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.
"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 damned 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 God, 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.
"Damn mechanicals might hear ya," Aarens said.
"Follow me and fer Gawssake, be quiet." While Kris was asleep, the rescue had been organized.
Two men would lead each rescued group down the road to the crates and start them up the ropes hanging in readiness. Zainal and Kris took the last group since Zainal was the only one who knew the exact trick to open the doors.
In the group she and Zainal released there were two women, one of them heavily pregnant and awkward in movement, and the other one older and limping badly.
The pregnant woman was also slightly hysterical with the relief of being rescued.
"It's bad enough my Jack got killed on Barevi, but I thought I'd at least have my baby to cherish," she said weepingly. Not that Kris blamed her but this was neither the time nor place for true confessions. "Then that awful discipline meeting and I wasn't doing a thing but standing where I was told to stand and then I get gassed. I prayed that, somehow, God was with us still and we'd be rescued.
And we are, and I simply can't believe it. Oh, you're so good to risk your lives to save ours." Kris couldn't seem to stem her flow of talk. At least Patti Sue would shut up when told to.
"How're we going to get her up the crates?" she asked Zainal in a tense whisper as they started the people down the road.
"I carry. Not heavy. Big."
"Just don't let her see you're Catteni,' Kris said, glad that the poor light hid the tell-tale grey of his skin tone.
The pregnant woman, Anna Bollinger, presented less of a difficulty getting up on the crates than some of the others. Fumble-footed and fingered, some of them, and four, besides Anna, had to be hauled up because their shoulder muscles gave out on the third "lift' Eventually, all thirty-five were on the top and moving off north by east as Slav had. Not moving very quickly either, as if the release and climb had about taken all the physical energy they had left in them.
Sometimes, Kris thought as she trudged along beside Zainal, you can do the right thing for the wrong reason.
Her hands were stinging, her wrist ached despite the strip of blanket she had wrapped about it as a brace, her shins were scraped and raw, her toes hurt and she was sure her arm and shoulder muscles would never recover. She would have loved to have had a trough to wallow in.
By the time the first moon came up, they had not yet made it to the end of the crates. Again she wondered what was in them, if it wasn't halves of loo-cows, and for whom the machines gathered the supplies.
They had to call a break then, to rest the less able of their number. Anna, in particular, and Janet, the older woman, were totally unequal to a steady march. When it was discovered that most of them had eaten the last of their ration bars in preparation for escape, Zainal immediately gestured for the patrol to share out the extras they had brought along. Chewing the dry bars without water to soften them made eating a chore. One of the Turs gobbled his down as if he hadn't eaten in days "He didn't know the Cats had packed us rations," Lenny said. "Ninety and I have been sharing with him."
"That was damned good of you," Kris said, "considering you wouldn't have known where your next meals were coming from.
"Oh, I figured something would turn up," and Lenny grinned impishly at her.
"Why, may I ask, is your brother Ninety?"
"Aw, now, we're Irish, you see "I had noticed.
Another grin. "And we've this saying in Ireland - that the crack, the fun, is ninety "And we don't mean the cost of the stuff," Ninety said in an irritated voice. "I like the crack…pubs and all God, wouldn't a Guinness taste good about now.
"I told ya, don't, Ninety. I can stand anything but your mentioning Guinness," Lenny said, an edge to his usually cheerful voice for the first time in a very trying night.
"Sorry, Kris."
"So I'm Ninety because I look for a good crack," Ninety finished up and gave the final bite of his ration bar a wistful look.
"Damned micks," Aarens muttered. He had positioned himself near Kris, she noticed, on her other side, away from the Doyle brothers.
"Let me straighten you out on one detail, Aarens," Kris said, not that she cared if she saved him some knocks for his attitude, but his comments grated against her sense of rightness. "We're ALL in this together: humans, Deskis, Rugarians, Morphins and Turs. And especially the lone representative of our former captors. He got dumped on this godforsaken place just like the rest of us and he's in command of the patrol that just saved your skin, bones and meat. So cut the bigotry out. Understand?"