Freedom's Challenge (10 page)

“It's got so even the sight of a Catteni transport sends everyone into hiding,” Ricky said. He had volunteered to go to Chicago where many were now living in the old underground sewer and transport system, which had been constructed in the 1800s and had been virtually forgotten.

Leila Massuri and Basil Whitby had volunteered to go to London and Paris. The Chunnel had not been finished or opened up but it was completely dug from shore to shore and had provided a means of getting to and from the continent. Boris and Raisha would pilot the scout and see what they could find in their homeland, Russia. Bull Fetterman, Mic Rowland, Lenny Doyle, and Nat Baxter completed the Baby's crew. Bert Put and Laughrey would pilot the KDM, with Lex Kariatin, Will Seissmann, Joe Latore, Vic Yowell, Ole, Sandy Areson, and Matt Su as crew while John Beverly was de facto captain. They hoped to have all four decks full of refugees on the way back. And at least some of the machinery, tools, and equipment on the wish lists.

Zainal, Gino Marrucci as backup pilot, Kris, Chuck Mitford, Coo, Pess, Mack Dargle, Ninety Doyle, and Jim Rastancil were those going on the KDL to Catten.

IT WAS AS WELL THAT BOTANY DAYS were so long because every minute was needed as engineering groups under Peter Snyder—with Dick Aarens working as hard as anyone else despite a sour mood as he took exception to everything and argued any alterations—checked and provisioned the ships.

“If he comes into the infirmary with a wrench-shaped wound on his head…” Pete muttered to Thor Mayock at breakfast.

“I won't give him any painkillers when I stitch it up,” Thor finished for him. “You look ghastly.”

“Ha! Speak for yourself.”

Worrell was everywhere, living up to his nickname of Worry, checking lists and trying to supply whatever he could to take back as care packages. Beth Isbell and Sally Stoffers were his shadows, discreetly double-checking since every one was working flat out to accomplish the necessary miracles.

To be sure of accuracy in the configurations, five people checked out the trajectory and time of the thirty-hour
orbit of the second world-circling Eosian satellite and several windows were discovered: Bert chose the south polar ones that he felt gave both the scout ship and the KDM the longest escape shot. The first propitious window left little time, but both KDM and Baby were ready, so the crews scrambled aboard. Weary but satisfied teams cheered as they took off. Following the example that had worked with the return procedure of the first Barevi raid, they made all possible speed to the Bubble, slowed and pressed prows through at minimum thrust. The scout went first, just in case, and gave the KDM the all-clear. After that they were lost to those watching. Nor could any message be sent back to reassure those on Botany.

Zainal, Ray Scott, Pete Easley, and Judge Iri spent hours trying to work out, from copies of Baby's records, a plausible mission that would explain where Zainal and his ship had been before they returned to Catten. Zainal couldn't remember if any of the earliest of the K class had gone missing, although that was likely enough. They were used for large crew explorations of habitable planets, for mining expeditions and supply runs. But the clever damage to the hull would explain a space collision. Pete Snyder got Aarens challenged by the need for a fault that would appear to have disabled the engine. A small part, actually, which as everyone knew, was the kind that could be easily overlooked in a servicing and yet cause considerable problems when it malfunctioned. A bogus part for the gyro was constructed, using imperfect metals to account for its sudden collapse. Aarens was very pleased with his handiwork and received generous praise. His basic need for constant appreciation was wearing on those who had to work with him. But, as they all said, he produced when the chips were down.

Then Aarens redeemed himself once again, by pointing out that the boards in the bridge helm positions were the same. Everything salvageable from the crashed ship
had been saved: just in case some unexpected use could be made of the parts. As it turned out, even the unusable pieces had been stacked at the back of a cave. Zainal went through the worst damaged, scorched boards and chose several which, when they reached Catten, he would substitute for the usable ones, thus confirming the substantial damage which had delayed their return. These and the malfunctioning gyro unit would be sufficient.

“They will not let us dock at the space station with such damage,” he said, waving the scorched boards about. “They'll shunt us to the surface, to a small emergency field until they can send technicians to inspect. But we need some sort of cargo. A ship picking up materials from a mining center…”

“Duxie's prospectors have mined more gold than we need,” was one of Judge Iri's suggestions.

“Platinum, too,” Ray put in.

“Those are good,” Zainal said. “Any other rare metals? Even a crate or two of raw ore would be useful. Rhenium, any of the platinum group. We'll say we had to leave cargo behind to lift with such a damaged ship. The gyro went first, we were in a meteor shower…took us a long time to jury-rig the boards. I think that's a suitable scenario,” and he grinned slyly at Kris for that latest addition to his ever-expanding English vocabulary. “Good Drassi bringing home what they can. And I can raise such a fuss over the shoddy manufacture that delayed us that I shall be sent from one office to another with my complaints, and that's how I'll learn what I need to know. Make loud accusations of poor servicing and second-rate materials.”

“Is Catten so bureaucratic, too?” asked Ray with a frown.

“Only the Eosi cut corners.”

“You're sure you can carry this impersonation off?” Judge Iri was clearly worried.

Zainal shrugged. “Why not? Who but a Catteni ship would go to Catten? It is not a comfortable place to be,” and he glanced over at his volunteers, chosen as much because they were all sturdily built and would be able to manage the heavier gravity of Catten. Kris wasn't so sure about her own ability but nothing would have kept her from going along, even if she had to remain in the artificially lower gravity of the ship the entire time. She now had enough Catten to answer any communications the ship might be sent.

“We have been away a long time, whoever we are,” Zainal said with a little sly grin, “so it doesn't matter that we have landed and changed the ID. Who will know?”

“How fast does your paint dry?” asked Ninety facetiously.

They still had the uniforms that had been tailored to fit the first Barevi raid but Sandy Areson had some new artifices to contribute. First, she'd an awful-smelling mixture that bleached their hair a dingy gray. One of the recovering Victims was a skilled optician (though he never did explain what he had done on Earth that would have caused him to be victimized by the Eosi). When he realized that gray hair and skin would not entirely present the team as Catteni, he finally managed to produce yellow contact lenses, cursing the need to improvise, since he had not considered his first attempt to be successful. But he managed.

“You'll have to take them out and wash them every day,” Riz Kamei said, unhappy with that necessity. “No plastics here at all.”

“Yet…” one of his helpers said with a grin.

“Whatever,” and Riz flicked his long fingers irritably, “but the lenses will do what's necessary.” Then he shook his head as if he found even the requirement of yellow as an eye color an offense.

He showed them all how to put them in, how to clean
them in a solution he provided, again muttering about insufficient supplies until everyone really did wonder what his Earth side job had been. He did however allow himself a slight smile of approval when the contacts were in place.

Kris had never considered herself especially vain, but she had had a brief flush of dismay when her hair had not only been clipped very short on her head but bleached such a hideous gray. Now, with the yellow eye lenses, she looked so much like a Catteni, she was almost nauseated.

“You're still much too pretty to be a typical Catten broad,” Ninety Doyle remarked. He added a smile that, with his yellowed teeth and dyed skin, made him look all too much like other Drassi they'd seen in the Barevi markets.

She gave a shudder of repulsion. “You look awful, Ninety. Lenny would disown you.”

“Lenny's mad enough he couldn't come along,” Ninety said, closely examining his gray complected face. Their Botany suntans also helped approximate a Catteni gray skin. Sandy had said both body paint and hair dye would last about two or three weeks, depending on how often they bathed.

“Yeah, but Lenny's closer to a Guinness than I am,” Ninety said gloomily.

Looking around, Kris remembered that the Catteni who had crewed Baby hadn't washed at all, remembering the stench in their quarters.

“If there is any Guinness left, Ricky Farmer wasn't so sure about that. But I'm sure he'll bring you back a bottle,” Kris said, meaning to console.

“Bottle?” Ninety roared in dismay, as if she had uttered an unforgivable blasphemy.

“Can?”

“What'd you bet he frees the last vat in Dublin?” Mack Dargle said.

“I never bet on sure things,” Kris said, grinning.

“They gotta get your teeth yellower, Kris. That smile's a giveaway.”

“And not a tube of Colgate to whiten my teeth anywhere on this planet,” she said in wistful retort.

“They may bring some back, you know,” Mack Dargle said, taking the mirror from Doyle so he could inspect himself and did a good comic double take. “My own mother wouldn't recognize me.”

“Just so long as a Catten wife doesn't,” Ninety said.

Mack shuddered. “I saw some of those crew-women. No thank you. I'd sooner wrestle with a crocodile.”

•   •   •

THE PREPARATIONS FOR THIS FORAY INTO enemy territory were finally complete. The window was a nighttime polar one so Kris hurried into the day care where Zane was sleeping, for one last look.

Zainal came to join her, resting his big hands sympathetically on her arms.

“He's a fine strong lad. He'll do well here,” he said into her ear and pressed his face against her cheek in his special display of affection.

A noise made them both turn to the doorway and there was Pete Easley, a slightly droll smile on his face.

“I drew night duty,” he said, though all three knew he had probably done so on purpose. “He'll be fine. Don't worry about him.”

“We won't,” Zainal said with a nod of his head and with one arm still on Kris', led her out of the room. Both stopped at the threshold for one more look at the sleeping child.

Kris tried not to, but she sniffed all the way to the hangar and had to blot her eyes twice. She hadn't thought—in all the fuss and furor of these preparations—that she would experience the same anguish at leaving him as she had on their first expedition to Barevi.

“Zane
will
be all right with Easley,” Zainal murmured as he lifted her down from the flatbed that had brought them to the now-battered and space-worn KDL awaiting them outside the hangar.

The Judge, Ray Scott, Worry, Pete Snyder, Jay and Patti Sue Greene, and even Aarens were there to wish them a safe journey. Worry was even bold enough to clasp Kris in a bear hug. The judge kissed her hand and then both cheeks. If Ray Scott only shook her hand hard and warmly, Patti Sue was openly weeping as she hugged Kris tightly, murmuring over and over, “I'll never forget you, buddy, I'll never forget you.”

“I'll hold you to that,” Kris said, feeling as she might weep like Patti and, ignoring whatever protocol to board there might have been, she scrambled up the steps into the KDL. Everyone else followed, with Chuck Mitford growling how he hated farewells.

•   •   •

ZAINAL INDICATED THAT GINO SHOULD DO THE honors on the takeoff, while he punched the final bits and pieces of their “delayed return story” into the ship's log. He grinned with unusual good humor when the log acknowledged the entries. There were enough computer hackers to have made it a proper job “as long,” they teased Zainal, “as his Catteni was okay.” They had even coded into the log appropriate star chart coordinates. If, that is, any one would dare question the report of Emassi Venlik, Zainal's new alias.

“He lived once. Died badly, and only I know where” was all Zainal would say of the man whose identity he was assuming.

“Was he a chosen?” Chuck asked.

Zainal gave a quick shake of his head. His next word startled everyone. “Schkelk!”

Chuck was the first one to fall into the stance of an alert Drassi, with Kris a second later before Mack and
Ninety suddenly realized what had been said: “Listen.” Even Coo and Pess straightened from their usual languid positions.

Distinctly and slowly enough for them to understand, he gave orders for the ship to take off and the course it was to assume as soon as it had lifted from the ground.

“Emassi!” was the appropriate reply said in crisp unison and then each went to the duty station they had been assigned.

Coo and Pess buckled into the two drops seats that had been placed on the bridge for their use in takeoff and landing.

Zainal never spoke another word of English during the entire eight-day voyage. Neither did they after one of Zainal's thumps, and Kris was no exception—though she didn't think he whacked her as hard as he did Gino, Chuck, Mack, or Ninety. But it sure reminded her to keep in her part.

The yellow lenses irritated Mack's eyes. Riz had mentioned that someone might have trouble and sent along eyewash, with the recommendation to keep the contacts in for short periods, lengthening the time each day to allow the eyeball to adjust. By the time they were orbiting Catten, he could keep them in most of the day.

Seen from outer space, Catten was a lovely planet! Almost as beautiful as the pictures of Earth sent back from space by Russian and American astronauts. There were larger landmasses but inland lakes the size of seas and several enormous rivers to judge by the width of them. It was also remarkably green, which caused a good deal of surprise.