Freedom's Landing

"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 chicken-shit 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.