Freedom's Ransom Part 6

Kris wasn't sure that explanation would sit well with two older-generation women who obviously adored their cousin.

'Don't fret, Kris. They're just so happy that I have a baby at all.' He kept them a little distance ahead of Dorothy, Cherry and Rose on their way to the creche and continued his low-voiced explanations. 'Leon says they'll improve here on Botany. Texas had a hard winter with more snow than usual and they hadn't any transport to get into the town when the community started. They didn't lack for much, but when they ran out of flour for bread, they put up a bonfire and attracted a rider who took Rose to town and then they were fine. Even had canned stuff to barter for flour.' He looked extremely proud of his relatives. Then he swung his chin in Dorothy's direction. 'They've always wanted me to marry, and they seem to like Dorothy.'

'She's easy to like, Chuck. Only we don't know whom Amy looks like. Neither you nor me.'

'She's pretty young to look like anyone but herself, ain't she?'

Kris was laughing then as she led them into the creche. Amy was in a playpen, lying on her back and whirling her arms in response to the babble of sound around her.

'Great Lord above, she's the spit of your mother, our cousin Mary,' Rose said, clasping her hands to her mouth in feminine shock. 'Why, just look at her hair, and the darling shape of her face. I remember one of the photos in the family alb.u.m.. and that child is Mary Mitford to the life! Oh, may I cuddle her, Kris?'

'Certainly,' Kris replied, delighted. Rose knew how, and Amy settled into her arms as if she'd always known them. Growing up as she had with many people attending her, she had never been shy. Few of the creche kids were. Even Maizie, whom the medics had once thought might be muted by the traumas she had lived through, now babbled away without inhibitions.

Cherry began to sniffle and gulp back tears. 'Oh, she's adorable, Chuck. How did you two ever manage to produce such a lovely girl child?' Then she, too, put hand to lips, widening her eyes in consternation at what she had blurted out.

'A happy match of compatible genes, I'd say,' Dorothy replied quickly. 'We've actually seen a lot of that since we started increasing Botany's indigenous population.'

Zane, who seemed to have a special antenna for his mother's presence, came bouncing into the infant section of the creche and pounced on her. So she introduced him to the Mitford cousins.

'This one looks so much like his dad,' she said, ruffling Zane's hair, 'that I'm relieved we've found how Amy got so pretty.'

'You're pretty, Mom,' Zane said loyally, daring anyone to defy him. 'Who does Amy look like?'

'Very much like Chuck's mother, G.o.d rest her soul,' said Rose, startled at the boy's question. 'Oh, we do have a very old photograph of Mary. One of the things you must rescue for us, Charles, the next time you're back on Earth.'

'In the parlour?' Chuck asked, watching her cuddling his daughter.

'Of course. In the breakfront. Lower cabinet, first on the left. Where else?'

'I should have looked there first, without having to be reminded,' Chuck said defensively. 'Look, I gotta get crackin' on the mission. You two are in safe hands here, in case I don't get to see you before I go off.'

'You be careful, Charles,' his oldest cousin said, shaking her finger at him.

'Don't worry about Chuck,' Kris replied, unable to restrain the urge. 'I'll protect him.'

'Yeah, you and who else?' Chuck demanded, halfway to the door, shooting her a droll look.

'You don't need more than my mom,' Zane responded defiantly.

'That's all too true, lad, all too true,' Chuck said with a final wave of his hand as he left.

'Would he be going into danger, Kris?' Rose asked timorously.

'No more than any of us,' Kris replied. 'Now, don't you fret, ladies. You are safe here and we're so glad that Chuck found you.'

After listening to the two cousins cataloguing his halfsister's graces, Zane returned to whatever game he had left when he'd heard his mother's voice.

'What a st.u.r.dy child he is,' Rose said. 'Oh, how can you leave such dear children?'

'Only because I have to,' Kris said. 'But knowing that you might look in on Amy will relieve me a great deal.'

'Of course we will. You may be sure of that.'

'Then, if you'll excuse me, I have some details to organize,' Kris said and, with a little bow, left them. She had to organize some notes for the evening's meeting, but first she had to find out some details and so she made her way to the library.

'Yo, Betty? What stack are you hiding under?' she called as she came through the front door.

'Betty's not here,' said Dr. Hessian. 'What can I help you find?'

Since the doctor's recovery from being brain-scanned by the Eosi, he had taken on extra hours at the library, helping to catalogue and shelve the rather bizarre collection of books they had liberated from Barevi.

'I need to know which countries on Terra produced coffee.'

'Now, that is an odd one. As it happens, I once did a survey of the coffee-producing countries. Brazil, of course, was the major producer. Coffee beans take a tropical climate, you know.'

s.n.a.t.c.hes of old television advertis.e.m.e.nts flashed through her mind.

'Which type? Arabica or robusta?' he asked.

'Coffee beans by any name.'

'There are, or should I say, were twenty-eight coffeeproducing countries. Asia, Africa, Indonesia, South America, the various islands in the Caribbean '

'Twenty-eight?' Kris breathed a sigh of relief. 'Thank goodness.'

'Why?' asked the doctor, mildly curious at her relief.

'Because there will be coffee beans somewhere that haven't been seized by the Catteni. They're addicted to coffee, you see.'

'Not quite, but I'm glad to know my errant memory could supply you with information. If you'll wait a moment, I'll just look up the encyclopaedia.'

'Not necessary right now, Doctor, but if you could bring the reference with you to the meeting tonight?'

'Yes, yes, of course.'

'It's the roasting that does it, you know,' he added in a helpful tone of voice. When she gave him a startled look, he expatiated. 'Raw coffee beans have to be stripped of the exterior fruit pulp, which makes a good animal feed, the beans dried and roasted before grinding, you know. The coffee bean is a drupe.'

She did remember about grinding, and the thought of freshly roasted and ground coffee made her inhale a deep breath, recalling just how good roasting beans smelled. Unforgettable as well as indescribable.

'Yes, yes, that isn't as important as knowing where to get more is.'

'Get more?'

'Ransom, Doctor, ransom!' she said and left on the echo of that cryptic remark.

She fortified herself by chanting 'twenty-eight' all the way back to the hangar, which was now as crammed full of busy folk as it had been empty earlier. She let herself into the office she usually shared with Zainal and plunked herself down at the first available station, flipping on the computer. She only needed to type a few lists. Like all twenty-eight countries and the major producers of finished coffee products.

What measure should they use in figuring worth? Would coffee beans be as valuable to the Catteni as gold? Hmmm. Imagine a scoop of freshly roasted beans being as valuable as a similar weight of gold? She chuckled to herself and began to type. 'There are twenty-eight coffeeproducing countries on Earth - in South America, Africa, Indonesia, Asia and various Caribbean islands, and they can't all have been ransacked by the Catteni.'

The noise of happy laughter made her look up and peer out of the open hangar door just as an air sled, crammed with young people, every one of them festooned with the limp bodies of rock squats, lurched by.

And how much were rock squats worth by the pound? The ounce? The individual critter? Had anyone ever opened a shop with such diverse commodities?

'A carton a carca.s.s?' The slogan slipped into her mind. Well, that would do until another crossed her mind.

Everyone turned out for the Council meeting. She had expected that much but she was delighted to see that even Mike Miller's miners and farmers from the northern reaches of the Retreat continent as well as Chief Materu from the south were present. As she hovered by the steps to the raised dais, she saw that Clune and Bazil were escorting Chief Materu and introducing him to others. She couldn't see Floss but she did spot Peran, Ditsy and Ferris.

Chuck came in with Dorothy on his arm, his two cousins right behind him, looking excessively proud of him. They had more colour in their faces this evening so she hoped they hadn't got too much sun, then reminded herself that they were from Texas and would know to be careful of too much sunning. Zainal arrived with Iri Bempechat, Yuri Palit and Walter Duxie, the mining engineer. Sev Balenquah followed them, and uncharitably Kris hoped no one would include him on this mission since he had so nearly jeopardized them all the last time. But he was a qualified pilot and had flown the KDLs. Some people just brought bad luck with them and he was one of those. Like Pig Pen, you could almost see the aura of dirt and dust surrounding him.

Zainal escorted Judge Iri Bempechat up the steps and held out the middle chair for him. The ever courteous judge waited until Chuck had seated Dorothy and for Chuck to return to his place by his cousins.

Immediately the chatter in the mess hall diminished. The new Botany s.p.a.ce Force additions filed in with Peter Easley, who gestured them to seats on the left before he came up to the dais. Kris took her usual end seat, nodding to the judge, who smiled sweetly back at her and took the gavel that he used for such meetings out of his pocket and put it conspicuously in front of him. Conversations went down yet another decibel and there was much sc.r.a.ping of chairs as people settled themselves. The last of the council members, Leon Dane, rushed in late as usual, as did Worrell, Beth Isbell and Sarah McDouall.

The judge gave his gavel an authoritative smack on the wooden block and silence prevailed.

'Since all council members are clearly present, 1 shall ask Chuck Mitford to report on his recent trip to Earth. And a special welcome to the Misses Mitford. Glad to have you here.'

The sisters twittered, somewhat embarra.s.sed by the official greeting, then both smiled happily up at the judge. Chuck took centre stage.

'I got good news and I got bad news, folks. The bad is that most of the spare parts we need desperately to get other systems up and running on Earth are stuck as loot at Barevi.

'The good news is that there is a powerful swing to "sharing" on our home world like nothing we've ever seen before. But then, we hadn't seen,' and he swivelled to nod apologetically to Zainal, 'Catteni either. Remember how the Red Cross and the other emergency units would go to disaster areas and sort things out? Well, of course you know we had disaster all over the world but that same sort of helpful, cooperative spirit got invoked.

'It started out with local communities banding together to help each other and discuss what was needed where. It's gone on to deciding where to spend effort and material to cause the greatest good for the greatest number of folk. I mean, guys and gals, it ain't like who should get more, but we all should get according to the need. The greatest help has been the Internet, mobile phones and, as usual, ham radio folk. The first thing that was done was to reinstate the power supply, and that meant instant communication and also the ability to send drastically needed supplies where they needed to go. And we're solving as many problems as possible in the districts where it's critical. I've never seen anything like it, even with the worst of the earthquakes or hurricanes, or forest fire disasters. It's like we all turned over a new leaf. All national boundaries are down. I don't say they'll stay down, because people take pride in what they are and where they come from, but I'd say there's been a real forward step that looks good for world relations.

'Which is why we gotta make sure communications are established in all parts. We got this magnificent opportunity to sink a lot of petty little differences, and I'd say Earth is going to succeed. It's an ill wind that blows no good.

'Sorry to spout off at you like that,' Chuck managed a self-indulgent grin, 'but we did something like that here on Botany, and what we learned here we can now translate to old Earth and see it putting the right foot forward.'

'But you need what the Barevis are sitting on, is that it, Chuck?' asked Mike Miller.

'Yeah, I did a recce, and it looks like the merchants are sitting on things they can't possibly use. As I'm sure everyone here knows,' and he threw one arm out in an expansive gesture, 'or should know, Zainal is mounting an expedition to Barevi to talk them out of stuff.' He unfurled a rolled paper that fell to the floor of the dais. 'This is Terra's shopping list.' Then he let another, much shorter one, loose. 'This is Botany's. Both are needed to make the necessary revival.'

'Talk isn't what Barevis buy,' someone yelled. 'So, who pays them?'

'We'd like to, since we have things the Catteni want,' Zainal said. 'Earth is going to contribute some of what it still has left in storage - things that my fellow planetarians didn't realize were important to them, or us. But to start the ball rolling, as you say, we have some Botanical a.s.sets that are readily saleable, but as they belong to all of us, I can't ask the Council to just give them to me. I need to have the consent of all of you.'

'Just how will these communications help us?' Bob Taglione said. 'Not that I'm against anything you want to do, Zainal, but if we are doing everyone good, what good do communications do us?'

'Good question, Bob,' Zainal said. 'I know many of you have families you'd like to hear from regularly. I don't say the mail service will be fast but it will exist. The invasion forces knocked out most of the large number of satellites that relay signals from one part of the globe to another. We could not only replace that vital net, but we could install one above Botany so that no matter where you were here, you could communicate to any part of Earth.'

There were appreciative catcalls, whistles and stompings for that possibility. 'You won't feel so isolated from family and friends any more.'

'I'll buy that!' Joe Marley yelled.

'Any chance of some of our families coming here?'

Zainal took a deep breath and, almost in unison, so did Kris. They'd discussed that imminent problem in Council. No firm decision had been made.

'There is a chance, certainly, Astrid.' The asker was one of Zainal's own team. 'It will depend on their needs and the availability of transport. But certainly some folks, like Chuck Mitford's cousins, would benefit by some months here on beautiful, scenic, do-it-yourself Botany, though I never thought we'd recommend this place as a holiday spot.'

'Didn't think you Catteni ever took holidays,' Leon Dane said facetiously.

'Living here is in its own way quite a change from what I'm accustomed to,' Zainal said with a wry grin. 'We will expect that any visitors are willing to put in hours for the general good of Botany or at their speciality if they have specific training we can use. And I can't think of anything we can't use here. Especially elbow grease?' He looked at Kris to see if he'd used the expression correctly, but his ingenuous remark provoked chuckles from many people.

To contain her pride in his response, she crossed her arms on her chest. Could he have been taking lessons from Peter Easley in public relations, or had he instinctively learned that much about how to mollify folks?

'Rose aims to help you, Bob, in cataloguing our indigenous plants while she recovers from a winter in Texas.' That got a laugh. 'She's a pharmacist, too, and Cherry wants to help Ole recover from nearly ripping his arm off.'

There were cheers and isolated instances of applause throughout the hall so that Cherry began to blush again and sink down in her chair.

'We've been making up a list of those specialities we could really use up here to balance our skill and technical pool, so we are open to suggestions, especially if you know where we can find such trained folk.' He pointed to the bulletin board. 'But to do all this, we need those satellites and bundles of mobile phones.'

'Lord, spare us!' someone cried out in consternation, and that provoked another laugh.

'I also need a good excuse to visit Barevi, and dealing with the merchants is one way of stretching out my time as long as I need it,' Zainal said in an ominous voice. 'The records of where the other slave s.h.i.+ps went are at Barevi, and I mean to uncover them.'

'So this trip is also a cover operation?' Walter Duxie asked.

Zainal gave a brief nod. 'But I can't go with empty pockets, and what edibles we can provide that might entice buyers would be useful.'

'Just how much are you talking about in terms of Botany's a.s.sets, Zainal?'

'Mike Miller? Will you report on what you brought for us to barter with?'

'You mean "ransom", don't you, Zainal?' d.i.c.k Aarens asked bluntly.

'Yes, that is perhaps the more appropriate word, d.i.c.k,' Zainal replied at his mildest, and there was restlessness from the audience.

Leave it to d.i.c.k, Kris thought, wis.h.i.+ng the man were not so much his own worst enemy.

Mike had to be encouraged by Zainal to stand up. 'I brought some of those gold nuggets we've been finding in the northern creeks - and don't any of you think you can come up and pan gold so easy. Ask any of my miners. Ask Duxie here. There ain't much of it at best and at worst, Botany ain't on a gold standard. We're on a work standard, which is much better for all concerned. I brought tin, lead, zinc, copper - but there's as much on deposit in what we are calling Fort Raps.' Another laugh at that sally. 'And a quant.i.ty of trace minerals. Nothing we don't have more of here and something we can certainly send to be used as barter. I don't know about you guys but I've friends back on Earth I'd sure like to send messages to now and then. That'd mean more to me than all the gold in Fort Knox.'

'Hear, hear!' was the supporting cry from the audience.

'How do we know what standard Barevi is working on?' someone demanded.

'Fair question,' d.i.c.k said.

'We're going to give them a little razzmatazz that they can't ignore,' Peter said, flicking one hand in the air as if this weren't a problem.

'I hardly think roast or raw rock squat is what they're looking for,' Aarens shot back.

'There's nothing on the list of what we have that can't be replaced with a little sweat and effort,' Mike Miller replied, annoyed by Aarens's obvious attempt to disparage Zainal's efforts.

'I find it odd that a Catteni is trying to bargain for us with his own species. Strikes me as collusion,' was Aarens's retort, and he included the miner in his angry glance.

'We'd still be under Catteni rule if Zainal hadn't intervened with that Kamiton,' Yuri Palit said angrily.