fingers for any juice, before he pulled apart his ration of roll. No one asked for seconds. But there were still supplies left.
They proceeded back to the Lincoln Tunnel, Kris trying not to look at the pathetic little clusters of people at street corners, ragged and hungrylooking. They stopped only long enough for the Eastside guards to check them off as returning, though the cargo was eyed with curiosity.
Kris didn't even give a thought to the air she was breathing in this second pass under the Hudson River. She wouldn't die of a lungful of tainted air. She took a deep breath once they came out on the other side.
"Hey, New Jersey smells pretty good."
"Even Secaucus smells pretty good now there ain't no more pigs raised there," Murray said. "Mind you, I wouldn't mind the smell if it'd get me a roast of pork now and again."
They proceeded south on the turnpike until they saw the airport on the right. Also visible was the unmistakable bulk of the BASS1, sitting on the runway just where they had left it.
Their return must have been observed because Jelco's phone buzzed. He answered it with an affirmativeevidently a response to a query about their mission's success. He listened silently for a moment, casting a sideways glance at Zainal
before closing the phone.
"As soon as we unload the stuff, coord wants to have a chat with you. Nothing serious," he added when he noticed Kris was anxious. "Sort of kinda to get your impressions, I think. He's real proud of our sector and wants to be sure the other coords did right by you, too. Gotta keep discipline, y'know"
"You guys were marvelous," Kris said with genuine appreciation. "Sometimes it works out that way, ma'am," Jelco admitted, saluting her with two fingers. "Glad we could oblige." He licked his lips, blushing when he realized what he had done. "Bread was super ... and so was lunch. Those squats of yours are real tasty."
"Chickens all gone?" she asked, trying to put him at ease. "Ages ago. Don't even think there are any eggs anywhere."
"Well, we've been farming rock squats awhile now so a supply of them is guaranteed."
"What's Botany like, huh?"
"Well, I suppose it's like this continent was before the White Man came. We got a coupla bad thingsnight crawlers." Even the thought of them made Kris's spine shiver. "And an avian beast about the size of a divebomber. But they've been quiet awhile. We got sixlegged critters we call loocows, good eating, too, but they don't give milk. Say, anywhere we could trade for cinnamon or raisins?"
Jelco chuckled, raising his eyebrows like "you gotta be kidding?" before he shook his head. "Long gone. We could trade for spices if any were coming in. And if any were coming in, they'd be landed at New York." He gave a helpless little shrug. "We'd get some from the Waterfront Coord but we ain't had any. Raisins? Grapes come in the autumn, don't they? I remember my gran making grape jelly."
"A peanutbutterandjelly sandwich," Kris sighed with nostalgia. "Now and then we get some peanuts up from the south, but we don't waste time making butter out of them."
She sighed again and then the truck pulled in front of the terminal and stopped.
Jelco got out and beckoned for Zainal and Kris to come with him, then issued a few low words to Murray to take the truck around to the BASS1 to unload. Kris asked Eric for the last of the rock squats and any leftover rolls. Zainal hooked the straps of the depleted backpack over his arm while Kris took the last flat of rock squats.
"Would the coord have had lunch already?" she asked as she balanced the flat carefully. Wouldn't do to tip good food into the dirt and debris on the once wellswept sidewalk.
There was a bit of a delay while the door guards vetted them, and since the female assigned to frisk her pinched her, Kris was not of a mood to reward her clumsiness with a roll.
"You get to go in the front way this rime," Jelco said and led them down a wide corridor.
She was surprised that most of the glass sides of the promenade were still intact, though several showed that the airport had not en
tirely escaped attack. There were a few bullet holes with cracks radiating out from the hit and some windows had been patched with duct tape. That was one item she had many requests for. How the world had run prior to its invention she didn't know. Not that she thought they should trade gold for it, but she might get an argument out of Herbie Bayes or Pete Snyder on that score. She smiled, and then they were swinging into the plushcarpeted executive area. This was well kept with even a few potted plantsof a high survival typeset about to give it a "decorated" look.
There was a busy inner office, with cell phones burping and buzzing, several PC stations and everyone busy. But not too busy to glance up and react to the sight of a Catteni being formally ushered in. Almost as if Zainal had taken a hint from her previous regal pose, he nodded to workers on either side of the walkway as they passed. A plaque on the door said VICEPRESIDENT and below that a roughly printed sign read, DANIEL X. VITALI, COORDINATOR, NEWARK AIRPORT HQ. She took a firmer grip on the flat as Jelco tapped on the door. One of the secretaries, busy at her keyboard, looked up and jerked her head to indicate they should go right in.
The divine smell of coffee real coffee, ground and drippedassailed them as they entered. Dan Vitali, coordinator, looking no more rested than he had the previous evening, was pouring himself a cup. He greeted them genially, waving at the guests to help themselves at the coffee station.
"Real coffee," he said. "In your honor." He raised his cup in a toast. "Real food to go with it," Kris said, knowing how to make a drama out of this fortuitous entrance. "And bread."
"More of the stuff you passed out last night?" The green coordinator smiled with considerable pleasure, seating himself at the big desk amid a stack of paperwork and clipboards. Kris served him first, 'Eric passed around the pack of rolls, and Vitali's expression was incredulous. "Real bread?"
"Fresh this morning," she said and served them to the halfdozen people in the room working at desks or waiting to present papers and letters to their commander.
"We eat, kids," Dan Vitali said, pushing his chair away from the desk and leaning back as he took his first bite of the roll, Kris was pleased to see him enjoy it.
"Oooh, that goes down easily, Kris Bjornsen, very easily. jelco says everything went well?"
"He's right and we can't thank you enough for setting everything up for us," Chuck said, pulling up a stool and sitting down. He found a blank piece of paper, carefully folded it into quarters, then placed his coffee cup on a corner of the desk.
"I hope you take it black," jelco was saying as he poured coffee into enough mugs to go around. "We ain't had creamer in ages." "We take it black," Kris said. "Unless you have some sugar?" "Packet?" jelco said, holding up several of the packets that used to be served in restaurants.
"One'll do me fine."
When she caught his eye going to the sagging backpack, she gestured for him to take another roll. He did and once he had served everyone coffee, he leaned against a mapfilled table at one side of Vitali's desk.
Vitali was busy with his impromptu snack. He, too, licked his fingers, drying them on a towel that he took from a lower desk drawer and wiping his mouth as well.
"That was an unexpected dividend," he said, burping once. He looked up and suddenly everyone in the room save jelco found business that took them from the office. "Now," and he gestured to a sack on one end of his deska sack that bore the logo of a wellknown pharmaceutical company, "I gotta deal pending I'm hoping you can help me withsince I know what humanitarians you are." His grin
was devious. "You ain't got any restrictions on you about where you fly while you're in Earth's atmosphere, have you?"
"I don't believe so," Chuck said. "Though I might need a reason if I'm asked."
"Good! I didn't know if you had only an inandout license or not."
"I set it up to be able to get the stuff we need to trade with," Chuck said.
"Great! Now, that package is drugs, badly needed in Kenya." Chuck hmmmed diplomatically and glanced at Zainal to see if he understood. Zainal gave a quick nod.
"We don't have enough gasoline in any of our planes to make such a flight. How's your fuel situation?"
"Where do we have to go?"
"Like I said, Kenya. Outside Nairobi. If that ship of yours can do another short flight, it would help immensely if you could make a small detour to the west, to the Kiambu Ridge areanear the Great Rift Valley, to give you a landmark few could miss."
Kris's eyes went wide. Chuck knew what that place meant and he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, to listen more intently.
"It also happens to be one of the big coffeeproducing areas of Africa. They do the robustas, if you know the difference. Kiambu Ridge coffees are the créme of the créme for full flavor. Use 'em to give more taste to lesser beans. I gotta deal going with the local coord that if I can get those medicines to him, he'll see I can fill my plane"and now there was a decidedly wicked twinkle in the coord's eyes"full of coffee beans. Roasted beans. Oh, we got a facility in Newark that roasts but they'd want their cut, too."
"Wow!" Kris said. Since Catteni had become addicted to coffee during their stay on Earth, to be able to trade roasted beans would mean they'd have a surefire commodity few Catteni would pass up. Maybe they could even set up a coffee bar to serve those dealing with Zainal and the others for more important items, like spare comm sat parts, tires, batteries, and what was the other thing so desperately needed? Spark plugs, she thought, but they wouldn't be at the top of the list.
"My deal is that if you take that ... KDM did you call it? ... you can keep ten percent of whatever you bring back to me."
"How do you know we'd come back with a KDMload of coffee beans?" Chuck asked, grinning.
"You're the only one I'd trust to do so, Mitford," Dan Vitali said, looking straight into the sergeant's eyes. "Now I've met you, I believe everything I been told about you."
"Thank you," Chuck replied with a nod of his head, but the grin hadn't left his face.
"Of course, Jelco will come with you as he's dealing for me," the coord added with a sly grin of his own.
"Of course," Chuck agreed affably. "Is ten percent much?" Zainal asked. "That'd be one in every ten sacks of raw beans."
"Not raw, Chuck," the coord said firmly. "Roasted. And I don't want to split more than I have to. Each sack of beans weighs fifty pounds."
Kris sighed and Vitali laughed.
"We could do a lot with a KDMsized load."
"They made a deal for a plane load," Chuck reminded him, "not a spaceship full."
"Jelco will handle that detail. The stuff we bring is more than they asked for but it will stop the epidemic of typhoid they got on their hands right now"
"Typhoid?" Kris said. "Is that back?"
"I don't think it ever went away in some parts of the world," Chuck said.
"There's broadspectrum antibiotics in the package, polio, the lat
est cholera vaccine, on account of that's endemic where there's so little hygiene and lots of starvation, and some other stuff ointments for the kind of sores that are rampant in Africa, which the laboratory said could be useful there. But Kenya is willing to trade for it. Especially as there won't be any ships going that way for a while. Not even by sea."
"Then we can be, as you said, philanthropists as well as haulers," Chuck said and looked at Kris and Zainal to see if they agreed. "Coffee," Kris said with a sigh. "Wow!"
"There is an area down by the Masai encampment on Botany," Zainal mentioned idly, "hot enough and with sufficient rain on the mountains to grow coffee beans. It might be worth it to try cultivat ing our own coffee on Botany. If we were going straight back to Botany, I'd risk bringing some plants," Zainal said and shook his head in regret.
The coord leaned forward across the table. "How can someone get into Botany?"
"Like, immigrate?" Chuck asked. "We discussed that before we left, sir. We can only accept so many invalids before our economy is disrupted. We took in a shipload of those folks the Eosi tried to brain wash and they've integrated well into our population. We agreed to accept applications, preferably people who have some sort of skill that can help the commonweal," at which Vitali nodded sagely, "but we could use a discreet number of young folk to increase the gene pool for future generations."
"All sorts?" Vitali asked, his expression intense.
"All sorts," Chuck agreed. "We're pretty representative of races, creeds, and colors to begin with, on account of we had no choice in the first place getting dumped there."
"Hmm. So, what sort of occupations are you aiming for?" "Anyone trained in biology, botany, medicine. Even another dentist."
"Will you be coming back here soon?"
"Oh, we'll be back when we spring loose some of the stuff the Catteni heisted," Chuck said with a wave of his hand. "We can also send back more wheat, I think." He looked for approval at Zainal and Kris, who nodded solemnly. "Maybe some protein. We got these loocows. Got six feet and no milk, but they make good eating." "Meat? Red meat?" Vitali asked in an almost wistful voice.
"I like the rock squats better myself," Chuck said amiably, "but any kind of steak goes down easily."
"Even rhinoceros, I hear tell," Kris murmured, overcome by whimsy. Vitali flashed her a startled look.
"Yes, well, I can see that this might be the beginning of a mutually profitable association," Vitali said. He lifted the medicinal package toward them and some papers, including a map and airplane charts.
"Got these from one of the airlines in case they'd be any use to a spaceship," he said, handing them across to Chuck, who slipped them inside his shirt before shaking hands with the coord. "We don't, by the by, intend to hog all the coffee beans to ourselves, you know"
"Glad to hear it, Vitali," Chuck said, and then the man offered his hand to Kris and Zainal.
Jelco came forward and plucked the medicines from the desk and accepted his superior's handshake.
As they left the coord's office he was calling his assistants back in, searching through clipboards to see which had the priority of his immediate attention.
"Coffee'" Chuck said under his breath as Jelco led them down corridors and steps and eventually back onto the deserted expanse of the airfield. "We can sure use ten percent of what the KDM can hold."
Kris was wondering about improving on a mere ten percent. She couldn't quite sort fifty pounds of beans into individual portions, nor
how much weight the KDM could haul, but she did believe that they could probably sell any coffee they could bring to Barevi.
She wondered if the Kenyan coffee merchants might do a deal with them for tires, batteries, and spark plugs. She didn't want to be greedy but so much depended on their success. For both Earth and Botany.
She found herself rushing up the ramp of the KDM, grateful to hear voices, experiencing an unexpected nostalgia for the ship as a haven. Good Lord, what had gotten into her?
Then Kathy was there, giving her a big hug, Jax was beyond, grinning like a fool, and the boys rushed to greet their father, demanding his attention with glad cries at his return.
Kris and Zainal thanked Jelco and asked him to thank Wylee, Murray, and Dover for their assistance.
"Miss Kris," and for the first time she detected his southern accent, "it was a real pleasure. 'Sides, you bake a mean loaf of bread! I'll see you tomorrow. Until then, ciao."
And with another salute of two fingers to his eyebrow, he left them, lounging away toward the terminal building.
"We managed to trade for fresh food," Jax told Kris excitedly. "You should have seen Ferris and Ditsy. They just knew where stuff was growing." She waved a hand toward distant green fields. "And they brought back carrots! And potatoes! I haven't had them in years! We know you were successful with the dental stuff, and boy, did those guys covet the lifts."
"I don't know how we would have gotten those units down eighteen flights without them. And, Kathy, thanks for helping me with the rolls," Kris said, squeezing her arm gratefully, "because they opened doors everywhere."
"Those simple rolls?" Kathy was amazed.
"We'll do a full report at dinner, as we've a lot to discuss, but right now, is there enough hot water for me to have a shower? I feel sticky."
"You don't look sticky," Kathy said with mock horror and whooshed her down the corridor to her quarters. "We filled all the water tanks, and there should be plenty of hot by now."
The water was hot and Kris let it sluice down her body, soaping herself well, luxuriating in the warmth until Zainal tapped on the shower door. The amenity was not large enough for them to share the shower as they often did at home, but she gave herself one more rinse before she emerged and let him in.
While dressing, Zainal said that they would discuss the upcoming coffeebean project with the entire crew. Considering the benefits of such an excursion for the commonweal, she doubted anyone would object to the detour.
Before they left, Kris had told Ferris to barter another sack of wheat for a good supply of carrots and potatoes. They did taste unbelievably good. She wished they could take seedlings back to Botany but not with a long stopover at Barevi. There was a green salad as well with early lettuce (greenhouse lettuce, which Clime said was evidently a thriving business, delivering crates of fresh produce to be taken into the city) and spring onions, crunchy and sweet. She wondered about dried beans. Well, besides coffee beans.
Jax Kiznet had had more air miles on Earth than anyone else, so Zainal had given her the charts to see what she thought of piloting for the trip.
"Well, I haven't flown over Africa," she demurred, looking at the flight charts, "but if we could land the KDM here, I don't see why we can't at Nairobi. The Jomo Kenyatta Airport's an international facil ityor was," she added. "There's a good one at Mombasa, too, plus the port. We aren't circumscribed to just this area, at least I didn't get that impression from our interrogation on the way in. I'll just check frequencies and weather reports."
"We need to go to the northeast of Nairobi to the coffee plantation area ... and the Kiambu Ridge area." Kris found the place, which had been underlined on the detailed map.
"Oh, near the Rift Valley," she said, following Kris's pointing finger. "Well, that's hard to miss and so is Lake Rudolf."
"We don't need to go that far north."
"No, we don't," Jax said, staring down at the map. "I like the idea of getting coffee."
"I think we all do," Kris agreed. "Even Zainal's beginning to become addicted."
Jax grinned back. She was doing some figuring. "Look, if we can go orbital, we can do the great circle route at orbital velocity and it'll only take the KDM an hour and ten minutes to reach our destination. Wow! Hey, I like hypersonic!"
"Kenya's where Chief Materu comes from, isn't it?" Peran asked. "Right you are," Zainal said, giving the boy a hug. "And we have another reason for being there. Alkoriti."
"Oh, hey, that's right," Kris said, remembering their earlier search for the acacia plant that had proved to be the unexpected weapon that had brought about the defeat of the Eosi, who had suffered respiratory failure from inhaling the dust.
She grinned at Zainal, spreading her hands in acceptance of the excuse. "As if bringing vaccines to Kenya isn't enough."
"Only how did you happen to get to be messenger?" Clune asked cynically.
"Evidently, individual coords will arrange things to suit themselves."
"We'll just hope that's a good enough excuse."
"Well, we know the Biffs are at two hundred and fifty kilometers and their sensors are fixed outward, not inward," Kathy pointed out. "So we're delivering medicines. Big deal."
Jax talked with the meteorology folk at Newark Tower, got the latest reports no turbulence anticipated and had her flight plan checked. There had been judicious gifts of rock squats to the tower staff, so they were disposed to be helpful ... once they got over the shock of a vertical landing and takeoff craft.
"We coulda used a whole flock of the durned squats," Clune said as they finished the last of the supply.
"They're a game bird so they're also kosher," Kris said, and no one else quite appreciated why Eric guffawed.
The equipment that was now lodged in the cargo hold had fascinated Ferris. Later Zainal told Kris that Eric had explained to Ferris exactly what he had traded from Eddie Spivak and what it was used for. They decided that a number C4 Vitapan shade matched the boy's tooth color, and Eric had pantomimed how he would use it, bonding it to a tooth in layers. Although Eric couldn't set up his equipment, he did check Ferris's teeth and found some cavities that ought to be taken care of as soon as possible. Ferris did not remember ever having been to a dentist and, because he knew Eric, did not have any anxieties about having his teeth fixed. During the evening, Eric checked over everyone on the ship, even Kris, and he shook his head over the state of her teeth. Zainal submitted and Eric said that he could probably fix the chip off one of Zainal's eyeteeth: in Zainal's case, not caused by a brawl but by a fall against something tougher than Catteni teeth. Peran and Bazil were pronounced to have excellent teeth with not a trace of decay, though Bazil's bite could stand a little correction.
The next morning, after Jelco boarded the KDM, they received clearance to leave Newark Airport, with many good wishes for a safe flight. New York Center was going to turn them over to Air Africa Control so certain protocols were taken care of. And now that they were aware of the surprise a vertical lift and takeoff vessel gave Tower
Control crews, they would handle their appearance at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with more aplomb if they had to land there. Kris decreed that, since the rolls had been so useful in New York, she didn't see why they wouldn't be in Kenya, where they might meet more people who would be delighted with freshly baked bread. The notion of baking her way across the Atlantic and the Dark Continent left her grinning.
She did her baking with the help of Clune and Floss. The girl was still a restless type and had not liked being immured in the KDM the previous day when "everyone else" appeared to be out and about and having fun. She ignored the fact that Ferris and Clune had lugged heavy sacks of potatoes back to the ship, and that Bazil and Peran had carried in bundles of carrots and greens. They had been out and about her native planet. Kris recognized a certain merit in her argument and hoped she would be able to include Floss in some unusual activity at their current destination, even if she only helped with the rolls and bread they were going to use as goodwill offerings. She couldn't remember if Kenyans ate bread as a rule but it had once been a British colony and probably bread was known, no matter what other cereal grain was more popular. Jax remembered something about manioc but didn't know what it was. Kathy had suggested rice but Kris didn't think Kenya was rice country, which required irrigated fields. Kenya did have avocados, bananas, and other fresh fruits that might be available. They'd just have to wait and see. A banana, Kris thought whimsically, would taste very good. It had been so long since she had had one!
They were not challenged on the flight. The Atlantic Ocean was not that exciting from a high altitude. Even Africa was more a pattern of greens and beiges as they sped across it on the great circle route. Jax handled the controls well as they dropped out of hypersonic space, being high enough for a view of Lake Rudolph and the ripple of the Rift Valley. Nairobi Tower welcomed them in their space and gave them directions to their destination.
ollow the big road northwest fifty miles: you can probably see itit's the C84 and keep the Karura forest on the port side. You're looking for a small town among ridges. About thirteen land kilometers from the airport. We understand that you are VTOL and there is sufficient parking in front of the warehouse to accommodate you." "Over, Nairobi, and thank you. Out."
"They said they were from Botany," they heard the air controller say. "Where the hell's Botany?" Whatever response he got was lost as he shut off his microphone but those in the cockpit grinned at his confusion.
They found the site without too much trouble. The forest was unmistakable and the road twisted, visible to the starboard of the thick trees. Jax reduced airspeed. In fact, she laughed that it took almost more time to lose speed than it did to make the transatlantic segment.
It was easy to follow the road, visible through the lush forestry when the land swept upward to the very edge of the Rift Valley area. As a final identification, the warehouse had KIAMBU RIDGE painted in big white letters on its roof.
"Hey, neat," Jax said with relief at having almost completed such a prestigious run. "Hope they don't freak out seeing a spaceship land" "Open the hatch and let the smell of fresh bread waft out and entice them to our web, hehehehe," Kris said, doing her evilwitch imitation and rubbing her hands together. Chuck grinned but the display was lost on Zainal, though Floss, whom Kris had made sure had one of the jump seats to witness this landing, gave a contemptuous "Pshaw!"
Though the KDM was no longer supersonic, it made sufficient noise in landing to bring a number of people out of the warehouse.
The building had a galvanized roof, propped up by pillars of cinder blocks, but the facade was lined with local stone. As Jax cut the engines, Zainal and Jelco took places at the hatch until it was safe to open and extend the ramp. Several men, dressed in the long skirts used for cool comfort on this continent, came forward to greet them.
"Hi there, I am Jelco, representing Dan Vitali, Newark Airport Coordinator," Jelco said, holding the pharmaceutical package up so it was visible.
A very tall black man grinned, his teeth so white in his face that Bazil, standing by his father, was astonished and automatically came out with a Masai greeting.
Startled, the man halted midstride, staring first at Bazil and then at Zainal.
"Catteni?" he demanded, his nostrils flaring, smile disappearing. Whatever Bazil said in response relieved the man, and he resumed his welcoming grin. He said something else and Bazil gave what was obviously a very courteous reply.
"He did not think our race could speak his language," Bazil said in a proud aside to his father. "He feels honored for his entire tribe." "Good," Jelco murmured. "We have the medicines that were requested."
A second man, a stethoscope lying around his neck and sweat dripping down his shoulders, heaved a dramatic sigh of relief and stepped forward. "You cannot know how many lives you will be sav ing with this. Welcome, and thrice welcome. I'm Dr. Standish." He looked through the contents, sighing with relief as he identified the various packages. "Will you excuse me if I dash ofl?"
"Certainly," Jelco said. "We understand the need for haste." "What I don't understand is how you got here so fast. My coordinator only got the radio message an hour ago."
"This ship is hypersonic, Doctor," Zainal said, "and we understood that time was critical."
"You have no idea," the doctor replied, somewhat distracted. "Father Simeon's prayers are the most efficacious I have ever encountered. Excuse me." He dashed off to a waiting jeep that bore a faded Red Cross insignia and some other emblems that neither Kris nor Chuck could identify.
"Please to come inside. Coffee is available for your pleasure," said the African. "I am Chief Sembu."
Bazil then suavely introduced the arrivals and included Floss, who was hovering, slightly out of sight. Sembu was once more astonished when Floss gave him a greeting in the Masai's Swahili dialect. Kris urgently gestured for her to accompany the party.
Jelco strode into the warehouse and into what was obviously a tasting room. The smell of rich, dark coffee was a fragrance everyone inhaled, and there was a small pot of brown sugar fragments to sweeten the fine brew. Underlying the coffee odor was something else, fruity, which she couldn't identify.
Jelco and Sembu sat opposite each other and began the dickering. "A plane we could load easily," Sembu was saying, gesturing to the contents of the warehouse, glimpsed through the separating window. "That ... aircraft looks as if it could take all we have bagged." "And roasted?" Jelco asked.
"Well, not all are roasted," Sembu had to admit. "For one thing, we counted on an averagesized plane. Secondly, our buyers usually have their own roasters and prefer to have their people supervise such a delicate operation."
"Will Barevi appreciate 'careful' roasting?" Kris asked Zainal. She knew the process took time but did they have any to spare?
"How much is already roasted, Chief Sembu?" Jelco asked.
"We surmised that you would bring the largest aircraft you have," Sembu said with an understanding grin. "A 747, perhaps. We have sufficient to fill that size craft that have been roasted, as we agreed with Coord Vitali."
"And enough for a twothousandton capacity?" Chuck asked. "Hmm, but not all would be roasted."
"Beggars can't be choosers."
"Nor winners poor losers," Sembu said and extended his hand to Chuck. "I can provide you with a roaster and instructions, but roasting is a delicate business."
"We'll take the roaster, and the mistakes will be ours," Chuck said, taking the hand. "In all fairness to Jelco here and the green coord," he added, "they'd no idea we'd be dropping the KDM in their lap, so to speak."
The deal was struck and the chief gave orders to his workers to start loading. At which point Zainal called back to the ship to bring out the lifts. He suspected they'd be needed to load the roaster, though he'd no idea what size the thing would be.
That was providential because the large and bulky roaster could accommodate three sacks of beans at a time. It was loaded onto the KDM. Sembu was fascinated by the lift, even after Zainal warned him that its power pack was halfdrained, but trading it bought them all the fresh produce they could store as well as four twentyfivepound sacks of the rough brown sugar that Kris and Floss found in the local market. Kris also bought some lengths of a blue fabric displayed at the market so that Floss could finally have some new dresses. The girl was touched that Kris remembered such a detail amid all the others she was currently handling. Kris tried to find cinnamon and raisins but no one paid her much mind in the scurry to load the coffee beans. The entire warehouse of coffee bean sacks fit neatly into two of the three KDM cargo holds.
"Having all robustas is great," Kris said, "but we could use some of the milder arabicas, too." She had listened to enough of the spiel to have absorbed some details about the romance of coffee.
"They are grown elsewhere than Kenya," Sembu replied. "However, as ours are often used in combination with arabicas, and considering that trade is nonexistent, you might be able to exchange robustas for a few sacks of arabicas in, say, Santa Lucia in the Caribbean. If that's on your way, of course."
"That's an island," Kris said, trying to place it.
"In the Caribbean. There are many plantations on it. One, in fact, not far from the volcano."
"Volcano?" An acceptable landmark, certainly.
"Oh, it's not active. Or wasn't when I last had news, but you might do a deal with them. Their beans are very goodfor arabicas," he said with a slightly deprecating smile for a lesser breed, "but excellent in its category."
Kris grinned.
"Asante sana," Bazil said politely, bowing slightly to the man.
"I never thought I'd hear a Catteni speaking Swahili. It is worth much to have you here," Sembu said, smiling benignly down at the sturdy boy.
"Would you know, sir, where we can get some Alkoriti?" Kris asked.
"But of course." Sembu was really surprised.
"We found some bushes the last time we were here," she said, "for the Masai tribe that now resides on Botany. They require the plant for a rite of passage."
"You have Masai on Botany?"
"Yes," and when the man frowned, Kris hurried on. "They have their own settlement on the southern peninsula and we brought them some acacia bushes, but there is always a need for more Alkoriti."
"The children grow well?" Sembu asked, interested. He had also beckoned a worker to his side and gave him a low command. The man raced down the hill at such speed Kris worried that he would do himself damage.
"Well and strong," Bazil said proudly, "so that my father wanted me with him on this trip."
Shortly, Zainal reappeared, having finished securing the cargo, and joined Peran.
"Sembu has offered to bring us Alkoriti," Kris said.
"Ah, very good. Our thanks, Sembu. We promised to find more for Chief Materu " He also winked at Kris, for now they could honestly answer queriesif there were anyas to why they had de toured to Kenya instead of departing spaceward from Newark. Jelco joined them while they waited for the return of the messenger, who came back panting somewhat from a quick roundtrip, but carrying a pouch that he turned over to Sembu. Who, in his turn, passed it over to Kris.
"Please to say that we of Kenya are happy to provide this to your Masai chief."
"You must let the green coord know when you stand in need of medicines again, Sembu, and we will return."
"For more coffee beans, no doubt." The man's smile was understanding.
"I shall send along more power packs for the float, too," Zainal promised, before he bowed formally to Sembu and waved at the other workers who were unwilling to miss any of this pageant. Then Zainal led them all back into the KDM and pushed the button to retract the ramp.
Carefully, so that little dust lifted from the ground to discommode Sembu, Jax lifted the KDM away from the heights and eased the ship over the forestry before she increased power. Heading west, she turned the KDM's nose skyward and increased power until the ship could once again engage its hypersonic drives and take them back to Newark.
It was almost anticlimactic to be back in Newark air space barely two hours after they had taken off a fact that the air tower personnel remarked on as they extended a warm welcome back, "so soon." They were assigned their previous landing spot, and by the time Jax had landed the KDM, there were all kinds of trucks waiting to offload the precious coffee beans.
Twenty sacks of robusta beans were left in the KDM's hold and a good half of the fresh fruit and vegetables they had acquired at Kiambu Ridge. On the way back they had all enjoyed various fruits they had acquired: bananas, oranges, passion fruit, cape gooseberries with their lanternlike husks, custard apples and guavas, avocados, coconuts, papayas, and pineapples. And there were even chicken eggs and milk. Kris made a huge custard for dessert and planned to treat everyone to pancakes for breakfast. The KDM had a freezer unit but not a refrigerator, so she could not keep milk fresh for long.
Rummaging in the galley cabinets, Kathy had found a grinder of sorts and managed to reduce some beans to the proper consistency to brew coffee, so everyone had enjoyed the spoils of their excursion.
She gave Murray half a dozen eggs and the same to Jelco as well as a carton of milk for his young child and a hand of bananas. She had a huge stalk to present to the caterer. And two green stalks to ripen on the way back to Barevi as well as several crates of oranges, limes, and lemons.
Then she got in touch with the tower controller and bribed him with some of their own coffee beans to give her aerial maps of Santa Lucia so they could plot a course and see if they couldn't exchange a quantity of robustas for arabicas. Nothing else they had, even the largesse from Nairobi, would be useful for trade, and they had only three sacks of wheat left with which to trade on Barevi.
There was no need to mention to anyone that they planned to stop off at Santa Lucia but they did spend the night at Newark. If this next stop was anything like the Kiambu Ridge one had been, Zainal thought they needed to be rested.
Kathy and Jax plotted the southern course, which they figured would take about twenty minutes, allowing another fifteen first to get
to speed and then to slow down enough to land without damaging anything. The volcano, while not active, was currently sending a gray plume skyward so they had a fine guide to it on the northern tip of the island and a great look at the plateaus as well as the choice of several obvious landing sites. They saw several long, low, galvanized roofs that looked similar to the type used for bean storage in Kenya. Well, that made sense to Kris.
Somewhat to their dismay, they found that Catteni must have visited the plantation several years earlier for the KDM's type of ship was recognized and men armed with rifles and machetes were waiting as the ramp extruded. Chuck was their spokesperson and Zainal and his sons stayed tactfully out of sight. Kathy and Jax accompanied the sergeant, with the remaining float carrying a sack of robusta beans. The sight of the logo on the sack turned out to be the reassurance needed, and with a minimum of talk and an excess of pleasure, they managed to trade five robusta sacks and the remaining float for thirty arabicas, plus thirty more pounds of unrefined sugar. They got more green bananas and a case of local rum. Despite the fact that she was safe with Zainal, Kris did not join in the evening celebration once she had had a sniff of the liquor.
"That's stronger than Mayock's hooch," Kris remarked, after a smell of the rum and felt no desire at all to imbibe. She did reserve one bottle of the case for cooking. No one had cinnamon or raisins to trade. They were given more crates of citrus fruits, which would be novelties on Barevi. She wondered if she could manage to keep at least one stalk of the green bananas and a crate of oranges to bring back to Botany.
They stayed the night on the surfaceat the owner's invitationand evidently he had sent messages to his neighbors to come see what had landed on his parking lot. And they came in droves, on horse back. Peran was much taken with horses and was put in the saddle of one animal (very gentle, Kris was assured) for a walk around. Bazil, naturally, had to have a turn, too. It was a convivial evening and established their KDM as friendly, Catteni and all.
When Kris suggested that they would probably return, they were begged to do so, and she made a list of the items for which they would gladly trade. She was not astonished to note that tires, Toyota truck spark plugs, and twentyvolt batteries were the most important items. "We could keep all our KDMs busy hauling stuff in and coffee beans out," she said to Zainal.
"Mmmm," was his response. "But these folks don't have what we desperately need."
he next morning, when the KDM lifted from Santa Lucia, everyone was refreshed and keen to get on with the next phase of their mission. They logged out of the system with the Watch Dog and were given a cheerful "farewell, come
back again soon" from the Cheyenne Mountain NORAD facility. If Gino, who was pilot for the first leg of their flight to Barevi, cheerfully assured them that they would, there was no demur on their part.
"The Botany boys will be back," he crowed as he signed out of Terran space, and the powerful engines of the KDM sent them galactically north toward Barevi.
s they neared the trading planet, there was more chat on the l comm lines between Catteni captains, and whenever possible the duty officer repeated Peter's carefully composed commercial about the new trader and goods coming soon to Barevi. The other key members of the ransom group now spent shifts listening to Catteni messages and practicing with Zainal's sons, who were delighted to be in the position of teachers instead of pupils. They also absorbed new vocabulary and phrases.
When not on duty, Bazil and Peran indulged in what Kris knew was simple sibling bickering, but she was unable to discipline the boys. They certainly resented any interference in their "discussions" or the way they teased Floss. Fortunately, Kris could distract Floss, and Jax and Kathy both helped the girl make a dress from the fabric Kris had unexpectedly found at the market in Kenya. Floss had gushed with appreciation for Kris's thoughtfulness. Of course, the boys teased Floss about thatwhen Zainal and Chuck were absentbut she was well able to make sharp retorts. There were a few incidents when they tried the same tactics on Ferris and Ditsy, but the two Terran boys were more than able to deal with the Catteni ones and earned their respect. Kris knew they resented her monopolizing their adored father's free time and were inclined to disregard any requests she made of them; she had expected that, even if she didn't know how to counter their impudence. But it was a long flight to Barevi. She would be very glad when there was a tutor assigned to keep them occupied.
When it came time for the BASS1 to contact the Barevi space station that regulated all traffic in and out of the system, Captain Jax Kiznet was the pilot. This included her insistence that she did command the BASS1, origin: Botany Free Planet. Zainal was sitting as copilot, letting her handle the contact and repeat the landing instructions. Barevi Tower was sarcastically upset over having a female answering their orders and evidently in command of a ship: a pilot of unknown ability flying in busy traffic space. Jax was quizzed on docking procedures by the space station commander, Ladade, who sounded surly until finally Zainal intervened and said that he, Zainal, had been her instructor and that she was competent to pilot, even in such a busy port.
"Hey, this Ladade backed down real quick when you said you were Zainal," Jax said admiringly.
"See that you prove my ability to teach you properly," was Zainal's reply.
She did, concentrating on the job. As they made their approach, Zainal kept checking the screen for any navigational anomaly. Although there were stiff penalties for abusing Barevian space, there were also hazards, which he hoped to help Jax avoid. The barges that carried intersystem traffic were known to deviate from their projected courses and provide obstacles. She had her eyes open for such problems and kept one eye on the screens.
"This is a very active spaceport?" she asked Zainal when he pointed out an erratic ship for her to avoid. "And I thought there was a lot of junk in Earth space!" She pointed to the mass in the upper starboard quadrant.
"Oh, that," Zainal replied, shrugging it off. "That's real space junk. Barevi port facility is equipped to do major overhauls and refits. That's where they put carcasses and damaged structural members. And ships that don't pay their docking charges."
"Oh? When they haven't a bean left?" she asked, flashing a quick grin at him.
She really was a good pilot, Zainal thought, wondering whom he should train next on their return to Botany. There were plenty of willing candidates. He had watched all of them on the simulator and they all had good reflexes and instincts. The Botany Space Force had enough cargo ships now that new pilots were always needed.
From space, Kris thought that Barevi Market really hadn't changed at all, except perhaps for its lack of eager customers filling the vast places. As they hovered above the docking facility seeking their as signed bay, Kris pointed out the overlapping squares of the market. She felt an almostdefinitely almostnostalgic relief at seeing it again. It was, after all, the site of the beginning of her amazing adventures. They'd already started the rumor mill with Peter's intentionally provocative commercial, and they had had to keep the comm unit manned on a twentyfourhour basis with their best Cattem speakers. Even Peran and Bazil had taken short stints, enormously pleased to be allowed such a responsibility, and certainly Zainal was delighted that they handled their first official duty so capably.
he next morning, Zainal sought out the market's manager and paid over almost all the Catteni coin he had to lease appropriate space in the market. Over several hundred years, the facility had grown from its original square, each addition overlapping older ones. The corners provided enclosed shops that afforded some privacy. Zainal wanted one for Eric's "office." The first week's rental reduced his small store of Catteni coins to a handful of loose change.
"What commodities, Emassi?" Chief Kapash asked.
"Various. Food items from Botany and oddments. We expect to trade for items available only on Barevi."
"Yes, Supreme Emassi Kamiton told me"the commander paused for Zainal to recognize the significance of his having had a personal interview with such a personage as the Supreme Emassi"that you were coming and you must be accorded the respect and privileges of a trader. However, I will have no personal disputes settled in my market space."
"Will you also police the market to be sure we are allowed to trade freely?"
"I'll have you know we allow no brawling or bullying within the confines of the marketplace," Kapash said, straightening at the implied slur on his management. Zainal had known the man from his previous tour of duty on Barevi. Kapash was running more to fat than muscle for his extra flesh strained his uniform and destroyed the fit of it.
"My! How Barevi has changed," Zainal remarked and noticed the smug grin on Kapash's bluntfeatured face as he accepted the keys to the enclosure he had just leased and left the office. He didn't fail to see Kapash give a sign to one of the huge Catteni in the outer room and
knew that all his movements would now be reported back to the chief. Nothing new in that. May the fellow at least have the intelligence to understand what he saw. Zainal hadn't run Barevi's market for a full Catteni year without learning a few tricks and the counters to them.
His next task was to apply at the hiring hall for a tutor for Peran and Bazil. The two boys were running a little too wild for his liking. He knew they flagrantly disobeyed Kris and that they had gotten a lit tle out of hand by the end of the long journey here. That must stop. The hiring hall had the usual number of unemployed, some with the unmistakable look of "command" about them, but he required more than authority to control and shape his sons. He filled out the form, specifying a younger man, preferably one with pilot training, and definitely with a good educational background in the sciences. Considering the current situation with no new exploratory expeditions, there was surely some young man who would meet his requirements.
On his return to the ship, he passed by storage sheds with doors ajar, and men working among cartons displaying Terran manufacturers' logos. Yes, Chuck had been right. Most of what they urgently needed was here. To acquire tires and batteries and the spark plugs required to repair Terran ground vehicles might be less of a challenge than getting the comm sat components. He passed by a large locked unit that smelled aromatically of warm rubber, for the sun was hot enough to heat many of the inadequately vented warehouses.
He took one last look at his new premises, checking first on the electrical system and taking pictures with a small camera. Bayes had also supplied him with a unit that would test the circuits and power available. They did have some stepdown transformers for Eric's equipment. The shop was equipped with a stout reinforced door, though only a broken chain and lock dangled from the latch. Well, there were many ways to lock a door. A faucet slightly askew on its
pipe let out rusty water, which gradually cleared. When it did, Zainal filled a small bottle so they could analyze it in the ship's little medical station. Generally speaking, such resources were potable and the rust was only from long disuse. He was within his rights to insist on properly filtered water, and the last thing they needed was to distribute anything contaminated to their customers.
He also rented the largest lift platform that he spied in the street in front of Kapash's office, available from its owner, an old, onearmed exsoldier whom he thought he remembered from his Barevian year as market manager. The man certainly recognized him. Veterans were allowed to work on the docks as compensation for their loss of limbs. A name came to mindNatchiand seemed to be accepted by the garrulous veteran. The poor devils all looked alike, distinguishable only by the parts they were missing.
"They'll all be watching you, Emassi Zainal," Natchi remarked out of the side of his mouth. "We have heard rumors of your return. And how you singlehandedly accomplished the end of Eosi domi nation. This has not made you popular in all places. Do not lower your guard for a moment," the veteran muttered as he handed over the lift control hand unit. "You kept Barevi relatively calm the year you were here. May you prosper."
Zainal nodded in acceptance of the warning. "If you hear more, come to my shop. We shall always have a hot drink for you, Natchi, and a seat in the shop whenever you need to rest your old bones."
"Old they are, Emassi. Return the lift when you have no further need of it, and my gratitude that you remembered my name." Zainal nodded and, guiding the lift in front of him, went back to the BASS1's berth. He assumed his most aloof manner as he made his way, glad, after Natchi's warning, that he had already put Chuck on an alert status at their berth.
when he spotted Zainal approaching. "I was improving Peran's and Bazil's targeting skills." He pointed to the dartboard hung from a convenient loading spike, and the number of greenfletched darts lodged in the King ring. "Bazil's got the keener eye, but what could be more typical than me teaching two kids an old game?"
"Nothing," said Zainal, though he suspected that Chuck had removed the boisterous youngsters to give Kris a break from their bickering. "Much interest?"
"Think most of the other ships in port sent someone to take a gander and had quite a few notsosubtle inquiries. Merchants' reps, all of 'em, trying to figure out what we're going to sell."
"Make me a copy of these," Zainal said, tossing Chuck the keys. "And do we have digital locks with us?"
"I've got locks aplenty. I'll set up several, in fact, because I heard rumors that there are some who have bones to pick with Emassi Zainal " Zainal nodded for he knew many Catteni considered him a traitor, even if he had managed to end the restrictive Eosi domination. "Who's market manager? Vitters?"
"Kapash is market manager."
"Had dealings with him before?" Chuck asked. "Don't know him but Vitters was useless. Kept forgetting who took the biggest bribes from him. Wonder who killed him?"
"Not our problem, and we'll have more than our share, I suspect." Zainal gave a shrug. "I know of Kapash, let us say. He may not be an improvement over Vitters. And once we have goods on the premises, I'll want to be sure nothing is missing the next day. Natchi, a onearmed veteran, has also warned me. Natchi is to be given as much coffee as he wishes. He'll do more than cool his drink with his breath if he hears anything we should know. Is Clune the biggest man we've got? Or Ninety Doyle?"
"It'd be a tossup, Emassi." Chuck grinned and, with a flourish, gestured for Zainal to precede him up the ramp and into the KDM. "Even the biggest Catteni would think twice before tangling with either of them unless they were totally nuts."
"Have I still got the spy on my tail?"
"Big ugly son, straggly beard, wearing dirty yellow pants and a blue vest?"
"You've seen him. The very one." "Wouldn't like to upset that fellow!"
"I don't want anyone leaving this ship alone. Only in groups of two, preferably three. The women are definitely not to leave without a male escort."
"What would they leave for?" Chuck demanded. "All the comforts of home."
As Zainal reached the main corridor, he could smell the fragrance of fresh coffee and made his way quickly to the wardroom, where, as if she had known his exact moment of return, Kris had a cup ready to hand him when he entered.
"The boys saw you coming," she said, smiling. "I was roasting more coffee beans. Tell me what you think of this brew. Maybe I can get the right balance yet. Could you smell it on the dock?" He could hear the exhaust fan whirring but he hadn't smelled the aroma on the dock. Other things had been redolenthot grease, oil, and stale ship fuel: the usual compound in this sort of area.
"They'll all know by tomorrow" Zainal shrugged with an indifference he didn't feel. In fact, he was seething with anticipation to witness the stir they would make in the unexpectedly torpid atmo sphere of what had once been a hectic and active marketplace. He had also tread on parts stuck in the mud of the market aisles. The one he dug out was indeed a spark plug but too dirtencrusted to be saved; another was a circuit board of some type. What Chuck had reported was correct: merchandise was being wantonly and casually destroyed. So much for Kapash's boast that he kept the facility in order.
Chuck came in then, hanging the dartboard back on the wall in its usual spot.
"Another cup, please, Kris, before I take a casual"Chuck grinned that "casual" was not the most apt adjective"stroll around the market."
"Take Clime and Ninety with you and show them Stall Ninetytwo," Zainal said. "Northwest corner. There is a wooden floor to which we can attach Eric's equipment. We'll need new bolts and, of course, the locks."
"Is that far from what you Catteni euphemistically call a drinking spot?" Kris asked hopefully. She remembered all too clearly the brawl she had nearly been embroiled in the last time she'd been in Barevi.
"Yes, and not near the main intersections," Zainal added, satisfied. "On a good wide aisle."
"Did you catch the names of any merchants?"
Zainal handed Chuck the hand cam he had been using on his tour of the market areas. "Which one of our crew can develop film?" he asked, taking out the film he had used up on his return to the KDM. "Then we can see who our neighbors are."
"Gail," Kris said and, going to the wall unit, she depressed a toggle. "Lieutenant Sullivan to the wardroom, please."
"Coming," was the cheerful reply.
It didn't take her long to arrive, almost breathless, at the door. She raised her arm to salute, but changed the motion to pushing her hair back from her face. Zainal had long since requested that formality be reserved for those times when other Catteni were present, but service habits were hard to break.
"Can you please process these, Gail?" "Certainly, sir. Are they urgent?"
"Reasonably. And no one is to leave the ship alone. Especially you women. Never leave without a man with you ... preferably Clime or Ninety. Pass the word along."
"Yes, Zainal. I will." She widened her eyes briefly and then flicked her fingers at him in a salute and turned left down the passage. Kris took a new camera unit from a closet and handed it over. He pocketed it, patting the slim rectangle for a moment.
"Should we all carry one, just in case?"
"No reason why not. Photo proof might be necessary and some of what I shot might not develop because of shadow but. . ."
"We might be able to identify enough to help find the right ransomables."
Kris finished the thought. "We are adding tires, batteries, and spark plugs to the list, aren't we?"
He nodded a vigorous affirmative.
"The name of the market chief is Kapash. He would not want the world and Barevi to know that, at one time, he was storing illegal substances: flip, strew, and lily."
"Oh?" Kris said, her tone asking for elaboration.
"Flip destroys Catteni balance. It's a powder and, blown into the face, can cause vertigo. Often illegally used during fights. Too much can destroy balance completely. Strew clings to skin and has an ob noxious stink to it. It also clouds memory. Lily is the worst. It's toxic, especially to the Turs, and was often used to subdue them. In quantity it can be lethal to any of the known species. I don't think it was used on Earth, but it might have been."
"Lily is your word for a bad drug? I used to love stargazer lilies. They could scent up a room for weeks." She smiled nostalgically. "Why did you warn me about such substances?"
"I'm warning you about Kapash. You may threaten him with exposure if he makes any move on you or any of the crew. Dealing with any of those three drugs carries a mandatory sentence to one of the mining colonies. He'll know that."
"So he wouldn't want that bruited about."
you are not back by a specified time, such information will be delivered to the space commander, Ladade. He knows I know, but he can't touch me. Or hasn't tried to. As I told the lieutenant, no one is to leave the ship alone. I'd rather you," and he pointed his finger at her, "went out only with me or Clune."
"Isn't Alex McColl big enough, too?" Kris asked, grinning. She knew she shouldn't feel so cocky, but she had benefited from sessions with Mpatane Cummings in unarmed combat training, and was adept enough to have floored Clune and Chuck in exercise sessions. Mpatane might look delicate but she was dangerous with hand and foot. She'd had Kris doing some toughening exercises with the edge of her hand. Mpatane could split a hunk of wood with a blow. She'd also taught Kris how to send a man's nose into his brain with the heel of her hand. Not, Kris thought, that a Catteni nose would not be as fragile as the human equivalent, but a crack there would certainly smart enough for her to get out of a Catteni's clutch. Catteni used genital guards even when off duty, so the classic ploy of a knee to the crotch would not be an option. Kris was glad to have other timetried maneuvers, and got quite adept at flooring anyone who dared grab her: once you knew how, it was simple to use the force of a rush to the attacker's detriment. Most of the Catteni fighting she had observed had been flailing fists and butting heads. Not much finesse, more pure brute force. She now had countermeasures but would prefer not to have to use them.
"We could get in a few good licks in ten seconds," Kris said, noticing that the other women bristled a bit at the notion that they couldn't defend themselves. "But Catteni don't fight fair," she added.
"Just a safety precaution. Until you know the Barevi market area, you need to have a failsafe," Zainal said, accepting their rebuff. When he gave Kris an admonishing glare, she gave him an impudent grin.
They spent the rest of the afternoon getting the bulky dental elements onto Natchi's big lift and checked to be sure they had everything else they needed. They had found a digitally locked strongbox for the smallest gold items. The metal ingots were a little easier to safekeep, being heavy and bulky in themselves and not something even a Catteni could slip into a pocket. They had more than enough of a crew to leave someone on board on comm watch at all times, and Bayes had rigged a perimeter alert in the berth against snoopers. The KDM, aka BASS1, had integral shielding against electronic snoopers so one person on board should be sufficient. Possibly two or three. Herb Bayes knew some rudimentary Catteni.
One of the first things Zainal wanted to liberate was a carton of handheld comm units so that all members of his group could keep in touch no matter where they were on Barevi. He gave each of the women a tiny Mayday patch that would emit a tensecond yowl if they got cornered. The sound was one that was particularly irritating to Cattem ears and was guaranteed to let them escape while their wouldbe assailant was battered by the noise.
The water tested 99 percent pure without any unusual bacteria or noxious minerals. It was a bit high in iron but that would be temporary, as Zainal knew from his term as market manager that the piping was all properly done. The tap only needed to run a bit. Sometimes, just to be awkward, the market manager would do silly things, like health checks on a merchant. A water filter from the survivor kit would let them filter enough water for the first urnful of coffeejust to be on the safe side. Zainal hoped that the coffee could be made quickly enough so that he'd've collected some local credits before Kapash figured out a new way to derive income from their stall. Zainal surely hoped that Kapash would prove to be a caffeine addict. That would be useful. After reading the manual for the roaster, they had been able to dry several more sacks of beans on their flight to Barevi, and the results had brewed into a decent coffee. They'd do more once they found out how the beans were selling. Kris was keen to try some blending of the two bean types.
The next morning, when Zainal woke up early, he could already smell the onboard coffee. Dressing quickly, he went to the galley and found Kris pouring cups for those already gathered in by the delight ful aroma. She had made pancakes, too, from the last of the flour, milk, and eggs on board. There were ripe bananas to start with and he was becoming quite fond of the fruit. They had several big stalks of bananas slowly ripening in the hold along with the oranges they had taken on board at Santa Lucia. They would see how things went before they offered the fruits in the market. But there was a threeweek limit to the bananas and they might well have to trade them for what they could get, even if Kris had hopes of returning with some to Botany as a special treat. The oranges would keep and some of the other fruit had been bought green enough to make the trip back to Botany.
"I made another big pot of coffee," Kris was saying now, as Floss and the boys joined them in the galley, "so we could bring some to the stall just in case we have early customers," she told him, jerking her chin at the big padded thermal bottle.
"Do my best with the first cup of coffee," she replied. One of the things Zainal particularly liked about Kris was her ability to wake up in a good mood. It certainly started the day off well for those work ing with her. She had toasted the last of the baked bread she'd been able to make from the flour they had brought from Botany.
If Zainal remembered correctly, there had been a bakery in Barevi market, unless a fight had trashed it. The one he remembered had done good business, especially after some of the Terran breads had been offered for sale, when different types of flour became available following the mass looting of Earth. Coffee and bread from Terra were good things.
"We're ready when you are, Zainal," Bayes said. "All loaded on the lift."
Despite the heat of the coffee, Zainal managed to drink it down, felt it slosh in his belly and hoped it would have its usual stimulating effect on his system. Kris carefully handed him a nicely browned slice of bread, spread with some of the sweet stuff he liked. He smiled at her. "Take the hottle," she said, nodding to the padded affair.
By its convenient handle, he swung it off the worktop and followed Herb Bayes, Chuck, Captain Harvey, Sally Stoffers, and the two Doyle brothers, who were on the first shift of the ransom team. His sons followed him, eager for their first glimpse of famed Barevi. Zainal hoped that someone would apply for the job of tutor. While experience in the marketas well as their command of both languageswould be useful, they badly needed training in other areas. They wouldn't like it, but then, he hadn't enjoyed his schooling either. Piloting was always good training to have.
Other merchants were beginning to open their stalls one by one, pausing in the process to talk to their neighbors and assure waiting customers that they would be ready presently. His team made short shrift of setting up, since they would be buying, not selling merchandise. Even the coffee wasn't for sale, offered only as a courtesy to those who came to show their goods.
"Filter the first water that comes out, Ninety," Zainal murmured to the heavyset Doyle brother.
"Smart, too," Ninety muttered back as the tap spat rusty water into the filter material, but there was soon enough to fill the big urn. Bayes nodded assurance that the power conduit was good and they wouldn't need a transformer to handle the electrical current, while Kathy Harvey set out cups, brown sugar, and the Botany sweetener and every spoon from the galley. Kathy had taken it upon herself to be sure the spoons did not go missing.
Zainal hadn't liked milk in his coffee when they'd had enough to use it, said it ruined the full coffee taste, which he preferred dark and
sweet. Thinking about it made him pour a cup from the hottle. Second one was nearly as good as the first, and he could savor the taste. Then Natchi appeared at his elbow.
"Does that smell like I think it does?" the old man murmured, inhaling deeply. Oh, it does. It's coffee, isn't it?" He was salivating in anticipation.
"Coffee," being an alien word, sounded the same from Catteni lips as it did from Terran. Zainal had noticed that the Kenyans called it kahawa.
"I brought my own seat," Natchi said, holding up a battered crate as he reminded Zainal of the previous day's promise. Zainal poured him a cup.
"Put your seat where you will be comfortable, Natchi, behind the stall where you won't be trampled in the rush," Zainal suggested when he saw that sharp noses down the line were picking up the unmistakable aroma from his pouring.
"We have a list of items we are looking for," he said in a carrying tone, glancing down the row of stalls and catching the gaze of several other merchants, "and those who wish to peruse the lists might enjoy a warming cup."
By then, the others with the dental equipment lift had arrived, with Eric Sachs hovering at the tailgate, anxious that his precious equipment not be harmed. Only if it fell on someone else's toe, Zainal was sure, gesturing for Eric to use the cubicle they had rented for dental work. Ferris and Ditsy had offered to see if they could find men in the drink shops who might need Eric's skills and persuade them to come and see the wonders of tooth repair and restoration. As aids, Gail, who had a gift for printing and sketching, had done a flip chart depicting examples of the dental care Eric could provide, even putting a small diamond in one crown when she had heard that Mike had included some flatcut stones in their barterables.
"You say you have a list?" asked a low voice at Zainal's side, and he saw a man, ostentatiously wearing a communications badge, standing beside him.
"Yes, we do, please step up," Zainal replied, remembering what Peter had told him of the ways of treating prospective sellers.
"Who speaks Cattem besides yourself, Emassi?" (Clune had mentioned during the journey here that no one would ever mistake Zainal for anything but Emassi class, no matter what he did or how he introduced himself.)
"All who are here, merchant. Captain Kiznet, I think list two," and he held out his hand to Clune for a copy of that list. They had printed up lists of units and numbers, as well as logos of the various manufacturers whose items they were eager to find. "And would you like a cup to sip?"
"The aroma attracted me first, Emassi," was the unusually candid reply, and Peran was quick to pour another cup from the hottle and present it with suitable dignity to the merchant. "I grew accustomed to this Terra drink, but it is hard to obtain in any quantity." Zainal chose to ignore the subtle request for more information about his sources. "It may be stronger than the brew you drank on Terra, merchant, and you may wish to add sweetener."
The man took a sip and let it drain down his throat with an expression of delight and relief. "No, it is fine as it has been poured, Emassi. "
Kathy was holding out a copy of the list to the prospective trader. She had also put out a little bowl, and totally without shame, she caught the merchant's eye and rubbed her thumb against her forefin ger suggestively. "Have as many cups as you desire," she said very graciously. Zainal watched the man's face, but he showed no offense and, indeed, dug into his pocket and flipped a coin into the bowl, which already held some small change.
"We try to serve only the very best brew. This is called robusta,
grown in the mountains of Kenya and considered the best of the best. It is, however, strong and you might prefer a milder brew"
The man cleared his throat and swallowed. "True, but exactly what is needed to start a chilly morning and a day's trading." He held out his hand to take the list from Kathy. "Ah, these all seem to be electronic parts from Terra."
"We are looking for spare parts to repair damaged machinery" Zainal said cautiously. "Do you know if you have any of these items in your stores?" According to the reconnaissance Chuck had done, this man did.
The man raised one hand over his shoulder, twiddling fingers, and suddenly two younger men were by his side.
"Check our stores and see if any of these items are in stock." He passed the list over. The clerks ran off but not without a longing sniff in the direction of the coffee.
"Return swiftly," Zainal added to their retreating backs, "and have a drink."
"Do not be so quick to offer enticements, Emassi," the merchant said, "or you will have all the raff and scaff of the market begging." "The raff and scaff," Zainal said, gesturing toward Natchi, who was savoring each sip of his cup, "often know local gossip and fact. Natchi and I have known each other a long time and I find his talk is informed and genuine."
"I am Zerkay, Emassi," the merchant said, "and it is right that you should treat him with respect."
"As a veteran, he is due some preference." Zainal was not going to get into an argument about the treatment of exsoldiers when he knew very little about the man to whom he was speaking.
Zerkay had finished his second cup, and when he would have added another coin, Zainal stayed the gesture and beckoned for Kathy to replenish his supply.
"Have a cup of the freshest brew, Merchant Zerkay, and from different beans and grind. Let me know which you prefer," she said in Catteni. She even had the right inflection of inferior to superior in words and cadence, and Zerkay raised his eyebrows in appreciation. "Your Terrans speak good Catteni."
"They practice," Zainal replied, not without a touch of pride. "Amazing," Zerkay said, lifting the freshly made coffee close enough to his nose to sniff appreciatively. "Hmmm. Yes, I can smell the difference. Lighter, milder."
"Arabica beans, grown on the highlands of Santa Lucia," Kathy replied.
"Highlands?" Zerkay asked.
"There are many sorts of coffee beans grown in Terra, Zerkay, and nearly as many ways of preparing the cup you drink."
"Are there? How interesting. I did not know. But then, I have had little chance to enjoy Earth." He inclined himself first toward Kathy and then toward Zainal, obviously quite eager to be indoctrinated.
"We can supply you with the beans you like best, Zerkay, that is, if we can agree on the items I require."
"Have you enough coffee to satisfy both your needs and my tastes?"
"That is what we must discover, Zerkay." Zainal held his cup up to Kathy for a refill.
"Ahhhh!" Zerkay raised his hand, signaled with his fingers for another of his young minions to attend him, and this one placed a stool by the table for his senior to use.
There was a bustle and reshuffle of people at the far end of the broad market corridor, and for a moment Zainal was afraid that the advancing pile of cartons would tumble off the lift that transported them. The cargo had not been tied to the lift bed and Zainal feared for the safety of all the soirreplaceable items. Then the two young men appeared, one towing the lift, while the second made frequent adjustments to the piled cartons to prevent any from falling off.
Zainal caught Kathy Harvey's glance and the flick of white paper in her hand, doubtless a copy of the list. He made a flourish with one hand for her to check the items proffered. Most of the cartons were prominently embellished with the Terran Motorola logo, and some were indeed cell phones. Another carton seemed to hold switching mechanisms, vitally needed for the satellites. Zainal had memorized some of the relevant alphanumeric combinations of parts used by the various manufacturers of what he most needed, and these looked right: three letters and six or more numbers with a final letter.
Kathy Harvey was calling out the codes on the boxes to Bayes, who was checking them off.
"Pay dirt, boss," she said in English. "How about we give the nice man his own bean grinder as a special offer? Bayes hooked one up on an extension and we can give a demonstration. And let him smell the difference in the roasted beans. He has a big enough nose."
"Not that it'd work with all the stinks around here," Bayes remarked sotto voce.
"Coffee has its own indescribable smell. He may not catch the nuances, but would he admit that he doesn't when we give him the pitch?" Kathy replied.
"Which cup did you prefer, Zerkay?" she asked at her most deferential.
"The one I just had," the merchant replied, noting that Bayes had finished checking off the list and handed it with a bow to Zainal. Zainal nodded approval and settled himself on the edge of the stall top to see what was the most vital on this list to bid for.
"We must decide a fair exchange for this merchandise," he said. "Since you like coffee, are happy to find a supply, would you consider trading in coffee beans?"
"You have the beans themselves?" Zerkay was impressed.
"With great difficulty, but we have managed to obtain a small quantity," and Zainal thought of the full cargo hold of fragrant beans in their sacks, "which I will offer for the specific goods I have been sent to find."
"Sent by whom, might I be so bold as to inquire?"
"Why, by Botany, of course," Zainal replied. Which, at one level, was true enough.
"Ah yes, the planet that you have discovered." "No, Zerkay, the planet on which I was dropped."
This information appeared to stagger Zerkay to the point where Zainal was afraid the man might tumble off his stool.
"You? An Emassi? Were dropped?" "Like a common criminal" was the unuttered qualifier.
"I was dropped, and I stay," Zainal replied firmly.
"Yes, I see," Zerkay said, and perhaps, Zainal thought, he really did. One day Zainal would discover who had made sure that a Catteni had been included in a disparate lot to be left to live or die on an unknown planet. However, Zerkay recalled himself to the business at hand, leaning an elbow casually on the stall, glancing at his halfempty cup and then at the list dangling in Zainal's fingers. "And how shall we judge the worth of each carton? For I think your friendly veteran will have already told you that trade has been very slow"
"Surely not slow for a man of your acumen." Zainal gestured toward Zerkay's obviously large and expensive stall, with its wellbuilt amenities and outbuildings. "And trading finesse." Zainal indicated the fine fabric in which Zerkay clothed himself. So, Zainal thought, the initial courtesies were over. He had to play a very delicate balance now between desire and acquisition. His first encounter with a Barevi merchant was allimportant ... at least on what Kathy called their "coffee" standard.
"Is coffee another of those items no longer available on Earth?" Zerkay asked casually.
tered, flicking his fingers toward the pile of cartons. "We Catteni are an inventive race, to be sure, but . . ." He let his tone drop off.
"But you would surely be searching them out to deliver the units into the hands of those who can assemble them effectively?" shrewd Zerkay replied.
"It is, of course, a tentative venture," Zainal said, lifting his hand in a diffident manner.
"There is uncertainty all through the system," Zerkay admitted. "But you have more command of particulars than a minor merchant on Barevi."
"Minor?" Zainal infused his tone with disbelief. "No merchant on Barevi has ever lacked uptodate information."
Meanwhile, some of the younger people in the marketplace were sidling up to Eric's stall. One of them was bold enough to flip over the cards Gail had made. They giggled at the golden teeth. Instantly, Fer ris stepped forward to give an explanation of dentistry and to forestall any attempt to make away with the cards in the spirit of mischief. For a little fellow, Ferris had learned from the Masai how to act with imposing authority.
Two pounds a carton was what Zerkay accepted to make the trade a deal. As well as samples of the other grinds, which Kathy packaged up before his eyes, making the measures generous. She marked the bags and advised him to keep track of those he preferred so they could supply him with his preference.
"And then I must produce more cartons for your inspection?" Zerkay was slightly amused. "This is not the way business is ordinarily conducted at Barevi "
"No?" Zainal asked politely, his eyebrows arched above an incredulous expression.
"Buyers do not set up stalls and woo the sellers to return items collected on another planet.
"Are you the man who brought about the end of the Eosi?"
"I am." Zainal dropped his voice to a somber tone of regret. "You have already achieved much. 1, as one of many, am in debt
to you.
"Then do me the courtesy of telling other merchants that I deal honestly for the goods I require," Zainal said with great dignity. "That will be my pleasure," Zerkay said, rising from his stool. It was retrieved by one of his escorts and neatly folded up. "Good trading, Emassi." He inclined his upper body respectfully and then, turning on one heel, walked back to his own stall.
As he was just out of sight, two of the young Catteni began to struggle over who had the right to look at the dentistry display. Eric came out and, by the simple expedient of removing it from con tention and glowering at the miscreants, settled the problem. "If you should happen to know of someone with loose teeth, or who has lost teeth and wishes replacements, I am ready to supply the need," Eric said after them with a great deal of dignity. The younger Cattem withdrew before this unusual man took punitive measures.
"I could go to the drinking places. That's where most of the damage takes place, according to what Natchi says," Ferris suggested slyly to Eric. The dentist was somewhat taken aback by such a direct, if
practical, method of finding customers. "I could speak to the owner and tell him where men who lose their teeth can come to have them repaired."
Discreet advertising was, of course, legitimate, so Ferris went off to see what he could discover.
While Ferris seemed fascinated by Eric, Ditsy seemed more interested in running errands and generally keeping his eyes open. It was he who remembered about the lift power packs and, somewhat diffidently, came to Zainal the next evening with an idea.
"We did pretty well swapping those lifts, didn't we, Zainal?" he began tentatively.
"We wouldn't have had as many coffee beans and the other good
things we traded them for, that's certain," Zainal replied encouragingly.
"I know which merchant handles sales of new packs," Ditsy said. "We shall need more, certainly, to take back with us," Zainal agreed.
"Couldn't we use more lifts?" Ditsy asked. "We could."
"They don't recycle anything in Barevi. Did you know that?" "Yes, I did," Zainal replied, thinking of the piles of waste gathered up by Rassi workers on a daily basis.
"Natchi said that's how he got his lift. He makes a living from it, even if he did get it from a stinking old garbage dump."
Said in Ditsy's crackly voice, "dump" sounded more final than ever. "And you'd like to get one from the dump and see if you can fix it?"
"Well, they are useful items, and we don't have any now, do we, 'cause you traded the ones we had."
"That's right, I did. And I know that Jelco wanted one of ours very badly."
"Yeah, he was almost drooling over it," Ditsy said with a bit of malice in his smile. "Asking us stuff like its service longevity and capacity 'n' stuff that I didn't know. Natchi's been telling me about a lift's versatility and showing me how to make full use of one."
"Has he?" Come to think of it, Zainal had seen the two in deep conversation together. He wished that his own sons would find something honorable in the old soldier, rather than the usual contempt of the healthy for the infirm. But then, as Kris reminded him, his sons had had a very tough time for a few years and were probably still recovering from the "trauma." Certainly they were a little confused about where they belonged. A tutor would help them find their way.
"Yes. He says with the tools we got, he could fix any we could find and have them in firstclass working condition. You see," and now Ditsy's demeanor changed, "no offense, but Cattem don't take care of their machinery at all well."
"I know that."
"Natchi said that there is normal wear and tear on any machinery, but a lot of that could be avoided with a simple servicing or minimal care. Mostly, in the case of the lifts, just not dumping the lift on its side in the dirt and muck around here." The boy had contempt for such irresponsibility. But then, he had lived through the terrible times of the occupation and his personal values came from that experience.
"So me and Natchi was"
"Were," Zainal corrected without thinking.
"Werethank youwondering if we had your permission to bring a few things, like basically sound lifts, back to the BASSOne and fix 'em?"
"I think that's a very good idea."
Then Ditsy added forthrightly, "Between what I get in my hand for running errands now and then, which Kris said I don't have to throw into the coffee bowl, me and Natchi can get some bargains. We could use a coupla more lifts back home, couldn't we?"
"In Botany?"
"Either Botany or Terra," was Ditsy's response.
"That's a very good idea, Ditsy, and you have my permission, indeed my assistance, as well as my encouragement."
After that little chat, Ditsy was most often gone from the stall on pursuits of his own, and Ferris was looking for the toothless, to the point where running errands fell to Peran, Bazil, and Clune. Zainal was not so fond a father that he did not realize that it was his sons who complained about Ditsy and Ferris not doing their fair share.
It was not unusual to have to roust the boys from whatever discarded mechanical wonders they and Natchi were involved in to help bag beans for the next day's sales. And, to Zainal's momentary cha
grin, Ditsy had to remind him about trading for new power packs. Ditsy said that, in point of fact, he needed several types.
"Natchi knows a great deal about machinery" Ditsy informed him, "and we got several things working real well but they need power packs. Are they like our old batteries?"
"The components are entirely different and the power more intensified."
Zainal was almost amused by Ditsy's careful separation of our as in Terran, and yours, as in Catteni. No harm in that since Ditsy was very careful about his manners in addressing any Barevian.
Two days after Ditsy and Natchi had successfully restored four lift panels, a young man appeared at BASS1, asking to speak with Emassi Zainal. Natchi surveyed the man with shrewd eyes.
"Come from the hiring hall?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. A position for tutor is said to be still open."
Liking what he saw, for Natchi was a good judge of men, the old veteran gave him directions to Stall Ninetytwo in the marketplace. Not long afterward, Zainal saw a tall young man coming directly toward him, a tentative smile on his face. Could this fellow be a potential tutor? Observing him carefully as he approached, Zainal saw that he walked like a pilot, with a buoyancy, like someone not quite accustomed to a lighter gravity and yet with the balanced stride of an athletic person.
"Are you Emassi Zainal?" he asked, coming directly to Zainal. "I understand that you are looking for a tutor?"
"I am," Zainal replied, looking the young man over.
"My name is Brone " He offered Zainal a firm hand and shake. He stood squarely on his feet but out of the main flow of those using the aisle. Nor did he draw aside when several shabbily dressed Catteni passed by, as some of the other passersby did, as if not wishing to be infected by the lesser ranks. Zainal did not wish for his sons to be taught by a judgmental personality. They had endured enough of that sort of mental bias at the hands of their relatives.
"Tell me something about yourself, Brone," Zainal said and motioned for Kris to pour two cups of coffee. "And enjoy a cup of our coffee."
Brone reached into his belt pouch and withdrew several items: a sheet of paper, which turned out to be his educational background, neatly written, and an uptodate license allowing the person (the ID picture was a slightly younger Brone) to pilot any intersystem craft. "I see you passed in your first attempt," Zainal said, studying the card.
"I reviewed old test runs and studied hard," Brone replied, attempting to belittle what had been a sensible notion.
"Would you consider the position of tutoring my sons until such time as you might move on to captain your own ship?"
Brone smiled, an unusual response between two Catteni who had just met.
"I doubt, in today's economic situation, that I will have much chance to pilot a ship. Also, you must realize that I can only teach what I already know," Brone said.
"Your duties might include flying, for which you would get credit."
A look of hungry hope flashed on the young man's face and was quickly controlled.
"1 want my sons to learn the basics and the protocols that every young Catteni must learn."
"That much I can teach, as well as navigational mathematics and port law," Brone said.
"You would not object to spending time on Botany?"
"I hear that it is a very beautiful planet, with a light gravity." Zainal chuckled. Born on a heavy world and physically adapted to
the problem, it was amazing how every native Catteni dreamed of living on a lightgravity planet. Of course, their gravitybred muscles then gave them more advantages over the indigenous species. It was one of the main reasons they had been able to overcome soldiers pitted against them in the invasion.
"My sons should not lose any more of their heritage," Zainal said. "We are leaving shortly, Brone, to return to Botany. My sons are standing over there by the two Terran women. Would you be able to join us at such short notice?"
"They are wellgrown lads," Brone said noncommittally. "Peran is the elder and Bazil the younger."
Brone nodded. "I did not like my tutor." "Nor did I," Zainal admitted.
"They wish to be pilots like their father? I heard that you were a scout."
"They have shown interest but they are too young to know their own minds."
"I didn't at their ages," Brone admitted candidly. "I had no option," Zainal remarked.
"I heard that you were unable to answer your Eosi call."
That was a polite way of putting the matter, Zainal thought. And it also indicated that Brone had done some discreet questioning about him as a possible employer.
"I had been dropped on Botany at that point," Zainal replied with equal candor, holding the young man's steady gaze, though not telling the whole truth of the affair, which was no one's business. Zainal still had no clue as to who had included a Catteni in that hapless load of unwilling colonists.
"Which appears to have been felicitous," Brone replied diplomatically.
Zainal found that he liked the candidate's appearance, attitude,and answers. He saw Natchi coming in the back of the stall and nodding encouragingly. He saw Kris looking over at the close conversation they were having and decided on one last test of the candidate and beckoned her to join them.
"This is my mate, Kris Bjornsen, Emassi Brone," he said, and the young man acknowledged the introduction with a respectful bow. "Lady Emassi Kris, it is my pleasure to meet you."
"Oh?" Kris drawled, slightly amused that he knew her by rank. Brone bowed again. "I knew one of the families you sheltered on Botany. They spoke highly of you and were delighted with your rank award."
"Did they?" Kris replied, astonished, for the Catteni ladies had not been at all appreciative of her efforts during their stay on Botany. "Come, Brone, I shall introduce you to my sons. Then, if you have no objection, we can quarter you on the BASS1. They can help you bring your belongings."
"What text and study books do you have on the ship, Emassi?" "Few, and no more than is usually carried on a KDM." Zainal scooped up what Catteni coins were in the coffee bowl and pressed them on Brone. "Find what you want to use from the secondhand bookstall. Spend as you see fit. You will be the one teaching. I shall reimburse you for any extra you spend. This evening we can discuss study subjects and hours at our leisure."
Brone agreed and went off with the boys.
"You know, Chuck, it's odd. There wasn't the usual brawl last night," Kris said as she watched the two boys walk away with their new tutor.
Chuck gave a snort. "No, because Natchi tells me Kapash really does keep order in the market. Of course, I wouldn't like to be caught." "Oh?" Kris prompted.
"I don't approve of his methods."
"Which are? I wouldn't think Catteni would be impressed by his punishment triangle."
"'Tisn't that. He locks brawlers up and sells them to the next slaver in. Gotta keep those mines supplied, you know"
"Oh!" She almost tripped she was so surprised. "That would be quite a deterrent, wouldn't it?"
That was not as much reassurance as she thought a fightfree Barevi would be. However, there were customers awaiting their cups of coffee and queries about what could be traded for the beans. As Kris finished serving a new customer with the last cup of the current urn, Zainal decided it was time to close, and they packed up the things to be taken back to the BASS1.
At dinner, Brone talked just enough to impress his new shipmates as well as his tutees with his basic understanding of current affairs on both Barevi and Catten. Natchi had the street gossip, but Brone had an overview. As Zainal had suspected, Kamiton had had trouble with his new government. No one had expected it to be easy. The Eosi were, as Kris might say, a hard act to follow since they had exerted such a strict, fearbased control over their underlings and total authority over their doings.
The loss of any new planets, rich with mineral assets, bit hard into the Catteni economy. Nothing ran as smoothly without the threat of Eosi disfavor. There were shortages at the existing mining planets and colonies. Catteni mines had not been producing their expected quotas since the Eosi, who had employed subtle ways of ensuring that quotas were met, were dispatched. No new products in the markets meant fewer buyers. Kapash's management of the market had indeed reduced the destruction caused by drunken spacemen, but they, in turn, found little to buy in the markets with their accumulated wages. Coffee, therefore, had an unusual popularity with those for whom it was a novelty and with those who had tasted it while occupying Earth.
While there was no place on this planet where coffee beans could be cultivated, there were jungle highlands on Botany. Kris had mentioned that this was a laborintensive crop, since the beans had to be handpicked when ripe, but Zainal thought there would be plenty of hands to pick for assured supplies of the beverage. And if the Catteni addiction remained strong, they would have a solid market for export of Botanygrown beans. The very idea of exporting to the Cattem amused him. They could hold out for any price they cared to put on the commodity. "Black gold," Kris said they had once called coffee beans. Earth, of course, could export to Barevi, but first they needed cargo ships, which Botany happened to have several of for cargo runs. But first things first: like the spare parts that were needed. It might be decades before Earth could gear up its production lines.
The next morning started very well indeed, with an impatient clutch of people waiting for them to start serving the coffee. There were even some wanting to trade, and Zainal managed to obtain a carton of Nokia cell phones, a real prize.
"And most of them will do anything to secure a supply of the drink," Zainal replied, pointing to the everincreasing diversity of cartons that were piling up as fruits of his labors to trade coffee for spare parts. "Gold and dentistry are doing well enough but take time." He waved to Eric's stall and the rattattat of his hammer on the gold he was pounding into the proper thickness for the crowns that had already been ordered: half payment on signing the contract and half on completion.
"Ah, another customer," Zainal said as a tall uniformed Catteni walked up to Eric's office, looking about for whoever manned it. He gestured to Clune to tell Eric that he had an interested party. There was a brief silence from the hammer, then Eric emerged and evidently Clime took over the flattening, though his blows weren't
spaced as evenly as Eric's were and the rhythm of the rattattat was uneven.
"May I be of service?" Eric asked with the deference of a professional to any uniform.
"I have heard of your services and wish to avail myself of them." As the man spoke, Zainal could see the empty spaces in his teeththe four central ones. That seemed to characterize the usual applicant for Eric's skills. Three out of four, or so Eric had once remarked, adding, "Don't your people ever duck?"
"Now, sir, what may I do for you?" "I am Emassi Ladade."
"I am Emassi Doctor Sachs," Eric responded, courteously proud. "If you would step this way where I may conduct a quick private examination." Eric ushered him into his "office." Much better for potential patients.
Ferris was proving extremely useful in sussing out genuine leads and had already saved Zainal from spending time with sellers who had nothing he wanted and were only there for the free coffee. But Zainal recalled an earlier conversation he'd had with Kris.
"We must watch him, Zainal," she had said, her anxiety getting the better of common sense.
"Why?"
"He's a magpie. A klepto," she said, trying to burrow into his shoulder.
"A what?"
"A magpie is a Terran bird who will grab anything that sparkles and take it off to its nest to play with."
"And the other word? Klepto?"
Zainal had excellent aural memory so she wasn't surprised that he queried an unfamiliar word. "That is a human who keeps taking things that do not belong to him or her, for a variety of reasons: sometimes it's merely envy of someone else possessing a pretty or valuable thing; other times it's just a psychological compulsion, the acquisition of the object as a onesided game, played against the legitimate owners of the item. Or a denial of other people's rights to possession. It is considered a minor crime but a genuine obsession. The kleptomaniac often steals for the fun, not the need of the object stolen. Ferris is the second type, stealing for the fun of it and to win pleasure by giving it to someone."
"And he does not understand that stealing is wrong?"
"He understands that, but doesn't stop doing it. He became very deft, and I fear he was encouraged by his circumstances during the invasion to acquire things without paying the legitimate owners."
"The Catteni?" Zainal asked with remarkable charity.
"Not just the Catteni. He really is a Human sort of magpie, thieving because he likes the look of something or to outwit the owner." "And you worry that he might start using his craft here?"
"I don't think Commander Kapash would turn a blind eye if Ferris were caught in the act."
"Is he often caught?"
"Now, only by those who know he has acquired without payment. Ferris has a grave character flaw. He really cannot understand buying and selling when he likes something or knows it's needed."
"Knowing it's needed might cause us more harm than good. I am glad you advised me about Ferris."
Even with that earlier conversation in mind, Zainal couldn't help thinking that the boy had been extremely useful on this mission. Ferris had supplied the numbers and names of store shed holders with whom Zainal could most profitably invest time and effort. However, Zainal dealt from a stronger position if the sellers came to him first. If he made known too publicly what he wanted, prices would be driven up. To date, Barevi merchants had found buyers thin on the ground so many had scrutinized him.
proached him, with beans and more carefully with what materials they had brought with them.
he morning when Eric started up his dental unit for the first time a new whirring sound broke through the usual noise of the marketplace. Zainal swiveled around, toward the sound made by Eric Sachs's equipment, and saw a huge Catteni sitting in the dental chair, his mouth wide open and the broken stubs of his upper teeth visible. There were also more merchants waiting to receive a cup of coffee and more coins in the little dish Kathy had put out.
There were three other very burly Catteni, guards from the look of their gear and clothing, watching as Eric attended to the man in his chair. The man did not dare flinch or squirm, and shortly Eric told him he could sit up. Then he began to tell him his options, with pictures he had provided himself for just such demonstrations, while Ninety Doyle did what translations he could with the technical terms involved.
"I can provide you with new gold teeth," Eric said. "It will take several days as well as quite a few visits to me to prepare and fit the crowns. And the work is not cheap."
"I have plenty of money," the Catteni said with a shrug, fascinated by the photographs of the stepbystep process he was about to undertake. From the textbooks he had removed from his office, Eric had, with Gail's help, organized some illustrative examples of treatment on yet another set of flip cards. "I am told you take cartons of things. I have cartons. I was a Catteni cargo captain. I took much from storehouses."
Eric snapped his fingers and Ferris, who had been hovering at his elbow, immediately produced copies of the lists. The man glanced down the columns of alphanumerically listed items and shook his head. Ditsy then produced the various logos for the companies that manufactured the spare parts wanted. The man tapped a finger on several, including, Zainal noticed, the NASA and Boeing logos. "Have some cartons with these on them. You want?"
"First," Zainal said, stepping closer, "we will have to check the cartons to see if they are what we require."
The man grunted. "I am told you will buy anything."
"Not anything," Zainal said with a dignified contempt for such an assumption. "We have specific needs, and the services you requireas well as the gold for the teethwill be expensive."
"I have gold," the man said with typical Catteni arrogance.
"It must be of a certain weight and purity," Zainal said, and Eric grinned at himas much because Zainal had been relatively certain they would be required to supply the metal as because of his patient's attitude. Eric rummaged around in his supplies and brought up the goldtesting equipment.
"However, if you will show us your gold, we will see if it is of the quality that can be used for this unusual purpose."
"Gold is gold!" the Catteni protested.
"No, it is not," Eric replied, for he understood that much Catteni and the spirit of the remark. "For proper work, we need a certain quality of gold." He reached for his testing equipment, which their erstwhile customer recognized.
The man rose from the chair, signaled brusquely to one of his friends to stay and observe, then removed a nugget of gold from his pouch and handed it to Eric, as if certain of its intrinsic value and suitability.
"You come with me, then, and see what I have."
"Ditsy, if you will accompany me," Zainal said as he had no intention of wasting his time checking inventories.
"My pleasure, Emassi," Ditsy said with just the right touch of deference due a superior officer.
very depths of the marketplace, down rows of storage places, most with heavy metal doors and locks with complicated knobs and spikes. "The kind you lose hands from trying to open," Zainal murmured in an aside to Ditsy, who then kept his hands close to his sides.
Luxel finally halted at an intersection of corridors.
"Stay, until I call," he said, pausing only long enough to be certain they stopped before he turned right.
They could clearly hear the snick of metal, a rasp of hinges, and then Luxel called to them to come.
Ditsy ran on a little ahead of Zainal, but when he stopped by Luxel's side he gave a whistle that Zainal had heard, expressing surprise or amazement.
"Opensezme," Ditsy murmured. "Ali Baba!" He was clearly impressed. And so was Zainal when he joined him.
Hughes and Lockheed logos dominated the mess of cartons in Luxel's little shed. Ditsy had his list out and was delving into its depths when Luxel suddenly yanked Zainal across the entry, himself assum ing a blocking pose as three Catteni appeared in the alley. Zainal was quite willing to drape himself across the doorway, obscuring its contents from the passersby, who fortunately did no more than glance in their direction and quickly away, visibly picking up their pace to make speed past them. Luxel glared at Zainal as if he were to blame for their unexpected passage. Zainal returned his angry glance with an indifferent shrug. What did it matter if anyone saw what he had stored there? No one but Terrans could use it, much less buy it.
Clearly stenciled on the boxes were numbers and contents, and Ditsy had no trouble picking out items on the wish list. Solar Panel Array Assembled, HGSP88373BO5, Expandable dish antenna: HGMW7712d1525. High on the list were circuit boards #A.05, but all Ditsy could find were A.01 and A.02. But that was a start. "Jeez, Zainal, it's all the solar panel stuff," Ditsy said, shielding his jubilant remark from Luxel's hearing.
"Calm down, lad, calm down. Just check them all off as if they were quite ordinary."
"Oops, sorry, boss. Shouldn't have given myself away like that." "No, you shouldn't have. Rule number one in bargaining: pretend you don't really want the items."
"I know, sir." Ditsy was most chagrined. "I'm sorry, Zainal, but most of the items are on here." He flicked the list as if it were annoying him. As they were speaking English, Luxel was unlikely to have understood. He then crammed the list in his pocket as if he were discarding it but could not presume to litter the slab floor with his trash. He went to the doorway and lounged negligently against the frame.
"There are some items here that might interest me," Zainal said, ignoring the disbelief in Luxel's expression. "But these are crates"he mimicked their shape "and the dentist man requires payment worthy of his skill, practice, and hard work, which is not as easily quantified as a mere crate."
"It is what the crate contains, Emassi," replied Luxel, still feeling he had the upper hand.
"You say you are a ship captain?" Luxel nodded.
"How much are you paid by the day?"
"It cannot take a full day's captaincy to pay to replace a toothwhen I have provided the necessary gold metal," was his protest. "And how long was it before you were allowed to dock a ship at Barevi port?"
"I had to serve only the minimum time before I got my full ticket," Luxel replied stoutly, expecting Zainal to be impressed. "How long was that?" Zainal insisted.
"In my fourth year." He still felt Zainal should be impressed.
"It was in his seventh year in the practice of his profession that Eric Doctor was allowed to contrive gold crowns."
"Seven years?" Luxel was impressed. "It can't be that hard to do."
"Watch and see how cleverly he will shape the metal." Zainal ticked off points on his fingers. "Then, how carefully he prepares your tooth, which will take several days' work, how he makes a mold to fit exactly in your face." Zainal's expression suggested that this "face" was not worth so much effort. "And then fits the tooth. That is not as easy as parking a ship at Barevi port and takes much more skill and training." Zainal gave a nonchalant shrug and, jerking his chin at Ditsy to follow him, walked out into the alleyway, paying no further attention to Luxel. They did hear the click and snick as the captain secured his shed and his footsteps as he hurried after them. As much, Zainal thought, to be sure they were going to quit the sheds as to catch up with them.
On their return, Zainal was instantly disquieted when he saw the gaggle of folk, some in the tunics of the market police, clustered in front of their stall. Ferris had been anxiously awaiting their return for he darted toward Zainal, pointing out Kapash, who was speaking to Bazil and Peran with menace. "Questions, questions, and your sons have been answering in the negative. Which, of course, is only correct. You, Captain, must inform the merchants that you are the owner of that piece of gold and where you came by it." Ferris looked very worried and indeed, Zainal thought, had good reason to be.
The market security people were very careful to apprehend any thieves who might roam the market, and they were also on the lookout for suspicious quantities of any metals that might have been smuggled in without benefit of the percentage that by law the market should have on the sale of such commodities. Zainal had taken the precaution of making an inventory of all he had brought with him and the fact that it had been mined on Botany. He would not be subject to the tax if he used the gold in exchange for other items. But he knew the rules and he knew that Kapash was aware of that. Especially since Kapash had known of Zainal's time spent in command of Barevi. There were subtle differences between gold from disparate worlds, and the market had experts who could differentiate. Luxel's gold would obviously not be part of Zainal's inventory. Zainal just hoped that Luxel's sample had been appropriately declared by him.
As Zainal strode quickly to join his people and defend their innocence, he noticed that Eric had a very tight knot of young men around his place.
"Your father, all respect to him," Kapash was saying to a staunchly defensive Peran, "knows that gold must be taxed."
"Not in exchange for goods and services," Zainal said, charging right up to Kapash, making his squad break apart. He pulled Peran back to him, hands on the boy's stiff shoulders, tightening his fingers to show approval.
"Whatever," Kapash retorted angrily, aware that he had possibly overstepped his duties by bullying the son. "There is the matter of dispensing an unknown beverage that was not stipulated as the purpose for this stall."
"We are not dispensing a beverage for a price, but as a private refreshment while a bargain is being made," Zainal said crisply. He did not wish to antagonize Kapash but it was clear that the man wanted to cause trouble for him if he could.
"And the matter of that unusual equipment." Kapash gestured with a thumb over his shoulder at Eric's appliances. "They must be checked as possibly hazardous."
Zainal heard Eric's snort. "You obviously did not have a chance to visit Terra," Zainal retorted, "or you would know that this is dental equipment, to repair teeth."
"You there." Kathy Harvey pointed to a man in the forefront of the crowd that had now assembled to watch the scene. He had a grin on his face in anticipation of watching a fracas and it clearly showed his gold crowns. "You have gold teeth, so you can reassure Kapash that this equipment is useful."
"Me? How would I know that?"
"By the smile on your face. You have had similar work done on your teeth that Eric is beginning for the Catteni."
Kapash now gestured for the man to step forward. He did with great reluctance, jamming his upper lip down over his teeth. Eric stepped forward and met the man, putting his fingers on the man's chin.
"Open! Wider! Ah yes, good work," Eric said in Catteni, Judiciously peering into the man's mouth. "And halitosis, too. Remarkable diet your folk have, Zainal. Whatever you paid for it, you got a bargain for that work," he added, amiably slapping the Catteni on the shoulder. "But," and now he waggled his finger at Luxel, "I do better work. Does he have the goods, Zainal? Because his gold is the proper quality. I would ordinarily cut it with platinum, but I think the piece will go far enough to provide him with the caps those tusks of his require. How do you grow teeth like that?" The last was said with admiration.
Eric shot Kapash a quick, measuring look and then resumed his place on his own dental chair and, folding his hands serenely across his chest, went back to observing the scene with amused detachment.
"You did not say that you were selling services, Zainal," Kapash accused him.
"You did not ask. We are selling services in exchange for goods, which is quite legal and requires no further licensing."
"But you are dispensing a beverage." He flicked dirtynailed fingers at the cups on the table.
"We are, as I said, providing private refreshment for our customers as we discuss terms and prices."
"Would you care to discuss items with us, Market Commander Kapash?" Kathy Harvey said, with such a winning smile that Zainal hoped he'd remembered to tell her that the man was a known lecher. She offered him a cup she had just poured, and although he made a show of fighting with his principles, he took it quickly enough, savoring the smell of the coffee before he took a sip.
"That is splendid coffee. From Earth?"
"Yes indeed, a scarce commodity these days."
"And what are you trading it for? I need such facts for my report." A report Zainal was certain would never be written, much less filed. "As I mentioned before, we are looking for spare parts that were transported here during the recent occupation of Earth."
"Ah yes, Supreme Emassi Kamiton remarked to me that you might be seeking to purchase some bits and pieces."
"Yes, well, my success would mean that he"Zainal lowered his voice and leaned toward Kapash"would be able to improve his own communications network."
"How?"
"Ah." Zainal stepped back. "Now that would be telling, wouldn't it?" He gave a slight smile.
"What exactly do you wish to bargain for?" There was a little emphasis on the "bargain," and since Zainal knew that as market manager Kapash would know exactly who might have what, including items he might have secreted in case they became valuable, Zainal allowed his smile to broaden. Zainal thought rapidly of a diplomatic way of diverting Kapash, a man known for his greed.
"This and that," he said with a negligent flick of his fingers. "What have you to tempt us?"
"How do I know that when you do not tell me what you seek?" Zainal thought quickly and noticed Ferris fondling his prized handset.
"Such items as this," he said, unclipping the unit from Ferris's belt and displaying the cell phone. "Invaluable communications unit. See, I am in contact with my ship at all times."
He depressed the panic button and instantly a voice, made tinny by the cheap handset, answered.
"Baker Alpha Sugar Sugar One."
connection before offering Kapash the instrument to examine. They had devised a number of passwords for different situations. "Above board" was "Things are proceeding well," while "Mayday" meant "Emergency." "Marines are coming" would indicate immediate physical help would be appreciated.
Between finger and thumb, Kapash accepted the unit from Zainal and turned it over.
"Connects across miles of empty territory so even the fastest advance units may be in touch:'
Kapash handed it back with an air of disdain. "I can do that with any unit on Barevi."
"Certainly. I would expect you to be so equipped. But Botany is not so well supplied. Nor could we find more in the few unlooted storehouses on Terra. Most of the type we need on Botany are prob ably," and Zainal paused to swing his glance around the market, "here. However, coffee, too, is in short supply on Terra." Which was basically the truth since there was no transport to bring the beans to foreign marketplaces.
"No more?" Kapash was startled and sipped eagerly at his cup. "No. Much of Earth's agriculture was laid to waste. It takes time to grow proper coffee and it takes experts to harvest the crop and process it. There will be no more until the industry recovers from the occupation." Zainal didn't think the Catteni had looted all the items required for the production of coffee, but he was reasonably certain that he'd find some spare parts languishing here on Barevi, apart from those needed to repair the plantations' vehicles.
"None?" Kapash seemed genuinely upset.
"We have the last of the roasted beans." Which was certainly true of the beans they had acquired from Kenya and Santa Lucia. Kapash continued to look dismayed, but a flicker of thought behind his eyes told Zainal that, not only was the man fond of his coffee, but he would also wish to enjoy it without stint.
"What standard would you use to trade for more of the hand units?"
Zainal hefted his. "Equal weight of beans for the unit seems fair." Kapash turned toward the stall, saw the scales, and peremptorily gestured for Zainal to bring the unit over. He did and Kapash put it on one side of the scales. Zainal gave Kathy the sign to pour beans in the other side. She was scrupulous in making up the weight, even to the last bean, which edged on the side of generosity. Then she spread both hands out to indicate it was up to Kapash.
He looked at the beans, picked up a handful, and sniffed them. "They make a rich cooked coffee," Kathy said winningly. She used "cooked" for "roasted" since there was no equivalent Catteni word to describe the exact process.
"How many cups of coffee would that lot make?"
"If you grind properly, this should make four large pots of good, strong, black, rich cooked coffee. You probably have a nut grinder at home." She showed him the one she had brought from the BASS1.
"Is that what those are used for?" Kapash remarked, lifting his eyebrows.
Zainal wasn't sure which he meant but it had been a wise precaution to bring along grinders and what was left of the glass dripfilter cafetiers. They even had a carton of the glass insets on board the BASS1.
"A special brew requires perfect equipment, as I'm sure you have discovered, Manager Kapash," Zainal said suavely. Peran was beginning to jiggle in front of his father, restless now that the adults were so obviously absorbed, but Zainal tightened his hand on the boy's shoulder to remind him of the respect due Catteni adults.
Kapash's coffee was now cool enough for him to take a bigger swallow, which he seemed to be rinsing around in his mouth, savoring. "This is different from other brews I have sampled."
vey said and reached for another pot she had recently made and a clean cup. "Now this is from robusta beans, which give a much stronger taste."
Kapash's eyes widened with appreciation as he smelled the steam and, blowing on the liquid, attempted a sip of the new coffee. "Mmmm, much stronger and far more to my taste."
"There are many different types of beans, and combinations of them, Manager Kapash, for those subtle and sophisticated enough to appreciate the finer flavors," Zainal said. "What else have we brewed, Captain?"
Kapash actually seemed to have sophisticated taste buds because he was able to distinguish the milder roasts that Kris had made from the stronger robusta. He summoned a minion and sent him off to col lect the proposed merchandise. Of course, the handsets on Botany would be of no use unless they could put up the satellites, but Zainal was encouraged by the possibility. Leave it to the market manager to have set aside choice trading items.
Meanwhile, Eric was already at work on Luxel, pouring a substance into those wide jaw trays he had insisted he must have, and making Luxel open his mouth so wide it looked as if he might lock his jaw hinge. Then Luxel had to sit, those things in his mouth, while Eric consulted his wristwatch and fingered a little blob of the green substance he had placed in Luxel's mouth.
What a bizarre way to regain possession of the spoils of invasion! Zainal wondered exactly what deal Eric had fashioned with Luxel. Four teeth to be replaced? How could they get Luxel to give them items from eight cartons, instead of only four? How many had Eric bargained for? And then there were the larger necessities: the framework on which the individual units would be hung as well as the thermal protective material. That didn't come in a carton but was as necessary for the satellites as the major units that powered, controlled, and directed them in orbit. There were moments when the magnitude of the task he had committed himself and the others to complete overwhelmed him. Sometimes, he thought, very privately so he couldn't hear it himself, that his success as executioner of the malignant Eosi was leading him to think he was invincible. He could be vincible on another mission, but not this one! So much depended on his success here on Barevi. It would certainly set a precedent.
"There." Zainal pushed the six bags of coffee beans toward Kapash. "You will deliver the hand units tomorrow?" Kapash blinked, and at first Zainal thought the man considered the beans a bribe. "We shall be looking forward to your messenger." He had completed a subtle bribe with Kapash, giving him the coffee beans before taking ownership of the hand units that had been the object of the trading. They could also expect more business from Kapash: he was definitely a coffee addict. There were more sacks of coffee beans in the capacious hold of BASS1, and they knew where to get more. Then he saw Captain Harvey trying to get his attention and he strolled over to her.
"We'll need more beans, Zainal." Her eyes sparkled with this evidence of success. "While you were gone, we had a coffee fiend who has delivered us five Motorola crates of orbiting controllers. We definitely need more beans."
"Do we have any coins to pay for a hire lift?"
Harvey thrust a hand into a pocket and emptied the contents into his hand: small coins, to be sure, but sufficient in number to pay Natchi's modest charge. He signaled the veteran from his box and then looked around for Peran.
The boy materialized beside him. "Return to the ship and ask Floss to come back with ten sacks of assorted beans. Here are tokens for Natchi's lift."
The veteran was almost as prompt in attending Zainal as Peran had been. "May we hire your lift again? Peran, my son, requires it for an errand."
"Such a sturdy lad, Emassi. Surely he will captain ships when he has finished his training."
Peran was agreeable to having such a future assigned him, and he straightened his frame to make himself appear taller, more worthy of such rank.
"Indeed, when his tutor approves his lessons," Zainal said, and Peran's face fell. "Now he must go about his father's errands." Zainal slipped Peran the tokens, which when he had offered them to Natchi, the old onearmed man had cheerfully waved aside.
"I owe you service for the many fine cups of coffee I have received, Emassi. I also need to walk. I will accompany your son." "My thanks, Natchi, for your courtesy."
Natchi performed a maneuver more salute than bow. Then, with smartness reminiscent of other days, he turned and followed Peran to where he had stored his lift.
By the time they reached their stall the next day, a goodly crowd was waiting. So they scurried to get the next urn of coffee started and poured out what was in the hottle for the
\_\_ impatient customers. Among them were interested sellers, and Zainal and Chuck began again checking their lists against the proffered items. Much coffee was consumed: Zainal was beginning to think that he was getting all Barevians addicted to the beverage. Well, there was nothing wrong with supplying a desired substance.
About midmorning, when Zainal was winding up a good deal with someone who had twentyvolt truck batteries to trade, Bazil appeared, a very anxious expression on his face. Unwilling to interrupt Zainal at what was obviously a crucial time, Bazil approached Kris, pulling her sleeve urgently.
"My father must help. It's Ferris. He's being hauled to Kapash's office as a thief," Bazil said.
For a moment, sheer funk robbed Kris of any strength. "Where is he? What did he take? Do you know, Bazil?"
"He's been visiting all the drinking places, talking to the servers. Like he told Zainal he would do, to advertise Eric's services. Then a big guy arrived this morning, swearing Ferris had robbed him. He
didn't say what, but Ferris ran, and one of the market guards caught him. They're hauling him off to Kapash's office. Oh, Kris, if he's put in that triangle, he'll be killed." Bazil was almost sobbing with fear.
Kris was really torn about interrupting Zainal. Maybe she could handle this. She beckoned to Chuck. Clune, having heard what Bazil had said, stepped forward.
"I'll come, too," he said, pumping up his biceps.
Chuck also saw how deeply involved Zainal was in the business of trading and he took Kris's arm.
"What could he have stolen? And yes, I know his history, Kris, but we'll get him out of it. I know Kapash has just been waiting for the chance." Chuck scooped up something from the digitally locked box before he slammed it shut and passed it over to Sally Stoffers, telling her to guard it. She knew it contained gold flakes and the smaller nuggets. "We'll just see if we can deal with this." Kris saw the marked hesitation on Bazil's face.
"I am Lady Emassi, Bazil. I can deal with a mere market manager. Tell Zainal we've gone to the manager's office, Sally, but only when he's finished dealing. It's this way, isn't it, Bazil?" Kris said, striding down the long side of their square.
Bazil still looked scared and dubious but he ran to catch up with her, worried about Ferris. While she knew that Bazil might be feeling cheated of his father's support, she also knew that Zainal would be annoyed with his son for interrupting him.
There was an interested crowd around the manager's office but Kris, with Chuck and Clune beside her, formed a wedge and pushed her way through, alarmed to hear Ferris sobbing.
"I stole nothing. It was on the floor. The man said I could have it," he was saying.
"Who are you?" the man demanded, and she saw the gap in the front of his teeth.
"I am Lady Emassi, a rank conferred on me by Supreme Emassi Kamiton," she announced, squaring her shoulders and trying to control her panting, for they'd rushed to get there. "Ferris is one of our young people. What do you allege he has stolen from you?" She knew she was imitating Dame Edith Evans at her most regal and repressive, but perhaps it would work.
The man pointed at the gap in his teeth. "My toof."
Kris managed not to grin at his lisp. "How could a slender lad like Ferris steal your tooth?" she asked, managing to retain her Evansian pose.
"It was on the floor," Ferris said, as if that conferred legitimacy on his action.
"And that's where you found it?"
"Yes. On Sicrim's floor. This morning."
"But the toof is mine," the fellow insisted, becoming more agitated.
"I was just taking it to Dr. Sachs," Ferris said, looking penitent and putupon.
"But it is mine!"
"If it was left on the floor since last night, sir, it may be presumed that you had abandoned it," Kris pointed out. "Therefore, the lad has not knowingly stolen from you as an act of bad faith. He was, in fact, bringing it to the one man on this planet who can replace it in your jaw.
"He can?" the man exclaimed.
Now Ferris shoved his hand in his pocket and displayed a tusk neatly bagged in one of the little plastic envelopes that Eric had brought with him.
"That's mine!" The fellow lunged to repossess it.
"A lot of good it does you in the bag," Ferris said contemptuously, recovering some of his usual impudence, and he folded thin arms across his chest. "I cleaned it off, which Eric says is necessary, and put it in the bag for safekeeping. I did not know who it belonged to."
Ceremoniously, a look of creditable innocence on his face, Ferris handed it over.
"It belongs to me." The man slipped the item into his pocket, leaving one hand protectively over his tooth, as if Ferris might somehow regain it.
Kris swiveled squarely to face Kapash, who had been listening and watching the proceedings with an odd expression on his face. "How could Ferris have known the owner, Manager Kapash?" Kris asked earnestly. "Now that he does, he has returned it. No theft has occurred. There has been honorable restitution of a missing object."
"But he took what does not belong to him," Kapash said, his face severe and threatening. "He is a thief. Nor did he properly attempt to find out who owned the tooth."
"But Sicrim said I could have any teeth I could find," Ferris said plaintively. "I wasn't doing anything wrong. Ask Sicrim."
"Is this Sicrim present?" Kapash asked after briefly mulling that over.
He is trying to be reasonable, Kris thought, in these ludicrous circumstances, but Sicrim was not among those who crowded around the office.
"He is a thief!" the tooth owner said unforgivingly, pointing down at Ferris with a dirty, broken finger.
"He is a boy," Kris said, giving the plaintiff a long and sour look for his bullying attitude. "And the sooner you get to the dentist to replace that tooth, the better. The longer you wait for treatment, the less chance you have of getting it back into your jaw, you know"
"Aha!" Kapash said, pointing at Kris. "So this is how you get business for that expert of yours?"
"What? I'm not the one knocking teeth out, Kapash. He has to get that done for himself," she said, jerking her thumb at the plaintiff. There was a ripple of amusement from those so avidly listening to the discussion. She wished she'd thought to bring some packets of beans, although dropping some on Kapash's desk would have been too obvious a bribe. But, to judge by the onlookers' attitude, she also sensed that she had made a good argument.
"Let it be, Kapash," someone from the crowd said.
The faint wail of a siren was audible after that remark. "Besides, there's the riot alarm. That's your business, Kapash."
Kapash held up his hand to silence those in the office. Plainly heard were aggressive shouts and calls as well as the bray of the siren. Clearly Kapash had to investigate, and with a glare at Kris, he rose and stalked out of his office, gesturing to his guards to fall in behind him as he went in search of more culpable and lucrative targets. Most of those gathered followed him to see what amusement the new diversion would provide.
Kris held out her hand to Ferris and led him out of the office.
"I did have Sicrim's permission, Kris, I did. I know you won't believe me."
"But I do, Ferris. You have more sense than to get us into any trouble with your taking ways. Especially after this," she said as they walked as quickly as possible out of the square.
Whistles, more sirens, and startled, hurt cries could be heard, and served to hurry them out of the vicinity.
They met Zainal, hurrying in their direction, in the main corridor of the next square.
"What happened? What's happening?" He pointed in the direction of the audible disturbance.
Kris gave him a quick summary while Ferris hung his head in shame for having caused the emergency and bringing trouble to his friends.
"I think Kapash would have loved to press charges, but. . ." Chuck added.
"It was a good notion, Ferris, but you see how careful we have to be here, do you not?" Zainal said, one hand jiggling the thin shoulder, making the boy meet his eyes.
"Yes, Emassi, I do. I will not cause you more trouble."
"Good lad. Now, we will not mention this to Eric," Zainal began when a stranger intruded on their circle. Ferris quickly took refuge behind Zainal because it was the toothless man who had barged into them.
"You!" He pointed severely at Ferris. "You will take me to this man who can put my toof back in my jaw!"
"Of course," Zainal answered pleasantly and gestured in the proper direction.
"I heard of this fellow," the man said amiably, as if he hadn't nearly caused Ferris considerable bodily harm. "But first I needed my toof." The word still came out with a lisp but no one dared grin.
"The procedure takes a little time, does it not, Ferris?" Zainal said, since he knew very little about such matters whereas Ferris had been in constant contact with Eric, absorbing everything the genial dentist said.
"It does," and there was a little gleam in Ferris's eye that suggested to Kris that it was not all pleasant either. "But I washed it as Eric told me to do, and kept it safe in that little bag." He pointed to the man's pocket, where he had seen him deposit his errant tooth.
"I am indebted to you, young man," the fellow said, "and I apologize for the market manager's zeal."
"It has been well resolved," Kris said.
"I am Mischik," the Catteni said, and the others were required by courtesy to name themselves. "You are the Botany folk."
"We are," Zainal said proudly.
"And you are truly a Lady Emassi?" Mischik said, lisping more than ever on the double sibilants.
"I am."
"Remarkable," he said.
"I know," she replied equably.
By then they had reached their own aisle and Ferris ran ahead to tell Eric of a new customer. Zainal and Kris hastened to the stall since there seemed to be quite an influx of clients wanting to sample the coffee. More likely, Kris thought, to see if the Botany lad had survived the confrontation with Kapash.
"Nothing like a mild emergency to spread the word," Kris murmured to Zainal as they served coffee as quickly as they could pour it.
ord indeed had spreadthough the riot Kapash had gone to suppress had notand Eric had many inquiries about his services. He had ministered to Mischik and arranged for him to come back the next day and see if the tooth was settling in. Eric was forthright in saying that the sooner he could restore a tooth the better the chances of success, but Mischik was happy enough to be able to speak without the annoying lisp. Eric assured him that failing the natural reestablishment of the tooth, he could make a bridge to close the gap. Everyone was tired when Zainal announced that they had better close and, after today's episode with Kapash, everyone was determined not to arouse any further attention from the market commander.
mong the many goals Zainal had set for himself, gaining entrance to the port commander's office and the port commander's filesto access the information on the destinations of the slavecarrying ships was topmost on his list. He needed only to get into the facility and find an empty office with a control board to access the information. Another ransom to be executed. It was his responsibility to right that massive wrong done to Kris's people, even if she felt he was carrying responsibility too far. These Terrans should have been allies, not slaves, to the Catteni. There was the unassailable fact that unless he did something, he doubted those enslaved would ever return home, and with all those captives exiled from their home world, would Humans ever be on good terms with the Catteni?
He was glad that Kris had managed to save Ferris. The boy had been invaluable for discreet reconnaissance and had already saved Zainal from spending time with sellers who had nothing he wanted. Any excuse to waste time and have the chance to drink the fine coffee obviously motivated some of their visitors.
Trading continued briskly all morning and well into the afternoon, when the more prosperous merchants retired for the noonday meal, leaving their goods and stalls in the charge of their seconds. A few came to buy a cup of coffee when their masters had safely disappeared. Zainal hoped it would escape Kapash's notice that coffee was now for sale. He thought privately that it would take many busy days for what they earned for the beverage to make a substantial profit.
He had to discard that opinion later, after Floss, with Clune very close to her, took over from Kathy Harvey at the coffee bar. Kris had breezily told him that's what they had invented: the first Barevi coffee bar. There were also rumors that complaints had been issued to the market manager that people were obstructing the way to and from other stalls by gathering thickly in front of the "coffee bar." By late afternoon, however, they had enough money to rent another stall, which came equippedfor a pricewith tables, chairs, and a proper catering area. Floss, safely ensconced behind the "bar," dealt capably with the flow of customers and ignored the laughs and remarks from the idlers gathered at Eric's office.
By early evening, Zainal began to watch for signs of the usual rampage of guards and spacemen who would have spent most of the day drinking. When he felt the time would soon be upon them, and he noticed that other merchants were beginning to close their stalls, he called a halt to the day's work. Ferris chattered away to Eric as he and Bazil helped pack away the dental office, adding the coffee urn and cups from the main stall. Zainal had seen to it that all the goods they had bartered for had been taken to the BASS1 as soon as the deals were completed. So it was a relatively simple matter to pack up and return to the KDM.
Everyone was hungry and exhilarated by the success of the day, and full of ideas about how they could accomplish more the next.
Even Eric was in good form, having acquired several clients, besides Luxel, for gold crowns. Ditsy had said he should hire the man with the golden smile who had so fortuitously been there when needed.
"If word gets around, Zamal," Eric said, waiting until Kris could fill his plate again, "I will need an assistant. My clients do not strike me as patient men."
"Gino and I aren't doing anything much," Ninety Doyle said. "If it's just muscle work you need . . ." He made a pantomime of tapping a hammer.
"Well, not exactly muscle work, but it does take time to pound even the softest gold into a malleable foil." Then Eric perked up. "Old Natchi, what a talker. I understand about three words out of a dozen.
I could fit him with a set of dentures that would do him better service than what he has left in his mouth."
"Most of the time in the drinking places, when people get their teeth knocked out, it's after market hours," Ferris said. "For emergency treatment, do I give them this berth number?"
Zainal did not like that idea, for he wished to be as private as possible on BASS1, but he countered with a suggestion. "You can present yourself, and your qualifications, to the local medical men. Then, if they think your services are necessary, they can make an appointment for the patient to see you. Preferably at the market. As soon as we can, I will try to find a better place in which you can work, Eric."
"That would save us from being a rareeshow, certainly," Eric said, accepting Zainal's offer.
"Does Floss have to go back?" Clime asked plaintively. The pair of them were holding hands under the table.
"I don't mind, dear," she said, soothing him with a hand on his much bigger one. "At least they can't pinch me when I have the coffee bar in front of me."
"Do not take any overt action, Clune," Zainal felt obliged to warn him.
Chine snorted. "I'm not crazy, Zainal. Every one of them there today outweighed me, and a lot would have had the reach on me. Stupid I ain't. Taking on one of those guys would put me out of action. I gotta stay on duty, pet."
"You could lick 'em onehanded," Ditsy said with misplaced loyalty. "You got skill! And Chief Materu taught you some dandy
moves.
"There will be no competitions with Catteni brawlers," Zainal said, eyeing Clune, who nodded willingly enough, and Ditsy, who finally settled as far back in his seat as he could, as if trying to make himself less visible.
"I know it was a wearing day," Kris said, "but we have to pack more coffee beans for tomorrow. Having them on hand is very useful." She nodded toward Kathy Harvey, who had put forth the suggestion. Everyone groaned but even Ferris and Zainal's sons roused themselves from the table to attend to the chore, packing the beans in bags they had taken from a deserted Terran Starbucks cafe.
"We're running out of the sacks we brought with us," Ferris remarked. "They ought to pay us for universal advertising rights." "Can we find anything as useful here as these bags, Zainal?" "Quite possibly. You boys, see what you can find tomorrow morning once we've set up the stalls. And look around for something that will suit Eric's requirements. Usually private stalls are at the head of the blocks."
"You mean we can prowl?"
"Just keep order, Dits," Zainal said.
"We can look, too, Father," Peran volunteered eagerly.
"Perhaps, after your lessons with Brone, you may take a walk." He nodded at Brone, who accepted the suggestion with a nod.
Zainal was loath to let his sons loose since, as Catteni boys, they would come under the scrutiny of all male adults, but with Brone in attendance, he could be sure that their natural high spirits would not lead them into trouble.
"We will think Masai and ask ourselves if the chief would permit his band to do whatever it is we think of doing."
"Chief Materu was very strict but fair," Bazil said helpfully, "but by the Gods, he could scowl something fierce and that always meant extra duty." He wrinkled his nose in dismayed remembrance of such disciplinary frowns. "A question, Father?" he added, raising a tentative index finger. When Zainal nodded, he went on. "In most African tribal lands, if things get stolen, they get stolen back right fast. I mean, we all know the market's full of things stolen from Earth. Couldn't we just steal them back without all this bartering?"
Zainal cleared his throat. In some of the very primitive societies he had seen as a scout, the stealthy reclamation of stolen goods was considered part of training. The idea being to get in, get the pur loined things, and return unseen. The Turs had made that into an art, and many had died following that tradition elsewhere.
"We abide by the laws of the planet we're on, Bazil. And, however tempting, theft is brutally punished on this planet, and Kapash would relish a chance to apply the full measure of the law against any one of us."
"Oh!" Ditsy and Ferris echoed Bazil's stunned response faintly. "But if they didn't know it was us?" Bazil persisted, jabbing his thumb in his chest.
"Who else would they suspect, Bazil?" Chuck asked, frowning darkly as he leant weight to Zainal's comment.
"However, you may wander but just within the market area," Zainal replied. "And check in hourly with me or Kris," he added, pointing to their comm units.
"I got offered gold coin for mine," Bazil replied.
"Accept nothing less than forty," was Ferris's fast response until he noticed Zainal's frown.
"Do not suggest they are for sale," he said firmly.
"I saw where we can get more," Ditsy said, hauling a scrap of paper out of his pocket. Zainal leaned forward eagerly. "Iridium hand units, Stall SeventytwoK. At least I think it's a K." Ditsy passed Zainal the scrap, a dirty finger pointing to the logo.
"Right. Good for you, Dits," Zainal said. "I wonder if Kapash will tell me who rents the stall."
"If he doesn't, Natchi will," Ferris said. "He knows everything there is to know about the market."
At that, Kathy wrinkled her nose. "I don't know about the male facilities, but the ones for us are deplorable. Really, what does stall rental go for if not cleaning up the toilets?"
"Repairing the damage the drunks do," Ferris replied with contempt.
Zainal gave Kathy a little nod. Such negligence could be a useful talking point in his next discussion with the market manager. But then, Kapash might have little interest in amenities for women. Zainal was certain Kapash held the traditional Catteni views on women: they should be grateful for what they get.
"I volunteer to do some cleaning there tomorrow," Floss offered. "I can't stand the stench, and who knows what I'd pick up from it." Zainal wasn't sure why Kris looked so pleased by Floss's offer, but she clearly approved of the girl's willingness.
"Tote dat barge, lift dat bale," Clune sang in a deep, rich bass that startled everyone.
"Git a little drunk and you lands in," Ferris sang in a cracked tenor voice and pointed to Clune to finish the song.
"Jay ... ill . . ." was his response, dropping into the deepest part of his lush voice. A burst of applause ensued, which he hushed with his hand. "OF Man River, he just keeps rollin' along." He finished the impromptu recital with a flourish and a bow and was accorded an
other round of applause before he waved his friends to continue with their chore of packing beans.
Zainal did not know much of singing, but the work did go more swiftly as others asked Clune to sing their favorite songs. By the time Kris called a halt, they had worked their way through twentyfive pounds of darkroasted robusta beans, and the same of the milder, washed arabicas, sufficient to meet unexpectedly high sales the next day. Sally finished adding up their income from the day's work and Eric reported on how many appointments he had made for dental work. He had insisted on being paid half of the cost of the work in advance a fact that kept them solvent for local purchasesand half on completion. The dentistry was going to be a profitable asset of this tour. Zainal went through what he had done with the day's income and what he needed to do with tomorrow's.
"Then, we can take some profit," he figured.
"With any luck," Kris amended, and then covered her lips in apology for the negative comment. "However, I get the feeling that they are all holding back."
"I do, too," Kathy said.
"As if they were testing us, somehow? Or perhaps simply not willing to trade?" Chuck asked.
"But from what Natchi and that footless friend of his, Erbri, said, they have had no buyers for what's in their storage rooms, so why are they not willing to come forward and make what profit they can from us who are willing to buy?" Zainal remarked. "In fact, Natchi's bringing in two more mechanics besides Erbri to help fix the lifts and other reparable things left to rust. We've a good business going in repair and mechanics as a side venture."
"Could Kapash be inhibiting the merchants for all he pretends to help?" Kris asked.
"He's not been helping," Zainal said. "He's determined to thwart us. Be wary of him, all of you."
"Why does he have it in for you, Zainal?" Chuck asked, expression bland.
"I knew him when he dealt in illegal drugs, and he knows I know it."
"So he's the one made sure you were on that colony transport?" Kris asked.
Zainal let out a long breath. "I don't know that but I have been asking some discreet questions through Natchi, Erbri, and their coterie. Remember to give any disabled vet at least one cup of coffee, team." Everyone nodded.
"What better way to get rid of a possible informer than to put him where he might die from indigenous causes or, with any luck, be executed by angry slaves?" Kris remarked irritably.
Chine spoke up with great dignity. "Chief Materu said that you make your own luck."
"Chief Materu is a great leader," Zainal said. "Then let us make our own luck!"
"Right!" Chuck seconded firmly, and there was agreement in the circle of tired bean packers before they rose stiffly to their feet and scattered to their onship quarters.
"Is this truly a good beginning?" Kris murmured to Zainal when they were abed.
"You can't exactly say they beat a path to our door," he replied, smoothing her hair down, once again reveling in the silk of it, before he cuddled her close to him.
"Where'd you get that expression?"
"Ferris, of course," Zainal said, giving her a little hug.
He closed his eyes to get on with the business of falling asleep.
It was a long while, despite her appreciation of his proximity, before she could follow his example. And the morning came far too quickly.
veryone was awake on the call and came out quickly to eat their first meal of the day. Then Peran went to see if Natchi had arrived with his lift as he had agreed the previous evening. Peran had sneaked a piece of good Botany bread, well lathered with honey, to give to Natchi. They had struck up quite a friendship. Natchi was there and grateful for the bread, which he said he had never tasted the like of. Peran had accessed a recipe for the stuff from the ship's library but didn't know where some of the ingredients might be had. He didn't know what "butter" was, or "flour" or "yeast."
However, Natchi knew a great many things and would work on the problem. At least they had the method to make bread and knew its ingredients. You couldn't know if you could make things until you knew what they were comprised of. Which was why Peran's father was here on Barevito find the component parts needed for the comm satellites and other such highly technical things, which were supposed to make a vast number of things "better." Peran already thought "life" was different and "better" when he recalledwhich he did not often dothat time of his life spent without his father and being punished by his aunt and uncle for things that, for the most part, Peran didn't even know he'd done wrong. He'd warned Bazil and thus prevented his brother from receiving like measures of "corrective" discipline. Now that his father was here, it was always "better." He would have liked being with his father sooner, but life in the Masai camp had been very interesting, too, and Chief Materu fair in his judgments. He never had understood what his father, who acted in all ways honorably, had done to deserve being an outcast from his family.
Peran, with Bazil's assistance, transferred the cartons of packed beans to the lift. By then everyone was ready to go, Clime carrying the hottle of coffee left over from breakfast. He had poured a cup for Natchi, who was quite willing to drink it down with the bread Peran had given him.
"The last of the bread is in today's sandwiches," Kris announced as she deposited the basketa handwoven one from Botanyon the lift bed.
"Is it hard to make bread, Kris?" Peran asked, winking at Natchi. "No, but you need certain things one can't find here on Barevi." "I thought Barevi had everything," Bazil replied, eyes wide in surprise.
"Not quite everything," Zainal said, laughing and ruffling his son's hair.
"That white stuff you made us drink. The cow's milk? From Kenya?"
"Very nutritious," Kris said firmly.
"Doesn't it come in cans, too?" Ferris asked.
"It does, but I haven't seen any here in the food stalls," Kris replied.
"What else?"
"Flour, usually fine ground from wheat or corn."
"And?" Ferris prompted since Kris's intonation suggested flour was not the final missing ingredient.
"Yeast. Which I haven't ever seen here. Yeast is a leavening, which causes the bread flour to rise in the baking. Similar, I think, to your meal cakes."
"Meal cakes. Phooey," Bazil said, having eaten too many underand overdone meal cakes as a child.
"But you like bread," Kris countered.
"Botany bread, yes," Bazil agreed amiably, qualifying his taste. "Surely we can find a substitute for yeast, and maybe cans of milk," Ferris said.
"Quite likely," Zainal replied, noticing Ferris's speculative expression. "But these are not things easily found or ... acquired."
Kris rolled her eyes because Ferris was not above proving doubters wrong, and Zainal had probably just piqued him professionally. She devoutly hoped that Ferris would take the hint, and he must have, be cause he shot her a hurt, accusing look. She wondered whether she should warn Floss and Clime to reinforce her warning to curb his acquisitive tendencies. On the way to their stalls, she made sure to point out the triangle, where minor market offenses were punished with lashes of a particularly nasty whip. There were no such things as trials or sentences in Barevi. Corporal punishment for infractions of the market laws, like thieving, was swift and did not allow for appeals. While Ferris looked sturdier than Ditsy, his undernourished bones were fragile. She didn't want to think of him under the whip.
The next morning started very well indeed, with an impatient clutch of people waiting for them to start serving the coffee. There were even some wanting to trade, and Zainal managed to obtain a palette of truck batteries, a real prize.
Captain Harvey was attempting to repair the damage to the iridium comm sat they had scooped out of the skies above Earth. In her talks with John Wendell, she had learned that many of the satellites the Catteni had damaged could be repaired in situ. The one they had in the BASS1 needed only the necessary LNB, lownoise blockdown converter. They now had the solar replacement vanes that would power the comm sat once it was back in space. They had found two antenna "ears" that had been sliced off, but needed two connecting boards so the individual units of the satellite could exchange information. The controlling mechanism, which Harvey called the mission package, had survived and was operational.
"That's the most delicate of the stuff on board," Captain Harvey told him. "It'll keep the comm sat in the orbit where we place it." She cleared her throat. "Replace it, actually, because it's already pro grammed to stay in its proper orbit ... except when Catteni use it for
target practice. But then, they have to practice on something, don't they, to keep their edge?"
Harvey could surprise him with some of her wry comments and Zainal tilted an amused expression up to her. He hoped they could find more relatively undamaged comm sats on their return. They also needed to build some from the spare parts in the lower cargo level.
"What're the part numbers for these needful connector boards, Captain?" he asked her, wondering yet again at the greed that had occasioned looters to take such unusable items back to Barevi. The mer chants could not sell everything: there had to be buyers who wanted the items. Of course, they now had them in Zainal's mission.
She yanked a scrap of paper out of her top pocket and handed it to him. "Got them from the schematics last night." She aimed the small tool in her hand at a bunch of twisted plastic on the floor. "That's what was left of them, so's you got an idea what you're looking for. Spiders, only you don't have spiders, arachnids, a multilegged creature, on Barevi, do you? Once I have those to hook the system up, we can test to see if all parts are running. You can see the part numbers, loud and clear."
"I can?" Zainal cupped his ear, though he suspected she was using one of those maddening vernacular phrases Terrans so enjoyed. "You're some kidder, Emassi," she replied with a grin and a waggle of her elbow.
The Terrans had so many of these little sayings, cryptic comments that confused him. It was as well that his sons were being exposed to such verbal wordplay. They would be able to speak Terran very well. So far he was quite pleased with Brone. The young pilot had proved firm with them and had gained their respect. Zainal brought himself sternly back to the work at hand: he must list the numbers for Ferris, in hopes the boy could discover who owned the relevant storage shed. Zainal had also told Clune and Ditsy to be on the lookout for anyone holding parts with the FICA logo on them and briefed both Natchi and his sidekick, Erbri, a footless man whom Natchi presented as thoroughly trustworthy and who knew every alley in the market. Why didn't the Terrans assign just one worker to the completion of a project, and then one would only need to find the worker and know from which "industry"the word came to himhe had acquired the original parts? Of course, a single man could not construct an entire spaceship by himself but a comm sat, once the components were collected, would be within a good workman's compass.
So Zainal mused as he passed on the numbers for the connector units, explaining how important they were to Ferris before he resumed his bargaining position. His next client was a burly man named Kierse, a Drassi who had left space for the more secure port life. He had brought with him a list of the items he wished to sell, and Zainal felt a thrill of anticipation as he saw so many FICA listings.
"I do not know what good these Terran bits and pieces will do you, but I have developed a taste for this coffee, and you are apparently in possession of many sacks of the cooked beans. They are ready, I understand, to be ground and filtered."
"You understand correctly."
From a pouch Kierse wore on one shoulder, he took out a handful of what Zainal now easily recognized as vacuumpacked plastic sleeves, each containing a bouquet of wires of different colors with tips of different shapes, including several bars of tiny holes on a black plastic strip. As little as Zainal knew about comm sat innards, these looked like the blackened discards that Captain Harvey had pointed to on the floor of the cargo hold. Zainal covered his excitement by asking Floss to fill a cup for Emassi Kierse.
"I am not Emassi," Kierse said with a twitch of irritation to his lips. "I am but Drassi."
ingly," Zainal said graciously, knowing that many Drassi were of the Emassi class but had failed some part of their training and thus were unable to use their birthrank.
"These are useful to you?" Kierse asked, neatly dealing the packets of parts into a line across the table so the identifying part label was clearly visible.
Zainal quickly scanned his eye down the labels, having committed to memory the numbers of the ones he sought.
"Possibly," he murmured discreetly.
"They have the numbers I am told you are seeking," Kierse replied, settling into his chair to haggle.
Zainal wondered who had given that information to the market. Chine and Ditsy were notably closemouthed. What had Kris been warning him about? Ah yes, Ferris stole. Or were Natchi and Erbri as trustworthy as advertised? No, Zainal reassured himself, Natchi definitely was and he had vouched for Erbri. And here were the connectors Captain Harvey required.
"What good did you think these leggy things would do you when you bought them?"
"Wait for someone who needed just such oddities," Kierse replied, then refreshed himself with a sip of the mountain mild that was currently on offer. As Zainal considered his next gambitthe sounds of the marketplace closed around themthe rattattat of Eric's eternal hammering, the scurry of feet on the dry aisles between stalls, the occasional raised voices as people pounded out a suitable bargain.
Zainal hefted one of the packets experimentally. "Not very heavy. Since you like coffee, perhaps beans would be acceptable." He leaned forward. "We have been trading weight of beans for weight of the packets. Is that satisfactory to you?"
"You may weigh them and we will see what the total comes toin beans and then in the gold I understand you are using for barter."
"Coffee beans have been referred to as 'black gold,' Drassi Kierse." "I thought that was the thick stuff they put into barrels. Oil." Kierse, who was much sharper than he lookedcertainly for one of Drassi rankpronounced the word in two syllables: Oyyill.
"I have heard the term 'black gold' used for both," Zainal said blithely, "though I believe the barreled stuff is undrinkable."
Kierse chuckled and Zainal worried about the bargaining abilities of this client. Beans he had in plenty, but the gold was in much shorter supply. Still, that standard would be in keeping with the valueto himof these particular parts and he wanted to conclude a deal with Kierse.
It didn't take long to put the: packets into the weighing pod and the scales swung past and then settled on 50 grams. Zainal did not wish to part with that much gold no matter how essential the parts were to repair the connectors. It would take most of the dust they had in the little safe. And since the man had specified gold, he would probably not consider the lesser ores that Zainal still had available.
"If we deal with the beans, I am willing to throw in a grinder. The filtered bean gives a finer taste and goes further." Zainal hoped this would tip Kierse in his favor..
"I know how one makes this brew," Kierse said, dismissing Zainal's suggestion. "But, in truth, I do not have a grinder. Let me see it working. I prefer the filtered drink to the boiled grounds."
Floss, who had been listening to the exchange, immediately stepped forward with sacks of several varieties of bean.
"Which would you prefer, the milder roast or the hearty robusta bean?"
Floss, skilled now at tipping a handful of beans into one of the little saucers, filled two packets, one with the mild mountain and the other with the richer roast and offered each in turn to Kierse. Zainal made a little bet with hirnself and won. Kierse preferred the stronger brew.
"There are, as I am sure you know, Kierse, several methods of obtaining coffee. The percolator provides a stronger flavor. Grind the beans," Zainal began but Kierse waved off a discussion of the process and the percolator pot, which Floss displayed for him.
"Filtered. And that darker bean."
Floss withdrew the dismissed ones from consideration and reached under the table for the appropriate packages. These she placed in the other scale, casually adding a trickle of beans until a balance was achieved between the product and its payment. Zainal held his breath. Kierse looked longingly at the casket of gold, which Zainal had left on the table. Then he took another sip of the coffee in his cup.
"I have more packages. We will deal with the gold then," Kierse said and extended his hand to Zainal, accepting the barter.
Quickly Floss transferred the bags of beans to a carrier, wrapped the grinder and placed it on top, handing the convenient package to the new owner.
Zainal rose and gave the obligatory courtesy bow, which Kierse mirrored, though there was a smile in the man's eyes that Zainal read as anticipating a return with more valuable stock. As Kierse left, Zainal signaled for Ferris to follow him. He might merely go to his home with such a package, but he might also return to his stall to gloat over what valuable merchandise he still wished to sell to the bean man. Perhaps Ferris could discover exactly what else might be of value to them.
The tone of voices abruptly changed. There was some sort of a fuss coming down the aisle, much shouting and warnings. Zainal was instantly alert but relaxed when he saw what was becoming a daily occurrence, someone with a bloody mouth coming to see the tooth man. The victim had a bloody rag over his face as friends escorted him to Eric's booth. Zainal called out Eric's name for he was busy rattattatting.
Eric quickly emerged and, taking in the scene in one glance, ushered the Catteni into his stall, twitching the curtain across it.
"Good fight?" Zainal inquired, as Catteni courtesy permitted.
"I won," replied a burly man with the ship insignia of a minor duty officer. "Oh, this is where the coffee is. I could certainly use a cup." Zainal gave him a wave toward Floss, who smiled engagingly up at the fellow and put the cup in his hand and indicated the coin pot. "What's it worth?" he asked Floss.
"What you care to put in," Floss replied flirtatiously.
Floss might have learned vocabulary from Peran and Bazil at the Masai camp, but she had certainly not learned how to flirt from them. Clune stepped forward from where he was drying cups and lingered just beyond her. The officer did not mistake the warning in the young man's manner and moved judiciously toward Eric's office space, just as a bellow and a kicking foot stirred the curtain.
"It would not have lasted past the first thing you chewed," Eric shouted. His command of dental Catteni was now comprehensive enough for such remarks.
In her role as parttime dental assistant, Sally arrived with a glass of water and a bowl for the man to spit into. She disliked that part of her job but was becoming inured to it. She did like appearing in the formfitting white uniform that Eric had said went with the duties. The uniform had been one of the things Eric had stuffed in at the last moment at his office, and fortuitously it fit Sally very well indeed.
Zainal then noticed a slight figure who had been parading up and down the aisle most of the morning.
"May I help you?" he inquired politely, as he tapped the man on the shoulder.
The grayskinned fellow, rather scrawny even for a Catteni, jumped and whirled, his hands up in a defensive position. "This is where the man who does teeth works?" he asked, slightly breathless.
"Yes."
"I wish to learn how to repair teeth. It would be a very good busi
ness for me to get into," he added. And indeed, Zainal noticed that his upper teeth protruded in such a way that he looked like a burrowing animal the Terrans called a rabbit. Catten had a similar burrowing vegetarian creature, named a sukey. Then the man fumbled in a pouch and held out for Zainal's inspection some odd objectssquarish at one end and broken off at the other.
"Teeth?" Zainal asked in surprise, remembering Ferris's recent brush with Kapash.
"Yes, I saw him," and he looked about, evidently for Ferris, who was away from the stall on his errand for Zainal. "He was here earlier, but I've seen him collecting broken teeth after a brawl in a drinking place. So I followed him. I have a friend who has loose teeth."
Ferris was still collecting teeth in the drinking pits? At least this fellow was anxious to avail himself of the service, rather than attack Ferris, and had found the right place.
"Training to be a dentist demands many years of studying and can only be learned on Terra."
"But he practices here," the man objected. "I am Tavis," he added by way of introduction. "I would do anything to learn such a profession. And if he does, he teaches."
There was indeed a Catteni assumption that he who could do, could teach.
"I do not believe that the medical school where he learned is still functioning, and it is an expensive undertaking."
"But if he does, I could watch and learn." "Do you read Terran?"
"I do," said the man, and Zainal saw that, for all he was young in face, he was not a boy. "And I have studied much:' There was a sudden slump to his shoulders as he admitted, "Learning is all I can do."
"Learning is itself something that can be practiced. Have you ever considered being a tutor?"
The man shook his head. "Emassi and even Drassi find my appearance laughable." He pointed to his teeth. "I heard that the tooth man is able to alter the shape of teeth while still in the mouth."
While Zainal had heard from Eric that orthodontics was possible, it required long hours of work and much money.
"He can, but it is a long process," Zainal said noncommittally, only now aware of how much he had absorbed of Eric's evening dentallectures.
"But it is possible?" The man's hand traveled halfway to his mouth before he restrained the movement, dropping it selfconsciously.
"I believe so, but you had best discuss this with the doctor. And how was your friend injured?"
"Took a fist right in the mouth. His teeth feel loose, he told me, and I thought of the tooth man."
"I am sure that Dr. Sachs," and Zainal paused to let that name sink in, "will be able to save his teeth. But sometimes the nerve in the tooth itself has been damaged and it is wiser to remove it before it can fester in the jaw"
Tavis blinked, as if that possibility had never occurred to him. Indeed, it would have been news to Zainal if he hadn't had a crewman once whose two front teeth, loosened in a marketplace brawl, had turned dark, with the gum above swelling from some unseen injury within the jaw. Zainal himself had had to yank the teeth before the man got some respite from the fierce pain in his mouth. There had been little nodes attached to the root of the teeth that smelled vile. So had the crewman's breath.
"First, bring your friend here." From Tavis's expression, this was not a suggestion that appealed to him. "Well, he will have to bring his teeth himself if they are still in his head," Zainal said a little impatiently.
Tavis nodded but was still lacking in confidence.
"Tell him Emassi Zainal requests his presence."
"Emassi Zainal requests his presence." Tavis considered this for a few moments and then drew himself up in resolve.
"You are doing your friend a favor. Fear not."
"I am not afraid of him," Tavis replied stoutly, as if convincing himself of that.
"Nor need to be, since you are doing him a favor."
"Yes, I am." With that, Tavis dashed off, leaving Zainal abruptly. Zainal shrugged and turned to other matters.
he day before, Chuck had exchanged a lump of their copper for a carton of Toyota brake linings and two cartons of spark plugs for truck transmissions. "We did promise Vitali we'd get such things," he had informed Zainal.
"I know. And we must prove reliable to the coord."
Indeed they must. And thanks to Ditsy's enterprise, they also had both a supply of power packs and more of the coveted lifts to bring back. Erbri had been useful in this sideline, as well, bringing in dam aged equipment that he also helped repair. So Erbri could be useful on Botany as well as Natchi, and Zainal had half decided that he'd bring the two veterans back to Retreat rather than leave them to live out their handtomouth lives. In fact, Zainal thought he had done better, in many ways, for the Terrans than for the folk on Botany. He had thought they would have had more buyers for the metals, which Zainal knew were in short supply on Barevi, but considering the green coord's trade with him, they could use the remaining metals to better advantage on Earth.
Zainal enjoyed a moment of peaceful reflection, wondering how much advantage he might wring from such insights. Barevi's main function had always been as a trading planet and only secondarily as a place for longhaul spacemen to vent excess energy and for sporting Catteni to hunt live creatures. However, one of Kris's cryptic phrases came to mind: something about a mountain coming to a man.
"What is that you say about the mountain and a man?"
She blinked for a moment, shook her head, and then her expression brightened. "If Mohammed won't come to the mountain, let the mountain come to Mohammed. Is that the one you mean?"
"The very one," and he smiled at her, just as a man stepped up to the stall.
"Excuse me, Zainal," she said and offered a cup to the Catteni. The man had a noticeable squint and an unpleasant expression on his face but, watching him for a moment as Kris explained how to prepare the bean properly, she seemed to have soothed him. He sipped the coffee and turned to survey those passing by. Kris gave an exasperated look at Zainal but smiled pleasantly at the Catteni. Then he said he wanted to purchase a bag of beans and evidently could not make up his mind between the arabica and the robusta. Kris offered to give him a quantity of both so he could savor them in his own house. They meant to stop selling the beans as a separate commodity since they were better used as barter but, as in the case of this pompous person, it was easier to comply than deny. And they acquired sufficient Catteni coins to defray other costs.
"But that is more than a bottle of the best wine would cost," the man complained when Kris quoted him the price.
"Ah, there are some who maintain that good coffee is better than wine," was Kris's smiling reply. "It is the beginning of the day you should ensure, rather than the end."
He grunted as he deposited the halfbags in the pockets of his loose jerkin before he stalked away, still annoyed at the cost.
"Be sure to grind them properly, as we showed you," Kris called cheerfully after him. Then to Zainal she said, "Serving coffee has become de rigueur. All the best homes serve it." Then she grinned.
"What's so amusing? He was not," Zainal said, for the squinteyed man was an arrogant type of Catteni and possibly had not even liked being served by a Terran woman.
"No, and what do you want to bet he doesn't explain to his wife that she has to grind them, much less that the water must be boiled to make a proper brew"
"I wouldn't bet," Zainal said. He knew how careful the women were to explain the correct process. Maybe next time they could bring proper pots and more grinders.
He was astonished that he was thinking in terms of "next time." But he was beginning to think of a fairly complex business possibility. He needed to turn it over in his mind before he voiced it to the members of his current crew, to say nothing of the Botany colonists, who were expecting so much from this venture.
Later that morning, Zainal saw Tavis accompanying a Catteni, stalwart even among their species, to Eric's office. The sort of man, Zainal thought, who was in the middle of brawls. Though it seemed true that the threat of transportation to a slave colony had remarkably reduced the number of brawls. Evidently Kapash had made good on that threat. The most recent fracas had involved two Catteni crews who had just landed on Barevi and had started by picking quarrels with each other even as they walked from the dock to the settlement. Ditsy had heard that half the crew had already been arrested and thrown into prison. Whether or not their captains would be able to bail them out of Kapash's reach remained to be seen. In the meantime, if the slave ship arrived, they would be transported unless their captain ransomed them. Either way, Zainal thought, Kapash won. He wished fleetingly that, when he had been market manager, he had had that option. But in that year, there had been plenty of captive species to send to the work camps. Idly he wondered how long Catteni survived in those conditions. Not all the quarrelsome crew members had been rounded up, so Zainal called a halt to their business early, in case the remaining men were still in the market before they went off to hunt or do whatever form of enterprise they considered suitable for relaxation.
They all got back to the BASS1 with no problem and ate their evening mealGino enjoyed cooking and had put together some unusually tasty meals. Eric was very pleased with his new patients and said he could easily support himself with dentistry on Barevi.
"What about that young fellow Tavis?" Zainal asked.
"The one who wants to apprentice himself to me as a dental assistant?" Eric asked with a smile. "Nice, earnest young man."
"I think he fancies that you can teach him how to be a dentist, too," Zainal said by way of cautioning.
"Hmmm. Fancies indeed. Not"Eric paused to raise his hand"that he isn't intelligent enough. I shall happily train him in the skills I need in an assistant, and Sally can go back to bookkeeping."
The next morning, Zainal was to meet with a merchant named Nilink, whom Ferris had brought to his notice as the owner of a large storage complex full of tires with the Goodyear and Michelin logos on their paper wrappings. Zainal was extremely eager to do business with the man but knew better by now than to appear keen. So he delayed his departure, using the time to memorize the weights and sizes of the tires on the list he had compiled on Terra. It was always wise to know exactly what he was seeking.
As he moved through the morning crowds to their location, he was surprised to hear a commotion. Then Ferris came dodging through the crowds and all but ran into him.
"Zainal! Zainal!" The boy's face was terrorstricken. "Kapash's men have taken Kris and Kathy! Taken them," he gasped.
"Why?" Zainal grabbed the boy by the shoulders, holding him upright.
"'Misrepresenting goods' is all I heard. Chuck was arguing with them and so were Peran and Bazil. Brone tried to help, too. But they
were taken away!" He had something more to say and not enough breath to spew it out.
"Steady, lad, steady! We can fix it."
"But they have Emassi Kris," the boy said. "And Natchi says there's a slave ship in. He says they load fast and leave."
"Go back, Ferris. Tell Chuck I have gone to attend to Kapash," he said before he started running through the crowd toward Kapash's office, pushing people out of his way when they were not fast enough for the pace he set himself. Kris! Not Kris! Not on a slave ship again. And Kathy. She, too, would be frightened, but it was Kris he could not do without.
Kris had more sense than to struggle as she and Kathy were hauled away, Floss and Jax weeping, while Chuck had to restrain Clime and the boys from giving the bullies accompanying Kapash any excuse to knock them about with the heavy cudgels they carried: part weapon, part symbol of their function. The last thing she saw was Ferris, disappearing from view, undoubtedly running to find Zainal. And Ferris would, wherever her mate was.
"Misrepresentation of products, indeed!" she muttered to Kathy. "You know how careful we are to explain exactly how to grind beans and brew coffee," Kathy was saying, sniffling with fear and wringing her hands.
Chuck disliked handwringing women almost as much as weeping ones, but he felt like weeping in fear himself. Natchi had warned him that morning that a slaver had made port early and would leave as soon as it was filled. Frankly, he wouldn't put it past Kapash to ensure that Kris and Kathy were on it, a nasty result of the specious charge leveled against them.
today! Speaking more calmly than he felt, Chuck greeted the man and asked him which coffee he preferred.
"The stronger bean," Nilink said with an easy smile. "I shall need my wits today, bargaining with Emassi Zainal. It is amazing to find coffee on Barevi. I should have filled my hold with the beans and I'd've done well with such spoils."
"You are a spaceship captain, Emassi?" Chuck asked politely.
The man's clothing gave away little about him, though it was well cut and of good, durable fabric. He also had the air of someone accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. Rather like Zainal, in fact, Chuck thought, wondering where the big Catteni was.
"I was indeed a captain," Nilink replied, "as was Zainal, I understand."
Ferris came running back, almost careening into Nilink but halting just in time with an apologetic bow to the Emassi. "I caught Zainal. He has gone to Kapash. My pardon, good Emassi," he added.
Kris and Kathy, still professing innocence of whatever it was the head steward accused them of, were thrust into a dark, dank prison cell, already well filled to judge by the number of people they disturbed by their entry.
Oh Lord, not again! Kris thought, for the ambience put her forcefully in mind of the first time she had been in this situation, before she had been dropped on Botanywhen she and Zainal had been gassed during the riot of Terrans. Only this morning Chuck had mentioned that a slave ship had docked, and the thought filled her with dread.
Beside her, Kathy was trying to rearrange her clothing after the rough handling they had received from Kapash's police.
"We didn't misrepresent anything. Was it that squinteyed fellow from yesterday, d'you suppose?"
Inadvertently she trod on someone's arm and the man tried to knock her feet out from under her, cursing.
Kris steadied Kathy and motioned her to the wall, where they might find a safer place to wait.
"Zainal will come for us, won't he?" Kathy asked.
"Yes, of course he will, Kathy," Kris said positively. "Chuck will have sent Ferris running for him."
They found a place to sit but they were not far from the communal slop pots and the stench was overpowering, so they moved, carefully, through the other prisoners to find a less redolent place.
Most of the inmates were sprawled, getting what sleep they could. The air certainly stank of stale beer and whatever other alcohol had been consumed: the stench was incredible.
"He will come?" There was understandable anxiety in Kathy's voice. "He will come!" Kris replied in an unarguable tone of voice and then, finding a space against the wall in the corner, pulled Kathy down to sit beside her.
"I'm thirsty," Kathy said. "Don't think about it, Kathy."
Kris did not think Kathy's courage would improve by being told that prisoners in Barevi prisons were rarely fed or watered: at least not until prior to being forced onto a slave ship. She composed herself to remain calm and await Zainal's arrival. Ferris would have found him, no matter where Zainal had been.
But barely had they got themselves settled when the prison doors swung open and jailors, cracking nerve whips, roused the inmates with harsh commands to stand up and move out. She was startled when a door in the side of the prison was opened to reveal a ramp. She remembered that sort of ramp and tried to suppress a surge of
fear. Kathy didn't realize what was happening and Kris wasn't going to tell her. The prisoners were being driven toward the ramp. Kris caught Kathy's arm, holding her back. "Zainal, where are you?" she murmured urgently.
They were among the last to be driven up the ramp, Kris looking over her shoulder at the main entrance, hoping against hope to see Zainal's large form in the doorway and hear his voice commanding the guards to leave her alone. Surely he would come to free them. The tip of the nerve whip caught her arm, though her clothing absorbed most of the painful strike, and despite her reluctance, she was driven up the ramp and into the hold of a KDM.
"We're on a ship," Kathy said, frightened.
"So we are," Kris remarked, amazed at how calm she managed to sound.
"What are we doing on a ship, Kris? Where is Zainal?"
"Trying to get us free, I'm sure," Kris replied, though the smell of the hold was no reassurance at all. This was a slave ship: it stank of fear and human excrement.
The ramp door swung shut and was dogged tight by a guard. "Find a wall space, Kathy," Kris said, holding tight to Kathy's hand so they wouldn't be separated as the other prisoners milled about aimlessly.
"Find us, Zainal," Kris chanted to herself. "Find us. Free us."
A sudden movement of the ship as it undocked threw both women to their knees, and Kris barely managed to keep from crying out with fear and pain as her right knee connected painfully with a bolt on the steel floor. There would be no pleasant Botany at the end of this forced journey.
They both felt the surge as the ship took off, sending them sliding into other bodies and pushing them back against the far wall of the hold.
"I'm scared, Kris," Kathy said as the metal beneath them throbbed with the power of takeoff. Her voice was close to a wail and Kris threw an arm around her shoulders.
"Me too," Kris agreed. "Zainal will stop this farce. Just you wait."
he accusation is a farce, Kapash," Zainal was saying, having stormed into the market manager's office demanding an explanation. "An aggrieved client has every right to file a charge against a mer chant who has sold imperfect goods or misrepresented his stock." "You know how we have been trading the coffee. You've tasted enough of it to know that our product is exactly as represented." Kapash merely smiled up at Zainal, obviously delighting in his discomposure, tilting languidly back in his chair.
"Now, what fine will you levy so that I can pay it and release Kris and Kathy?"
Kapash steepled his fingers, ignoring Zainal's urgency. "Well now, the standard fee is forty Catteni bunts."
"Gone up since I was manager, hasn't it?"
Kapash's chair crashed to the floor and he stared hard at Zainal. Then both men heard the rumble of a ship taking off from the dock and Kapash smiled.
"If those women are on that ship, Kapash, you will be sorry for it. They have been falsely accused and you know it."
"I do?" Kapash pretended an innocence that only made Zainal more positive of his complicity.
"What will it take, Kapash, for you to sign a release form and stop that ship before it leaves Barevi orbit?"
"What will I take, Zainal?" Kapash asked, idly drumming his fingers on his desktop.
"Out with it. I want the ship stopped before it can leave this system. What is it you want?"
"The location of the Eosi treasures."
"The what?" Zainal stared, in dismay and contempt. "How would I know that?"
"You were once to be an Eosi host and you would have been informed of such things."
"No, I wasn't because I never became Pe's host. Do not underestimate the guile of the Eosi, Kapash. They made no one their confidants, especially not an unhosted Catteni."
"But someone knows," Kapash exclaimed. "They had so much treasure. So much coin for their rents and deals, and most of the valuables taken from Earth."
"I'm sure they did very well for themselves, but I have no idea where they stored their possessions. What will you take, Kapash?" Kapash looked extremely uncomfortable.
"I'm sure you talked with their staff assistants, didn't you?" Zainal continued, not wanting to waste too much time talking.
"They knew nothing," Kapash said, flicking his fingers. "And we spoke to every one of them."
And not gently, either, Zainal thought, but he had no pity to spare for those traitors who had lived extremely well, serving their Eosi masters.
"Something I can give you, Kapash." Zainal did not dare rush the man and yet there was a need for urgency. Only Kapash could have the ascending ship halted at the space station before it left the system for whichever slave colony was its destination.
"Your coffee beans," Kapash said, coming to a decision.
"I don't have that many left," Zainal admitted. "They have sold well." He tried to think how many sacks remained on the BASS1. "You have a ship. You can go back to Terra for more. You will go back, and I shall have the concession here in the market for as long as I wish." He scribbled some words on a sheet of paper and passed it across the desk for Zainal to sign.
It was a release for all coffee beans on board the BASS1.
"Sign the prisoner release first, Kapash," Zainal said, pointing to the various colored forms in the cabinet behind the man. "The blue one," he said, remembering that detail from his own term as market manager.
"Their names?" Kapash asked, holding his writer over the blue sheet.
"Lady Emassi Kris Bjornsen and Captain Emassi Katherine Harvey." He spelled the names, watching intently as Kapash wrote. When the form was completed, duly signed by Kapash, and stamped with his office's seal, Zainal signed the release of the beans.
"You will also no longer use coffee as a trade item," Kapash said. With that, he must have known that he effectively ended Zainal's mission on Barevi. He reached out for the release. Zainal held it out of reach.
Zainal pointed to the communications board to Kapash's right. "Only if you immediately phone Ladade and order him to keep that ship from leaving Barevi space."
Kapash seemed to hesitate. When Zainal raised a fist menacingly, remembering how much of a physical coward Kapash was, the man grabbed for the hand unit and made the call.
"Yes, do not give the ship clearance, Commander Ladade. Two of the prisoners have been cleared of the charges falsely registered against them and therefore must be offloaded.... It is entirely necessary Commander.... Yes, and I am on my way to ensure their release. I have the required form.... No, not murderers, Commander, but merchants who have been unjustly accused.... Yes, yes, most unusual." He paused a moment, listening to Ladade. There was a flicker in his eyes as if he were experiencing some trouble in convincing Ladade of this necessity. "And I agree, Ladade. Neither of us needs these troublesome little problems, but I must maintain my rep
utation as a fair market manager. This matter touches on my honor.... Yes, yes, we shall be on our way with the release form."
Kapash was on his feet, then, disconnecting the call and hastily keying in another command. "Have my gig ready to depart by the time I reach my dock," he said and returned the hand unit to its hol ster. "Come, give it over, Zainal." He all but snatched the signed release from Zainal's hand. Zainal reluctantly let it go but, if somehow Kapash reneged on the deal, he would have it backand break Kapash's neck.
he throb of the ship's engines ceased and Kris began to hope again.
"Has he made them stop?" Kathy asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
"Something has," Kris said. "Wherever they are taking us, they haven't had time to go far." She struggled to recall station protocol. "Don't they have to get an allclear from the station?" Kathy asked. "Yes, they do," Kris replied, in some relief. "To be sure all their debts have been paid and to announce their destination. At least that's what Zainal said. Oh, we haven't left this system."
"No, we can't have."
adade met Kapash and Zainal at the airlock, clearly annoyed at this interruption to his schedule, but he obviously recognized Zainal
and that seemed to alter his attitude.
"Ah, Emassi Zainal, I had not looked to encounter you again," Ladade said almost genially, bringing his hand to his chest in a salute of respect.
Zainal duplicated the salute. "Nor 1, Ladade."
"You know the two released prisoners?"
"My mate and one of my KDM captains," Zainal said.
"An officious and spurious complaint was laid against them," Kapash said, dismissing the matter with a flick of his fingers.
Zainal handed Ladade the release form.
"You know how abrupt such slave traders as Fartov are, lifting before he obtained my clearance for his cargo," Kapash said, trying to shift some of the onus to Ladade.
From Ladade's expression, Zainal surmised that Kapash was not high in the station commander's estimation or guilty of much fair dealing. Of course, Kapash would get a cut of whatever profit Fartov made on his slavery mission. He shifted his feet restlessly, wanting them to get on with the release of Kris and Kathy before they experienced too much trauma in the fetid hold of the slave carrier.
"Please," he said, trying not to sound too anxious. Zainal didn't know Ladade except as a very competent station manager. "Let us get to the business at hand."
"Of course," the commander said and gestured for them to return to the gig. "I have ordered Fartov to await clearance, which he will not receive until we have released the unfairly detained persons. I don't know how you and Kapash settled this most unusual lastminute rescue, but I do not like disrupting my schedule unnecessarily." Zainal knew a request for a bribe when he heard one. He considered what valuables he had left and could think of nothing that might tempt the man. "Have you any suggestion, Ladade, as to how I might ease such disruption?"
"You were to host an Eosi called Pe?"
"You surely are not another person who thinks I know where Pe hid his treasures?" Zainal scoffed. "If his assistants had no idea, then why would I? I met him twice, I never hosted him."
Ladade looked unsure.
Emassi was left in the common prison to be transported so opportunely for someone?"
"But you were to be a host," Ladade said, his eyes bulging with disbelief. Kapash made no comment. In fact, he held himself extremely rigid, a fact that suggested to Zainal that Kapash had been in volved in his abduction in some way. Paid to ignore a Catteni in a mixed group, no doubt, since Kapash was notorious for his greed. "Someone," and Zainal looked from one to the other, "evidently saw a chance to get me out of the way permanently."
"Hadn't thought of that," Ladade said, rubbing his chin in a pensive manner as he regarded Zainal steadily.
"By the time I was called to be a host, I had already been dropped, and therefore I stayed."
Ladade regarded Zainal with veiled approval. Once again, Zainal wondered who had been on prison duty at that time. Possibly a vacillating member of the dissidents had betrayed him for whatever profit such information had reaped.
"I do have one idea, though, which you, Commander, are remarkably well situated to explore."
"Yes?"
"This station keeps track of all ships in and out of the system, as well as their destinations, does it not?" he asked Ladade.
"You know it does."
"Have you never considered tracking Eosi ships to see if they made frequent stops at some outoftheway or unlikely port?" Ladade considered this, glancing at the personnel currently busy on routine duties. The three men had been speaking quietly and now both Ladade and Kapash glanced around to be sure that no one had been close to them when Zainal made his suggestion.
"I would happily discuss this with you once my friends have been released," Zainal said.
"As I would be happy to discuss such a strategy with you, Zainal,"Ladade said. "Tell Captain Fartov that we are on our way to release two prisoners."
Then he peremptorily gestured for Zainal and Kapash to board Kapash's gig.
It was awful waiting in the stinking dark, Kris thought, but she would not give up hope until no, even ifthe ship's engines started up again. Zainal was resourceful. He would not let them be sent to a slave colony. But the waiting was terrible. And as everyone else in the compartment realized that they were being transported beyond hope or help, their moans and weeping were pathetic as well as contagious, and Kris caught back a sob in her own throat. Zainal will come. It was both prayer and litany.
She felt a bump reverberate through the ship's hull. More of an echo than a real concussion. As if a ship had connected with the airlock.
Oh, Zainal! Zainal!
She felt hands on her ankle, rough hands actually caressing her foot. She kicked against the grip as hard as she could and felt her foot connect with something soft. Someone groaned and cursed but the grasp on her foot had been broken.
"Don't do that again," she muttered, her growl very determinedly Cattenish, as much from fright as lack of moisture in her mouth. Almost stunned, she heard the door to their enclosure slide open, the door guide grating against its groove, and a hand light shining in, flickering across faces.
"Zanal?" she cried, hoping against hope that it was him and they were being rescued. Beside her, Kathy stirred and struggled to her feet. "Kris? Kathy?" an unmistakable voice called.
It was Zainal! "To the right, Zainal," she said, needing light to find her way among the tangle of bodies covering the floor.
The hand light swept to shine on her and Kathy. Kathy, already on her feet, gave a little shriek of relief and fled to the doorway. Kris, her knees sore from the earlier fall, had more difficulty getting up. But Zainal closed the distance between them, clasping her tightly in his arms and lifting her out of the prison. The door clanged shut as soon as they were in the corridor. Zainal set her on her feet and gestured to the Catteni she did not know. Kapash she knew all too well, and she looked through him.
"Commander Ladade, this is my mate, Lady Emassi Kris Bjornsen, and this is Emassi Captain Kathy Harvey."
The commander waved a blue sheet of paper. "You are officially released as unfairly accused."
"I told you we didn't do anything, Kapash," Kathy said, her voice croaking from her dry throat. She hated that display of weakness in herself. She would rather have stood unmoved by Kapash's attempt to debase her.
"You are free, are you not?" Kapash replied with a nasty smile on his face.
Kris gave him a long, contemptuous glare. "We did not misrepresent our product and you know it, Kapash:"
He gave a shrug, lifting both hands in a disarming gesture, suggesting that he had only been doing his duty.
"Commander Ladade," a voice crackled from the ship's communicators, "to the control room. Ship X11233 requesting permission to depart?"
The commander gave a little smile. "If you will follow me." He turned to port. They did, with Kapash trailing behind them.
Zainal had Kris tightly by the hand, his thumb stroking her fingers. "Be easy, dear heart. I have wanted a chance to be in the control room. Humor me."
It took all her concentration to make her legs manage the pace Ladade set and she suspected that both she and Kathy were operating on an adrenaline high that she hoped would last long enough to get them off this wretched station and safely among friends. But they were out of that hideous prison ship. They were safe with Zainal.
Then they were in the control tower of the space station, looking out at the parking lights of ships. One set of lights was blinking, evidently to attract attention.
"X11233, this is Commander Ladade. Your affairs are now in order and you may depart."
The usual gravelly Catteni voice, remarkably polite, graciously accepted the permission. Within moments, Kris could see the flare of intersystem thrusters igniting and the ship ponderously moving toward full spacewithout her and Kathy aboard. She leaned into Zainal, almost fainting with relief. Kathy had taken the nearest free chair, ignoring a dirty look from a subordinate for such impertinence.
"Where is it bound?" Zainal asked, as if he felt required to make some comment. She could feel the tension through his body and wondered what he was after. She realized that his gaze was fastened on the nearest screen.
Shrugging indifferently, Ladade directed someone to bring up the file. Only Kris knew how important that file was to Zainal. She could feel the small sigh he released.
"Zerion 28.4.32. One of the mining colonies," Ladade said. "A resource planet that I believe you yourself discovered for the Eosi." "I believe you're right, Ladade," Zainal replied equably. "I did discover the planet. Too bad it had such rich metal lodes. It would have been suitable to colonize."
"Please." Now Ladade gestured for them all, Kapash included, to proceed to the portside door, which turned out to open into his private office, just off the command bridge.
"Perhaps you ladies would like some refreshment," Ladade said, all courteous.
"Water would be welcome," Kris said with great dignity, and he waved her to serve herself at the small catering unit. She poured two glasses of water from the pitcher and gave one to Kathy. She finished her glass, trying to sip slowly so as not to upset her stomach. Then, with a movement she hoped would be graceful, her sore knee barely supporting her, she sank into one of the chairs.
"Where would you put the parameters of Eosi Pe's possible stops, Zainal?"
Zainal pointed to the screen on Ladade's desktop. "If you will bring up his file," he said, moving to stand behind Ladade so he could see the screen. "Ah yes, well, if you notice, he makes quite a few trips to those coordinates." He tapped the screen with a finger.
"Yes, yes, but there's nothing there. Not even a moon," Ladade protested.
"I think you will probably have to achieve those coordinates and then see what might be in space nearby."
"But, in space?"
"Where else to secrete something when only you know the place you left it?"
"I'm sure it will take some searching, but think of the rewards, Ladade."
"Where? Where?" Kapash came around the desk but before he could see the screen, Ladade altered the display, glaring at Kapash. Zainal straightened, but Kris, knowing him as well as she did, saw a gleam in his eyes. Whatever he had wanted to find, he had. She wondered what it was.
"What about Au? Where would he have hidden his treasure?" Eosi Au had once commanded both this station and the Barevi market.
Zainal shrugged. "You knew him better than I did, Kapash, Ladade. Probably even his habits, if you will stop to think, instead of being blinded by greed, Kapash."
"You owe me." Kapash waggled a finger at Zainal, barely able to contain his aggravation.
"Then let us discharge that debt to you with all possible dispatch, Kapash," Zainal said in such an ominous tone that even Ladade, fascinated by Zainal's theory, looked up from his screen.
"Indeed, Kapash," Ladade said. "I will detain you on the station no further." He motioned toward the door, and Kapash had no option but to leave at such a curt dismissal. He did so reluctantly, despite Zainal's guidance.
"What did you give for our release?" Kris asked in Zainal's ear as they strode along the corridor to the airlock where Kapash's gig was docked.
"The coffee," he muttered.
Kris was both appalled and pleased to hear that her life had been ransomed by coffee beans. She really did mean a lot to him. But did he mean all the coffee? For someone who had given away one of their most important commodities, he looked oddly pleased. She hoped whatever he had found here was what he had wanted to discover.
She found that she had barely enough strength in her legs to get inside Kapash's gig. Kathy looked frightfully pale and sank instantly into the nearest seat. Pride kept Kris erect on her feet.
"Zainal, is there anything to eat on board? And I'm still thirsty." "I'll see. " He rummaged in the small alcove, finding only some Catteni dry rations. He gave one packet to her and another to Kathy and then brought them water. Kathy found a small packet of coffee beans in her tunic pocket and handed them to Zainal.
"Do you have a grinder on board, Kapash?" Zainal asked. "Why ever would I?" Kapash replied in a surly voice.
"We have some beans."
"They are all mine, Zainal. Remember that!" He snatched the packet from her fingers. "And we go immediately to your ship so I may see that no more of my beans are distributed on Barevi. "
"Oh?" Kathy looked up at Zainal, her eyes wide with alarm. "It's all right, Kathy."
But on Kathy's face was the dismay he was going to see from everyone else involved in their Barevi mission. Not that he felt any would rebuke him for bartering the beans for the lives of the two women. Zainal winked at Kathy, who was so astonished that she dropped her eyes and continued to chew the hard Catteni rations. Kris managed to eat enough to let her stomach work on something useful and then leaned back in a seat and thought of the long shower she would take to get rid of the stench of the prison.
atchi and Erbri appeared at the gangway of Kapash's gig as they disembarked. Ferris was with them, and so relieved was he to see the women being escorted by Zainal that he let out a ululation that startled everyone on the dock. Then he raced away to find transportation.
It was Natchi who helped Kathy onto the small motorized cart that arrived, and it was actually Natchi who paid for the hire when they reached the KDM. Jax and Floss wept with relief when they saw their friends gliding past the berths. Then Clune and the Doyle brothers appeared. Ninety all but carried Kathy on board, seeing that she was by now so weak with shock.
Chuck arrived with Gino and Sally Stoffers, having been summoned back from the marketplace by Ferris. Eric came, too, looking as concerned as everyone else, though he went back to his current patient, whom he had left in the chair with Tavis in attendance.
There was freshly made coffee and Floss sliced bananas, deciding that the last of the ripe fruit would be easy to digest as well as good for them.
Kris and Kathy both finished the snack, grateful for Floss's care and solicitude. Then they decided they would feel better after a shower and clean clothes and excused themselves.
"Well?" Chuck asked Zainal, cocking a bushy eyebrow. "Kapash, your people took off with the rest of the coffee." Then leaning close to Zainal, he asked in a lower tone, "Was that the price of their freedom?"
"It was," Zainal admitted.
"Well, they're worth it. They don't look as if they suffered any great harm."
"Fortunately, no," Zainal said with such an edge to his voice that Chuck grinned. "Do you care to inspect our holds, Kapash, to be sure the bargain has been kept?"
Kapash flicked away such a consideration. "You are an honorable man, Zainal."
"There were only two full bags left," Chuck said, "and what bagged beans we brought back from the market while we awaited your return." Heavy in Chuck's eyes was the suspicion that Kapash might have trumped up the charges just to get the beans.
"Shall I give you a refund on your stall rental, Zainal, now that you have no reason to remain?" Kapash asked with studious politeness.
"We still have tradable goods, Market Manager," Zainal said with equal courtesy and showed the man to the main exit.
"He did rig it, didn't he, Zainal?"
"It's a possibility," Zainal admitted, knowing how devious the market manager was. Greed was Kapash's main motive, which, of course, meant that he had seen how popular the coffee was. Zainal left the galley to go to the control room. Curious, Chuck followed and found
him lighting up the main computer screens. Zainal entered four letters and sat back, watching the unit deal with the code.
When a menu appeared, Zainal typed in another series and suddenly the screen scrolled down line after line of what Chuck thought were ship IDs.
"And what have you got here, Zainal lad?" Chuck asked, taking another seat.
"I met our beloved space station commander and he very kindly accessed some files for me, updating me though I'm sure he didn't mean to." A smile wreathed Zainal's usually bland expression. "He gave me the chance to see two of his codes. One, this"here he struck a save button and then an order to print the entire file "is a list of all ship activity in and out of the station for ... oh, probably ten years. That's as much as it's necessary to save."
"And what was the other code, Zainal?"
Zainal went back to the menu and tapped another code. "This one will take more time and effort," said Zainal. "But it might be worth it. It will give us the movements of all Eosi ships in and out of Barevi. I have also learned that the Eosi did not keep their share of earnings in any holding establishment, but secreted their treasures where only they could access them. If we examine their flights and destinations, we might discover where they stopped along the way."
"Well, a good day's work for all the anxiety. You got Kris and Kathy back, and also found what you've been looking for."
Paper was spewing out of the printer now. "Yes," said Zainal with satisfaction, "we'll know considerably more about the ins and outs of all shipments of slave labor following the Catteni invasion. I might even find out how much Ladade earned from his cut of the captains' loot."
"I heard that Ladade is pretty honorable." The end of that sentence posed a question.
"Depends on your standards of honor," Zainal replied. He reached over and removed a wad of the hard copy from the basket, riffling through the pages. "We must get back to Botany and then return to Jarth. Did you get any more automotive parts?"
"We got some truck tires from Nilink, the man you were supposed to deal with earlier, and he was right annoyed when Kapash's men cut him off at the pass, as it were."
"Did he deliver to us or did you collect from his warehouse?" "We collected but he has that place well secured."
"Full?"
"What you got is only a single column of the hoard he has. Whatever did he have in mind when he stocked up on tires? You can't use them on any Catteni vehicle, and there's nothing you can do with tire rubber. It's not something you could melt down like metals. By the way, he has batteries, too."
"You know, Chuck, I think we've gone about this the wrong way round."
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, Zainal, indeed we have." He smiled and chuckled, rubbing his hands together. "And that'll show Kapash."
"Speaking of whom, let me just see. . ." And going back to the original menu, Zainal picked another file and opened it. "This is exactly what I need: the prison duty roster." He scrolled backward and stopped at a date. By now, Kapash's name was familiar to Chuck in Catteni script. Zainal finally highlighted the name "Kapash" and a date.
"Now that wouldn't just happen to be the date we got launched to Botany, would it? With Kapash on duty?"
"Perceptive of you, Chuck. That's exactly what it is." Now it was Zainal who rubbed his hands together.
"Wish I had access to Kapash's office files," he muttered, though he was well enough pleased to discover that Kapash had, indeed, connived in his being dropped. For he now had proof that Kapash had been on duty the day he and Kris and the others were sent off to
Botany on a slave ship. Kapash's "duty" should have included the rescue of an obvious Catteni from such a shipment. "And now I have proof and cause." An odd smile played on Zainal's lips but, with a shake of his head, he changed to his customary bland expression.
"Speaking of greed. . ." Zainal paused, jiggling his fingers on the worktop. "Where would one least expect to find treasure?"
"Right out in the open?" Chuck suggested.
"Quite likely. Pe was an odd personality, even for an Eosi." Zainal chuckled softly. "It's worth a look on our way out."
"Our way out?"
"We would be less noticeable then and we can always come back. Meanwhile, I intend to reduce Kapash's greed. A thief should not be allowed to enjoy it."
"But you gave him the beans for the women's safety."
Zainal gave Chuck an odd smile. "As market manager, Kapash is not only allowed to punish thieves, but he also has to indemnify the merchants for any losses they may incur while their products are under his protection."
Chuck's jaw dropped open. "Zainal?"
"He owes me a debt, as one Catteni to another, for unlawful imprisonment, and I shall take no more than is legal to acquit that debt and the several insults to my women."
or the evening meal, celebrating the safe return of the women, Natchi, Erbri, and Tavis were included among the guests. Erbri had brought in a roast of a beeflike animal that was hunted in the forests of Barevi. As the hunters were usually Catteni enjoying shore leave, they often sold their kills to local merchants, though occasionally they had the beasts butchered and took the best cuts back to their ship for better food than their captain would supply. The roast was tender and juicy, and everyone had second servings.
"I have one more task to complete," Zainal said when everyone, even Ferris, said they had eaten enough. He glanced at Peran and Bazil. "Then we will lift for Botany."
"Oh no, I can't do that," Eric said, looking astonished. "I have too many clients waiting for crowns and bridges to leave right now" "Oh, we'll be back, I assure you," Zainal said.
"Look, Dr. Eric," Tavis said, "you can stay here. My family will be glad to have you as a guest, and I have so much to learn from you." "And I will stay, too. Can't 1, Dr. Eric? You know how helpful I can be. Please, Zainal, please?" Ferris begged.
"I'll think about that, Ferris. You could be vulnerable."
"No," Tavis said with suddenly unexpected dignity. "If he was in the employ of Dr. Eric, of course he must stay. And my family will protect him, too."
"You have learned much already, Tavis," Eric said kindly. "Zainal, I really can't leave or all the groundwork that has been laid for dentistry on Barevi will go for nothing."
"I have no objections to your staying, Eric. In fact, I would prefer it, though it does leave you exposed. Professionally, you are not involved," Zainal said cryptically. "However," and now he stared at Tavis, "can you keep Eric safe within your family compound?"
"We would pledge his safety if that is necessary, Zainal," Tavis said with an upward jerk of his chin to show his willingness and determination. "Emassi Doctor Eric has many, many influential and wealthy patrons. No harm would come to him."
"Good. We shan't be gone long, but there may be some repercussions."
"Repercussions?" Eric asked. "Oh, because no one's going to like dealing with Kapash for their coffee."
"I did hear something that puzzles me," Natchi said, looking dour. The old veteran had really enjoyed his earlymorning cup and a place
to sit in the sun. "That Kapash would be dealing with coffee beans from now on?"
"His supply is limited to what he has," Zainal said.
"Then he doesn't have the single concession to sell beans?"
"He may think he does," Zainal said with a little smile, "but this market is free to all traders, and that is not a rule he can bend. As we shall make certain. Now, I have discovered sufficient evidence to prove to me that Kapash was the duty officer at the prison the day we were dispatched to Botany."
Wideeyed looks and gasps echoed the surprise of those around the table.
"I knew it, I knew it," Natchi said, swearing oaths in such a jumble that no one quite caught their sense, which was just as well, Zainal thought. "Greedy swamp wart. May he drown in his own slime."
"He mightquite legitimately, if you are all willing to take some risks before we depart tomorrow"
"What? What do we have to do?" was the eager response to risktaking.
Even Kathy looked determinedly eager to cooperate, judging by the vengeful light in her eyes.
Zainal propped his elbows on the table but gave first Natchi and then Erbri a long look.
"I had already intended to take you two back to Botany for your mechanical skills but it might be as wellif you agree to tonight's businessto take you with us for other reasons."
"Such as?" Natchi challenged.
"And we're going to steal them so Kapash has to pay insurance!" Ferris bounced up and down in his chair, believing he had perceived Zainal's plan.
"But, Father. . ." Bazil, his more conservative child, protested,glancing at Brone, who evidently had no qualms with what was being suggested.
"Yes, yes, it is wrong to steal, but it is very proper and Cattenish to respond to insult. And Kapash has insulted me and mine once too often. Especially now I have proof of his complicity in my transportation."
"What proof do you have?" Brone asked blandly.
"I have the duty roster for that particular day, and he was on it as prison warden. That means he was supposed to oversee who was shipped out. I know he had orders to include everyone caught up in the riot, but that did not include a Catteni."
"And Zainal was certainly not part of that riot," Kris said firmly, eyeing Bazil sternly. "Neither was 1. But I was Terran and unconscious, so I had no chance to proclaim my innocence in the affair." "So, what must we do to assist you, Emassi?" Erbri said.
"Since you and Natchi have repaired all those lift glides, can you also help load them?"
"Sure, but all the places you need to get into are secured," Natchi pointed out.
"Some are even guarded," Erbri added cautiously.
"Shorting out the security system is no big problem," Bayes said, as their electrical expert. "Most of it needs to be repaired. Plenty of faulty lines." He shrugged. "Could go anytime."
"You can always get in from the roofs, too," Ferris said, and Ditsy nodded emphatically.
"Oh, can you? To which storage sheds in particular, Ditsy?" Zainal asked, suspecting that Ditsy had checked out such matters when he was looking around all the storage places.
"Oh, like Nilink's and Luxel's. Cut a panel out of the ceiling and with a lift on the roof we could load it in next to no time."
"And leave all the front tiers of tires to make 'em think no one's tampered with their stuff," Ditsy added.
"Zerkay's merchandise can be handled the same way. Steal the back layers and he won't be much wiser."
"He was the nicest of the lot," Kris said with dismay on her face. "He has no need of the things he looted, and we can't play favorites if we're planning a widespread heist."
"It's not theft," Peran said. "It's restitution of impounded materials that were stolen in the first place."
Zainal gave his son a quick look for that bit of sophistry. Brone shrugged as if to imply he had not put such words in the boy's mouth. "We have to be careful to go for only the things we know we can use or we're cut of the same cloth," Zainal said. "Where are our lists?" Sally Stoffers opened her account book and held out copies.
"Nilink definitely. Natchi, figure out how many lifts we'll need to take the back third of his stock. Kathy, figure out the weight and cargo space this'll take. Fortunately, lifts can be taken right into the ship from the shadows of the dockside. There oughtn't to be too many people up and about in the early dawn. We'll need some light to operate by."
"We could arrange for some diversions, Zainal," Erbri suggested. "Nothing violent, just distracting?" His suggestion, as well as his expression, was so eagerly helpful that Zainal saw the merit of it.
"We'll have to figure out exactly when, Erbri, but we would appreciate it and I'll repay any expenses when I can."
"Your word is good, Emassi," Erbri replied.
"Good. We mostly need to shift what Luxel's been sitting onthe satellite componentsand Nilink's tires and batteries. They'll be bulky and heavy so we'll need six or seven lifts for those two sites alone."
"I'll volunteer for that," Bayes and Clime said simultaneously. "Brone, you'll stay out of this," Zainal said when the young tutor held up his hand. "In fact, Tavis, if you can shift Eric's things, with Brone's help, to your family compound, it will give you both alibis."
"Indeed, Emassi," Tavis said, expressing strong relief. Brone nodded with dignity, an attitude that did him no harm in the eyes of his young charges.
Zainal reached for a writing wand. "How many lifts have you been able to repair, Natchi?"
"Ditsy helped me, Emassi, but we have twelve in top working order and all powered up."
"Twelve . . ." Zainal murmured and started calculating weights and the time it would take to make roundtrips from the storage sheds to the ship.
"No one would question our leaving after today," Chuck said. "I can stay on board on comm watch."
"No, I can assume that duty," Brone said. "I can also get our port clearance organized. I don't think there'll be any questions about that."
"Good idea." Zainal nodded his thanks. "Now," and he began to issue specific orders as to how many lifts would go to which destination. "It won't take more than ten minutes by lift to make it to and from the most distant storage unitLuxel'sso allowing half an hour for Ferris and Ditsy to load, Erbri, start your distraction at three fortyfive. Chine, Chuck, the tires and batteries will be heavier to load at Nilink's, so if Erbri keeps a good watch, you should get in about the time the boys do. Ninety, you and your brother take another lift behind Clime and Chuck. It's tires and batteries and windshield wiperswe can use the most. You've got time to get some rest. You," and he pointed to Gail, "have some special signs to make for us."
"My pleasure. Who will you be raiding, Zainal?" "Kierse," he said.
"I'll come along for that," Kris said.
"Not in your condition. Floss comes with me. You and Kathy get a good night's sleep. You'll have to be all smiles and sociability when we close down our market stall tomorrow."
"But what if the thefts have been discovered?" Ferris asked, wideeyed.
Zainal merely laughed. "All the more reason for us to be about the business of closing our stall and leaving in good order."
Very pleased with her assignment, Floss shooed Kris and Kathy to their quarters, saying loudly that Bazil and Peran would help her clear the galley. "And leave it spotless!"
Zainal would have preferred to keep his sons innocent of the larceny, but since he had announced the reasons behind his actions, he felt they would understand that he didn't behave this way without cause. Revenge for an insult was a proper Catteni ritual under any circumstances, and insult had been done not only to Zainal, but also to Kris and Kathy.
He awakened after a few hours' sleep and went to the galley, thinking that this morning, of all he had recently enjoyed, there would be no hot coffee to savor. He was amazed to find Floss ready to pour him a fresh cup.
"Kapash's men thought they were so smart, Zainalthey thought coffee was just bags of beans," she said with a laugh as he inhaled the fragrant steam, "But I had just poured three sacks of raw beans into the roaster when they arrived. They never looked there. Kris will be very pleased, too."
The rest of the men and boys who followed him were equally pleased, none more than Natchi and Erbri, who had kipped down in the hold for what rest they would have before the dawn's action. So, tugging the lines of lifts out of the main hatch as soon as Natchi declared the docking bay free from casual traffic, they spread out to their various assignments.
loating above the marketplace so late at night proved an eerie voyage as there were few around, most of them hired guards who would not necessarily think to look above their heads for transgressors, especially since Zainal kept to the deepest shadows, well able to avoid them as they did their rounds to check door locks.
Just as Zainal was hovering over Kierse's storage space, he saw the blue flash that meant Herb had effected a short in the power system. Such shorts happened so frequently that the guards would not be suspicious. Zainal had had a chance to note that there were sentries near Kierse's shed, so he dismounted the lift and went to the dark alley between Kierse's and his neighbor's units. Wrapping the lead line of the lift around his wrist, he carefully eased himself off to the now unsecured entrance. He was in, lift and all, in moments. With a tiny hand light, he found the materials he wanted from Kierse, in revenge for bearing false witness against Kathy and Kris. He peeked out before he ventured into the side lane and then, lying uncomfortably on his purloined goods, eased the lift up and began his way back to the BASS1, sticking to shadows whenever possiblewhich meant he cruised just above the roofs of the sheds.
He heard the noise of the distraction Erbri had promised, though he hadn't a clue what it was. But, as he entered the docking area, there was no one running up and down the corridors, and keeping to the shadows cast by ground lights, he made it back to the BASS1 and into the open cargo hold without detection. It took only moments for him to find the nets he had assigned for the goods he would retrieve and tip the lift to send its burden slipping into the shrouds. Then he put the lift into its storage brackets. A sudden shadow caused him a moment's panic but when he saw slender legs dangling over the side of a lift, he realized it had to be one of the boys. The lift was very heavy and sank slowly. He made his way over and opened the netting so that the contents could be slid into place.
"We could go back for another dip," Ditsy said, clearly elated with success. "We fixed the security lock so it won't come back on again." "We must not be too greedy ourselves," Zainal said, but he
thought of what use the tires would be at their destination and how the rubber was slowly perishing in its current site. "Let's make sure everyone else is in safe and sound," he added as the black prow of another lift appeared in the cargo entrance.
He did send Ditsy, Clune, and Ninety back for another load of tires and batteries but after that he called a halt to the operation. Brone returned to the ship to report that he and Tavis had settled Eric and his equipment safely in the compound and would see them in the morning. Brone gave the appearance of not noticing the cargo bay's new contents.
Zainal would have preferred lifting as soon as possible now but he had good reasons for wanting possible clients to know that he was leaving. Even appearing at his former site the morning after mass pil ferage might deflect blame from him. Gail's signs had already been put up at the stall, announcing its closure. Those who had enjoyed early coffee were milling around, as if hoping to continue their coffee habit against all visible evidence to the contrary. It was also a relief to know that so far the previous night's burglaries had not yet been discovered. Kapash would know soon enough but he would not immediately suspect Zainal. He was surprised to see Kierse among those viewing the emptied premises.
"Where are you going? How will I sell what I have left of that unsalable stuff from Terra?"
"I will tell you when I know," Zainal answered and started to pass Kierse. The man grabbed his tunic. Ninety Doyle took a step forward but Zainal stopped him with a swift glance.
"But I have to sell it," Kierse said. "You've been my first buyer in months."
"I was willing to buy but you wanted more than I had to pay." "I have to return a profit to my investors, you know"
"That is your problem, not mine." Zainal chopped at the restraining hand and Kierse did not persist, though his expression remained defeated. There were any number of inflammatory remarks Zainal could have made about greed and the irrationality of stealing things without knowing of available marketplacesthough Zainal now had a novel idea about that little problem.
"And what about more coffee?" Kierse asked plaintively.
"You have enough beans to last awhile," Zainal said with no sympathy.
"And then?"
"Kapash has the rest of my beans," he suggested helpfully, and waved farewell to the man, standing in the middle of the aisle in front of their stall, looking bereft, as he hurried off on his next vital errand of the day before someone else detained him.
When Zainal got to the market manager's office to pay Eric's rental on a better stall situation in the first square of the market, Kapash's haughty assistant announced that Manager Kapash was too busy to see to any minor details, but he was quite willing to write out the lease for the space Zainal wanted and give a receipt for it and Eric's "office." Zainal was relieved not to see Kapash again but he would have liked to have been an insect on the wall when Kapash discovered that he would be responsible for reimbursing the merchants (perhaps with the coffee beans he now owned) for their losses from the burglaries of their supposedly safe lockups. Since Eric had so many prominent clients, including Ladade, who had no use for Kapash, he felt the aggressive dentist would have no trouble, and probably take pleasure in, contending with Kapash if the man was stupid enough to contest a lease signed by his own assistant. Eric was smart enough to make use of Ladade's patronage if needed. Ferris wanted to stay, and Zainal was halftempted to let him, except that Ferris's lightfingered ways might also make things awkward for Eric.
Bazil and Peran had learned valuable lessons here, but not the ones young Catteniespecially Emassisshould acquire. Brone now had
them well in hand and actually liking their lessons. Perhaps, Zainal thought, this venture had primed the pump for a return even if this first visit had not been such an overwhelming success in itself. Although, in some respects, they had achieved more than they had had any right to expect: he had the allimportant information that would be of benefit to Botany and his goals. There were other options now for how to proceed.
And he had another idea that might solve all their problems soon, if not immediately. He wished he could think of a reason to go forward with the plan right now to give the Botany group the resources to buy up everything they had come for, but acting too quickly might cause more problems than it solved. As wise to give the diffident merchants a little time to regret missing the chance to empty their warehouses of useless products. Do them no harm.
Besides which, he thought with humor, they had to leave soon or the bananas would be overripe. Kris had her heart set on producing them at Botany. She had been much relieved to know that, although Kapash's men had taken all the remaining bean sacks in the hold, they had overlooked the beans in the roaster. Kris was glad for anything that diminished the benefit to Kapash of her trumpedup "ransom." There would be some beans for Botany as well as bananas.
"We shall get coffee plants the next time we're on Earth," Zainal told her, to cheer her up. "I think I remember that someone on one of the plantations told me that the plants would travel well and could adapt to new environments as long as the temperature and the rain were correct,"
"We are going back to Earth, are we?"
"I've got data for folks to figure out which slave ship went where, and who among the missing might still be located wherever they were sold," he assured her.
She gave a little shudder at how close she had come to being another name on those lists. "And we've loads of merchandise to ease the current shortages."
"And we did get the most updated register from Vitali, along with the air charts," Zainal said, nodding toward the worktop where he kept such things. Then he leaned back in his chair, locking his fingers behind his head.
"Why are you grinning, Zainal?" Kris asked, suspicious of such good humor.
"I think I have justified a short detour I want to make on our departure."
"Detour?" Kris repeated, mystified.
His grin widened. "As Chuck said, the best place to hide something is right out in the open."
"What?"
"I won't say because I could be wrong. . :' "Who are you trying to impress now?"
"I want to show Botany more results than we've had."
"I don't think we've done that badly," Kris said encouragingly. "Sally said we got the most profit on the coffee beans"
"Apart from two lift platforms ... and we do have a range of comm sat parts, the tires, the batteries and spark plugsthough they're for Earth, aren't they?"
Zainal nodded.
"So you intend to go back to Earth, just for coffee beans and the plants?"
"And possibly to find someone with enough experience to marage a Botany coffee plantation and bean warehouse."
"And the roasting," Kris said firmly. "I don't think I quite got the hang of it."
"But Floss saved the beans for us."
isn't something I planned to do. I still have a score to settle with that smirking Kapash."
"Oh, last night was a good way to settle that score, dear heart," he said, pushing himself up out of the chair. On his way out of their "office," he gave her a warm kiss. "I wonder if Brone ever had to visit the junkyard."
She stared after him.
hey received permission to clear Barevi port the next morning, with Kathy, a willing but slightly nervous pilot, handling the disengagement of the docking clamps, easing the KDM into the traffic heading out for the space station. When they had passed the space station with an "all clear" to proceed, Zainal motioned Kathy out of her seat.
"But I did it right, didn't I?"
"Yes, indeed you did, Captain, but we're making a short detour," Zainal said and altered the settings so that the BASS1 veered toward the jumble of waste material in the junkyard. Almost immediately a comm unit buzzed and Zainal answered it.
"You have changed course, BASS1. Is there a problem?"
"No, I cleared this with your operations yesterday, Captain. We need to see if the junkyard has any spare KDM water tanks. We need one."
There was an obviously hasty conference at the space station. "All clear, BASSOne." Zainal didn't recognize the voice. "You may proceed. Good luck."
"I hope that wasn't Ladade," Kris muttered, more to herself than to anyone else.
"No, it was not," Zainal said. "Only the duty officer knew that my flight plan included the side trip."
"I didn't know we needed a spare tank," Kathy said.
"I want to see what else is there, in case we do need it, Kathy," Zainal said, slowing the forward motion of the BASS1 as they approached the jumbled elements of the junkyard.
"How are you going to find one in all that?" Kathy asked.
"Oh, one of us may spot what we're looking for. See if you can find anything that looks out of place in its company."
"Say again?" Kathy asked, confused.
"Brone, come to the control room, on the double," Zainal said on the interior com.
"Yes, Emassi," was the immediate response. Brone came with Peran and Bazil, who wedged their boyish bodies into the jump seat next to Kris and strapped in, as they were now in free fall. Kathy had vacated the second officer's position for Brone at Zainal's request but she hung on to the safety rail, not wishing to miss whatever was going to happen.
The loosely spinning objects, some of them sides of battered hulls, twisted structural members, some of them fused together, continued on their intrinsic orbit far from Barevi. Zainal matched veloc ity and, deftly using his thrusters, inserted himself into the moving mass, adjusting his speed as he edged farther into the swarm. "Watch the passing parade, crew, and point out anything that looks like it shouldn't be here."
Peran gave a snort. "How would we know what shouldn't be here?" he asked.
"You mean, like that large loaf of bread?" Kathy asked, pointing to a tumbling object whose matteblack angles reflected a gleam from one of the perimeter warning lights.
"Which one?" Zainal asked.
"Oh, I'd put it at eleven o'clock," Kathy replied, pointing.
"The scan says the contents are metallic," Brone said, reading the screen's assessment.
"Looks like an immense loaf of bread to me," Kathy repeated. "Wrapped with heavy chain, too, so whatever is in it won't fall out." Zainal inched the KDM closer.
"There's another one just like it at four o'clock," Kris said.
"Also full of metal," Brone said, having checked it out on the screen.
"Now, why isn't the metal just emptied in with all the other stuff?" Kathy askedbecause, not only were the ship's proximity warnings shrieking, but there were pings as much smaller objects bounced against the hull of the BASS1.
"Very good point, Kathy," Zainal said with an air of satisfaction. He switched on the intercom. "Chuck, stand by the airlock. We're going to try to collect some space garbage. Can you defuse the charge as we did with the comm sat?"
"Sure, Zainal," Chuck said. "In a few. I've been checking manifests."
They were closing in on the loaf when he announced his presence at the airlock, with a handy chain to take the static charge away from the BASS1.
"Open airlock and be prepared to lose gravity," Zainal said and deftly hit the altitude thrusters so the broad side of the ship was presented to the intended captive. Then, with a blast on the warning hooter, he flipped off the gravity. Once again, the object sparked as the defusing chain hit it and not long after found itself eased into the airlock and the hatch closed on its prize. "Stand by, Chuck. We have a possible second."
On the open link, they could hear Chuck wondering out loud why they needed garbage from an effing junkyard.
"Because they are right out in the open where anyone could see them," Zainal replied cryptically.
"Oh!" Chuck's response indicated enlightenment. As soon as the second bread loaf was in the airlock, Zainal ordered it closed, the maneuver over, and internal gravity was restored.
"Now, we're out of here," he said, turning the nose of the ship to starboard and easing it, by means of cautious spurts of the forward thrusters, out of the junkyard and safely into open space. "Captain Harvey, if you would resume piloting, we can proceed, full speed, to Botany."
"Aye, sir," she replied, still mystified by the diversion.
"Hey, there's another bread loaf," Peran said, pointing at three o'clock.
"Why, so there is, Peran. Good eyes on you," Zainal said cheerfully, tousling his son's hairsomething he knew Peran disliked, but it distracted the boy. "It'll be interesting to see if it's still there on our return. Meanwhile, let's go see what we snared."
Peran and Bazil were both pleased at that invitation. "Coming, Kris?" Peran asked.
"For the sake of my insatiable curiosity," Kris said. Peran and Bazil had both been much nicer to her lately, though she didn't think it had much to do with Brone's influence. The change had started just after she had so staunchly rescued Ferris from Kapash's vengeance. She would miss the boy's cheerfulness, but he'd be fine with Eric and Tavis, and she was glad Zainal had relented and let him stay behind.
"Okay, Zainal," Chuck said when those from the control room had made it to the lock. "I never thought I'd be rescuing junk from the deep six."
"Because they were there, Chuck," Zainal said. "Have we got any metal cutters for those chains?" he added as he took full note of the garlands of chain looping the objects.
Ditsy said he had some and went off to the hold where he and Natchi had stashed the tools they used to repair what they found at the Barevian junkyards. The boy didn't have quite enough strength to make the tool bite through the chains, but Brone did. The chains fell
away and Zainal opened the first lid and looked in. He gave a long whistle and then pushed the chest over to scatter its contents before the wondering eyes of the onlookers.
"Jackpot!" Ditsy said, kneeling down to scoop up handfuls of the coins that spilled out, and the larger oddments that had been disclosed. "Hey, look! A crown!" He picked up the huge, jewelencrusted affair and put it on his head. Its rim fell to his shoulders, being much too wide to sit on his narrow skull.
Kris held up another golden band, and then pulled out from the coins a long rod with a globe on one end.
"This looks like the English scepter of state," she said, trying to look queenly. "Just like the Eosi to enter the Tower of London and steal the crown jewels!"
Zainal held up a beautiful drinking bowl in gold, its jeweled rim sparkling in the hold's overhead lights.
"And that's a Cellini bowl," she said, pointing to it. "I've seen pictures of something like it from a museum. The Eosi obviously were in line for the best of the best. What are the coins?"
Zainal sighed. "We could have used these." He let some trickle through his fingers. "Catteni gold bunts, large coin as well as halves and quarters ... probably mined from one of the Eosi's holdings or the rents they were paid as landlords. These were minted in Barevi though. See the B stamped on it." He showed it around the admiring circle.
Fascinated by the heavy coins, Bazil began to stack them in piles before casually scattering them back on the floor of the hatch. "Didn't know there could be so much coin," Bazil said, awed. "We'd've got everything we wanted for just this much. " He scooped up a double handful and then let it fall back, tinkling. He chased a piece that rolled away to the edge of the deck, catching it just before it disappeared into a slot by a girder. He carefully replaced it. "If we went back to Barevi, we could get just about everything else we needed."
"We probably could, Bazil, but not today, I think. I don't want to arouse suspicions," Zainal said. "Our sudden wealth would make Kapash as well as Ladade very suspicious."
"Won't they be suspicious because we made that detour?" "Possibly, but while they are greedy men, the KDM is faster than any of their ships and I did explain why we went there. Not unusual for a ship to search through a station's junkyard. They would also have to have been watching very carefully to see what we took."
"But I saw more loaves," Bazil said.
"And we have other duties to perform right now" "They'll keep," Kathy said.
"I'd love to put their noses further out of joint," Chuck said, setting his jaw as he remembered all the slights and delays they had suffered at the hands of the merchants. "D'you think this was a wise idea, Zainal?"
"If we went back now, it would be a stupid move. I asked for a water tank. This is about the right size and conformation to anyone who might have been watching us from the station. They've yet to discover last night's work. I certainly wouldn't want to be back on Barevi when they do. Let's organize the contents. And what's in the other one?" That chest proved to contain very carefully rolledup paintings, some of which Kris recognized.
"The Eosi really knew what to loot," she murmured, carefully rerolling one painting.
"They would," Zainal said. "And you spotted another loaf, didn't you, Peran?"
"Yes, Father, I did."
"Well, we won't go back for it now. We know what we're looking for and Ladade and Kapash will not. We shall hope that the Eosi's deception lasts until our return, when we will search for any other unlikely objects in that junkyard."
"And they do look like bread loaves!" Kris said, regarding the rounded lids and the rectangular ends, with a shade of respect for such subterfuge. "Whoever would have thunk it."
Brone reappeared in the lock with writing materials and started an inventory list. Floss tried on the crown, which fit her better than it had Ditsy, although she declared that it was very heavy. "Uneasy is the head. . ." she said in a "quoting" tone but did not explain further. Then she spotted a diamondandruby bracelet, which she fastened on her arm. Pleased with that, she started sorting through the coins for other jewelry. The boys found more and shortly had filled both her arms and found rings for all her fingers.
"Never thought I'd see this much ice! Nor so many kinds of rocks," Floss crowed, striding gawkily around the hatch, her arms held out to display her finery in the manner of a fashion mannequin. "What would you like, Kris? Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, or sapphires? Dressup time."
Kris was attracted by the translucent glamour of pearls and wound several long strands around her neck, imitating Floss's catwalk posture. "Way cool!" Floss said when Kris stalked about.
"We have to return the crown jewels," Kris said, almost regretfully, as such items were not much use to them. Only beautiful! She unwound the pearls and put them carefully in Brone's lap. "C'mon, Floss, we'd better find something more appropriate to wrap those things in. I think I have some coffee bean bags left and enough labels." "Beans for the baubles, huh?" Floss said blithely, but she spent the afternoon with Jax, Gail, and Kathy playing with the jewelry as they packed and Brone inventoried it.
"Won't buy much in a bazaar on Earth though," she said once, scornfully. "Who'd trade this sort of stuff for a loaf of bread?" "Would you believe a country?" Kris said, remembering her history lessons as she carefully padded the crown in a worn old rag of a towel. "At that, I think the towel is worth more on the open market. Sic transit gloria mundi." She gave the crown a final pat.
"Sick transit Gloria ... Who's she?" Floss asked, curious.
"It's Latin and refers to the transitory nature of human vanities." "Hey, look at me, Gloria. I ain't sick," was Floss's giggling rejoinder. "Well, look where all this," and Kris motioned at the still large pile of jewelry awaiting packing, "ended up. As junk, orbiting hundreds of miles from civilization."
"That is, if you can call Barevi civilized," Floss said contemptuously.
No one was happier to see Botany's sphere grow larger in the forward screen than Zainal. Kris was delighted, too, because there were still five goodsized hands of bananas that were ripe but not yet overripe. They'd have to be eaten immedi ately on arrival. The two bushels of oranges had lasted fine, but the guavas and papayas were only sweet memories.
The last day everyone was busy cleaning up and smartening their downside clothing. Sally Stoffers had worked on a report for a formal presentation to the Council. Zainal issued orders that the BASS1 be in readiness for a quick turnaround. Kris rather thought that, even if he admitted to wholesale robbery to the Council, they wouldn't take as much offense if it would be received with rapturous gratitude on Earth.
The challenge to their presence came right on the dot of their entry into the sensor satellite's range.
"This is BASS1, returning to base. We are all well and accounted for," Zainal said, formally replying to "Who goes there?"
"Hurrah! It's Zainal back. Did you get everything we needed?" Zainal recognized the duty officer's voice as Worry's.
"More than we expected, Worry, less than we wanted, but there are distinct alternatives that must be examined," Zainal replied, wanting to be honest if not explicit. "Can you call a general meeting for tonight?"
"Can and will. Welcome home, Zainal. All's well here."
rom the size of the crowd that had gathered to welcome the wayfarers at the landing field, Zainal thought that anyone who was off work was there. And lots of the kids, so perhaps they could just hand out the bananas and oranges right there and then. It was afternoon on Botany, a cool, sweetscented day. And midsummer of the local seasons. That meant he would have time to make another trip to Terra, and if that proceeded with dispatch, he'd still have time to catch the autumnal visit of the Farmers, collecting the harvest from their side of the planet. If the wheat looked to be a good crop, he could, in all good conscience, ask for more to take back to Earth.
Zane and Amy were there, Zane's hand held by Rose Mitford, while Cherry was bouncing Amy to keep her happy. The bustle around her had startled her. Zainal happily counted the KDMs and KDLs settled on one side of the field and mentally assigned them crews and captains for their upcoming missions. That is, if he managed to talk the Council into going ahead with this venture. Maybe the bananas should go to the judge and the older folk, who would remember them from happier times.
It was good to be back on Botany, Zainal thought, as, hand in hand, he and Kris led the crew down the ramp. They had loaded the lifts with the bean sacks and fruits and these came into sight to cheers. Most of the cargo, however, was to remain in place. Sally had done an inventory, as well as the mission accounting.
There were cheers and happy reunions, and during all the fuss, Zainal introduced Brone to Worry, the judge, and Dorothy Dwardiewhen he could get her out of Chuck's arms. He was pleased, and Brone was astounded, by how courteously he was received. Zainal decided that perhaps his wildest imaginings might be feasible. Space was big and there were so few intelligent species. Why be enemies when being allies was far more practical?
There were so many queries fired at him that Zainal moved to the top of the ramp and held up his arms for silence.
"We're very glad to be back, and it's wonderful to see you all. You know that I've called a general meeting for this evening, and we'll give you a complete account of our travels, and our adventures. We didn't bring back all we went for," and he anticipated the groan, "but we brought back a lot we didn't expect to get." He pointed to the bananas. "We can get more where they came from, but I think the kids ought to have bananas and oranges with their suppers. We do have a hundred and fifty pounds of coffee beans!"
A really enthusiastic cheer greeted that announcement. "And I think we can probably grow our own beans down on the peninsula." He pointed to the south and west. There was a wilder and happier re sponse to that suggestion. "We've more things to talk about and decisions to make because we need to consolidate our position, both on Earth and on Barevi. So save your questions for tonight. Only don't make up any I can't answer." Goodnatured responses to that followed him as he saw judge Iri Bempechat arriving late on the landing site and beckoned him to wait around for a little private chat.
Kris had gone to hug her children and talk to Cherry and Rose. Amy had "made strange" with her mother, and Kris was trying to coax a smile from her. Gradually people began to drift to their homes and toward the main buildings of Retreat.
"Yes, Zainal," Iri said, stumping forward on his cane. "Your trip was eminently successful, but I perceive from your expression it brought up more questions than it answered."
"So it did," Zainal replied, relieved that the judge was so shrewd a man.
"Run them past me." The judge beckoned for Zainal to accompany him as he stepped into his little motor cart. "Are you going home?"
"No, I must be sure those ceramic caskets are put in safekeeping. Ninety's in charge of them but I want you to see what they contain." "Oh?"
"Eosi treasuremost of which I have no difficulty putting to the colony's use, but some of the items should be returned to their original owners."
"You found Eosi treasure?" The judge was fascinated. "What would they have considered 'treasure'? And where did you find it?" "In space, so technically, I think it can be considered the property of whoever finds it."
"Hmmm ... yes, traditionally, flotsam and jetsam are usually the property of the finder," the judge suggested.
"I'm glad that is your opinion, too, but there are some very beautiful jewels and whole casks of what Kris said are oldmasters' paintings. Probably looted from museums. Apart from not knowing what to do with them, they are no use to us."
"Not even as trade items?" Iri asked.
"Coffee beans and metals are good trade commodities. Fancy jewels, which in any case would look silly on a Catteni, are not. The Eosi had a huge appetite for acquisition just for acquisition's sake. I think we can find out which museum owned the paintings. We also found that Earth isn't interested in the nonedible or noncommercial at the moment. There is, however, a considerable treasure in Catteni coin, which I would like to put to use acquiring the rest of the items Botany and Earth need."
"You are concerned for Earth?"
"Yes, the planet was raped by the Eosi, for the sheer pleasure of acquisition, it would now seem. My plan is to return there as soon as
we can resupply BASS1 and restore to them some of the loot we reacquired. I also have a plan, which I must take up with the Terran coordinators, about establishing commerce with them. And bazaars." Zainal couldn't help but grin. "The Catteni captains took anything that wasn't nailed down, as Ninety phrased it, Earth has gone back to bartering. I think that if we can get them to allow Catteni, or at least the Botanyregistered Catteni ships back in their space to land at their trading points, everyone could find what they need and manage to barter viable objects for Catteni consumption. The market is very slow there and it needs new products. Mostly, it needs to dump unusable merchandise. Earth needs what's sitting in warehouses uselessly. Barevi commerce would improve if we crosstraded, but I'm not sure if Botany, much less Earth, would be willing."
"We come in peace. Take us to your bazaars?" Iri saw the irony. "Why should Botany make all the effort to establish a rapport?" was Zainal's next question.
"A good point. Is there a new stable government on Earth, as Chuck said?" Iri asked with hope.
"Yes, a coordination of efforts and resources," Zainal said, approving what he had seen. "For instance, we traded medicines from one coordinator's sphere of influence to another's in Africa, and we got coffee beans, which turned out to make a remarkably tradable item on Barevi."
"Catteni like coffee?" Iri asked Zainal in his dry way.
"You should have seen what a few pounds of beans could buy us. And you will. I plan," and Zainal could feel enthusiasm return, "to obtain coffee bean plants on our next visit to Earth and try them in the southwest, near the Masai lands."
"I do like a cup of coffee or three in the morning," Iri said. "You didn't bring back an espresso machine, did you?"
"No, but I'm sure I can trade for one on Earth. Whatever it is."
Iri sighed again and put a veined hand with swollen knuckles on Zainal's arm. "You get to my age and you find that food is about the only thing that tempts you."
"We have coffee, from the Kenyan mountains, and the milder bean from Santa Lucia."
"You spanned continents with no problems?"
Zainal nodded. "Surprise was our main advantage. We were, however, met with courtesy. I'm not so sure how other Catteni groups would be received."
"Doubtless with suspicion?"
"Possibly, until we clear their peaceful arrival with the Watch Dog security force. I don't know how they would now rebuff a hostile force, but they would know before it reached Earth. Kris said, 'once bitten, twice shy.' There is also the matter of resources. Catteni enterprise has been cut back considerably since the controlling force is inactive."
"Kamiton and the others are having more trouble with the transition from the Eosi."
Zainal nodded and the judge went on. "History supports the supposition that it's one thing to have a revolution and another to recover from it. Earth is doing the better job. This time," the judge remarked succinctly. "And if they have, it will be the first time in the long strL
gle of humanity. May I live to see it!" He gave a long sigh. "What else do you plan, Zainal?"
"I plan to use our ships to run between Earth and Barevi, and to start an orderly collection of the products of Catteni mining worlds." "What about the rest of our missing folk?"
"That will take far more organizingand exchanges than I can currently contemplate, but I was able to secure lists of which slave ship went where. Exchanging workers may be more difficult, if not downright impossible. Your species is admirably suited to the work required to keep such planets and facilities operating. Earth needs the
mineral resources as much as Catten does. A little competition might be beneficial. What I envision is cooperation, too, between Catteni and Terrans."
"Politics has always made strange bedfellows," Iri remarked. Zainal did not quite understand his reference as it might apply to their two species, especially as he saw nothing strange about having Kris as his bedfellow.
"Coordinators run Earth, you say?" Zainal nodded.
"I must think how coordination can best be extended." He patted Zainal's arm again as they came to the main settlement of Retreat. "You have done well. You are thinking. It is thinking men we need right now"
"There is much our two races can exchange to the benefit of both."
"Then we need more coordination and cooperation." The judge dismounted from his motor and looked inquiringly at Zainal. "You called a meeting for this evening?"
Zainal nodded.
"We will then coordinate efforts." The judge strode away, nodding right and left at those who greeted him.
Zainal went to the main dining room, aware that he was hungry, and hungry for Botanic food. A nice juicy broiled rock squat would taste fine right now, and some tubers. Seed potatoes were another item that he must try to return with. And other Earth vegetables that might do well. Hadn't Kris said one of their drivers had farmed nearby? There was still so much to do and plan. Would he ever be able to drop back to Botany and stay put? Why must duty keep calling him away to attempt the impossible?
Because that was what he had undertaken to do and felt responsible for completing. He wondered if that was what had driven the Eosi. But he was not Eosi: he was a Botanist no longer a Catteni,but of, and for, this world. And of and for this world, he would do everything possible so that it would continue with all its promise and plenty.
A hand caressed his shoulder and he looked around to see Kris beside him in line waiting to be served.
"Rock squat, please," he said, pointing to the browned segment he liked. "You'll never believe how important those rock squats were to us in our travels," he told the server.
"Really?" The woman was surprised. "Nice to see you back, Zainal, Kris. And thanks for the coffee beanseven if we still have to ration them."
"Not for much longer," Zainal said with the airy confidence that suddenly enveloped him.
Kris also chose rock squat and as they picked other selections from the salad bowls, she paused to point out Bazil and Peran, sitting with Brone and looking very pleased with themselves.
"I think the teacher is being taught," she murmured, since Brone's head was turning this way and that, constantly observing those in the hall.
As they looked around for a table, they saw other members of their crew dining with friends and relatives. Floss, Clune, and Ditsy were, however, alone at a big table to which Kris and Zainal made their way.
"Good to be home, isn't it?" she said conversationally. "Well, it's nice not to have to be . . ." Floss shrugged. "Apprehensive?" Clime asked, reaching for her hand and smiling down at her.
"Yeah, that's the word. Everyone likes my dress," Floss added, stroking the fabric down the front over one hip. "No one has one like it."
"Nor are they likely to," Kris said.
"Aren't we going back to Africa?" Floss asked. Clearly she wanted to get more brightly colored material. It did suit her.
"That's up for discussion," Zainal said in a tone that suggested an end to that subject.
"We'll have to," Clune said, lifting his cup of coffee to his lips. "I'm as addicted to this stuff as everyone else." He took a sip. "We'd get clearance just by promising to ensure a supply of coffee."
"There's more to be done than that," Ditsy said with some scorn. "D'you miss Ferris?" Kris asked.
"Yeah," Ditsy said in a bleak tone, slumping in his chair and laying an arm on the table to prop his head on, in a totally disconsolate mood. "Never thought he'd desert me for a dentist!"
"Speaking of that, we never did get one of his dentist friends to come work here on Botany," Kris said in mild selfreproach.
"There are a lot of things we didn't get to do," Zainal said, "this time!" He gave a sharp nod of his head to indicate that he intended to perform at a higher level soon.
"Think of the things we did do, Zainal! Not too shabby," Kris replied. Lord, was everyone down in the dumps? Postsomethingorother depression? Kathy Harvey very much wanted to achieve more miracles of repair on satellites, especially with that nice young fellow at the green coordsWendell? Wasn't that his name? Yes, John Wendell. Kathy had been mopey now and then. It was Jax who had clued Kris in to her interest in the attractive young communications expert who was worlds away from them right now. Oh, well.
Many people came up to have a few words with them and the general drift of the comments suggested to Kris that the majority of Botanists were impressed with the visible results of this first mission, even if it had not been as successful as Zainal had anticipated. He had returned the remaining gold nuggets and flakes to Mike Miller, who had been extremely surprised to receive them. He'd also asked about what other metals were available in good supply: not that anything wouldn't be welcome on orestarved Earth.
"Shucks. You coulda used it all, Zainal. We don't need it here." "I couldn't use it all, Mike, as most countries are no longer on a gold standard. Coffee beans were more acceptable. And the copper, tin, lead, and zinc."
"Who'da thought it?" Mike said, slack jawed with surprise, but he carefully signed a receipt for the gold, and Zainal told him the combination of the digital lock on the safe box.
"Got more of those lesser metals if you need them."
Zainal did not remark on that, which implied that Mike, for one, approved of further expeditions. Kris smiled and thanked Mike. "You know," she said, "I got the impression from the green coord that the problem might not just be that there is no transport for what resources Earth has left. They need more miners, too. I suspect he could use all who would come."
She could see that Zainal was turning things over in his mind. He'd been doing a lot of thinking lately, more silent than usualeven for him. Still, she had a few things to ponder herself.
This time she'd bring a lot more flour and rock squats. She began to itemize the other natural supplies of Botany's bounty in terms of how they would trade on Earth. They could share more until Earth recovered its own agriculture.
Leon Dane's appearance at their table seemed only natural to her, and she broached the subject of their mission to Kenya and the typhoid epidemic. She knew that Leon and his staff had been busy try ing to catalog the therapeutic herbs and roots of Botany. They had done so to provide alternatives for the medicines they'd used on Earth. So far there had been no epidemics of anything except for measles. That had run its coursethrough the creches, of course, but there had been no serious side effects for any of the children.
"Is it true that some pharmaceutical companies are still operating
down on Earth?" Dane asked, sliding into an empty chair and sipping his coffee. "Best thing you could have brought back," he added with a grin. "Really good beans, too."
Kris sniffed. "You have some of the Kenyan robustas. My nose got better in Barevi."
"So I heard," Leon said with a broad grin. "So, can I possibly get some stuff on your next trip?"
"You assume there will be one?" Zainal asked, raising his brows in surprise.
"Hell's bells, man, I think that was just the start. You are going to bring back coffee plants, aren't you?"
"Where'd you hear that?" Zainal asked.
Leon scratched his head, contorting his face to aid his memory. "Dunno now. Probably Sarah McDouall or possibly Chuck. He reminded us about the equatorial peninsula. She thought it would be climatically appropriate for coffee beans and maybe even bananas and sugarcane. Say, that unrefined brown sugar you brought in is the best treat. I did scrounge an orange."
"Good for you, Leon."
"Bananas went down well in the pediatric ward. Not that the kids knew what they were. They just liked the taste."
"Wish we knew more about banana and coffee culture," Kris said, wistfully.
"Just give us a chance. Ol' trial and error is a great instructor," Leon said airily.
"Ain't it just," Kris replied, sneaking a glance at Zainal to see his reception of such ideas.
"We'd have to trade for what you need," Zainal was saying. "Maybe something you've been using here on Botany would work." "I'll get Sarah to do up some botanical files and slides and see how we can send specimens for their investigation," Leon said, and slapped his hand on the table as he rose to his feet. "Gotta go. Just wanted to say thanks." He drained the last of his coffee and detoured on his way out the door to put his cup in the dirtydishes basket.
"I wish we could do something spectacular for Earth," Floss said. "While you were off in Manhattan, we got to talking to some of the airport crews. None of them knew anything about Botany or the Cat teniforced colonies. I think everyone wanted to smuggle on board the BASS1 and come back here."
"Neither world is problemfree, Floss," Kris said.
"No, but we got a better deal going here than they do," Floss remarked. "C'mon, Clune, I'm due for my shift."
"And me for mine," Clime said, checking whether the other mugs on the table were empty before clearing them off, deftly slotting his fingers through the handles.
Zainal turned a surprised expression to Kris. "She's due for kitchen cleaning and she goes willingly? My, what is it you say about wonders?"
"May wonders never cease," Kris said. "I think she learned something from our travels."
"It would appear so. Now, my dear heart, we have some planning to do."
"I rather thought we might. You've been very thoughtful lately." "More of my"he raised his right arm in an expansive gesture"wild imaginings." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I have time before the Farmers collect their harvest. And we have gathering of our own to do."
just at that moment, Gino Marrucci entered the mess hall and came over to Zainal with a clipboard, on which a sheaf of papers fluttered from the speed of his entrance.
"Hi, glad I caught you, Zainal." He looked down at his notes. "Got supplies lined up for all of the KDMs and the KDLs. Did you plan to use Baby, too?"
"She should be ready to fly in case we need her. Did Peter and Aarens manage to figure out a longdistance homing device?"
"Not for the distances we'll have to travel."
"Well, we can use Baby to check out that old Eosi excavation on our moon."
"D'you think an Eosi actually hid stuff there, too?" "It's a remote possibility," Zainal admitted.
"So were the breadloaf chests in the junkyard," Kris reminded him. He gave a diffident shrug.
He went over the supply sheets with Gino and initialed the crews. "This is all contingent, you know," he reminded Gino.
"Every kid, including your own, is out hunting rock squats and the kitchen is prepared to roast and toast until they're all done." "Hope someone finds some nests and eggs. We can get an incubator for the trip out and present them with rock squat chicks," Kris remarked. "Personally, I don't like rock squat eggs but they're better than nothing." She had a vision of rock squat farms taking over from the piggeries on the Secaucus meadows, and Murray as a squat farmer. She giggled and waved off Zainal's look of inquiry. There was of course the problem of bringing alien life forms to Earth. The first incursion had not been a success.
Zainal got touchier and touchier during the afternoon and she worried about him. He had done so much already. What did he expect of himself? Certainly far more than others expected of him. Sally Stoffers called in briefly to deliver a note.
"There never was a quotation on the stock market for the value of Catteni bunts against American dollars or English sterling. But Mike suggested we use the gold rate as a standard: those coins are twenty carat gold, just enough impurity to keep them from being too soft for use or clipped." She handed him her note. "That gives the equivalent, and it's far more than we borrowed from Mike Miller. That doesn't even include the jewelry, just the coin. The stones in some of those necklaces and rings and stuff would buy what's left of Manhattan. If it was still on the gold standard."
When Zainal finally decided it was time to go to the evening meeting, he looked more woebegone than ever and Kris couldn't think of anything to cheer him up.
"I didn't get everything I said I would get," he remarked as they reached the hall. Then he squared his shoulders and walked boldly into the meeting.
It was even better attended than the previous one, which encouraged Kris even if Zainal did not seem to notice. Brone sat in the front row with the two boys, who waved wildly to catch their father's at tention before Brone murmured something to them. They both sat on their hands then and tried to contain such unCattenilike reactions. Ditsy, Clune, and Floss sat behind them, and Floss, her hair trimmed and neat around her face, wore the second of her two new dresses: the bright blue patterned one. Their shipmates had taken seats in the same row and were beaming at the entrance of Kris and Zainal, which caused a ripple of comment throughout the hall.
Dorothy Dwardie, Dr. Hessian, and the other members of the Botany Management Board, including Worry, took their places on the platform, so this time judge Iri Bempechat was last in, raising his gavel, preparatory to starting the meeting. A respectful silence fell over the hall.
"As you know, Zainal and his exploratory crew have safely returned and our coffee mugs are full. He wishes to explain in detail what occurred and why. Please give him your complete attention."
Zainal did not go up on the platform but faced the audience on their level.
"We did well, but not as well as I led you to believe we would," he said and was surprised when someone booed.
als we can't get anywhere else, Zainal. What's your problem with that?" It was Worry who had spoken, and Kris was relieved that it had not been one of the more vocal detractors.
"Sally Stoffers has a record of what I traded the Botany resources for," Zainal said, pointing at Sally in the audience.
"He did real good, folks. We all did. Got quite handy with bargaining, even when those Barevian merchants were being damned stingy."
Zainal gave her a grateful nod for her comment.
"I didn't do as much as I promised you I would and could." He was not apologizing, Kris realized, but explaining. "Barevi's a different world now than the one I knew" "Yeah, they lost the war."
"That isn't what I meant," Zainal replied, exasperated and possibly unable to explain what was prompting him to make this confession. "Though on balance, I think your planet has made the better adjustment."
"Good for Earth!" Someone hoisted a clenched fist skyward in an old gesture of supremacy.
"Botany is in an extraordinary situation," Zainal went on. "Both worlds are at a crossroads, I think. I know" Kris could see his chest rise as he took a deep breath. "I would like to think that we can do more ... both for Earth, your planet, and for mine."
"Invade them?" someone called.
"The Eosi were manipulative and ... and evil," Zainal said. "They perverted my world and subjugated many more. Many more." "That's their problem."
"No, it is ours as well. We inhabit the same galaxy. There is more we can do to assist recovery on your own world. I would like to have the same discretion to help mine ... and ours!" He hurried on lest someone interrupt him. "The Botany Space Force would be invaluable to both worlds, or I should say, all three, including Barevi."
"Mike?" Kris said, pointing in the direction of the men. "Practical specialists like agrarians to see what Terran things, like potatoes, would do well here and what might be sent back to Earth to be propagated." "And a dentist. With his equipment. Where is Eric Sachs?"
"Doing a very good business on Barevi. He didn't care to desert his patients at short notice."
"We'll pick him up on our next visit," Kris remarked, though she wondered if they would repatriate the ebullient Dr. Sachs.
"I'm sure we need time to discuss the details of these ideas," Judge Iri said, banging his gavel so he could be heard, "but let us be resolved, here and now, to do what we can to relieve Earth's problems as best we can and to try to establish harmonious relationships with the Catteni government and the Barevi merchants. What say you?" There was a roar of approval, much stamping of feet, and loud applause.
"You're stuck with it, Zainal," the judge said, with a tap on Zainal's shoulder for the work that he had cut out for himself. "You asked for it. You got it."
Kris rushed forward, ahead of the crowd, to hug Zainal, who was now grinning widely with relief.
Maybe this exceptional man could indeed manage the feats he had promoted himself for. He returned her embrace, not embarrassed to be seen displaying such an unCatteni demonstration of affection. "I dropped, I stay."

