Freedom Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  Really?”

  Sarah chuckled in a mock-malicious way. ‘Well, what there actually is of it. Anyone who’s ever flown anything is wondering how the damned thing stayed in the air, much less made journeys out into space. However, Scott wanted it where it can be used. And the interior of the transport still stinks to high heaven, so it was dismantled and it’s been reconstructed in the hangar. They’ve even got the communications up and running.

  And solar panels on the hangar to power it.

  “Everyone’s over the transport like ants, taking it apart. It’s nothing

  but a shell now - which still stinks. The mechanics and

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  engineers are having a field day with all these new treasures, even if most of the loot is secondhand, slightly damaged goods.

  But it’s more than we’ve ever had to work with.

  “Then there’s real competition over who can sound more Catteni than another. More learned the language than you might think.” ‘I suppose a knowledge that didn’t make you all that popular on Earth,’ Kris mused. ‘But why is there a competition?

  You said the crew was sequestered in a valley.” She tried to concentrate on what Sarah was saying, rather than the painful dressing of her feet.

  “Sorry, love, I keep thinking you’ve been in on all the briefings. The Drassi captain sent out a mayday, or whatever Catteni call an emergency, to another transport which said, and I quote, “they’d get around to picking up the crew when they were on their way back to Base.” That is, if they survived the crash landing.” ‘So that’s why Scott wanted the bridge operational,’ Kris grinned, for it was easy to see what was likely to happen next.

  “So, have they reported they survived?” Sarah nodded, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Leon did it. He’s still the best, but not for long.”

  “When do they expect this rescue vessel?”

  Sarah shrugged. ‘From what Zainal discovered in questioning the crew - the captain wouldn’t say doodly to him - it’s a bigger, newer ship, with a longer range, and so we have to wait for another message from them when to expect them. So there’s plenty of time to prepare, rehearse and drill for their arrival.” ‘A bigger, newer ship?” Kris repeated. Then she chuckled to herself, thinking of Admiral Scott’s bridge being run from a hangar. ‘And we’ll have three ships!” She was so proud of Zainal that she wriggled in the bed.

  Sarah grinned fatuously at her. ‘Scott’s even acting as if Zainal’s not

  so bad after all. And he’s got a committee working to find out

  something that will add the necessary grey tinge to human skin. Those

  loose uniforms they wear will camouflage who’s in them, but they gotta

  have grey skin. Leon’s dying to

  take part, but he’s really too tall to play a Drassi.”

  “So is Zainal.” Kris began to worry again. Zainal was taking so many risks. A bigger, newer ship would be better captained and crowed.

  But then surprise was still on their side.

  The dressings now complete, she glared down at her feet.

  They’d better be completely healed; she had to be able to be at this second enactment of Phase Two.

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  Scott insisted on interviewing them first as to their Earth-side activities. Once satisfied, he turned them over to Zainal who tested their skills by having them read out loud from log entries.

  “They read Catten well,’ Zainal said, passing all three.

  Later, Easley asked if he’d spoken truthfully or merely to get.

  out himself out of a very boring task.

  “I said true. They can copy what they do not understand and I will translate . . . if I can,’ and Zainal grinned from Easley to Kris.

  Scott next had him interview every male who had listed some understanding and speaking knowledge of Catteni in their Drop interviews. With Kris’s help, Zainal made a list in order of fluency and vocabulary of over seventy men. Scott then had his choice of those he felt would be most useful in the commando unit he was training to stand in for the transported stranded crew.

  “You’re certain they’re coming back for the crew?” Beverly asked Zainal at the very beginning of this new venture.

  “That was the message,’ and Zainal had shrugged. ‘They will not hurry to do so. The crew would be safe in ship, away from us who are dropped.” Scott might not have been certain of Catteni altruism in collecting a stranded crew, but he was also counting on it as a replacement for the useless hulk in the Drop Field.

  Zainal gave Kris a list of the most frequent commands, which she wrote down with phonetic translations, so that all could learn them and learn the proper responses of both Drassi and ordinary crew to commands. Rank had some privileges.

  “Catteni crew don’t talk much,’ Zainal said. ‘Just obey.”

  “They must also know what is being said so they can act on their initiative if that becomes necessary,’ was Scott’s reply.

  “Not Catteni,’ Zainal replied, shaking his head.

  “So long as the real Catteni obey, there’s no problem,’ Scott said, a stubborn look coming into his eye.

  “So the surprise will be even greater,’ said Easley, smiling at Scott, ‘and that will work in our favour, won’t it?”

  Scott gritted out a surly ‘Yes’ and went back to the diagrams

  When Zainal spent more time explaining to the mechanics and engineers what the salvageable material had been used for, they could more knowledgeably adapt it to their needs. Once the bridge was sited and up and working again, Scott preempted him to translate the data on the transport’s log files.

  “Much is routine,’ Zainal said, scrolling at a fast pace through the entries.

  “But we need to know where they have been, how long it takes, the protocols they use . . .” Scott said, scowling.

  “I think I’ve found someone from the latest Drop who can manage to translate routine reports,’ Easley said, once again diplomatically inserting his presence. ‘In fact, several someones who have a good working knowledge of the glyphs. Learned to help decipher Catteni documents captured during raids.” Beth Isbell was the only uninjured member of the three ‘someones’who were summoned. Sally Stofers, a petite brunette with an extremely innocent expression, arrived on crutches for a broken leg, while Francois Chavell had his left arm in a sling.

  . .

  i Zainal had contrived of what he ‘thought’ the interior of the new transport should be. He hadn’t had an opportunity to inspect any himself.

  “Designed to carry more with fewer deaths,’ he said in summary.

  “Just being newer is improvement.”

  The engineers and mechanics at the meeting agreed to that.

  “Some of the controls were wired together, and I dunno what they used to keep the drive units operating,’ Peter Snyder said.

  He’d been a jet-engine propulsion engineer and was fascinated by the Catteni drives: especially how they kept working in the state they were in. By using the schematics in the manuals, he and the other aviation and space shuttle personnel were trying to reconstruct one working system from the remainders of four.

  “To know how it should work, mainly,’ Snyder had said with a grin. He was an amiable fellow, medium in build and neighs, and usually either whistling or humming, on key, as he and the team worked to rebuild the engine. ‘We’re in a sort of no-man’s land here, with bits and pieces we know worked in a high-tech society and should work if we re-assemble them right, but we are working with the equivalent of early Iron Age tools. Aarens is miraculous; sometimes, if you tell him what you want a tool to do, he manages to provide one which does it.

  The problem is knowing what tool you need next and how long you’ll have to wait until he can contrive it.” Kris, now hobbling on crutches with well-wrapped feet and a bandaged hand, accompanied Zainal to the various meetings as she still seemed to be the necessary verbal bridge for vocabulary for him. Half the time she was floundering for technical jargon even
worse than he was, but she was not about to admit that failing to anyone. Probably Easley had guessed, but he was on their side. Kris would be very glad when she, Zainal and their team could get back to what they were best at: exploring.

  Sometimes it seemed to her that Scott resented what Zainal had had no

  reason to learn - as far as details of his own species’ space-drive

  technology included - and yet was forced to include the Catteni in all

  major meetings because of the little he did

  know and the insights he could provide on other details.

  “Scott’s got an incredible mind for detail,’ Easley murmured to Kris one evening during a long session.

  “He comes across ultra-suspicious and snide to me,’ she whispered back.

  “Suspicion is detail, too, you know, but I happen to know that he is impressed by Zainal.” ‘You could have fooled me,’ Kris replied, glaring at the end of the table where Scott, Rastancil, Ainger, Marrucci and Beverly were crouched, heads together, in inaudible conversation.

  “But I don’t,’ Easley said, his low voice vibrant with sincerity.

  “He knows a man of integrity when he sees one, and he sees Zainal as one. I don’t think many of us had any idea of the role the Eosi play in what the Catteni do. So he’s abandoned the position of detesting the Catteni for what was done on Earth to come half-way to absolving the tool for the work it’s been put to. Zainal’s responsible for that adjustment, without losing either dignity or respect in Scott’s eyes.” Kris absorbed that speech, feeling a little better about what seemed like Scott’s persecution of her lover. But she was only half-way there herself.

  Once again, when the extra-acute hearing of the Deski sentries caught the first sound of the approaching vessel, they alerted the camps before the landing ship announced its imminent arrival on the communication band.

  The ‘bridge’ accepted the message with typical Catteni stolidity as Zainal had drilled them, reaffirming the coordinates of their downed ship’s position. Though Leon had prepared a report of what had disabled the ship, he wasn’t asked for it.

  Zainal had told him it wouldn’t be required, but had helped him to learn the terms.

  The camps in the line of the ship’s descent - Bella Vista, Ayres Rock and Shutdown - cleared away any signs of orderly living.

  All the air-cushioned vehicles were stowed out of sight and there was some concern over people, scouts and hunters, who might be seen out and about. Narrow, particularly, must appear deserted from the air.

  “They will know from heat signs people are on the surface,’ Zainal had said, ‘but not what they are doing or what they live in.

  Wiser for them to see men out hunting.”

  “You mean they’ll be counting noses?” someone had asked.

  Zainal laughed at the notion. ‘No, just the presence of sufficient life signs to suggest survivors down here.”

  “So they can send us more?” Mitford had asked in a sour tone.

  “At this point, it’s the more the merrier,’ Easley had said, grinning so infectiously that Mitford had smiled back.

  Guess you’re right.”

  The instrumentation on the bridge in the hangar was now working with an efficiency it had lacked for many voyages, and the descent of the rescue vessel was easily estimated. The assault team, in position from the moment the first Deski alarm had come in, lounged about the downed transport: some were outside, others sitting on the ramp, while the “Drassi’ would not appear until their counterparts called for them.

  Camouflaged in the hedgerows and up the trees in strategic positions were sharpshooters with crossbows and lances. Zainal had had no information about the crew complement of the new transports. The Catteni to be rescued were armed with stunners, which might be all that was needed. Surprise was on their side.

  It was, and the take-over of the transport ship was even smoother than the one hijacking the scout. The supercilious Drassi of the rescue vessel had been so eager to mock the stranded captain that he had been first down the ramp, the other Drassi staff following, while the crewmen began to unload what passengers they had remaining. They were laughing and chatting, pleased to be on the last leg of this journey and going home.

  They were also looking forward to making the rescued Catteni work while they loafed.

  Flat on her stomach in the next field - Zainal by her, chuckling softly

  to himself - Kris watched as the Catteni

  I’

  Drassi strolled arrogantly across to the damaged transport.

  The mock-Catteni crew had, of course, jumped to an appropriate alert stance, calling out - in an excellent accent, Kris thought proudly - to those inside that the Drassi captain was coming aboard.

  They followed in, a respectful distance behind, and one remained at the open hatch, leaning against it as the rescuers finished unloading the latest unconscious dropees.

  They had no sooner finished than they were called to come aboard the wreck.

  “Now what do we have to do?” one Catteni demanded of another as they made their way across the field - or so Zainal translated for Kris.

  “Probably dismantle equipment the beasts might use,’ the other replied.

  “Beasts, huh?” Joe muttered on the other sideof Zainal. ‘We’ll beast them.” Zainal translated the first part of the Catteni response: ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t take too long, then. I need my . . .” And he refused to translate that rather long sentence to Kris. Considering the nasty way the two Catteni chuckled, she was glad he hadn’t.

  While the observers waited, nervous and anxious, for what seemed an interminable time, suddenly the mock-Drassi captain - actually Vic Yowell, who was not only the right size but had known enough Catteni to handle the necessary interchanges appeared and, with his men, strode purposefully across to the newly arrived ship and up its ramp.

  There was a brief interval before he reappeared, waving his cap and showing the difference between his Catteni make-up and his own skin colour.

  “It’s ours now!’

  The hedges sprouted humans, cheering and dancing with glee at the success of the second Phase Two assault. Then they hurried to attend to the newly arrived, 114, all from Earth and in far better condition than many of the most recent arrivals.

  The Catteni prisoners were sent off to join their compatriots in the valley.

  Yuri Palit, another mock Catteni with his skin now back to

  its original shade, headed the guards who accompanied the prisoners. On the way they were given an example of night-crawler activity and so descriptively warned of other dangers of Botany that they were thoroughly cowed by the time they arrived.

  When the new transport had been gone over, Scott was actually smiling at everyone. This had been the maiden voyage of the KDT, according to its log and the look and smell of still-new equipment.

  Zainal, Kris, Bert Put, Peter Snyder, Rastancil and Beverly were up all night, translating manuals and understanding the improvements incorporated in its systems.

  Best by far was the discovery of two small airships, capable of short-range planetary flight, and one large well-equipped ground vehicle, suitable for rough terrain, with exterior plating to resist many corrosive-type atmospheres. Looking at its specs on its control board, Zainal said that it was also probably ‘water-going’.

  “Amphibious,’ Kris had murmured, and they had locked eyes and smiled. They would not have to risk using the scout being seen in order to get to the other continents. This craft would hold twelve passengers and three crew, and would transport safely to at least the closest land-mass. They’d better pick a day when the channel waters were calm because she didn’t like to think of being seasick in such confines.

  But that sort of exploration was not in their immediate future.

  The next scenario to be played out was to take off in the brandnew transport and head back towards Barevi, its base.

  As many as could fit aboard the KDL-45A - which is how the glyp
hs on its side translated - took off, and that took in just about everyone who had worked in NASA or on air-force jets from various countries.

  The decks could be arranged in a variety of heights and ways, according

  to cargo or passengers, awake or unconscious. Rather an ingenious

  arrangement, Marrucci and Beverly agreed, when Zainal showed them how to

  achieve various combinations. So the KDL could actually accommodate the

  many who had some reason, or claim, to make the journey. Some were

  going to have a chance in space; others because they had to learn how to

  manage the transport; and all

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  would help jettison the traces of the sudden and complete destruction of a brand-new ship. Zainal had found log references to several minor incidents with the propulsion unit on the outward bound journey: one severe enough for the captain to shut down the engines and send an EVA team to clear the tubes.

  That had been reported to their Base since it had delayed their touch-down at Botany to collect the transport crew.

  Pete Snyder headed a team to figure out just what malfunction could now result in a fatal accident. They had plenty of debris from the damaged ship - fortunately the components were all constructed of similar alloys. With a little ingenuity in their messages to their Base, each describing further problems, and then . . . a delayed action explosion, sufficient detritus would be left floating in space to convince anyone who cared to examine it that the KDL had, indeed, exploded on her way home. An appropriate outer panel had been taken from the old transport, and paint found in the KDL’s supply bay to duplicate her glyphs.

  The bogus outward-bound voyage was scheduled for a week, since Zainal wished to get beyond the system’s heliopause, beyond the satellite’s range, before conducting the explosion.