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.
He inclined his head respectfully. "Have you any supplies in here?" Deciding that she did not care to come within grabbing distance, she nodded to the basket on the control panel behind him. "Gorupears and the roots of a white plant that I have found quite edible." As he turned, she caught him wrinkling his nose and heard him sigh. "No diet for a Catteni, I'm sure, accustomed as you are to the best viands in the galaxy but the simple fare will stop your stomach roaring. The noise of it could give our position away." He did not, as she had observed some Catteni do, cram the entire pear in his mouth. He also picked up one of the roots which had a sweetish taste, not unlike a carrot, and switched from one hand to the other, taking polite mouthfuls. Finishing the first pear, he turned to her and raised his eyebrows in a polite query.
"Thank you, no. I had just eaten when I saw the dogfight."
"Dogfight?" "A Terran tem, derived from the aerial combat of fighter planes." "Fighter planes?"
"We had achieved space flight, too," she added, wondering as pride made her speak out, if any of the SAC units had been launched when the Catteni had invaded Terran space.
"Ah, yes, so you had. Primitive defences but manned by brave fighters." Her heart sank. So often lately, the answers she discovered were not the ones she wanted to hear. One of the slaves in the compound from the Chicago area had said that surface to air missiles had been fired at the Catteni vessels. Terran national leaders had been slow to take a defensive position, not knowing who or what had penetrated so far into the atmosphere. They had dallied too long to make any difference. Bill had been wearing his Walkman and had heard the broadcasts up till the time he had been whipped into the Catteni ship. By talking amongst themselves, the captives had learnt that not all big cities had been attacked and looted: just sufficient so that the entire world recognized the superiority of the invaders. Not much consolation for those who had been abducted but enough to restore some pride.
"We disarmed most of them', Mahomet went on in a matter-of-fact voice, "and grounded the air ships. Clumsy but showing some signs of developments to come."
"Thanks." He raised his eyebrows queringly.
"For what?"
"Such praise for the primitive savages!" Then he threw back his head and indulged in a loud guffaw.
"Ssssh, they'll hear you. You bray like an ass!"
"And you talk like a Catteni female!"
"Do I take that as a compliment?"
"You may," and he inclined his head in her direction, his yellow eyes twinkling in a humorous response she had never seen in other Catteni.
"You're not at all like the others.
"Which others?"
"ALL the other Catteni I've met, and observed."
"Of course I'm not. I'm Emassi, he said with a quiet pride, splaying his great hand across his chest in what she could interpret as a proud gesture.
"Whatever that is."
"A high rank," he said. With a dismissive flick of fingers sticky with gorupear juice in the general direction of the city she had escaped from, he consigned the local Catteni to an inferior status. "I order. They obey," he added, making certain she understood the distinction.
"And those trying to kill you? They obeyed?"
"Their patrol leader's dying words," he said, with a negligent shrug and a grin, "to make me pay for his death." Then he frowned, looking down at the floor as if reconsidering their import. "Never mind. By noon tomorrow all will revert. Now," and as he began to rise from the chair, intent plain on his face, Kris no longer hesitated.
With a karate-style leap, she flung herself at him, both hands on the metal tool, and brought it down with all the strength in her body on the side of his head. With a groan he collapsed to the floor.
Had she killed him? Horrified at taking a life, even that of an arrogant Catteni, she knelt beside him, noting that red blood flowed from the creased skull, and felt his throat. If he had blood, he had veins: and since he was shaped like most humanoids, he ought to have a pulse in the neck to carry blood to the brain she had just tried to smash. He had! It wasn't even faint but a firm throb against her seeking fingers. Which quickly became sticky with the blood that pulsed from his head wound.
Oh, this would never do, she told herself. The little nasty stingers would smell blood and come searching for the source. The flitter would be unliveable. First she bound up the wound with the absorbent material she had found in the lockers. Then she carefully cleaned up the rest of the blood on his face and rubbed the exposed greyish skin with gorupear juice. That had neutralized the smell for stingers on other occasions: a handy survival tip she had serendipitously discovered on her own.
One of his massive legs had caught on the chair as he fell. It looked uncomfortable that way, and the fabric of his trousers was caught against his genitals, outlining the size of them in a way that made her acutely embarrassed for him. And affected her in the oddest way. Well, she told herself, she had no reason, really, to offend the dignity of another living being if she objected to indignities herself.
Kris had a strong sense of fair play. She might have conked him to protect her virtue, but that done, she felt obliged to make him as comfortable as possible. How long would the blow keep him unconscious?
And, once he regained his senses, what would he do to her? Well, she thought, she could always cite the Catteni rule about reprisals! Quite likely that rule did not apply to slaves or non-Catteni. She looked through the lockers to find something to tie him up with. There was a length of sturdy rope but no chains and that was the only sort of restraint that might prove effective against Catteni strength.
She sat down on the pilot's chair and rethought her circumstances.
It had been a tiring day. And nearly at its end. Well, what if she returned him whence he had come? With darkness falling, there'd be a fair amount of tralfic back into the city so this purloined flitter might not be recognized: not after five months. How long did Catteni keep up "wanted' notices? Twenty-four hours?
Perhaps for Catteni emassis but not for escaped slaves that is, if anyone had even noticed her disappearance. She switched on the controls, reassured that he had said the tank was half full. She couldn't remember how the gauge had stood when she absconded but he little aircraft was supposed to be economical, which was why there were so many in use.
She knew the coordinates of the city, a good two-hour flight from here, but surely there'd be enough fuel for her to get back. No matter. She had to dump Mahomet.
She'd get him to the outskirts where a limp body wouldn't be that uncommon. Well, maybe not the outskirts where the slaves and hangers-on lived in semi-squalor, but there were all those assembly areas where Catteni held drills and public meetings. She'd been to one or two with the cook who found such displays helpful in maintaining discipline. One view of a miscreant lashed to death with the force-whips was enough for her. Enough to revive her desire to get as far away from such a discipline as possible.
Powered up, she reversed the flitter out of its concealing thicket. She really had been lucky in that landing which had by no means been as planned as she inferred to Mahomet. She hadn't been watching the altimeter the night of her escape or realized that the plains surrounding the city had altered to a hilly terrain. She'd felt the scrape of something on the belly of the flitter, panicked and the nose had dipped. She'd been in the middle of the thicket, and plastered with thorns from the angry bushes, before she could correct the error.
It had worked out. Kris had a great and abiding belief that things would work out - if you lived long enough to let them.
She headed the flitter southeast, but not before marking again the coordinates of her retreat. She'd have to come back in daylight or she'd miss the thicket.