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.
Mitford stood then, surveying the area, kicking at the roots of the bushes. "How'd they find enough soil to grow in?" he muttered.
"Rocky enough so those scavengers can't come at you - "They come out at night," Kris began and then realized that it might indeed be night time before help for a Catteni arrived.
"Firing's in there and some of those matches Cumber made. We found sulphur, y'know."
"No, I didn't," and she wondered if sulphur had any medicinal qualities.
"Look, I'll send a litter back for him as soon as possible. Get some more firing when you can." He surveyed the massive Catteni's prone body. "Hope he doesn't get delirious on you or something "I'll manage, Sarge,' she said, gritting her teeth.
"Luck, Bjornsen, but you're the kind who can handle things." As Kris watched him make his way out of the little copse, she was somewhat heartened by his confidence in her. Mitford didn't often praise and while that might be a bit back-handed, she appreciated being thought capable.
She went back to her patient, resigned to a long wait, knowing that Zainal's welfare would be low on the list of everyone else's priorities. She wet the compresses again, glad of the almost indestructible quality of Catteni materials, and then she moistened Zainal's lips.
You had to keep people from getting dehydrated if they'd been poisoned, didn't you? His lips parted as if the moisture was what he needed so she managed to dribble water down his throat and he swallowed eagerly. A good sign. His forehead and cheeks felt warm, but not hot-hot.
She couldn't remember from her previous contacts with him just what a normal body temperature for a Catteni would be. She also couldn't tell if his skin had altered as a human's would with fever.
While one part of her was glad that Catteni were not totally impervious to natural hazards, she was damned sorry Zainal was laid low by as silly a thing as a thorn.
Chapter Nine
Jay Greene, Slav, the Doyle brothers, a man she didn't recognize and, surprisingly, Coo, returned by second moonrise. By then Zainal was sweating copiously and she tried to cool him off with the compresses. There was such a lot of him to cool! He was restless but not so energetically that she'd had any trouble keeping him prone. But she was getting more and more worried. Faint slithers had caused her to fear that the scavengers might be bold enough to penetrate the rocky dell. She'd taken to periodic stampings about the small clearing, hoping to scare them away. It was only quiet victims they went after, cowardly as they were.
She nearly cried with relief, though, when she heard her name called. She heaped firing on the little campfire to show the way to them.
"This is Dr Dane, Kris," Jay said, urging the medical man through the thicket. "He's even treated Catteni back on Earth."
"Thank God!' Kris breathed, anxiously urging the doctor to his patient and whipping off the latest compress to show the ugly wound. It looked even worse in the flickering firelight.
"G'day," Dane said in an unmistakably Australian accent, giving her a keen look before he knelt by the patient. "Did a proper job on himself, didn't he?" With deft fingers he pressed the sides of the gaping wound mouth. "Got it all, I'd say. Tough bastards, these Catteni.
Pour the whole bottle in, did you?" and now he grinned at her.
"Fair do."
"It was all I had and it is Catteni issue," she said, noticing that she was wringing her hands.
"Did the right thing, all right." He felt Zainal's skin, placed a hand over the chest and then to the large neck vein. "Not so ragged after all. Right then, let's get him back. Hey, what?" He had straightened up after his examination and saw Coo coming to crouch in the firelight, something in his hand which he wanted to inspect.
The Deski's hand was trembling - with fatigue, Kris wondered, deeply grateful to the alien, in his own debilitated state, for wanting to help an injured Catteni.
- What Coo was examining was the lighter grey crown of a thornbush, the new growth, since vegetation even on this godforsaken planet seemed to follow certain botanical precedents. Then, before she could say anything, Coo had - popped it in his mouth and began masticating with every evidence of enthusiasm and relief. In the act of springing upright, the Deski also turned and, with more energy than he had shown in days, plunged towards the hillside.
"What was that all about?" the doctor asked, in surprise.
"I think Coo's located something to take care of his dietary deficiency," Kris said drolly.
"One man's meat's another's poison," the man replied philosophically. "Now let's get this poisoned boyo back to civilization. Quite a set-up Mitford's organized," he added with approval.
"Good ol' Yankee know-how," Jay said with a grin.
"What about Irish improvisation?" Lenny Doyle said, pretending offence as he unlashed the ties on the stretcher poles "Ya think this is strong enough to hold "im?" Ninety asked, measuring Zainal's bulk against the litter design.
"Those blankets are indestructible," Jay said.
It took all of them, with Kris holding up heavy Catteni feet to get the unconscious Zainal onto the litter. Strips of torn blanket secured him for the arduous journey back to camp.
Kris kicked out the fire, stored the remaining firing into the sack Mitford had given her and followed them.
In the bright light of the big rising moon, Coo was busily, and carefully, plucking the very tops of the thornbushes and stuffing them into the open blouse of his coverall.
"Is that what you need, Coo?" Kris called. "Can I pick, too?"
"Nooco, Coo said, shaking his head emphatically.
"Baaaad for oomans." With one hand he kept fanning the air to reinforce his warning for her to keep back while he kept nipping the crowns with the other.
She tried to recall how many of the newest immigrants were Deski but, suddenly, thinking was beyond her strained and tired mind. She fell in step behind the litter bearers, relieved that her long and ahxious watch had concluded.
When she took her turn as a litter bearer, for she insisted on that, Leon Dane gave her some interesting and oddly welcome news: Earth was fighting back against the Cattem invaders - an evidently unprecedented reaction.
The Catteni method of subduing planets by swooping down and carrying off whole cities of people generally cowed a species totally.
Not so with Terrans. Despite the invasion, resistance began almost as soon as the great Catteni transport ships began loading hostages.
Leon Dane had remained in Sydney, using his position as a physician to relay important information to a very active unit in the Blue Mountains. On orders, he had volunteered to treat Catteni for, despite thick hides, they broke bones and had accidents that would have killed humans.
"If you know your invader's weaknesses, you have a better chance of striking back." He turned a grin on Kris as they moved across the second field. "That was my job.
Unfortunately there isn't much that gets a Catteni down and they seem impervious to any of the Terran toxic materials I tried on "em.
To see the clinical reactions, of course. But, oh my word, but they can mess each other up on their little twenty-four hour vendettas!" He whistled appreciatively. "I spent a lot of time sewing "em up. They don't break easy but they sure do lacerate a treat.
"I guess I'm glad you were willing to help Zainal. He was a victim of one of those twenty-four hour vendettas."
"Was he? And they dumped him in with you lot?" Kris nodded, finding that talking and keeping up her corner of the heavily loaded litter was tiring.
"How'd you get caught?" she asked the doctor.
"Ha! We had orders to riot at a certain time and place and I was sent from my hospital to officiate. I got gassed along with everyone else. The Cats don't ever ask questions.