by neetha Napew
“He’s been in the stocks four times for peeping and twice for stealing.”
“Stealing what?”
“Food! Extra blankets, a sharper knife because he’s too lazy to hone his own.” Mitford made a noise of disgust. “I need him like a boil on my ass. Don’t ever feel sorry, Kris, that he got force-whipped. He just got his in advance.”
“Tie him out for the scavengers,” Zainal said blandly.
“Good idea.” Mitford grimaced, showing his teeth and expelling air through them. “Can’t, but I may yet . . . You get food and rest, ya hear, Kris?” When she dutifully nodded, he added, “And make sure Dane sees his leg.” Over Zainal’s protests that’s exactly what Kris did, roundly scolding the Catteni because he hadn’t reported in to Leon Dane when they’d reached camp. He was at first amused by her tirade and then frowned as she grabbed him by the arm to lead him to the hospital end of the caverns, when he did not turn in that direction immediately.
“Now listen here, Lord Emassi Zainal,” she said, “you were given an order by Mitford and, if you plan to go out tomorrow, you’ll obey it or you won’t go. And no-one will go with you to help dig that message.” “Then no message.” He shrugged as if it were all the same to him.
“Ohhh, you make me so mad . Kris tried to keep her voice down because she knew she sounded shrewish but he was being so unreasonable.
“Just because you’re a Catteni doesn’t mean you don’t bleed like us frail Terrans and that you didn’t damned near die from that thorn toxin, and I don’t want to go through that again. You’re too important to me to be stupid about your health.” He grabbed her by the finger she was shaking at him, looking around because he had noticed just how much attention her accusation had focused on them.
“I go. I see Dane,” he said far too docilely, and she watched to make sure he did.
Lordee, you’d think a man as old as Zainal would have the sense to take care of himself. And she didn’t like it when he got all compliant. That wasn’t Catteni of him.
retired to the next field to get an overall view of their labours.
“Man? Another “boy” thing?” Zainal asked, one eyebrow quirking upwards in amusement.
“Yeah, you can if you wish, substitute “man 0 man o man” for “boy 0 boy o boy”. It’s how you feel.”
“Young or old? Small or large?” Zainal asked, his eyes twinkling down at her.
“I think,” she said in a severe tone, “that you’re kidding me.”
“Ah, kid, a small goat,” Astrid said with an unexpected display of humour. “Oh, in slang a “boy”!”
“Right!” Ole asked her a question and she replied, laughing when he grinned in comprehension, “Baby, kid, boy, man,” he said with just a hint of the liquid Norwegian in his tone.
“Kidding? Can one having boying, too?” asked Zainal.
“Yes, actually,” Kris said. “But it’s spelt differently and means a floating object in the water to warn seamen off underwater dangers.
“See man?” Zainal asked, gathering his brows slightly which made him look quite ominous.
“We have a lot of words in English that sound the same but mean different things.”
“How do you know then what each means?”
“Context how the word is used in the sentence. Hey, is this a language patrol?”
“Why not?” and Zainal grinned. “Work is done. Now we. . . play?”
“Ha! You wouldn’t know how to play,” Kris retorted.
“Wanna bet?” he replied.
“You’ve listened too much to the Doyle brothers,” she said waggling a finger at him.
The fifth glyph took them most of the clear day but went more smoothly, since they all knew how to do it. They immediately started cutting sod at the top as Zainal laid out the design and they were well started when he finished.
They didn’t even have to find more mica rocks since there was still a pile left over from their first job.
“Shropshire Man this isn’t,” Kris said when they He grabbed her finger and she tried to pull away which resulted in a tugging match, then turned into him chasing her, trying to recapture the finger while the Norwegians watched this juvenile display with unsmiling dignity.
Kris was quicker on her feet than the heavier Catteni, so she eluded him, ducking under his grasping arms and hands, and taunting him to catch her. When he did, he held her tightly against him. She could barely move but she scrunched her hands behind her back so he couldn’t recapture the finger. It was all very silly, since inevitably his superior strength would win out but she found she enjoyed Zainal’s surprising playful side. Inexorably, he recaptured the right hand, and with amazing gentleness, considering the strength he applied to the task, he drew her hand up and, recapturing the finger, kissed it. Then the palm of her hand.
A spurt of something ran through her at the touch of his lips on the softer, if blistered, skin of her hand. Startled, she caught his eyes. The twinkle was there for the success of his recapture, but some other emotion darkened his odd-coloured eyes and made her catch her breath.
“Happy now?” she asked with some asperity.
“Yes,” he said simply and immediately let her go.
On the way back to camp, in between foraging, Astrid and her compatriots kept up quite a lively discussion until Kris finally asked them what was so interesting.
“The land,” Astrid said with a sweeping hand. “It is beautiful country for growing and for aninla’s who eat grass. Very well done, too. Oskar and Peter are raised on farms. They say very well done.”
“It is, and wait till they see what the farmers are,” Kris said.
“Pardon?” There was a brief delay in the conversation while rock-squats were added to the day’s bag. Throughout the rest of the day, Kris heard about the ecologically - the word was the same in Norwegian but sounded different - sound fashion in which Botany’s agriculture was done. Proper drainage, available water, copses of vegetation used as windbreaks where the land was not arable, even the hedging that separated the fields was approved. For what it was worth.
Kris did not want to be the one to tell them what farmed the land here. But she began to have more respect for the acumen of the absentee landlords: whatever they were besides omnivorous.
Great excitement buzzed about the camp when they returned and Kris didn’t report to Mitford the observation they’d made on their way back.
The sergeant was sitting with what looked to Kris very much like a handheld phone. He was talking into it, so unless Chuck Mitford had flipped his wig, and she wouldn’t have blamed him if he had, he was talking to another unit of the Botany Colonial Establishment.
“Great, huh?” Bart said when Kris, Bjorn and Oskar brought the results of their hunting into the cook cavern.
“We’ve got a phone?”
“Yeah, but more importantly, the technies know now what chips do what in the mechanicals’ circuitry. Real breakthrough.” Kris allowed that it must be, since everyone was so happy about it, and she supposed she should be as elated because it was one more step back towards sophisticated living. However, she was oddly disturbed by the breakthrough and certainly couldn’t figure out why. She’d probably been enjoying this atavistic hunter-explorer life more than she should - considering it also involved lots of discomfort and uncertainty, as well as enough hazards to get the ol’ adrenalin flowing freely most of the time. Camp Rock would really benefit from some modern conveniences. On the other hand, was instant communication really a benefit?
“Put another toggle on my belt,” she muttered under her breath, “for the handheld!” Then she added, “Say, Bart, where do I find out where I’m buncing tonight?” Bart pointed to the irregular opening that led to most of the dorntitory facilities as well as the lake. “List right there.” Her name had a big fat P beside it: so did Zainal’s, and, as she looked down the list for the Norwegians, they were P’s, too. P for Patrol?
“Bjornsen?” someone sang out at the front of the ca
ve.
“Sarge wants you.
Muttering about being homeless, Kris made her way to the office.
There were three handsets on Mitford’s “desk’ “Latest in recycled mechanicals,” Mitford said in great good humour. “We can keep in touch with our outposts and our scouts. You gotta get some height to boost the signal - -“ and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the top of the cliff behind him where, of all things, an aerial now swayed in the evening breeze. “But don’t seem to have any trouble with range.
Anyway, we’ll know soonest when the Catteni make another drop. We’ve got a network of look-outs - and not just for the Catteni’s next move.” He rummaged briefly through the sheets on his worktop and flipped free a large one - no, it was quite a few sheets neatly glued(?) together.
Well, the loo-cows had hooves, so someone had remembered to boil “em up for glue. A map had been drawn on the big sheet - or, the beginnings of one, for only the centre showed contour lines, streams, fields, forestry. The map gave Kris a much better idea of the terrain in and around the main camp, and the siting of the various mechanical facilities.
“Neat,” she said.
“We got a bona fide surveyor,” Mitford said proudly, tapping the map.
“Pretty good, huh? Even got relative distances.
“Nat. Geo. Soc. would be proud to claim it,” she agreed, grinning at Mitford. “You don’t waste time civilizing us, do you, Sarge?”
“Not much,” he agreed amiably, “but then we got lots of Yankee know-how - and Aussie.” He noticed her jaundiced expression and cocked eyebrow, so he cleared his throat as if he’d had to do that before continuing.
“Alien allies, too,” he added. Then he surprised her by hefting one of the units and plonking it down in front of her, all business-like again. “I want your patrol to start examining this area,” and his thick index finger wandered down to easterly uncharted areas. “I’ll need to keep in touch with you in case we want Zainal.”
“Sarge?”
“Yah?”
“Are you keeping Zainal out of camp for a reason?” Mitford regarded her steadily, his grey eyes not avoiding hers.
“You might, at that, think I am, and I am. He’s too valuable a resource to be wasted “Then I haven’t been wrong - there’s feeling against him.” “Can you honestly blame people for resenting him as Caneni?”
“Even if he was dumped down like everyone else?” Kris asked plaintively.
“Even then because he’s still Catteni and no weapons but a knife, and alone.
“He’s not alone,” Kris said staunchly.
“I know, Bjornsen. But there’s this thinking that there must have been a good reason he got dumped, other than killing another Cat. . .
Catteni,” Mitford said and, when she started to protest, he held up a hand. “I’ve seen and heard all about Catteni one-day vendettas, Bjornsen, and if it was only for killing a patrol leader, he’d’ve been released from the slammer the next day. He sure the hell isn’t like any other Catteni 1 ever met or heard about.”
“What about the latest drop? If it hadn’t been for Zainal..
“Kris!” Mitford’s hand on her arm and sharp tone stopped her. He didn’t look around to see who might be near enough to hear their discussion but there was something about his manner now that suggested to Kris that he didn’t want her blowing her top right now. “There are a lot of folk who should be grateful to Zainal. But they aren’t. And that’s the long and short of it. I can’t change human nature, you know.” And he sounded sincerely regretful. “And I won’t run him out of the camp.” He blinked and then said softly, “He’s too useful a resource.
Now, girl,” and carefully he began to fold the map. He put it into a flat envelope made out of the ubiquitous blanket, complete with shoulder-strap. He laid that alongside the comunit, then added a thick carbon “pencil’ and fidgeted until he had them alligned to his satisfaction. “I want you and Zainal to go walk-about with Astrid.
She’s chosen Oskar to go with. Zainal says she’s competent and can keep up. I’ve a pair of Australians who swore blind they could keep up with Aborigines so they oughta be able to keep up with you two. They were in the last drop and are grateful to Zainal. Though half the time they act like this was some great joke. Possibly it is.” He paused, musing on that theory. “One of “em has medical training and did botany in the Outback downunder. With this handheld, you can keep in touch with me. Esker, Dowdall, and a new guy, ex-Anzac major by name of Worrell who did some military governing so he knows more than I do He waved off Kris’s immediate disclaimer. “I’m glad to have him aboard.
They call him “Worry” and he does, so I don’t have to any more. He’ll be at the other end if I’m not. That clear?”
“In a way, yes,” she replied as civilly as she could, for she was seething both with indignation that Zainal should be exiled and relief that she was going with him.
“Your friendly roving reporter!” She rose.
“Good girl, Bjornsen, I like your style,” Mitford said, peering up at her. “I gotta defuse the situation, you understand.”
“Yeah, I guess you do. Only why,” and she nodded her head in the direction of the stocks where Arnie was constrained, “can he be tolerated and not Zainal?” Mitford snorted. “Takes all kinds and he’s. . . supposedly - - human. One more complaint lodged against him, though, and we take punitive measures he won’t like at all. Especially as we wouldn’t use anaesthetic.” Then he looked over towards the main cavern. “That’s your patrol, Bjornsen. I told Zainal, too. Report in every day, will ya? So we know the equipment’s still working.
The code here is 369,” and he grinned.
“Sir!” she said, stamping her feet up and down, coming to attention and saluting him in the manner of a British soldier.
He waved her away and three people vied to take her place, ey’eing her map case and handset. She strode off, head high, looking neither to right nor left.
Zainal was leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest, watching her progress. The other four members of the patrol were talking quietly. She nodded to Astrid and Oskar, then looked at the two new folks. She held her hand out to the woman whom she liked on sight: almost spare in build but wiry, with a complexion that had been roughened by hot Australian summers and faded short curly hair to a ginger shade. But she exuded an air of competence, a characteristic of so many Aussies. At her feet, beside her travel gear, were a first-aid kit and a light bow with a sheaf of arrows.
“M’ name’s Sarah McDouall,” she said, giving Kris’s hand a firm hard shake before letting it go. “This here’s Francis Marley. We made a good team in the resistance “fore we got caught. I’m your medic.”
“Call me Joe. Anything’s beller than Francis,” he said, giving Sarah a mock glare for her introduction. He spoke in a slightly nasal tenor voice which seemed to have a lilt of quiet laughter to it. He was tall and lean, sun-creased eyes, an open face and smile, with dark hair growing grey at the temples. One hand kept going to his head as if to adjust a missing hat. The gesture developed into a scratch of his skull. “Stocknian, I know a bit about plants.” He had a sling tucked in his belt, a blanket pouch that bulged with pebbles. He sort of leaned against the three light lances he was armed with. They had, Kris noticed, metal tips.
My, she thought, the arsenal was improving, too!
“Anyone know where we’re bunked?” Kris asked.
“Zainal knows.”
“I lead, you follow,” Zainal said, pushing himself off the wall and moving off, past the hospital cave.
Kris wondered if he was annoyed that Mitford had given her the comunit.
His expression did not give her any clues.
It was more a dug-out than a cave but it would shelter them from the evening shower and the colder winds that now blew during the night.
There was just room enough for six bodies but there were hooks for hanging and even a ledge.
“Rather snazzy
,” Kris said. “Did Zainal tell you our rnission?”
“More or less,” Joe said with a grin.
“You don’t mind a Catteni patrol leader?” Joe’s eyebrows raised slightly and Sarah gave her a sharp look.
“Well, now “Zainal here leads,” Kris said firmly. “I’m signals,” and she tapped the comunit.
“Gotcha!”
“I need a bath,” Kris added, carefully stowing the map case and the handheld on the ledge. She turned to Astrid.
“You coming?”
“Wash?”
“That’s what we call it, Kris said with a grin, easier now she’d made her point, and turned to Sarah.
“Had one. I’ll get our grub. Smells good. C’mon, Joe, Oskar.
Don’t take too long,” Sarah said to the bathers.
“You better believe it,” Kris replied and then, with Astrid on her heels, retraced her steps to the cook cavern and then down to the lake.
Astrid had no problem with cold-water bathing but then, if she was accustomed to saunas in Norway, she wouldn’t have. But the temperature did not encourage one to dawdle and they were washed, dried, dressed and on their way back to their quarters about the time their evening meal was ready.
“I do miss a beer,” Joe said plaintively, sopping up the last of the gravy from his bowl with his bread.
“I miss a cigarette,” Sarah said.
“I, too,” Astrid said with a smile, and translated to Oskar. He raised both hands skywards in longing.
“You know plants?” Astrid asked Joe. “Find us one like tobacco.”
“Now there’s a right good idea,” Joe replied. “Do my damnedest, I
will.” Chapter Eleven
Each morning Kris checked in and usually spoke to Mitford, giving him an all clear. Each evening, around the fire, she got the others to help her map the terrain they had covered that day.