Freedom's Landing Part 13

"Why would they search us?"

"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 s.p.a.ce 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 l.u.s.t 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.

"They never quit, those old soldiers, do they?"

"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 loo-cows 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 - a.s.sured 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 pa.s.s. 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.

Or is it voluntary?"

"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.

"Git!"

"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 gla.s.s."

"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 d.a.m.ned 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.

"Yeah, and how do we time it?"

"h.e.l.l, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y-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 G.o.d, 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 Lema.s.s, 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 Lema.s.s, 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 self-defence. "I wasn't doing more than that."

"That's enough. Shut your face and be d.a.m.ned 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 non-existent hairline and he whistled softly.

"OK, Arnie, we go walkies now "5'

Old-fashioned 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 G.o.d, 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.