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.
"Like someone turned the shower off, Lenny said, peering out of the damp shelter. "And hey, not a cloud in the sky and it's only the first moon. I'd recognize her anytime by her craters." They shook the blankets out: the synthetic seemed to shed the water - the outside a trifle damp to the hand but the underside dry "Amazing fabric," Ninety said, crushing the edge of his blanket in his hand. "Give credit where it's due. Those Catteni make good survival gear."
"Durable," Kris agreed and looked over at Zainal who was staring about the land below their retreat. "What d'you see?"
"Nothing." -"That bothers you?"
"Yes," the Catteni said and then lowered himself to the ground. "You take this watch, Kris. Wake Slav. Slav, you wake Coo. Coo, wake Doyles. You wake me." Feeling for the dry side of his blanket, he then pulled it around him and pillowed his head on his arm. "I sleep, then think better.
Whatever he had feared at least kept them all alert on their separate watches. Maybe, Kris thought as she woke Slav to take his turn, that was what Zainal had had in mind, the sneaky so-and-so.
They were all awake before the sun came up, not being adjusted yet to the longer days and nights. They had saved enough dry droppings to make a fire to heat water from a nearby stream in their cups, adding the dried herbs that became a fragant tea to sip while eating their pemmican.
There were worse ways to break a fast.
When they came to the next ridge, Zainal climbed to the highest point and surveyed the distances, before pointing to their right "Hills," he said crypucally "Can the mechanicals have built into every hillside?" Kris asked, half-running to keep up with his long stride as he marched downhill again.
"We see," Zainal said, grinning at her, his yellow eyes twinkling.
They made the new destination by noontime, striding along the crest of that hill complex until they came to the bare rock and another silent, but full, garage.
"D'you think they take a lunch break and oil and grease themselves?" Lenny asked, as they all looked down at the closed doors of the anonymous facility. "Another granary?" He gestured to nearby fields, straw brown and shorn of whatever crops they might have sprouted.
"We look."
"And smear?" Ninety asked, mopping his perspiring forehead, for the last several klicks had included considerable climbing. "I could moisten a hill or two with the sweat I've raised." The storage barns were empty, not so much as a grain of whatever they had held.
"That was one busy mother of a ship," Lenny said, "if it cleared this, too."
"Long time,- Zainal said, showing dust on the finger he had drawn across the floor.
"Oh? Cutting back the farmers' subsidies here, too, huh?" Ninety asked facetiouslyZainal gestured for the patrol to check out each building of the fifteen in this complex. The last one was the garage where the mechanicals were standing in motionless lines.
They didn't look dusty, but just as Ninety started to enter the building, Zainal held up his arm and then pointed to the long rectangles on the eastern overhang of the garage.
"Sun power.
"Yeah," Ninety said, gulping. "D'you think they've registered us as thieves?"
"Doubt it," Lenny said. "What've they got to guard Fagainst on this planet? They don't even know we're here.
And dangerous!" Zainal chuckled. "We are. To them." Then he gestured to Ninety, made a cup of his two hands and waited.
Ninety, shrugging at the thought of his not inconsiderable bulk being hoisted by the Catteni, put his foot in the hand and climbed to Zainal's shoulders where he was now high enough to examine the panels.
"Hey," he said after a moment 5 scrutiny, "I think they come off - He grabbed one, rocking a bit on Zainal's Fshoulders, but the Catteni compensated easily and Ninety unclipped the panel from its brackets.
"Easy to install, replacements in stock, no waiting, no problem!" He handed each of the four panels down, then examined the links to wherever the power was collected. "Wish I'd seen the specs of the solar power stuff they were bringing into Dublin before we left."
"You weren't taken in Ireland?" Kris asked, somehow having assumed that they were.
"Naw, we were working on a construction site in Detroit. Pay wasn't great but better'n getting only fifty quid a week on the dole." Then he jumped neatly down from Zainal's shoulders and joined his brother, Slav and Coo, who were peering suspiciously at the units.
Zainal seemed to be waiting, his attention on the unmoving machines.
"How much power would these things store up?" Ninety asked him.
"Do we have to wait until dark? We wouldn't be able to see then." "Maybe they're on standby anyhow," Lenny suggested.
"They're not armed er anything.
"Darts," Zainal said and peered into the garage to see if he could locate the little aerial menaces.
"I don't see anything set in the frame," Lenny said, running a hand down the side of the opening. "No sign of security devices. Not as if I'd recognize any if I saw "em. There has to be some - Coo broke his thoughtful silence by walking right in and straight to the back of the dim garage. Turning around, he raised his long, spider-fingered hands in a "so there' gesture.
"OK," said Ninety, brushing his hands together. "Let's see if we can't disable these fecking mechanicals." He jumped to the flange of the nearest big farm machine and, finding toe holds, climbed high enough to reach the canted solar panel surfaces. "And these come off with a twist of the wrist, too," he said, after yanking first one, then the next panel out of their brackets. There were seven in all. Having done that, he looked down at Zainal.
"OK, boss man, whaddawe do next?" Zainal stepped up on the flange and then on tiptoe to look into the opening left by the removal of the panels.
Kris held her breath, hoping nothing would turn on and knock him out, or off. She couldn't remember, from her brief glimpses of them, what sections of the machinery lit up when in use.
Zainal began tugging at a section which came away in his hands.
He grunted, handed this down to Kris and he and Ninety began dismantling the exterior sheets. Even Slav looked pleased as he, Coo, and Lenny handled the pieces.
"Simple," Zainal remarked after a good look at the innards. "This…" and he touched a cube the length of his spread hand, "is the power collector." He pulled it loose.
"Hrnmm, a regular pop-tool," Ninety said, grinning.
"Handy dandy Meccano set."
"Well, if other machines had to service it, might as well be easy to disassemble," Lenny said, changing his voice on the last word to sound more like Short Circuit Number Five.
- The wires and connectors that were plugged into the -power cube also came away easily, and Zainal, with yet another grunt, removed the cube.
"Could we use that back at the camp?" Kris asked.
"For what?" Ninety said with a snort. "We haven't anything to power up."
"We could if we had power and maybe some of the engineer types could rearrange all those parts into something useful for us.
"For what?" Ninety asked.
"What's the matter with you? Don't you like technology?" Lenny wanted to know, dismissing his brother's attitude.
"Mitford will want," Zainal said. "We bring on later back to camp." He looked around again, his eyes narrowed.
"What's wrong?"
"No dart thing."
Coo suddenly pointed up, chattering in the way of Deski laughter.
Craning their necks, they finally saw the aerial unit, high up in the ceiling.
"No wonder we didn't see one in the slaughterhouse garage. We never looked up," Kris said. "Well, now we know where it hangs out, we can get that one, too.
"Already half-launched like that, isn't it?" Lenny said.
"That thing has to be programmed by a machine, doesn't it? I mean, it can't go off in here, can it?"
"I hope not," Ninety said.