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.
"I hope not. One trip to an abattoir is quite enough."
"Canning factory is what this'd be," Joe said, still teasing.
"Hmmm." Then Kris giggled. "Imagine him in a sardine can," and she tilted her head irreverently at their patrol leader, still looking intently at the building.
"We go slow. We do not approach until second moonrise "If you say so, boss," Kris said flippantly.
There were tides on this world, judging by the high-water marks and the flotsam deposited along the beach.
"With so many moons, tides would be complex," Joe remarked.
"Swim?" Astrid wistfully asked Kris, though she peered at Zainal for permission.
They approached the beach a kilometer or so from the building.
Hiking through the white sands had been hot work, for the shifting surface made the going difficult even where it was somewhat held in place by tufts of a sturdy grassoid and, in one place, a plantation of reeds. Joe took samples of each plant in case one or more of these supplied trace elements that would help the Deskis. The sea might be several days' journey from the main camp but it was not inaccessible.
Another stumpy-branched growth which reminded Kris of wind-stunted cedars bore a hard fruit of some sort. Joe stuffed the harvest from two bushes in his pack.
Zainal swung his glance right to the building, which now seenied to be hovering above the sandy ground, an optical illusion, Kris was sure. Then, for a long moment, he watched the sea itself and finally shrugged It'd be ironic, Kris thought, to have survived all the dangers the land was providing to get drowned by some sea creature, but she couldn't see any disturbance on the lightly rippled sea: certainly nothing that would indicate underwater denizens. Then Zainal strode down to the edge of the water, and scooped up a handful from the next incoming ripple. He smelt it, then stuck his tongue into the liquid.
"Salt. You swim first," and his finger pointed from Sarah to Astrid to Kris. "We watch."
"Us?" Sarah piped up impishly but she was already walking down to the water's edge, opening her coverall.
Kris had lost a great deal of her conditioned notions of modesty over the last few weeks, so she followed Sarah, Astrid trotting ahead of both of them, shedding her coverall with haste, and nearly tripping as she removed the right trouser leg. She threw the coverall away from her, where the sand was still dry, and then ran the rest of the way into the water.
"Don't go too far out," Joe called and then he, and Oskar, hunkered down on the sand. Zainal remained standing, scanning the sea constantly.
The sea wasn't as salty as Kris remembered the Atlantic on her eastern seaside vacation, though there was sufficient to make it quite buoyant, and she settled into a crawl. Sarah was whooping and splashing.
"Hey, I like this. A sea I can swim in without worrying about sharks." "Don't go so far out," Kris called, all too aware that Botany was quite likely to put up a few seaborne surprises.
She was a bit surprised that Zainal had let them swim at all.
"Let's keep close enough to shore to get there before anything out there "and she waved at the innocuous spread of water, "can get us."
"Good thinking, mate," Sarah said and paddled back towards her.
Astrid swam with studied economy of stroke, Kris noticed, while Sarah thrashed about with little expertise.
They didn't stay in long, out of deference to the men who were keeping watch and who probably wanted the refreshment of a swim as much as they did. But Kris felt better for the bathe and waved to the men that they were comang out now. Zainal was still watching, but not the three nude women emerging from the ocean. Joe and Oskar had politely averted their gaze as the girls emerged.
"OK, guys, Kris called when they were dressed again.
"Your turn." She went up to Zainal. "I'll keep watch." He shook his head. Then, with a wide sweep of his arm, gestured Joe and Oskar to go in without him.
"Don't you swim?" Kris asked, amused.
"Too quiet," he said cryptically and continued his scanning, not just the horizon but the beach on both sides of them.
"On Earth - Terra - fishermen usually go out at dawn, or on the tide,' she said conversationally. "So the machines, if there are some, would be quiet this time of day, I think."
"I have never been to sea before,' Zainal replied in the same tone.
"You look a bit like a lighthouse, though," and Kris giggled, "standing like that."
"Light house?" He frowned but didn't pause in his vigilant and careful scrutiny.
"Hey, I think this planet has clams, Sarah cried.
She went down to her knees and started digging with her hatchet.
The next little wave ripple flooded over her legs.
"Didn't know you had clams in Australia," Kris said as she strode down to Sarah.
"Biggest clam-beds ever outside of Sydney. And oysters.
Kris's one seaside vacation had included hunting for quahogs on a Cape Cod beach so she recognized the little holes left where molluscs had opened an air passage. She began to dig, too.
"What you do?" Astrid asked, joining them.
"Dig and…oh…" Sarah closed her fingers around something and hauled it out of the wet sand. "What on earth?" She rinsed the rest of the sandy mud off the shelled creature and showed it to the others. It was oblong with a shell obviously "built' around it, rough like an oyster, not smooth like a clam.
"Well, it's like both clam and oyster," Kris said. "And with no claws it's not a crab. Oysters are good for you and so, for that matter, are clams. Might even have the trace elements the Deskis need.
Sea stuff is full of minerals and junk."
"Yeah, I know," Sarah said, rolling her eyes. "I drank enough cod liver oil as a kid. Hey, Joe, c'mere a minute, will ya?" Joe, totally unselfconscious about his nudity, joined them and took the "clam' from Sarah.
"We will have to go the empiric route, I suppose," he said without real enthusiasm. "At least it won't eat us first." He took Sarah's hatchet, held out his hand for Kris's and, using one as a counter, hit the shell with the other.
"Oops, hit it too hard," he said, looking down at the mashed stuff that oozed off the side of the blade. "Get me another one." After the capture and dissection of three more molluscs, Joe decided the "flesh' might indeed be edible. He dressed, and they all went to find something burnable. No-one quite had the courage to try the mollusc raw, though they all thought it smelt as seafood should. Joe was game enough to be the guinea pig when the first one they cooked turned brown and a prod with the knife point went easily into the meat.
"A bit chewy but rather tasty, chums. Rather y' Sampling another morsel, Oskar agreed and immediately went out to gather more shells.
Zainal only smiled and, although he put a piece in his mouth, did not swallow it, shaking his head.
"You don't have things like this on Catten?" Kris asked him, teasing.
He shook his head. "Eat land animals only."
"Fish has better protein content and less fat," Kris said, enjoying his reaction.
Zainal went back to watching.
Making a camp in the dunes, out of sight of the building, and shielded from the light breeze that had sprung up, they ate a meal that began with clams broiled on the half shell and then cold rock-squat.
Joe suggested that they wait and see if any of them had a reaction to the molluscs before they went on a hinge of them. Oddly enough, they all wanted to eat more.
"Probably they contain some trace elements our present diet is not supplying," Joe suggested. "Sometimes our bodies know better than our heads what is required. But let's give it the overnight test. If no-one's had diarrhoea, vomiting, nausea or dies on us, the clams should be fairly safe to eat."
"Fresh," Kris added.
"By the seaside, by the beautiful sea," Joe warbled.
Then the talk shifted to the point of whether or not scavengers lived in the sand dunes.