Freedom's Landing

It wasn't a beautiful craft, the way the Discoverer and Challenger had been, delta winged and shingle clad. But it did have a triangular shape to it, blunt nosed as it was.

"You guys willing to take a quick run back down there?" Mitford asked. He was looking at Zainal, Coo and Slav.

"We sure are," Kris said, and then gulped because she hadn't intended to volunteer.

"Not you, Kris, you're off duty."

"If I am, they are. Only I'm going. I got just as much curiosity as the next one. I can't believe that ship just gulped up all that was there and then calmly took off again." Mitford put his hands around his mouth to shout down to those on the ground. "Dowdall, send a team out to the granary. See if that got emptied."

"Oh lordee," Kris said in a groan. She felt vulnerable again. And she'd brought in more mouths to be fed, too.

"Don't worry," Mitford said, "we're stocked up, all things considered." So the two teams set off. Kris thought their return to the abattoir didn't take. half as long going back as it had coming in.

When they got there, the acres of crates were all gone. In their place were stacks of what looked like collapsed units. That would account for some of the dents and scratches, she thought, still rather numb at the sheer volume that ship had lifted.

Did they have matter transporters? Beam it up, Scotty, was the facetious thought that bounced in Kris's mind until she gave a slightly hysterical laugh to stop it.

"It's all right, Kris," said Zainal, his accent improving all the time. He must have a terrific ear for language.

Somehow that reassured her more than his words or the arm he laid briefly across her shoulders. "We check the barns "How?" And Kris gestured broadly at the empty space that had once been conveniently bridged by a pyramid of crates. There was a drop of six or seven metres to the first of the piles of collapsed crates. She suddenly felt oddly disorientated by the alteration.

Zainal pointed to the rocky terrain. That was when Kris first realized that the mechanicals had sliced the crate storage out of the cliff side: the barns as well. From what she'd been told, the granary was also stored in natural rock. No arable land was taken up by even such essential facilities. If this was the condition of the entire planet, it was a remarkable achievement in its own right. And here come humans, she thought dourly, to mess it up.

The barns were empty, disinfected and ready for the next batch of occupants. Had the prisoners been dumped down on this planet at harvest and culling time? How often did that monster arrive to collect? Monthly, bi-monthly?

Semi-annually? What season of this planet were they currently in?

The weather was mild enough to be spring, but the crops in the fields were more mature than springtime growth. And she'd heard that grain had kept pouring into the storage caves, which suggested fall harvests.

The other salient fact was that the machines' masters were probably as omnivorous as humanoids. And needed so much food that they went to the expense of developing highly specialized machinery to nurture and cultivate food crops and meat animals: and had sufficient planets available for their use so that they could devote all? most?

- of this one to food production? The collection vehicle as well as the mechanicals meant an extremely high technological level. And yet Zainal, for all the Catteni were well travelled and doing a lot of exploration on their own, did not recognize the type of craft used, and his exploratory service had registered the planet as uninhabited. Of course, if there was nothing but machines on the planet, that figured.

Only why hadn't the Catteni seen the machines on their appointed rounds? The Catteni hadn't surveyed the planet in the night only, had they?

Or maybe during an infrequent down time during the "winter' months. Kris's knowledge of farming suggested there were few down times on a farm: something or other had to be tended all year round.

And what would winter on Botany be like?

Then Zainal blithely insisted that they have a look at the "garages' where curious vehicles with a variety of strange attachments awaited recall to duty.

"They do not recognize humans. No problem!" he told Kris and she was so flabbergasted that he had acquired the "no problem' slang that he was in the garage before she could protest.

One machine, standing inside, was hooked up to a framework which blinked and blipped. A servicing mechanism? Kris wished that they had someone with engineering training along. But then, who'd've thought they'd have a chance to inspect so thoroughly. Oh, for some of that bark and a pencil so she could make diagrams of the various types of mechanicals parked in the several garages. The last of the big barns contained sacks and sacks of what? Logic told her seeds or possibly fertilizers, more than likely. Had they been brought by the leviathan that had collected the meat? She used her knife to get into some of the bags and got samples of everything. Seeds, definitely, over half the shipment and, by the smell of it, fertilizer in the others.

The patrol got back to the camp by first moonrise. She didn't feel quite so wimpy when Coo and Slav showed signs of wanting to rest but she and Zainal first had to report to Mitford "They didn't take the grain, Bjornsen," was Mitford's first comment but she thought he seemed depressed.