Freedom's Landing

He waved her away and three people vied to take her place, ey'eing her map case and handset. She strode off, head high, looking neither to right nor left.

Zainal was leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest, watching her progress. The other four members of the patrol were talking quietly. She nodded to Astrid and Oskar, then looked at the two new folks. She held her hand out to the woman whom she liked on sight: almost spare in build but wiry, with a complexion that had been roughened by hot Australian summers and faded short curly hair to a ginger shade. But she exuded an air of competence, a characteristic of so many Aussies. At her feet, beside her travel gear, were a first-aid kit and a light bow with a sheaf of arrows.

"M' name's Sarah McDouall," she said, giving Kris's hand a firm hard shake before letting it go. "This here's Francis Marley. We made a good team in the resistance "fore we got caught. I'm your medic."

"Call me Joe. Anything's beller than Francis," he said, giving Sarah a mock glare for her introduction. He spoke in a slightly nasal tenor voice which seemed to have a lilt of quiet laughter to it. He was tall and lean, sun-creased eyes, an open face and smile, with dark hair growing grey at the temples. One hand kept going to his head as if to adjust a missing hat. The gesture developed into a scratch of his skull. "Stocknian, I know a bit about plants." He had a sling tucked in his belt, a blanket pouch that bulged with pebbles. He sort of leaned against the three light lances he was armed with. They had, Kris noticed, metal tips.

My, she thought, the arsenal was improving, too!

"Anyone know where we're bunked?" Kris asked.

"Zainal knows."

"I lead, you follow," Zainal said, pushing himself off the wall and moving off, past the hospital cave.

Kris wondered if he was annoyed that Mitford had given her the comunit. His expression did not give her any clues.

It was more a dug-out than a cave but it would shelter them from the evening shower and the colder winds that now blew during the night.

There was just room enough for six bodies but there were hooks for hanging and even a ledge.

"Rather snazzy," Kris said. "Did Zainal tell you our rnission?"

"More or less," Joe said with a grin.

"You don't mind a Catteni patrol leader?" Joe's eyebrows raised slightly and Sarah gave her a sharp look.

"Well, now "Zainal here leads," Kris said firmly. "I'm signals," and she tapped the comunit.

"Gotcha!"

"I need a bath," Kris added, carefully stowing the map case and the handheld on the ledge. She turned to Astrid.

"You coming?"

"Wash?"

"That's what we call it, Kris said with a grin, easier now she'd made her point, and turned to Sarah.

"Had one. I'll get our grub. Smells good. C'mon, Joe, Oskar.

Don't take too long," Sarah said to the bathers.

"You better believe it," Kris replied and then, with Astrid on her heels, retraced her steps to the cook cavern and then down to the lake.

Astrid had no problem with cold-water bathing but then, if she was accustomed to saunas in Norway, she wouldn't have. But the temperature did not encourage one to dawdle and they were washed, dried, dressed and on their way back to their quarters about the time their evening meal was ready.

"I do miss a beer," Joe said plaintively, sopping up the last of the gravy from his bowl with his bread.

"I miss a cigarette," Sarah said.

"I, too," Astrid said with a smile, and translated to Oskar. He raised both hands skywards in longing.

"You know plants?" Astrid asked Joe. "Find us one like tobacco."

"Now there's a right good idea," Joe replied. "Do my damnedest, I will." Chapter Eleven

Each morning Kris checked in and usually spoke to Mitford, giving him an all clear. Each evening, around the fire, she got the others to help her map the terrain they had covered that day.

On the fourth day they came upon another mechanical garage and spent the day dismantling it. Kris added that detail to the map with a certain amount of pleasure.

Joe Marley pushed back his non-existent hat, scratched his scalp as he viewed his first mechanicals. Oskar, examining the first large harvester (Kris thought last out, last in), rattled off a long sentence to Astrid.

"He want to see it work," she said, eyeing the large mechanico dubiously.

"Maybe next year," Kris said airily, "if we decide to put "em all back in operation. If there're any with full parts by then." Zainal had already unfastened the solar panels on the top of the garage. Then he went after the flying dart-dispenser.

Leon had asked particularly for them to collect any they found, for the anaesthetic.

"Oskar asks how machine go with no wheels," Astrid said, peering under the skirt of the biggest farm machine to check on that lack.

"On an air cushion," and Kris mimicked the sound and the method.

Oskar nodded approvingly, still walking about the mechanical beast. He also examined the flying device, carefully, since Kris warned him about the darts peeking out from the leading edge. Oskar seemed to approve most of the harvester design. Then made a rollercoaster motion with one hand and said something to Astrid.