Freedom's Landing

First the girls retired to the second barn for the privacy of their evening baths in watering troughs. When they returned, straw was piled in outrageously high beds.

"Deep enough for you, Kris?" Zainal asked, sweeping a sort of bow towards her accommodation.

She made a big show of spreading her blanket and then hesitated, not sure how she would get on to it.

Zainal picked her up and, with a deftly controlled throw, deposited her, squealing in surprise, in the exact center of her "mattress' "Ohhhh,' and she drawled the exclamation as she wiggled her shoulders and hips deep into the soft mass.

"Heavenly."

"And I do not ask for your eye-teeth," Zainal said, stepping back to take a brief run to launch himself onto his bedpile.

"I wonder," Kris said as she settled down to sleep, "what the mechos will say when they find six piles of battered fodder in these barns.

"Probably check the programming of their mechs," Sarah said sleepily. She was the last to speak that night.

They made it back to Camp Rock late the next afternoon.

Kris and Zainal made their report to Worrell, who said Mitford was out inspecting the latest gadget to be put together from "all those spare parts you blokes keep finding'. Worrell was a balding chunky man, more barrel than leg, with a flushed complexion and many small red veins on his cheeks and chin. He had a habit of hitching his coverall, and the leather belt of worked rock-squat hide that circled it, as if he was afraid it would slip around his hips. Kris wondered if he had once had a beer belly, though he was thin enough now: an effect of being long aboard a Catteni transport ship.

"Anyone with any claim to mechanical skills has been drafted," he said, grinning and then, losing his grin, pointed to the empty stocks.

"That Aarens fellow's organized quite a production line at Slaughterhouse Five." Worry blinked at their exclamations. "Publicly we're calling it Camp Narrow for the narrow escape I hear some of your blokes had from a processing plant.

So," and Worry gave another hitch to his trousers before he motioned her and, just as politely, Zainal to take a stone seat.

These had been improved by a reed-woven cushion, probably filled with fluff seed: much more comfortable than plain stone. My, but I've become soft, Kris thought, wanting mattresses and cushions to put my sit-upon upon.

Although Worrell looked first at Kris, it was Zainal who gave the report in an English that was almost as unaccented as Kris's. He even managed the tinge of a drawl she was in the habit of using. She drew out her map and showed Worrell the distance they'd covered which drew an appreciative whistle from him - and the new garage locations.

He was particularly interested in the shoreline building.

"Think Mitford'll want that inspected and entered."

"Anything else exciting happen around here?" Kris asked, noting that the main camp did not seem as crowded as it had been when they left.

"Well, we've set up two more camps besides Camp Rock," and he grinned broadly at Kris who chuckled.

"Camp Shutdown's one of the garages you lot found on your last walkabout and Camp BellaVista's the other side which Cumber's patrol found," and he waved his hand to the east. "The miners've got living quarters in their adit, Ironclad."

"How many patrols have gone out?" Kris asked.

"At the moment, four others." Worry pulled a sheet from under a pretty agate used as a paperweight, checked that it was the one he wanted, before he showed Kris the small-scale map with its lines indicating patrol directions. "We'll know this place as well as the mechos do. "Is something burning?" Kris asked, aware of an acrid metallic stink in the breeze that was blowing across them in the office.

"Ah, yes, we got us a forge here, too. There's another one at Ironclad. Found us a real top-grade of iron ore, plus copper, zinc, tin, gold and bauxite." He winked at Kris with a grin on his face.

"You'll note how far down the list gold is. Any road, mines are over thataway," and he waved a hand northwards and then northeasterly.

"Got us two farriers, a wrought-iron fabricator and nine Fwelders.

We've screwdrivers, now, and screws, all kinds of other tools, nails and hooks; soon maybe even needles and pins and I dunno what all else.

Skillets, kettles and pots are being turned out of the sandpit daily.

Pretty good stuff considering we're back to re-inventing essential equipment." Kris grinned back at him, amused. "The mechs didn't mine any metals on the planet?"

"Nary a nugget, as far as we can see, and some of the ore was just lying around like they couldn't be bothered shovelling it up."

"So they bring in all their equipment," Zainal said thoughtfully, fingering his lower lip.

"Looks like. Leastwise we haven't found any garage or building or mine adit or anything suggesting the alloys they use in the mechos were indigenous. And oh my word, some of our engineers would give their eye-teeth (Zainal shot Kris a quick amused look) to know the composition of the alloys used for the chassis of those mechos." Worry whistled again.

Kris was wondering if this was an Antipodean habit - whistling for emphasis. Joe Marley was prone to whistle, too. Well, it made a nice change from swearing.