Freedom's Challenge (7 page)

“Let me help,” Kris said, rising to take the basket from one hand. She immediately exclaimed with real pleasure at the three long loaves of bread that stuck out around the stew pot. “Rocksquat…”

“What else?” Kurt said with a droll laugh, “but they put some salad in as well and something for young Zane.” He stepped up to the table now and placed on its surface the six large bottles of beer that had been tied at the neck and clanked against each other.

“Remnant of my student days when I found that beer made the studying go more easily.” He put the bottles down, and he shook his creased fingers to circulate blood to them.

First Kris brought three glasses to the table. They were still sort of odd shaped, with uneven blemishes from the not-quite-expert glass blowers. In fact, some said that the glasses, with their slightly skewed sides, looked half-drunk. A new guideline had been formulated: if a drinker was asked if his glass was straight and he answered “yes,” you had proof he had had more than enough to drink. She was setting out plates and utensils as Kurt started pulling out notepads and books from the various
pockets of his ship suit. It still looked new, by which Kris figured he must have been in the Sixth Drop. She didn't know that group of arrivals as well as she did those from the other five.

“What is the worst trouble you're having, Zainal?” Kurt asked as he made an orderly pile of his materials.

“It is the words that sound the same that are not the same,” Zainal said with considerable asperity.

“Quite understandably. They're bitches to get right at any age.” Then he turned to Kris. “I used to teach computer in junior high school before I got rounded up so Mitford thought I'd be the best candidate to do both jobs on Zainal,” Kurt said to her as he organized his teaching materials on the table. “And Zainal here,” and Kurt nodded at him, “said he'd teach me how to read and write Catteni.”

Now Zainal grinned at Kris and pointed to the third chair. “You will learn, too.”

Obediently Kris settled down. Leave it to Zainal to throw her a real curve ball. Oh, well, she had only herself to blame.

“You learn a lot better on an full stomach…and it gives you a base for the beer. Zane, please wash your hands for dinner,” she said, using hot pads to lift the stew kettle to the table.

The three males obediently went to wash their hands as she finished setting the table. Kurt must be well liked by the caterers for a whole cake had been carefully tied between two baking tins to keep it from being damaged by the hot stew pot. And so had a good portion of salad greens, though the heat from the stew had wilted some of them.

•   •   •

THEY MADE A GOOD MEAL, WITH ZAINAL beginning his part of the teaching bargain by using the Catteni words for everything on the table. Even Zane tried to
repeat them, giggling as easily at his own mistakes as at his mother's but had the good sense to cover his mouth when Kurt had trouble. Though Langsteiner certainly seemed to get the guttural sounds more easily.

“German was my first language,” he said in an aside to Kris.

“You'd never know it to hear you speak English,” she replied.

“My parents spoke both,” he explained.

“We really should make Zane learn Catteni, too,” Kris said, leaning toward Zainal.

“And Rugarian and Deski,” Zainal said at his blandest.

“Them, as well, of course,” was her quick, equally bland response, and Kurt laughed.

“And what a hodgepodge they'll all be speaking,” he said.

“It will be helpful,” Zainal said, “when we free Rugar and Deski, too.”

Kurt's eyes bulged at that, and he looked quickly at Kris to see her reaction.

“Why settle for freeing just ours?” she said with a diffident shrug though this was the first she'd known of
that
facet of Zainal's master plans. “Besides, Zane already speaks some Rugarian and Deski at day care.”

“Really?” Kurt was startled.

“Gets a bit like the Tower of Babel in there some days,” Kris said, dipping the ladle into the stew pot to offer second helpings. The pot had been graciously full.

They all had two pieces of the excellent nutty-flavored cake that had a topping of thick sweet blue-colored berries that did not at all taste like blueberries, or have similar seeds.

As was often the case with young Zane, he was ready to go to sleep with his stomach nicely full so Kris prepared him for bed while the two men cleared the table. When she returned, she rather thought the humorous glint
in Kurt's eyes was for the accustomed manner in which the Catteni had performed the KP duties.

The beer helped a great deal as the two Humans struggled with the guttural, harsh Catteni words, first jotting them down phonetically and then in the Catteni script. This was a cross between runes, Kurt's definition, and glyphs, which was Kris' notion. By the time the beer had run out, the two of them knew how to count to five hundred in Catteni, and Zainal could now spell all the words that had bothered him as well as understand all the computer abbreviations which had so baffled him. They set a time for the next lesson, and then Kurt got into the runabout and made a slow but competent turn to head back to the main settlement.

•   •   •

SINCE THE MIND-PROBE HAD DISCOVERED very little useful information—apart from some shady dealings among the former administrators and administrations of the planet's political divisions—the Ix had abandoned the project: bored even by the occasional scientific theories that had yet to be proven. Most of these were already in use by the Eosi: and far more sophisticated usage than the silly Humans had ever thought to employ.

Unfortunately the obsession to destroy those protected by the Bubble had become so entrenched in the Ix Mentat's mind that it thought of nothing but the means to do so. Where the Bubble had come from and what comprised the amazingly invulnerable material was almost a secondary consideration. The Juniors—which was not how they were called in Catteni but the translation was close enough to their actual position and authority within the Eosi context—had repeatedly tried to divert the Ix with other matters. Lest the Ix be provoked by their counter-arguments into another seizure, they had no choice but to proceed with the Mentat's latest plans: to
organize the greatest force the Eosi had ever assembled, even larger than the one with which they had assaulted a planet that many High Emassi wished they'd left strictly alone. But it had seemed such a useful place: with a population density that would provide other, less desirable locations with an endless supply of workers needed to produce and refine the raw materials that kept Catteni ships in space. There was also the added fact that the Eosi were committed to extending their control of this arm of the galaxy as far as they could—and as fast as they could.

So the orders were sent out to the naval shipyards and the plants and planets that produced the materials needed to build more AA-ships, and devise heavier, more devastating missiles to launch at this mysterious Bubble.

The Ix Mentat was approached by one of its peers and tactfully asked why one small, insignificant world was its target.

“Because it's there,” the Ix replied, glowering and seething with rage. “Because it defies us!”

“Defiance is not permitted,” the Le Mentat agreed and that was the end of that.

MARGE BECAME MORE VOCAL BUT STRUGGLED painfully for sentences or words and would often burst into tears. Peggy would watch her, lean over, and pat her shoulder or her hand, then immediately go into what Kris called her “meditative” state.

When discussing her charges with Dorothy, the psychologist advised her to suggest words, if she could, to Marge or show pictures. Peggy was obviously aware of what was happening about her, and that was a very good sign.

“Miss Barrow,” and Dorothy gave the mischievous smile that made her seem much younger, “wants to take charge of our laboratory. She is naturally appalled at its primitive facilities and amazed that we aren't all down with something fatal. Leon, Thor, and the others need her skills so much that they're willing to put up with her…disorientation.” Dorothy sighed. “Miss Barrow will not be pleased when she accepts that she's on another planet entirely and will never get more than the equipment we have.”

“I wouldn't bet on that, Dorothy,” Kris said with a grin.

“What do you know that they haven't told me?” Dorothy asked, eyeing Kris with mock annoyance.

“I'm not sure they've told me any more than you will have heard, too. Like they
are
going to try to get back to Earth.”

“They couldn't bring my shopping list with them, could they?” the psychologist asked in a wistful tone, then added more briskly, “I am encouraged, though. We're getting almost daily breakthroughs now. Though how we'll fit some of these people into Botany I haven't a clue. I mean, an astrophysicist who was on the Hubble team and a meteorologist when the weather here is already controlled—Do we even have a clue how that's done?”

“Zainal thinks that huge square block we discovered on the seashore has something to do with it. There are four others in sort of a pattern.”

“Any idea of
when
the Earth trip will take place?”

“We've a lot of studying to do first,” Kris said and rose, not wanting to spread more gossip, even to someone as discreet as Dorothy was, professionally or personally.

•   •   •

KRIS FOUND HER NAME UP ON THE ROSTER board for a late afternoon meeting with the Central Council. She checked in with the day care to be sure that the day's manager knew that she wouldn't be in to collect Zane at the usual hour. Sarah McDouall had already been informed. Zane did not notice his mother, since he was involved in some complicated game with Fek's child and two Rugarians whom Kris didn't know. The Rugarian babies were born with as much body fur as their parents, and it really was difficult for humans to tell them apart without going through the list of names until the yaya (which was Rugarian for the unadult) answered to the right one. A Deski young one was called a slib. Some of them were easier to identify since their skin had different tones.

Zainal caught up with her in the dining hall where they were both eating a quick meal.

“What's this all about then?” she asked him.

“Plans have been made. Discussion now.”

She knew him well enough to know that she would get no more out of him. Then she noticed Miss Barrow threading her way to an empty table. She wore a look of disdain, as if wrapping herself carefully away from the reality of an ambience she could not escape. Unlike everyone else garbed in the ubiquitous ship suit, she wore a dress, severely cut, in one of the dark greens, which Kris had brought back from her excursion to the markets of Barevi. The dress was long-sleeved and buttoned up to a high collar, with a hemline at calf-length. To Kris' astonishment, Miss Barrow did incline her head graciously as she registered Kris' presence, but she straightened into consummate distaste as she recognized that Kris was seated with a Catteni. She turned her face haughtily away.

“Poor woman,” Kris said, shaking her head.

“Why? She was saved the mines.”

“One day, she'll find out. I hope,” Kris added as an afterthought, “the notion that she is beholden to you doesn't throw her.”

“She is good in lab, they say,” Zainal remarked.

“So she is. We'd better go.”

Kris saw the biggest of the flatbed vehicles draw up to the dining hall and heard it toot its horn. Half the diners immediately made their way to the door and climbed on the transport.

•   •   •

THEY WERE DELIVERED TO THE IMMENSE main hangar where the scout ship and the two transports lurked in the shadows cast by the one work light left on in their area. Not for the first time, Kris wondered what
the Farmers had used this vast area for, so neatly carved from the mountainside.

In the center of some of the unused space, chairs and benches had been set up, facing five large mounted slates that were still the best Botany solution for large displays. She could see that one held the diagram of this system and another of Earth. The other two were probably the systems in which the Barevi planet and the home planet of the Catteni were situated. The fifth held lists and names.

So, thought Kris with a surge of anticipation, we are moving outside again.

There was a table to one side of the slates with chairs crowding around it. Judge Iri Bempechat was seated in the center and was obviously the moderator for the meeting. Kris liked the old man enormously for his wit, his humor, and his vast store of judicial wisdom. So far no one had contested any of his decisions and she hoped the situation would remain that way. On his right was Ray Scott, on his left two men who were vaguely familiar to her: they also had the gaunt look of Victims despite two weeks of restorative treatment and therapy. Even those who had played “doggo” showed the effects of their incarceration in the brutal open pens where the Eosi had contained them. Dorothy Dwardie sat beyond those two men. The rest of the Council, from Chuck Mitford to Leon Dane, occupied the other spaces. Raisha and Gino sat together, trying to look unconcerned and anonymous at the end of the right side.

Two seats were still unoccupied and, as Kris and Zainal entered, he gave his head a slight tilt toward the table, indicating those chairs were for them. Kris was quite glad to join him there. That gave her a chance to see who else had been invited. Mostly those who were technically skilled in one way or another, including Dick Aarens, and a great many of those who had been in the Fifth and Sixth Drops.

Well, she thought, we won't have to contend with Anna Bollinger and Janet.

Ray stood up and whatever private conversations had been going ceased.

“Zainal has proposed several plans of action since we cannot be sure that the Farmers will answer our latest message to them, nor when. We've been fortunate enough to have the latest information of Earth from those we rescued from the Barevi slave pens. Zainal?” Ray sat down and Zainal stood, going to the slates.