“You’ve just been promoted to the job here,” said Greene so kindly that Kris could have kissed him.
“You heard Mitford, we all have skills that he can use, Patti Sue,” she said and, with one hand around the girl’s waist, eased her along the ledge to the entrance. “We’ll just find Sandy. We’d better move along now or we might miss her. She’s good people.”
“But you’re my buddy,” Patti Sue said in a quavering tone.
“Yes, I was,” Kris’ conscience forced her to say, “for the trek, but that’s over and we’re here. Besides, Sandy’s a good cook and it’s a smart idea to be on the right side of the cooks, you know. Now let’s find her.”
They did, grilling the last of the day’s catch.
“Sentries get what’s left over,” she said, taking in Patti Sue’s terror-stricken face and smiling reassuringly. “Patti Sue, you just sit here, right by me.” And she physically manhandled Patti Sue into the space she wanted her in. “You go on now, Kris, so Patti Sue and I can get acquainted.”
Give the woman her due, Kris thought, she didn’t even blanch at the idea of having Patti Sue hanging on to her. As Kris hastily departed, Greene on her heels, she heard Sandy telling the girl that she had a daughter about Patti’s age and where had she come from on Earth.
“You can’t be saddled with that one any longer,” Jay said as they made their way down to the bonfire.
“‘And there’s no discharge in the war,’” Kris chanted out, resorting to Kipling.
“Huh?”
“Nemmind. Can you see Sarge or Zainal?”
“Beyond the fire, I think.”
It was an easier climb down than up, so she realized that wider, better steps had been carved out of the cliffside at some point during that day.
They had to wait their turn to speak to Mitford as there was no lack of volunteers for the scouting and hunting parties. Maybe another day Kris could go to the caves to see the stores with her own eyes.
“Got room for me on a scouting party tomorrow, sarge?” Kris asked when he looked around and saw her. When he spotted Greene behind her, he scowled. “Oh, I left Patti Sue with Sandy but I’ve got survival skills.”
“Yeah, you did well on Barevi,” Mitford said, but she thought, for a moment, that he had other plans for her.
“The skills’re good anywhere…in the universe…” And she grinned. “’Sides, I had a good rest today, gutting beasties.”
Mitford hesitated until he saw Zainal watching him. “Go with our ally. You’re safer with him.”
“I am?”
“You better believe it.” That came out as a growl. “Rendezvous at last moonset. Same cave? Good, Zainal’ll know where to find you.” He started to turn to those waiting behind her.
“Sarge, someone stole Patti’s rations while she slept.”
Mitford nodded to Jay Greene. “Mark a package with her name then, Greene, and keep it in stores. At best, she’ll get used to dealing with a male again. Next?”
And he looked beyond them to others waiting patiently for his attention. Kris and Jay moved off.
“I don’t know if that was an insult or not,” Jay murmured drolly.
“Well, I’ll know it’s safer in your care and she’ll get fed.” “Patti Sue’ll always get fed,” Jay said cryptically.
* * *
KRIS COLLECTED PATTI SUE FROM SANDY, TRYING to ignore the look in the girl’s eyes which suggested she had doubted that Kris would return for her. Sandy asked which cave they were stashed in and she’d just change her bedroll into it.
Kris escorted Patti to the water containers for a drink, and then to the latrine cave and showed her how to take care of that basic problem before they retired. There was one woman fast asleep and snoring along the inside wall. So Kris directed Patti Sue to lie next to her, then she stretched out and there was space left for Sandy, at least, and probably someone else. Because her noise would keep everyone awake, Kris leaned over and, shaking the woman, suggested that she turn on her side. Sleepily the woman complied and then Patti sighed deeply in appreciation as she made herself as comfortable as possible.
Not that Kris needed any help getting to sleep. She didn’t even turn once—that she remembered.
Chapter Five
THE PANORAMA FROM THE TOP OF THE CLIFF WAS breathtaking—and Kris needed to get her breath back after the climb Zainal had led his squad on. Before them stretched in a westerly direction—as far as the eye could see—the large neat fields, punctuated by streams that glistened as sparkling ribbons in the morning sun. Some of the fields were occupied by grazers whose form was difficult to decipher at this distance. Off to the south there was a huge body of water, but whether it was an ocean or a lake could not be ascertained.
This party was also told to hunt and Zainal had said tersely that it was best to hunt farther from the camp. To this all the experienced hunters agreed. There was little grumbling from the humans about the Catteni—or none after they’d been on the way an hour, for he set them a bruising pace and sheer human perversity required the eight members of her species to keep up with Slav, the Rugarian, and the two Deskis, Zewe and Kuskus—or that was what their names sounded like.
Mitford’s claim that the Deskis were useful was borne out when the spindly creatures seemed to ooze up cliffs. They didn’t have suckers on their feet, but that was the impression you got, Kris thought. They stood firm behind the ropes they let down for others. So did Zainal, who was the first humanoid to follow. Some way or other, in the five ascents made, Kris always seemed to get hauled up by Zainal, who grinned each time he handed her safely onto the next level. She felt oddly pleased by his continued attention…considering the fact that it was all her fault he was on this planet anyhow.
A day on Botany, which was what Kris privately decided to call the planet, was longer than Earth and Barevi, so they’d been going quite a long time before the sun was at zenith, which was when Zainal called a meal-break halt on the summit. The ration bars would have gone more easily with some water to soften them though they’d all had a good drink at the last stream. Kris, dangling her legs over the edge of their vantage point, munched away and looked at the view, trying to figure out what crops were being grown, and for whom. As far as she could see, the land was cultivated or used as pasture, yet Zainal had repeatedly said the planet was not inhabited. So who was nurturing it and why? Considering that the harvestings were stored in caves, could the consumers be cave dwellers, residing deep within the planet? That would explain why there were no cities or visible occupants. Not that Kris was eager to meet troglodytes.
The range of hills, of which this was an outcropping, loomed behind and around them, spreading to the east. Mitford had marched them northward from the field on which they had been dropped by the Catteni, up the ravines until the caves had been found. But those had showed no signs of occupation, past or present, even by the local wildlife, which apparently favored forested and vegetated areas. Curiouser and curiouser, Kris thought.
Just then the Rugarian, Slav, uttered an odd cry and pointed, his oddly jointed furry arm directing everyone’s attention to the northwest. Kris could see nothing but more rolling fields in their neat patchwork arrangements.
Shielding his eyes, Zainal peered out and jabbered something to the Rugarian, who gave his head a sharp affirmative nod.
Zainal turned to the others. “Slav has seen what is different…not animal.” He made a cube shape with swift gestures.
“Any people?” Kris asked, thinking that the presence of geometrical objects might indicate another drop point and more castaways. Not that she really wanted more people whose needs had to be considered.
The field was a fair distance away, though there were two little forests to traverse and in each the guys with slingshots brought down some of the alien birdy-like things and enough rocksquats to make the hunt worthy of the name. Kris had coaxed one of the hunters into letting her try her hand with the sling when he didn’t need it. By the time the
y had reached the second woods, she was getting closer to the target she aimed at.
“Wait’ll you see a covey of the critters,” Cumber suggested, “and then, if you miss what you’re aiming at, you might hit something else.”
“You’re encouraging,” Kris replied.
“Are you?” and Cumber cocked his head at her, his eyes bright with suggestion.
“Well, on that score, no, buddy, not encouraging,” she said bluntly but with a smile.
She would have liked to stride forward, right up on top of Zainal’s heels, but that didn’t seem a good idea either so she shortened her stride and dropped back with the Deskis, who were ambling along, both festooned with necklaces of the rocksquats which their unerring aim had downed. They were as good as hunters as they were as climbers.
The cubes were indeed Catteni-issue: one was even unopened and contained blankets which Zainal parceled out among the hunters to be carried back. There were dried brown puddles in an irregular pattern across the field but little else. Kris felt a wave of regret for those who had lost their lives here from “unknown assailants,” as a news bulletin might say.
Reassembling her clutch of blankets, Kris saw the Rugarians quartering the field while Zainal had several others spread out and searching the borders.
“Think those flying things got ’em?” Cumber asked, returning to her.
“Could be. But all of them? When the crates have been opened?”
“Or what comes out of the ground in the dark and sucks corpses dry,” Cumber went on, waiting to see the effect his words had on her.
“This world does its own recycling,” she replied. “No waste, no debris, no Coke bottles or dead aerosol cans.”
“Huh?” Cumber was plainly a literal-minded man and her facetious remark did not register with him.
Then one of the border patrol let out a shout and everyone, of course, had to go see what he’d found: a clear trace that some large objects had pushed their way through the bushy hedge.
“Looks like something stampeded through there,” Cumber told Kris.
She could see the line of retreat, or flight, through the foot-high crops in the next patch. At that point one of Rugarians shouted.
“Quiet, he says,” Zainal said in his deep-voiced Barevian that carried just loudly enough so that the entire group heard him.
Slav was gesturing with his knife and then Kris clearly heard the Barevian word “hot.”
“Hot metal?” she asked, making her voice carry as she strode toward the knot of people clustering about Slav.
“Hot metal?” he was asked. Someone else pulled out their knife, pantomiming a hot blade.
“Yissss,” and the Rugarian pointed downhill and inhaled deeply.
“He smells hot metal,” Kris said.
Zainal took charge, directing everyone to hide behind the hedges and for Slav and a human male to go investigate.
“Hot metal? The people who farm this planet coming to see who’s messing up their fields?” Kris asked of no one in particular.
“’Bout time someone came to have a look-see, if ya ask me,” Cumber said in a pessimistic tone.
“And all we got is knives!”
The returning scouts were not much ahead of the “thing” that lumbered after them. Only it wasn’t after them: it was following a course to the fields above. It was gliding along on an air cushion, for it negotiated the hedges in a smooth hop and, while Kris and everyone else watched in fascination, it reached one of the crop-bearing fields and immediately went into a different mode: spraying the field.
“Willya looka that!” The speaker rose to full height in his surprise. Immediately those on either side of him pulled him back down behind the screening hedges. “Ah, it ain’t got no eyes. It’s just a farm machine. An’ I think I saw another one down below, spraying another field.”
He was correct, as everyone immediately discovered by the simple expedient of taking a careful look.
“Close look now,” Zainal said in Barevi and pointed at not only Cumber but Kris and Slav to take the detail. “Stay down. Stay quiet. Don’t know what these machines can do.”
“Wal, I doan mind restin’ my dawgs,” was someone’s response. “That Cat can sure trot the klicks.”
Kris was rather pleased to be singled out as someone whose opinion on the machine might be useful. Crouching low—and indeed Zainal moved as close to being on all fours as she’d ever seen a man move, even in Rambo pictures—they traversed the field where another group of whilom settlers had been deposited. They could see the top third of the machine, diligently switching back and forth, spraying evenly.
“That’s why the fields are so damned regular,” Cumber muttered beside her. “So the machines don’t have to do corners or nothin’.”
“Work-efficient,” Kris replied in a whisper.
Zainal’s hand flagged at them, and they saw him put his finger to his lips for silence. Kris grimaced at having to be reminded. Machines who came all on their own to do even methodical tasks might be programmed for other actions.
When they got closer to the farther hedge, Zainal motioned them to get even flatter to the ground. Kris suppressed a groan as she fell to her belly and inched along like the rest of them.
They found gaps at the base of the hedges, between the thick trunks of the vegetation, and peered out at the machine, which was now on the far side of the field. It was still balanced on its air cushions, still spraying, and the only mechanism that it reminded Kris of was a Dalek from old Doctor Who videos.
“Exterminate. Exterminate.” The Dalekian cry echoed through her head and she wondered just how apt it was. Was the thing spraying fertilizer or insect killer? It was nearly finished, whatever. When it got to the last corner, however, it turned and came toward them.
Zainal signaled for them to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible by squinching up against, under if possible, the thick hedge. Kris heard the thing nearing just as she also damned near gutted herself on a pointy root. Grimacing, she endured the discomfort for what seemed to be hours.
She heard a clicking, whirring, and other such noises that were so much like the sounds of that old Doctor Who series that she was also close to laughter. Except this wasn’t a laughing matter.
Then the machine “jumped” the hedge and they all got a blast of hot, smelly, metallic air before it swept across the field, not touching any of the debris but certainly, Kris felt sure, checking it over.
Another hopscotch leap and it left, fortunately never getting into the field where the rest of the hunters were, hopefully, making themselves as scarce as possible.
“That thing’s dangerous,” Cumber told Zainal, who merely nodded.
“We get the others and leave,” he said, emphasizing the last word significantly.
Slav, who had been listening carefully to the Catteni, now raised his hands to his lips and emitted a shrill sound that wasn’t birdcall or dog call or anything.
It was answered by a similar call from Zewe.
“Tell. Go,” and Slav pointed uphill, the way they had come.
“Good!” And so they started on the way back, joining the rest of the hunters by the time they reached the next field.
The Deski then gave one of their warnings, quick gestures indicating flying things, and everyone froze in their tracks. A formation of five fliers came gliding in from the east, swooping down over the field and then quartering it. As nothing moved, the predators were balked of their reward and, with squawks of complaint drifting back to the breathless waiting hunters, they proceeded on down the slope.
“Wow!” Cumber said in a low and respectful voice. “That damned machine called in an alarm.”
“We weren’t seen by it,” Kris said thoughtfully, “so it must have some sort of sensors, because it sure knew we were there. Like a Dalek.”
“A what?” Cumber clearly had never watched the old s-f serials.
“A robot with deadly intentions.”
One of th
e other men grinned and said in a nasal falsetto, “Exterminate! Exterminate!”
“Hey, mac, keep it down!” someone else ordered in a nervous whisper.
“What is said?” Zainal quietly asked in English.
“The machine reported our presence,” Kris said, pantomiming the actions of her words. “It may be heat-sensitive. Knew we were in the hedge because of body heat.”
Zainal nodded. “Take good care. We go to caves now. Hunt. But watch always.” He tapped Slav and Zewe and gave them some rapid orders. “They hear best,” he added to Kris.
The two Rugarians moved to the sides of the main group and then, on Zainal’s signal, everyone moved out again.
The return home was even rougher, with all the descents to be made while they were laden with the rewards of their hunting. No unusual hazards were encountered. On the plus side, the six-legged grazers which they had spotted in the field bled red blood when nicked. Two were slaughtered and dressed right there in the field so that their meat could be portioned out among the hunters to carry home. The additional blankets were put to good use. And very helpful later when the insects began to rise after the sun went down.
Deskis evidently had a sharp homing instinct because they led the way back in the semidarkness. Kris had never been so glad to see the campfires of home!
There was certainly applause for the hunters when they returned so well laden. No sooner had she divested herself of her burden than Zainal touched her arm and gestured for her to join him in reporting to Mitford. Cumber and Slav were there, too.
“Cumber said you identified these machines, Kris,” Mitford said. He looked very tired.
“Me? No, not really, only that they’re some sort of robots.”
“Cumber said they didn’t even touch the ground.”
“Air-cushion propulsion?”
“Hmmm. High-tech. And heat-seekers?”
“Well, the machine must have called in those flying predators,” Kris said. “And there were five of ’em so I’m extrapolating that the machine sensed our five bodies hidden in the hedge. But anyone’s guess is as good as mine,” she ended modestly.
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