Freedom's Landing

by Anne McCaffrey

  “With one of those air cushions, 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 air-cushion 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.

  “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 in the Rock the next day but he’d had a private word with Kris.

  “Keep pretty close to Zainal, will you, 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 commit 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 damn 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. And what’s your name?”

  “I’m Buzz,” and the boy grinned to show two missing front teeth, “because I buzz about 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 he had test kits. The information would be invaluable to any hunting parties 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 nutlike 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 dryly. “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. Further, 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 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 had.

  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.

  “Yes?”

  “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.

  “Catten. 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 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 offense 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 maneuverability 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 toward 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 an effort to relax completely as he listened to what was said.

  “My report cause trouble,” he said to the others in a brief aside before spitting out more Catteni phrases.

  Kris decided one Catteni was an officer, and 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 continuously 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 profile.

  “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 artifacts that had been recycled. That elicited a surprised exclamation from the captain and the other two, 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 blue-white-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 crumbled. 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 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 aimed 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 her, 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 pantomimed 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 in 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?”r />
  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 term.

  “Let’s leave the subject of Kris’ honor 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 okay,” 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 honor, so he has,” Joe said in mild surprise.

  “Why not?” Kris snapped back.