Freedom's Landing

"It is, and wait till they see what the farmers are," Kris said.

"Pardon?" There was a brief delay in the conversation while rock-squats were added to the day's bag. Throughout the rest of the day, Kris heard about the ecologically - the word was the same in Norwegian but sounded different - sound fashion in which Botany's agriculture was done. Proper drainage, available water, copses of vegetation used as windbreaks where the land was not arable, even the hedging that separated the fields was approved. For what it was worth.

Kris did not want to be the one to tell them what farmed the land here. But she began to have more respect for the acumen of the absentee landlords: whatever they were besides omnivorous.

Great excitement buzzed about the camp when they returned and Kris didn't report to Mitford the observation they'd made on their way back.

The sergeant was sitting with what looked to Kris very much like a handheld phone. He was talking into it, so unless Chuck Mitford had flipped his wig, and she wouldn't have blamed him if he had, he was talking to another unit of the Botany Colonial Establishment.

"Great, huh?" Bart said when Kris, Bjorn and Oskar brought the results of their hunting into the cook cavern.

"We've got a phone?"

"Yeah, but more importantly, the technies know now what chips do what in the mechanicals' circuitry. Real breakthrough." Kris allowed that it must be, since everyone was so happy about it, and she supposed she should be as elated because it was one more step back towards sophisticated living. However, she was oddly disturbed by the breakthrough and certainly couldn't figure out why. She'd probably been enjoying this atavistic hunter-explorer life more than she should - considering it also involved lots of discomfort and uncertainty, as well as enough hazards to get the ol' adrenalin flowing freely most of the time. Camp Rock would really benefit from some modern conveniences. On the other hand, was instant communication really a benefit?

"Put another toggle on my belt," she muttered under her breath, "for the handheld!" Then she added, "Say, Bart, where do I find out where I'm buncing tonight?" Bart pointed to the irregular opening that led to most of the dorntitory facilities as well as the lake. "List right there." Her name had a big fat P beside it: so did Zainal's, and, as she looked down the list for the Norwegians, they were P's, too. P for Patrol?

"Bjornsen?" someone sang out at the front of the cave.

"Sarge wants you.

Muttering about being homeless, Kris made her way to the office.

There were three handsets on Mitford's "desk' "Latest in recycled mechanicals," Mitford said in great good humour. "We can keep in touch with our outposts and our scouts. You gotta get some height to boost the signal - -" and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the top of the cliff behind him where, of all things, an aerial now swayed in the evening breeze. "But don't seem to have any trouble with range.

Anyway, we'll know soonest when the Catteni make another drop. We've got a network of look-outs - and not just for the Catteni's next move." He rummaged briefly through the sheets on his worktop and flipped free a large one - no, it was quite a few sheets neatly glued(?) together.

Well, the loo-cows had hooves, so someone had remembered to boil "em up for glue. A map had been drawn on the big sheet - or, the beginnings of one, for only the centre showed contour lines, streams, fields, forestry. The map gave Kris a much better idea of the terrain in and around the main camp, and the siting of the various mechanical facilities.

"Neat," she said.

"We got a bona fide surveyor," Mitford said proudly, tapping the map. "Pretty good, huh? Even got relative distances.

"Nat. Geo. Soc. would be proud to claim it," she agreed, grinning at Mitford. "You don't waste time civilizing us, do you, Sarge?"

"Not much," he agreed amiably, "but then we got lots of Yankee know-how - and Aussie." He noticed her jaundiced expression and cocked eyebrow, so he cleared his throat as if he'd had to do that before continuing.

"Alien allies, too," he added. Then he surprised her by hefting one of the units and plonking it down in front of her, all business-like again. "I want your patrol to start examining this area," and his thick index finger wandered down to easterly uncharted areas. "I'll need to keep in touch with you in case we want Zainal."

"Sarge?"

"Yah?"

"Are you keeping Zainal out of camp for a reason?" Mitford regarded her steadily, his grey eyes not avoiding hers.

"You might, at that, think I am, and I am. He's too valuable a resource to be wasted "Then I haven't been wrong - there's feeling against him." "Can you honestly blame people for resenting him as Caneni?"

"Even if he was dumped down like everyone else?" Kris asked plaintively.

"Even then because he's still Catteni and no weapons but a knife, and alone.

"He's not alone," Kris said staunchly.

"I know, Bjornsen. But there's this thinking that there must have been a good reason he got dumped, other than killing another Cat…

Catteni," Mitford said and, when she started to protest, he held up a hand. "I've seen and heard all about Catteni one-day vendettas, Bjornsen, and if it was only for killing a patrol leader, he'd've been released from the slammer the next day. He sure the hell isn't like any other Catteni 1 ever met or heard about."