by neetha Napew
If the satellites were no longer visible on the screens of the KDL and the scout, then it was two to one that the SATs couldn’t see inside within the bubble. It was therefore not only safe, but a wise precaution to see what the barrier was like up close.
“Not to mention the fact that you’re dying to go up again,’ Kris said and he grinned, more boyish than ever despite having reached the rank of colonel in the Air Force.
“You got it, Bjornsen,’ and he cocked a doublejointed thumb at her, making the rest of his hand into a mock pistol before dropping the thumb. He also had a habit of cracking his knuckles when he was nervous, a routine which fascinated Zainal who could not, to Kris’s relief, duplicate the action.
Having one person do it in the confines of a pilot compartment was enough!
Zainal also wanted to see if he could locate a Farmers’ satellite, or whatever was controlling the bubble.
“If they spy on us, it is good. They want to know more before they come.”
“That’s your interpretation,’ Kris said.
He regarded her with his yellow eyes and a slight smile on his lips.
‘And what is yours?” She thought for a moment and then laughed.
“Yeah, we could very well be a mouse run.” ‘A what?” Zainal asked, puzzled, so she suggested they take a break from house-building while she explained about laboratory mice and labyrinths to test intelligence and learning ability.
“To add to whatever that scan of theirs discovered about us.”
“But we do what we want,’ Zainal said, still puzzled.
“Maybe we just think we do,’ she replied, just now identifying that possibility.
“Scott would not like to think someone else commands him,’ and he chuckled as he got back to his feet and reached for another brick.
“No, he sure as hell wouldn’t,’ Kris agreed, and laughed as she *****rose to join him. ‘We’ve got just enough mortar mixed for another course,’ she said, scooping up a trowel-full. ‘I’m getting quite adept at this.” Then she remembered Sandy Areson’sremark about plastering being like feeding an infant, and that she’d use the same skills when she had one of her own. She tapped the next brick in place with such force that it split in half.
“That’s the fourth one tonight,’ she said irritably. ‘Maybe they need to bake them longer or something.” Sandy was in fact in charge of the brick-firing, so Kris knew it was no fault of the manufacture.
Brick-making was another chore shared throughout the community. But there was something soothing about shovelling the wet muck into the moulds and knowing you were building your own place from scratch including the ones on your arms, hands and legs, collected from the process of building.
Still, it would be a nice place when it was finished. She and Zainal had picked the spot together, on that first trip. They had a splendid view of the Bay, with enough clear ground around to plant vegetables and berry shrubs, and a stand of ‘young’ lodgepole trees behind them. After months of barracks living, nearly everyone on Botany wanted privacy and the Bay area certainly afforded that.
The Narrow Valley mess hall had been disassembled, loaded aboard the KDL and reassembled on a height above the Bay.
Smaller offices’ clustered around it on the natural terraces and levels below and above. The hospital was the only other large single structure, and Leon Dane announced that the medical staff did not have time to build a separate maternity wing. He was, however, training midwives for home births since he was certain all the babies would decide to be born at the same time.
Private accommodations spread out around the Bay in all directions, at first built from the lodge-pole tree timber before the brick manufactory got production up to a useful level. Those involved in cutting timber made the interesting discovery that even the smallest of the lodge-pole trees which had grown down into the plateau were at least a thousand years old.
“They have rings, just like trees on Earth,’ said Vigdin Elsasdochter, the environmental specialist in charge of responsible logging, ready to show the section she carried around with her. ‘And tight rings to indicate the climate has not changed much throughout the millenium: no drought, no bad winters, no hot summers. Some of the larger trees may be ten thousand years old.” Once again the question of how long the Farmers had been in possession of the planet was brought up. Especially since the ‘new forest’ of ‘young trees’ had been seeded by the much older ones. Even Worrell refused to worry about it.
“I got other more important things to worry about,’ he’d said
one night in the mess hall. ‘Like allocating glass to people who want to have picture windows and stall showers! Of all things,’ and he’d flung a hand towards the Bay, ‘as if we don’t have a great big bath-tub out there!” Those who had been in the building trades on Earth, like the Doyle brothers, were kept busy - offering advice, showing novices how to do things he’d learned, Lenny said, ‘at me da’s knee, so to speak’. Some of the Asians had the most trouble, since they had been accustomed to different building materials.
After assigned chores were done and the evenings gradually lengthened, everyone worked on their homes, and lent a hand to neighbours for jobs that required a gang.
While some of the brass-heads were living in the cliff hangar, and bunking down on pallets in their offices, all of them had picked out sites, but keeping track of work assignments for nearly ten thousand people and aliens took most of their time.
“Someone has to do it,’ Mitford remarked when Kris complained that the admiral seemed to be the unelected head of everything. ‘And, hell, Kris, I might have run the battalion to all intents and purposes, and managed to whip us into some sort of order there at the first, but he had an aircraft carrier and they carry ten thousand; he’s used to dealing with those kind of numbers, I’m not. I was only too glad to hand him the can, you know.” Mitford remained in charge of exploration and mapping, attempting to fill in the spatial map with the details necessary for further expansion of the farming and ranching. ‘If you can call loo-cows ranch animals.” Knowing that the sergeant was truly happier on reconnaissance in the Tub, Kris decided not to harbour any ill-feelings towards Ray Scott. There was no question that he wasn’t working all the hours God gave the day here on Botany. And some days he seemed almost agreeable, as if Botany was mellowing him. At other times, she was certain he disliked and distrusted Zainal - and her, by virtue of her association with the former Emassi officer. He vacillated between extreme cordiality when deferring to Zainal’s knowledge of some matters and total dismissal of Zainal’s opinions. He didn’t have command all his own way, which somewhat mollified Kris; and she supposed that, having run an aircraft carrier, he had the requisite experience. She had occasion to be grateful it was Scott who issued most of the orders rather than Geoffrey Ainger, whom she didn’t like at all. He was so Brit that he was almost as much a caricature of the serving officer as Colonel Blimp had been, and she knew he considered Zainal a dangerous commodity.
She got along well with Rastancil, Fetterman and Reidenbacker; John Beverly was the nicest of the lot, because he always looked straight at her when he asked or answered questions.
And Easley, but then he was as his name - easily to get along with. In fact, when he was involved, meetings seemed less tense and often more productive. He had such a knack for gently redirecting tensions and making suggestions that kept discussions going around, instead of stopping at Ray Scott all the time.
Which brought her back to the present and the meeting Scott and Rastancil had called them in for. They wanted Zainal to check the more mountainous terrain that had not yet been explored during the flight.
The number of orbits had expanded from a quick flight up to the Bubble and back down, to five days of circumnavigating the planet.
“See if there are any blind valleys here on our continent, or deposits of minerals. We could use more lead, copper, zinc and tin, if this continent has them.” ‘I believe it does,’ Zainal said. ‘Th
e miner, Walter Duxie, has copies of the original spatial survey maps.” “Duxie? Do I know him?” Scott asked over his shoulder at his ever-present aide.
“Yes, he agreed to leave the other place and supervise mining here,’ Beggs murmured. ‘Stocky man, balding, forties, English.” ‘Ah, yes, get them for me to see,’ and Scott turned back to Zainal and Kris.
She wondered what Beggs’s description of Zainal was - and
idea, especially with those families which were increasing. ‘I think it looks well.” ‘Does at that. I can help hand out nails, too.
Brought you my handy-dandy nail apron, as well.” She handed over the object and, laughing, Kris tied it about her waist while Sandy started herself. He never seemed to meet anyone’s eye, but then he was so seldom asked questions: he just answered Scott’s. Then she decided she didn’t want to know.
Two days later, Zainal was satisfied that those accompanying him on the Bubble Mission, as its participants named it, were sufficiently trained to put what they had been learning into practice. He announced a dawn take-off and dismissed them, suggesting that they all relax for the rest of the evening. Not that he intended to follow his own advice, because they were ready to put the shakes on the roof of their two-roomed cabin. Kris decided she needed to be so thoroughly tired she couldn’t stay awake, because she was far more excited about the trip than she let on.
Zainal had just finished setting the piles of shakes in order and was steadying the ladder against the gable end when Mitford, Worry, Tesco, Sandy Areson, Sally Stoffers and the two Doyles arrived, hammers in hand and with a second ladder.
“Can’t have you breaking something the day before the Bubble,’ Mitford had said gruffly.
Kris grinned gratefully, because Zainal might have patiently learned the rudiments of construction but she was terrified that he’d fall through the rafters, or break them, and he wouldn’t let her go up on the roof by herself to nail the shakes.
“You can’t help,’ Kris said flatly to the two women.
“Heard about your design with my buff bricks,’ Sandy said.
She was puffing a bit from the walk up the hill, and had brought along her own stool; she put it down facing the front of the cabin and nodded approval. ‘Didn’t realize we had so much colour variation . .
.
batches.”
“I liked the buff so that’s what I made, and then added more buff to the red ones,’ Kris said, observing the effect objectively.
They’d put the darker bricks around the door, window-ledges, corners, the chimney and the hearth surround. They had a back door, too, out of the smaller room, so they had easier access to the latrine.
And a sleeping loft which had become a popular
. Maybe it’s all you novices mixing your own
.”
idea, especially with those families which were increasing. ‘I think it looks well.” ‘Does at that. I can help hand out nails, too.
Brought you my handy-dandy nail apron, as well.” She handed over the object and, laughing, Kris tied it about her waist while Sandy started filling the three commodious pockets with the nails. ‘Is Zainal going to fill that big mouth of his with nails?” Kris chuckled. ‘No, Lenny already warned him about swallowing nails; even a Catteni gut couldn’t handle a mouthful.
He’s got a pail.” Zainal had the ladder in place now and, before he could pick his pail off the ground, she was up the ladder, a bundle of shakes and the hammer in one hand and the other helping her up the rungs.
“Hey?” Zainal protested.
“You’d never know he was Catteni,’ Sandy said conversationally to Sally, ‘unless you had to look at him.” Sally smothered a giggle as Zainal made as graceful a climb up the ladder as Kris had. Mitford and Lenny Doyle appeared on the roof from the other side and then the hammering began, echoing in the little dell, and picked up by the rat-tat-tat of other hammers on other roofs.
With so many to help, passing shakes and replenishing the supply of nails, the cabin was roofed by the time the sun went down. Then Zainal passed around ‘beer’ while Kris served up tea from the kettle in the fireplace.
“Looks bigger somehow, with the roof on,’ Kris remarked, glancing up at
the rafters and taking a deep breath of the fragrance of the new wood of
the shakes. They could have had slate, but Mitford thought shakes were
nicer and easier to put
up.
They lounged about outside until first Moonrise and then the guests left.
“We’d better hike to the hangar and get to bed in the scout,’ Kris said, moving towards the doorway. They had no door yet.
Zainal stopped her. ‘I want to stay under my own roof, which I have built . . .”
“Helped build,’ she said, teasingly.
“Tonight,’ he finished, and gestured towards the pile of blankets which she hadn’t noticed in the rush to get the roof done.
“That would make the evening complete.”
“Not quite,’ Zainal said in a low voice, drawing her into his arms. ‘It is Rood to have our own place. Very good, indeed.” And that should have been an idyllic time for them. Except that when she got up in the night, between moons, she didn’t want to disturb the soundly sleeping Zainal and, on her way back from the latrine, tripped over the left-over bundle of shakes and broke her right arm.
She was furious with herself for being so clumsy and for losing her chance for going on the mission.
“Why Couldn’t I have broken the left one? I’m right-handed,’ she said, weeping more from disappointment than pain as Zainal carried her to the nearest available air cushion, one of the flat-beds, arid drove her the rest of the way to the hospital. Both bones had been broken, although Leon Dane comforted her with the thought that it hadn’t been a compound fracture which would have been nasty with their limited facilities.
Then he poured her a tot of the grain alcohol that was currently in use as a pain-killer. They hadn’t quite got a decent smoky taste to it, but she wouldn’t complain.
“This is quite nasty enough,’ she said as Zainal held her against him while I eon manoeuvred the bones back into place. She fainted after’ not during, and regained consciousness while he was fixing the last of the bandages into place around the splints.
“I would lake to have immobilized it in plaster, only we haven’t got that kind yet,’ Leon told her. He poured her a smaller tot, ‘to help your sleep,’ he said.
Then he led Zainal, who carried her, to an otherwise empty ward.
Final set her gently down next to the window and then moved the retest bed against hers.
“Let’s not make a practice of that,’ Leon said, caught between severity anal amusement at Zainal’s preemptive rearrangement.
But he put out the solar-powered light and closed the door quietly behind him.
Kris could almost have wished that Zainal had let her suffer on her own, but the whisky had dulled the ache in her arm and the warmth of his body, and his concern, comforted her so that soon enough she was asleep.
He was gone in the morning when the noise of the scout’s takeoff woke her, and the bed had been put back in its proper position. It was dawn and he had blasted off on time. She wondered who had taken her place, and then didn’t want to know. She tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t with the ache, so she got out of bed and, with a blanket wrapped around her, went in search of someone and preferably a hot cup of herbal tea. Maybe that would help the ache in her arm. What actually helped her arm was a more judicious shot of the grain whisky in the tea.
“I can’t spend the next few weeks drunk as a lord,’ she said to the attendant in the hospital’s kitchen.
“Ah, the ache’ll ease off,’ Mavis, the duty nurse, told her, grinning. ‘At least we’ve got a decent tipple to help. Now, let’s get back to your room and I’ll help you dress. Can I bring your old coverall up to your cabin when it’s clean? And have a look round it while I’m there? Cumber and I are building,
too, and I like to get a notion of what others have done. Did you use bricks or timber?” Mavis was deft in the dressing and kept Kris’s mind off her awkward and painful arm as she helped.
“Stop at the pharmacy and they’ll give you a bottle - for medicinal purposes,’ Mavis said with a grin, pointing towards the right door. ‘I’ll call for a ride, but you may have to wait . . .”
“I can perfectly well walk . . .”
“You can perfectly well not,’ said Pete Easley, coming in the hospital at that moment. ‘I promised Leon I’d collect you. Got your bottle of medicinal? Sit there while I grab one. I know where they stash it,’ and he went into the pharmacy and was out again before Kris could take a seat. Then, with his hand under her left elbow, he escorted her out to the runabout.
“Mitford lent it to you?”
“For you, crippled as you are, Mitford is ready to do a great many things. Besides,’ and Easley looked down at her with a devilish grin, ‘he promised Zainal he’d look out for you.” ‘Hmmm, how kind,’ she said in an acid tone, knowing just what might be going through Zainal’s mind in asking Mitford to be on hand.
“You could take another day in the hospital, you know,’ Easley suggested, his eyes intent on her face.
“I’m not sick,’ she said peevishly, and walked ahead of him to climb into the runabout.
The space on the driver’s seat was not very wide, though it usually accommodated two people easily - but not one with an unwieldy cast and a brown bottle of hooch. Easley ended up sitting slightly canted so he wouldn’t inadvertently bump her.
She felt clumsier than ever and definitely out of sorts. She couldn’t be hung over from what she’d had last night, but she’d have given her eye-teeth for an aspirin. Then she remembered how Zainal laughed at all the eye-teeth she’d given away, and somehow her mood improved.
“He got off all right?” she asked.
“Right on time. Laughrey took your place.” ‘Laughrey, the former Concorde pilot?” Her good humour increased. She liked Laughrey and he’d be in heaven, literally as well as figuratively. ‘At least it wasn’t Scott’s little pipsqueak . . .” She would have hated it if Beggs had gotten the empty chair.