Freedom's Landing Part 9

"Alcatraz?"

"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.

Got me?"

"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. Dis-MISSED!" 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?

You'll be going? Where? You can't leave me!"

"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 terror-stricken face and smiling rea.s.suringly. "Patti Sue, you just sit here, right by me. . ." and she physically manhandled Patti Sue into the s.p.a.ce 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.

"Huh?"

"Nemmind. Can you see Sarge or Zainal?"

"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 s.p.a.ce 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 rock-squats 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," c.u.mber suggested, "and then, if you miss what you're aiming at, you might hit something else." "You're encouraging," Kris replied.

"Are you?" and c.u.mber c.o.c.ked 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 a.s.sailants', as a news bulletin might say.

Rea.s.sembling 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?" c.u.mber asked, returning to her.

"Could be. But all of them? When the crates have been opened?"

"Or what comes out of the ground in the dark and sucks corpses dry," c.u.mber 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 c.o.ke bottles nor dead aerosol cans."

"Huh?" c.u.mber 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," c.u.mber 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 cl.u.s.tering 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," c.u.mber 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.

"w.i.l.l.ya 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 c.u.mber 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 d.a.m.ned regular, c.u.mber 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.