Freedom's Landing

"9' "We hide, Zainal said decisively after a moment's thought.

They had to haul the panels and cubes quite a distance to find some place that would be secure from an aerial or surface inspection, and that task took the rest of the day.

That night they camped inside the inoperative garage, safe from the torrential rains that once again pummelled the ground. The rock-squats they'd hunted - Kris had surprised herself by stunning one in her first attempt to hunt with a slingshot - were roasted over the fire they made. The patrol ate, watching the rain sheeting down.

In the course of their seven-day patrol, for that was the time given them by Mitford for this tour, they found and rendered useless four more installations, including another empty abattoir. They camped there that night, more comfortably on fodder bedding while outside the hour-long rain pelted down. It rained every evening, hard, for approximately an hour and they preferred to be undercover during such onslaughts.

"This sort of rain can't be natural," Kris said the fourth night.

"Not rain at night, when all the machines would be safely back in their garages.

"They got the farming so well organized here, I wouldn't put it past "em to organize the weather, too," Ninety said, then added thoughtfully, "Sure would be nice not to have the soccer games rained off.

"You would think of soccer," his brother said with amiable asperity.

"Then there'd have to be a central control facility somewhere on this planet," Kris said, turning to Zainal. He nodded. "Only where?

We aren't going to be able to cover a great deal of distance on foot and we don't even know which continent we're on. Do we?" she asked Zainal.

He shook his head, sighing again and indicating his own frustration over insufficient data.

"Well, if we keep on the way we're going, disabling garages, we may meet our landlord soon. Maybe sooner than we'd like," and unconsciously her hand went to the knife at her belt. "Comforting a knife may be, but it's not really sufficient to combat the kind of technology we've seen." "No intelligence on this planet, Zainal said with a shrug.

"D'you mean anything that comes after us would be a machine?" Kris wasn't at all happy with that notion. "Or more flying darts?"

"We were trapped in that place," Zainal said but he was obviously turning over the possibilities in his head and then gave a convulsive shrug. "We are careful. We keep watch." He delivered a short series of guttural barks to the Deski, who was chewing a mouthful. Coo nodded and pointed to his ear-flaps. Then, to Kris's surprise, he held up one of his two opposite digits in the "gotcha' gesture.

"They catch on quick, don't they?" Lenny murmured as he beamed at the Deski and made the thumbs-up with both of his hands. Coo nodded enthusiastically but kept right on chewing.

Kris, watching the Catteni's face during this exchange decided that he had also noted the alteration in the Deski.

Though the alien kept up with the patrol, climbing was no longer as effortless for him and, to Kris, he seemed even more spidery and insubstantial than ever. And he was constantly trying out some new greenery, root, or the nut-like objects he found in the forested areas.

Some of the vegetation sprouted sort of nuts, or fungi, on the trunks.

Coo tried everything and, when the others chowed down on rock-squat, he ate slowly of his ration bars. Twice Zainal had evidently told him not to save the bars: there would be more back at the camp. At least that's what Kris thought Zainal was telling him.

On the morning of the sixth day, Slav pointed out their homeward direction. Kris was suitably awed by the confidence he displayed, since they'd done so much up- and downhill travel, so many detours around impassable rock faces that she had no idea where the home camp was.