Freedom's Landing Part 33

"Not speedy, but they sure do manoeuvre the obstacles," Lenny told her at noontime. "Some of these lads are really clever," he went on enthusiastically. "They figured out how to short circuit, or whatever it is you do with programming chits . .

"Chips, then, how to keep the versatility but give control to the driver. Clev-ver!"

"Indeed."

"They don't have much speed which the lads are still trying to improve "Personally, I'd rather not ride over this landscape at speed," Kris said.

Lenny just grinned. "You've never done it." Kris went back to debriefing, but was called over to help Mitford and his aides figure out where best to place the remaining recruits.

"How long does it take a person to become the "indigenous personnel"?" she asked Mitford at one point. She was finding it necessary to s.h.i.+ft position a lot to ease her soreness. But it had been worth it. Zainal smiled a lot today as he went from one group of aliens to another.

"Huh? Oh," and Mitford grinned, leaning back to stretch his arms and ease his shoulder muscles. "Here, let's just say until they have to help a new batch in-flow. Say, tell me about this seaside building your patrol found?"

"There's not much to tell. It was closed up tight even though Zainal tried every which way to get inside. Maybe the fish aren't running."

"I do like sea food. Like clam chowder, too," and Mitford for once sounded a little wistful. Kris was rather pleased that she was audience to that mood.

"With one of those air-cus.h.i.+ons, we could start at dawn and be back by nightfall with a sack of clams," Kris suggested.

"You could at that. If Dowdall hadn't interrupted just then, Kris was sure they might have been given a go-ahead on such a luxury run.

But the vehicles were more urgently needed for other tasks.

On the third day, she, Zainal, Joe and Sarah escorted an air-cus.h.i.+on car, carrying some of the less able recruits on their way to BellaVista via the Rock. Worry greeted Zainal and the others effusively from his office.

"Your patrol needs to hunt for us," he told them, "and you're to break in some of a mixed bag of the new blokes and sheilas. The Rock's going to be Supply Depot for meats and green groceries.

"Mixed bag?" Kris asked.

34' "Too right, since you've got Zainal and he can speak Deski, Rugarian and Turs."

"Oh, that kind of mixed bag," Kris said. If they had Turs to train, Zainal was the right teacher.

"We also need you on short day-trips," Worry said more confidentially to Kris. "In case of you know what?" And he tilted his chin skyward.

"Oh, in case we get surveyed again," Kris said, looking at Zainal who now sported a comunit.

Mitford expected to be back at the Rock the next day but he'd had a private word with Kris.

"Keep pretty close to Zainal, will you, Kris?"

"Why?" she'd asked, glaring at Mitford.

"I don't want to lose our most valuable alien a.s.set. "You won't lose him."

"Not by his choice, I don't think," and Mitford gave Kris a searching look which she returned without a blush.

He nodded, as if he knew more than he would conirnit to words.

"He's ema.s.si and can deal with Eosi . . . I guess they permit ema.s.si Catteni to speak to them. We might need him badly to deal, for us, with these Eosi.

That is, if one of them ever does see a report on this planet."

"Zainal is sure they'll send some sort of ema.s.si, higher in rank than he is. Eventually," and then Kris realized she'd rea.s.sured the sergeant on the very point that concerned him.

"There's a lot more going on, on Earth, on Barevi and Catten, than any of us knew," he went on.

"That's for darnn sure," Kris said.

"Just so's you know I'm counting on you, Bjornsen." She gave the sergeant a level look, noticing the new lines around his eyes, the muddy look in the pupils from the many problems he was dealing with.

"You can count on me, Sergeant, she said and this time, she did give him a formal salute.

He grinned as he returned it.

They were still bunked in the Mitchelstown cave and the possessions they had left behind were untouched. Fresh coveralls and pairs of boots had been added to each shelf.

Seeing these, Kris and Sarah voted on a dip in the lake so they could wash themselves and their coveralls, since they now had fresh ones to wear. Not that the coveralls showed any of the hard usage they'd been given over the past five weeks.

A youngster, not one of the rookies, caught them before they left their quarters.

"Kris Bjornsen?" he asked, looking from Kris to Sarah.

"Yes," Kris said.

"Dr Dane wants you to come speak to him. When you can. It's not urgent, he said."

"Tell him we got his message and will see him shortly.

And what's your name?"

"I'm Buzz," and the boy grinned to show two missing front teeth, "because I buzz abojit the place like a hornet.

Mom says I'm too noisy to be a bee and there aren't bees on Botany anyway. My real name's Parker but I don't like it at all."

"Buzz is a grand name for an active boy like you," Kris said and smiled back at him. "See you around."

"You will," he answered cheerfully over one shoulder, already "buzzing' off.

Leon wanted to report on some of the findings now that he had test kits. The information would be invaluable to any hunting party since Leon and his a.s.sistants had been able to identify other nutritionally rich plants, berries and nuts.

"We've put some of the younger members of the Rock out looking for these," and he tapped the nut-like sh.e.l.ls.

"I've seen them in quant.i.ties around here. And these berries are rich in C and A." He pointed to some of the green globes that Joe had thought might be digestible.

"We're trying to dry them for storage. I know you hunter types would prefer to go for the meat but these can be just as important to a properly balanced diet."

"Can we see Coo?" asked Kris.

"If you can catch him," Leon said drily. "That stuff was magical on all the Deskis. I'm keeping a real close watch on Murn, the female.

Even Pess is back on duty.

Thanks, Zainal." And Leon gave him a comradely clap on the arm.

"You saved their lives, you know." Zainal merely flicked his eyebrows up but Kris had a sense that he was not as diffident as he appeared.

Leon was obviously of the same mind.

The Rock was full again. That seemed as it should be to Kris.

Furthermore, many more of the indigenous personnel waved or smiled at Zainal when they met him.

They hunted the next day, returning home laden with rock-squats and another loo-cow, since Bart and Pete in the Cheddar wanted to roast one whole to show the rookies that it could be done and that the meat was tasty.

They hunted the next two days, in different directions, and spent part of the day picking the nuts and stripping the branches of every berry-shrub they located.

"We'd've had more," Sarah said with a jaundiced glare at Joe Marley, "if more had actually landed up in the sack!" Joe merely raised his eyes in innocent surprise. Oskar guffawed aloud as he handed over a heavier sack than Joe's.

They did not hunt the next day, although that was the plan. Just past third moonrise a sentry excitedly stamped into Mitchelstown cave and called out Zainal's name.

"Yes?"

"You gotta come. Something's about to land. Not as big as the others but big enough," and with that, the man ran out.

"Wake Worrell," Zainal called after him.

"That's where I'm going," the man cried over his shoulder and was told to keep his b.l.o.o.d.y voice down as he proceeded down the corridor to Worry's quarters.

"All come," Zainal said, pus.h.i.+ng his large feet into his boots.

The sentry's arrival had awakened everyone but they hadn't moved to dress. Now they did. In a hurry. But when Joe and Oskar reached for their spears, Zainal stopped them.

"No use against Catteni hand-weapons and shows bad faith," he said.

"Who do you think it is, Zainal?" Joe asked before Kris could.

"Catteni. And early even for them." It was two-moon time, so the night was bright with them, and clear. When they went up to the height with Worrell in tow, they could see the approach of the s.h.i.+p, its running lights twinkling.

"Small, fast s.h.i.+p," Zainal said. "It is heading for that field, I think," and he pointed to what was the nearest expanse, a twenty-minute hike from the Rock.

"They know where we are?" Worry sounded upset.

"Life-form readings," Zainal said succinctly. "They an effort to relax completely as he listened to what know where transport landed. The Rock shows many people."

"Not dumb. Well, these Catteni at least," Worry said and started down from the heights. "No offence intended, Zainal."

"None taken," was the easy answer.

"Maybe we should let them wait long enough to discover the scavengers?" Joe suggested slyly.

Zainal only grunted but Kris thought the notion held a certain charm for him as well. So it wasn't surprising when Zainal neatly sling-shot a rock-squat fast asleep on a boulder and hauled it along with them as they traversed the rocky hillside.

The craft had landed long before they reached it. An open portal spilled light onto the stubble of the field.

Light didn't attract scavengers: it repelled them. Just outside the illuminated area, Zainal casually dropped the rock-squat.

"How long does it usually take?" Joe muttered.

"Longer near light," Zainal said and continued on his way to the s.h.i.+p.

It was a sleek one, Kris saw, and looked like it was meant for speed and manoeuvrability with its swept back wings and tapered nose.

But it was a large affair, not as big as the Challenger had been nor the Enterprise, but a fair size - three, four times the height of Zainal and about as long as a Boeing 727 but much wider.

Zainal halted right in front of the door and cracked out sharp Catteni words.

Instantly three Catteni filled the doorway, one of them striding down the ramp towards Zainal. Watching his face, Kris saw his eyes widen for an instant, in surprise, she thought, and his right hand, which she could see, briefly clenched into a fist. Then he seemed to make was said.

"My report cause trouble," he said to the others in a brief aside before spitting out more Catteni phrases.

The officer, for that's what Kris decided he was, was of high rank, to judge by the excellent fit of his tunic and the complexity of insignia on his collar and cuff.

Zainal didn't seem in awe of him, or even respectful, unless Cattenis always snapped at each other: sort of like the English who are scrupulously polite to people they do not like and continually insult their intimate friends.

The Catteni language sounded as if it was composed of growls, grunts, gutturals and fricatives, without a single mellowing vowel.

However, it might only sound vicious.

You'd think the Chinese were cursing each other until they smiled and bowed so politely "There is other trouble," Zainal said after a spate of raw staccato noise. "With Terrans and with Eosi." Now he grinned malevolently . . . at least his mouth looked malevolent in proffle.

"And " Worry prompted.

"I am drop. I stay drop. He say it is duty to come. I say I drop, I stay. His loss, your gain." Then he turned his grin on Worry, and Kris thought his look was as mischievous as if he was holding some kind of a royal flush in his hand in a high stakes poker game.

"Ughh," Sarah said suddenly, moving closer to Joe.

Zainal looked over his shoulder and so did Kris, so they both saw the first tentacular strands of a scavenger feeling its way out of the ground to encircle the dead rock-squat.

Zainal said something and stepped aside for the captain to see.

Although the tentacles seemed to avoid the lighted area of the body, they gleamed slimily in the shadows.

Strips of the squat animal noticeably disappeared at an ever increasing rate as the scavenger decided its victim was tasty.

Then Zainal held out his comunit, pointing to various elements of it, patently displaying irrefutable evidence of alien artefacts that had been recycled. That elicited a surprised exclamation from the captain and the other two Catteni who bent closer to see the device.

For one moment, Kris was afraid Zainal would let them have it.