Freedom's Landing
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Catteni Sequence #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Freedom's Landing». Краткое содержание книги:
The alien Catteni value strength and intelligence in their slaves—and Kristin has managed to survive her enslavement while hundreds of other humans have not. But her trial has just begun, for now she finds herself part of a massive experiment. The aliens have discovered a new world, and they have a simple way of finding out if it’s habitable: drop hundreds of slaves on the surface and see what happens.
If they survive, colonization can begin. If not, there are always more slaves.
The crash had been too far away for Kris to distinguish the hunted man's features or build. He might just be an escaped slave, like herself. If not Terran, he might be from one of the half-dozen other subjugated races that lived on Barevi. Someone who had had the guts to steal a ffitter didn't deserve to die under Catteni force-whips.
Kris made her way down the slope, careful to avoid the numerous thorn thickets that dominated these woods.
She had once amused herself with the whimsy that the thorn were the gorupear's protectors, for the two plants invariably grew close together.
At the top of the sheer precipice above the falls of the river, she grabbed the vine she had attached there for speedy descent. Once on the river bank she stuck to the dry flat rocks until she came to the stepping-stones that allowed her to cross the river below the wide pool made by the little falls. Down a gully, across another thorn-bush-filled clearing, and then she was directly above the spot where she had last seen the man.
Keeping close to the brown rocks so nearly the shade of her own tanned skin, she crossed the remaining distance.
She all but tripped over him as the wind puffed black smoke down among the rocks.
"Catteni!" she cried, furious as she bent to examine the unconscious man and recognized the grey and yellow uniform despite its tattered and black smeared condition.
With a disdainful foot under his shoulder, she tried to turn him over. And couldn't. The man might as well have been a boulder. She knelt and yanked his head around by the thick slate-grey hair which, in a Catteni, did not indicate age: they all had the same colour hair.
Maybe he was dead?
No such luck. He was breathing. A bruise mark on his temple showed one reason for his unconscious state.
For a Catteni, he was almost good-looking. Most of them tended to have brutish, coarse features but this one had a straight, almost patrician nose - even if there was a lot more of it than an elephant would want to claim - and a wide well-shaped mouth. The Catteni to whom she had been sold had had thick blubbery lips, and she'd known that Catteni were developing a sexual appetite for Terran women.
A sizzling crack jerked her head around in the direction of the wreck. The damned fools were shooting at the burning craft now. Kris looked down at the unconscious man, wondering what on earth he had done to provoke such vindictive thoroughness. They sure wanted him good and dead.
The barrage pulverized what was left of the ffitter, leaving the fire no fuel. The wind, laden with coarse dust, blew an acrid stench from the wreckage. The man stirred and vainly tried to raise himself, only to sink back to the ground with a groan. Kris saw the ffitters circling to land on the plateau below the wreck.
"Going to case the scene of the crime, huh?" It was completely illogical, Kris told herself, to help a Catteni simply because there were others of his race out to get him. Rut…She backtracked his route, just in case he had left any marks for them to follow. She went as far as she could on the bare rock. Where dirt began, ash had settled in a thick layer, obliterating any tracks he might have made.
After all, the Catteni might stumble on her if they did a thorough search, thinking their victim had escaped the crash.
He had got to his feet when she returned to him, dazed, heavy arms hanging by his sides as he tried to get his eyes to focus. She attempted to guide him but it was like trying to direct a mountain to move.
"Come on, Mahomet," she urged softly. "Just walk like a nice little boy to the river and I'll duck you in. Cold water should bring you round.
A sharp distant gabble of voices made her start nervously. God, those Catteni had got up that rock-face in a hurry. She'd forgotten they could take prodigious leaps on this light-gravity planet.
"They're coming. Follow me," she said in lingua Barevi.
He groaned again, shaking his head to clear his senses. He turned towards her, his great yellow eyes still dazed with shock. She would never get used to such butter-coloured pupils with black irises.
"This way! Quickly!" She urgently tugged at him. If he didn't shake his tree-stump legs, she was going to leave him. Good Samaritans on Barevi had better not get caught by Catteni.
She pulled at his arm and he seemed to make a decision.
He lurched forward, one great hand grasping her shoulder in a vice-like grip. They reached the river bank, still ahead of the searchers. But Kris groaned as she realized that the barely conscious man would never be able to navigate the stepping-stones.
The shouts behind them indicated that the others were fanning out to search the rocks. Urgently she grabbed several fingers of his big hand, leading him to the base of the falls.
"If you can't float, it's just too damned bad," she said grimly.
She dropped his hand, stepped back and leaping forward again, shouldered him into the water.
She dived in, right beside him, and when he continued to sink, she grabbed and caught him by the thick hair.
Fortunately, the water made even a solid Catteni manageable.
Exerting all her strength and skill as a swimmer, she got his head above water and held it up with a chinlock.
By sheer good luck, they had surfaced in the space between the arc of the falls and the cliff, the curtain of water shielding them from view. As the Catteni began to struggle in her grasp, the five hunters leapt spectacularly into view in the clearing by the pool. Her "Mahomet' was instantly alert and, instead of struggling, began to tread water beside her.
The Catteni were arguing with each other now and each seemed to be issuing conflicting orders to the others.
Mahomet released himself from her chinhold, his yellow eyes never leaving the party on the bank. They watched, hands making as little movement as possible although the falls would conceal any ripples their motions made.
One Catteni, after a heated debate, crossed the wide pool in a fantastic - to Kris - standing leap. He and another began to move downstream, carefully examining both banks and casually surmounting up-ended barge-sized boulders with no effort. The other three went charging back the way they had come, still arguing.
Mter an endless interval, during which the icy water chilled Kris to the bone, the refugee touched her shoulder and nodded towards the shore. But when she realized that he was going to head back the way they had come, she shook her head emphatically, pointing to the other side.
"Safe! That way," she shouted at him over the noise of the falls.
He frowned. "I've a flitter to hide in." She jabbed her finger in the direction of her hidden vehicle.
Stunned as she suddenly realized what she had just said, she stared at him. "Oh, God!" He raised an eyebrow in surprise, and she hoped for one long moment that he had not understood what she had said.
But he had, and now his yellow eyes gleamed at her in the gloom with a different sort of interest.
He's like a great lion, Kris thought and almost choked on fear.
"You have aided a Catteni," he said in a deep rumbling voice in the lingua Barevi. "You shall not suffer for that!" Kris wasn't so sure when she tried to climb out of the river and found herself numb with cold, and strengthless.
He, on the other hand, strode easily out of the water He looked down at her ineffectual struggles, frowning irritably. Then, with no apparent effort, he curled the long fingers of one hand around her upper arm and simply withdrew her from the water, supporting her until she got her balance.
Shivering, she looked up at him. God, he was big: the tallest Catteni she had yet seen. She had inherited the height of her Swedish father and stood five-foot ten in her bare feet. She had topped most of the Catteni she had encountered by several inches, but his eyes tilted downwards to regard her. And his shoulders were as broad as the scoop of a JCB.