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.
"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 - assured 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 pass. 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 glass."
"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 damned 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?"
"Hell, 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 bloody-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 God, 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 Lemass, 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 Lemass, 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 anticipation 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.