Freedom's Challenge

by Anne McCaffrey

  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 geo-synchronous 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 Catteni immediately leaned over the speaker grill.

  “How many do you see?” he asked as calmly as if he was asking how many rocksquats 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. “Hassan’s 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.

  “What was that flash?”

  “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,” Gino 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 departure 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: Deski and both 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.”

  “Yeah, but who’s to say who’s in a real risk situation?”

  “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,” Norma Barrow 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 Latore, 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 all-clear. 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 class 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.