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.
Zainal gave a "that's impossible' sort of hitch of his shoulder.
The captain said something else, more briskly now, waving at his two subordinates who moved off into the body of the ship. With a very respectful salute to Zainal, and a crisp but equally respectful bow to Kris, the captain stepped back into the ship and the portal slid shut, putting them in a darkness lit only by the one remaining moon in the sky.
"Hey, couldn't they leave the lights on until we got safely off this field?" Sarah cried.
"Stamp as you go," Zainal said, turning and trotting away from the ship, coming down hard every third step.
"You'll tell us what we couldn't understand?" Worry asked, trying to pace Zainal but his shorter legs were unequal to it.
"I will." They were safely away from the ship when it raised vertically, as the transport had done, and then gathered speed in an ascent angle.
"VTOL! Wow!" Joe said. "Do all your ships have that capacity, Zainal?" He mimed the action.
"The ones that land, yes. Biggest, stay above," Zainal replied and continued on.
Stamping, even every third or fourth step, jarred her tired body, but every time Kris felt herself slacking off, she thought of the slimy look to the scavengers' tentacles or feelers and that reinforced her step. They reached stony footing and, as one, leaned against the safety of the nearest rock.
"That last bit he said, before you socked him," Kris asked firmly.
"Socked him?" Zainal asked.
He wasn't temporizing because she realized "hitting' and its synonyms might not yet have come up m conversation. She demonstrated.
"In Catten women lead only other women," Zainal said.
"But special…ah, rank of women do command even Emassi."
"Why did you hit him?" Zainal's lips curled in a snarl before he answered. "He put a bad name on you. A wrong name."
"Thanks, but didn't you take a chance? They might have shot us because you hit their leader. That sort of thing got you in trouble before, you know." Zainal grinned, pressing his thumb against his chest.
"The trouble is mine. I do not "sock" to kill so the others do not fire. They only…how do you say…" and he crouched, reacting with his hand standing for, the weapon.
"Reflex action?" Joe suggested.
"Hmmm," Zainal said although he had not quite understood the tem.
"Let's leave the subject of Kris's honour aside," Worry said.
"Why did you want these?" He was unfolding the sheets. "Can't even see what they show in the dark."
"Maps of this planet from space to tell us where we are.
Where to go. Where…" and now he paused, frowning, unable to find words to use, "where biggest garage is."
"Really? Had your blokes found it?" He shook his head. "Show where metal is. A very oh, funny?
No, not funny." He struggled, turning to Kris to help him out.
"An anomaly?"
"How in hell would he understand "anomaly"?" Worry asked.
"Oh, hush, I'll explain it. An anomaly is something that should not be where it is. A deviation from the normal. A queer difference."
"Ah, yes." Zainal became quite agitated. "That is it.
More metal than good to be there. Many places. Lots of metal.
Not right metal. Anomaly…hmmm," and he almost tasted the word.
"Something that is different."
"They didn't want to give you these maps?" Sarah asked, also trying to discern details from the print-out.
"No."
"They wanted you to go with them, didn't they?" Kris asked pointedly.
"Yes, they said all was OK', and his grin was broad with malice, "to come home. More than one day. Catteni drop me here. I stay here.
They cannot make one rule for me, because I am useful to them, and one for other Catteni."
"Man's got a sense of honour, so he has," Joe said in mild surprise.
"Why not?" Kris snapped back.
"Why not indeed," Joe said in a placatory fashion.
"Why didn't you go, when, you could? What was the duty they want you for?"
"Emassi duty," and Zainal's voice turned inflexible.
"Too late for that duty now. Once I wanted that duty. Not now.
Much has happened. They drop me. I stay drop."
"Dropped," Kris said automatically.
"Dropped. Funny language, English."
"You're not the first to think so." "Nor will I be last," and he grinned in the night at her.
"So," Worry said, "they wanted you for a duty you no longer feel, you need do?"
"Right. No-one believes what I told transport men about mecho makers."
"So that's why you showed him the comunit," Sarah carried on, "because he knows what supplies came with us and that certainly wasn't included."
"Right," Zainal said.
"So you showed him and now they will have to believe you," Sarah went on, "but why wouldn't they believe you?"
"I dropped," and he emphasized the final d of the past tense.
"So now what?" Kris asked, worried.
"We wait. We see."
"And if the Eosi come before the mechos' makers?" "Not Eosi but someone higher than "Zainal jerked his thumb upwards indicating the late captain. "We wait.
We see."
"I don't like this," Worry said. Then the comunit he wore at his belt bleeped, a curious intrusion in the night.
"Worrell here…Oh, Mitford. Yes, Zainal did make contact with the spacecraft. Here," and Worry handed the unit to Zainal. "He shoulda called on yours." The conversation was one-sided but since everyone listening knew what had happened from Zainal's point of view, some of his responses were amusing, though possibly not on Mitford's end, or in the middle of a cold night - and Kris was beginning to feel the chill in the air. Finally Zainal gave a series of "OKs' in response to Mitford's instructions, depressed the "off' button and passed the device back to Worry.
"He knows. We know. We say nothing," Zainal informed them.
"Say nothing?" Worry exclaimed. "The whole camp got wakened by that damned sentry rousing you and then me.
They'll demand to know.
Zainal shrugged and struck off up the next tier of rock.
"False alarm, that's what we'll tell them. It was a false alarm.
Ship just flew over," Worry went on.
"Wrong time of night to overfly anything," Joe suggested, climbing behind Worry. "Moons went down early."
"Nonsense," Kris said firmly as she followed Joe, Worry and Zainal. "We tell the truth, or how will they trust us?"
"Good point," Sarah said, starting up. "We want to build trust, not destroy it."
"Say nothing," Zainal called down to them. "Smile and say nothing. Sarge will tell them what they need to know." "He's got a point there," Worry said.
"One thing puzzles me," Joe said, spacing out words as he climbed, "why your survey didn't tumble to the fact that this world - well, this continent at least - is all carved up into neat fields? Surely they must have seen the anomaly in that…a clear indication that this planet was, had been, cultivated?" Zainal answered. "Loo-cows and rock-squats not smart so planet is not occupied! They do not "see" the machinery." He added a plainly derogatory phrase in the harsh Catteni.
Then they all had to save their breath for climbing.
When they reached the Rock, only the sentries were awake, as they should be, and Worry brushed off their questions with a "Nothing to worry about. Tell you in the morning, I'm bushed."
Chapter Thirteen
Mitford arrived the next morning in a refitted tractor which had been altered to carry six passengers. Mitford had with him the two NASA mission specialists, both of whom, he said, had had training in discerning planetary features from space. Kris, Zainal and the others had breakfasted and were well prepared for a Mitford debriefing. The MSs - a man and a woman with really nothing to distinguish them from anyone else except that they had been in space - took charge of the maps at one end of Mitford's desk which Worry had hastily surrendered to the sergeant.