In the panic of the effort to get everybody off the ground and started up the crates, Kris got bruised, cut, and had her right wrist wrenched so badly that she had to rely on her left hand. Then there was Zainal to get up to safety because the mechanos were now aware that something was distinctly out of order. Kris wondered if they had counted bodies coming out of the barn and had now discovered that the appropriate number were not being processed. A shame to put their production figures out. But they’d rescued more than twenty from slaughter.
Zainal had to jump to reach the helping hands that would take him off the ground. A funny little clicking machine was now quartering the passageway.
“Climb!” Zainal said to those on his level. “Seek heat. We go to cold.”
They climbed and climbed until they reached the top with the others and then they all stopped in awe. As far as they could see, there were crates stacked to the same height. Acres of them to the horizon.
“Now this is one mother of a stockpile,” a human muttered with an understandably hysterical edge to his voice.
“And we damned near joined it,” someone else said.
“More down there?” Zainal asked and Kris noted him breathing heavily for the first time since they’d started this reconnaissance.
“Hell, all we saw was that one stinking barn after those flying turrets darted us. Are we going to hang about to see?” Clearly that was not his preference.
“Hey, you’re a Cat!” the first speaker said accusingly.
“Cat or not, he just saved our lives. Thanks, pal,” the second man said to Zainal, holding out his hand. He was filthy and the slight breeze on the top of this incredible stockpile wafted a stench off him that nearly gagged Kris.
Most of the escapees now sank to their butts to rest after their scrambling retreat.
“Zainal is my name. These three and I explore. You are?”
“Speaks good English for a Cat,” the second man said.
“Kris Bjornsen, Slav, and Coo are us,” Zainal continued the introductions. Then he paused for the others to identify themselves.
Their stories were similar to the experiences of Kris’ group except that they hadn’t had the benefit of a Sergeant Chuck Mitford to marshal them out of danger. The field they had been dumped on had been attacked by the fliers in spite of Deski attempts to warn of incoming danger. Everyone had scattered in twos and threes and small groups, only to be rounded up when they were spotted the second morning by a harvester unit. They’d been in the barn for several days but had survived on their food parcels, which were now almost gone. Several of their number had been trampled to death in the barn when the animals had, for some reason, panicked the second night of their incarceration.
“That’s why we all smell like this,” said Lenny Doyle, a slightly-built, dark-haired man with a pleasant, open face and a nice smile. Dick Aarens had been the first speaker and still regarded Zainal with frowning suspicion. He was taller than Kris, but he had a dreadful slouch and a mean slant to his mouth as well as deep scowl lines.
“Zainal got dumped down here along with the rest of us,” Kris said with an indifferent shrug to relieve the sudden tension among the newcomers, “and I don’t know why he’s here, but he is and he was ready to risk his neck to get you out, so cool it, mac.”
Dick Aarens reluctantly subsided but Kris caught him more than once glaring at either her or Zainal.
“So do we go back and see if anyone else’s stuck in those barns?” Lenny asked Zainal.
“Why should he risk his neck for us humans?” a stocky man of apparent Italianate origin demanded in a surly voice.
Zainal had his head down in what Kris was beginning to know as his “thinking” pose. He looked up at the sun and then did a slow circle, squinting against the glare of the sun. He said a few brief words to Slav, who nodded.
“Slav leads to camp,” Zainal said. “The machines learn…”
“Yeah, but do they have something that climbs crates like a spider?” Aarens demanded.
“You have food?” Zainal asked.
“What’s it to ya?” Aarens wanted to know.
“Oh, cool it, Aarens,” Lenny said. “The machines didn’t search us. We got cups, knives, and bars.”
“No water,” and again Zainal glanced sunward.
“I take the point,” Lenny said. “Look, I’ll volunteer to go back to the edge and see what’s up with the mechanicals.” He grinned at Kris for his description of their captors. “They must’ve…processed…another group yesterday. We heard screaming a coupla times.” He shook himself convulsively. “So we figured we might have to make a break for it.”
“There’re a lot of barns down there,” Aarens said, shaking his head.
“We go back,” Zainal said. “See.”
“Now, wait a minute…” Aarens said, holding up one hand in protest.
Protesting to the idea as well as the spokesman, Kris thought, marking Aarens as troublesome.
“Then go with Slav,” Zainal said, shrugging his indifference. “There is much to see and know.” This time his gesture meant learning as much as possible about the machines and their operation.
“Can you open barn doors from outside?” Kris asked.
Zainal nodded. “Easy,” and now he grinned. “Animals do not unlock doors. Humans, and Cats, do.”
Lenny laughed out loud at that and nudged the hostile Aarens. “Sense of humor, too. Shall I go back for a look-see? I had a long drink just before we got ejected from our happy home.”
Zainal nodded and Lenny trotted back the way he had come.
“Hey, bro, I’m coming, too,” and a second man followed.
“The Doyle brothers stick together. I’m Joe Lattore,” the stocky Italian said with a grin, nodding at both Kris and Zainal. “So what do we do if there are a lot of other humans, and aliens, stuck in with the cattle?”
“We get them out,” Zainal said, and hunkering down, unrolled one of his spare blankets and, taking out his knife, began to rend the blanket into strips. To make ropes, Kris immediately realized.
“Yeah, a rope would be real handy,” Lattore said and took a blanket as Zainal handed them around.
It wasn’t easy to do, given the sort of indestructible fabric it was. Kris had to stop: her wrist ached and was next to useless. But hauling folks to the top of the crates with the help of a rope would be a lot easier. That is, if the mechanicals hadn’t figured out where the escapees had gone—which was possible. By the time they had acquired several lengths of sturdy rope, the Doyles returned. They had seen no more except smoke from the processing plant.
“Yeah, machines operate on logic, and our escape—since they classified us as ‘meat animals’—would be inconsistent,” Kris said, as she worked. “Somehow I don’t think their programming would extend to coping with inconsistencies. We came up as heat sources where heat sources shouldn’t be, in there messing up their crop fields. That was easy for them. So they dumped us in with the other animals they were collecting.”
“I don’t think I like that,” Joe said, shuddering. “Bad enough to be mistaken as food. How come they don’t recognize people?”
“Does sort of beg the question, doesn’t it?” Lenny said. “I dunno how they figure it all out. We were there four-five days without anyone taking a blind bit of notice of us, or even opening the main door. When they did, we couldn’t get out for those six-legged things being crammed in. And suddenly there was only standing space. Then—whammy! We’re scheduled for the chop. They must have started…well, processing…yesterday if what we heard were human cries.…” Lenny gave another shiver.
Kris watched Zainal thinking over this information. She wondered how in heaven’s name the Catteni scouts hadn’t noticed such installations on their exploratory pass of this planet. Surely they would have spotted such a vast number of crates? Unless, and she thought of the evidences of scrapes and bad handling, these were new, and the last lot had been collected? By what? For whom?
“We see if there are…more people,” Zainal said, having reached a decision. “You help?” He looked around at the recently rescued.
Ten decided to remain and help, including the two Doyle brothers and, oddly enough in Kris’ estimation, Aarens. The others were led off by Slav, who once again assured Zainal that he could find the cave campsite. He kept pointing to the north and east. The two Deskis went with him, to keep a listen-out for the fliers and any roving mechanicals that would need to be avoided at all costs. If nothing else, this recon had taught Kris, and the others, the sorts of hazards that had to be avoided: sleeping on bare ground, avoiding the harvesters, and freezing when fliers were spotted. Simple, homey rules, Kris told herself facetiously. She was glad she’d had a good drink of water before they’d set out. Still, maybe they could sneak back down to the vacant barns.
Which is what they did when Zainal and his stalwarts reached the yard. The fact that no one had been searched, much less stripped, was discussed.
“They didn’t search the six-legged critters,” Lenny said. “Why would they search us?”
“But we’re…we’re humans,” Aarens said and Lenny’s brother, Ninety, snorted.
“Did you introduce yourself? Well, then, how would the machine know we’re different?”
“You mean they thought we were animals?” Aarens was outraged.
“Not very flattering, is it?” Lenny said drolly.
“Just another warm body, bro,” Ninety quipped back with a grin. “Any warm body’ll do. If it registers.”
“That is how the machines know,” Zainal said. “Heat.”
“I’ll buy that,” Lenny said. “And movement.”
“There are no…people…on this planet,” Zainal added.
“Yeah,” Lenny said thoughtfully. “Think you’re right. I thought robots were supposed to protect humans.” He glanced slyly at Kris.
“Not if they’re not programmed to.”
“So who, or what, programmed ’em?” Lenny wanted to know. Kris could only shrug her ignorance.
Having made their way across the crates and to the nearest barn, they had climbed the roof and now looked down through one of the ventilator slats into the nearest barn. It was empty. Empty and smelling of some kind of a disinfectant which had its own unmistakable reek.
“What a stink,” Lenny said, wrinkling his nose.
“Could there be such a thing as a totally mechanized farm planet?” Kris said, wondering out loud. Then she turned to Zainal, who was lying on the roof beside her, still looking about the empty space below. “How many continents are there on this world, Zainal?”
“Four. Two large, one not so large, one small.”
“Which are we on?”
Zainal shrugged.
“How come he knows so much?” Ninety asked, jerking his thumb at Zainal and addressing Kris.
“He once saw a report on the place. He just didn’t look hard enough to remember everything we’re dying to know,” she said, grimacing. “What he has recalled has already saved us a couple of times.”
“Who’s us?”
Kris told them, and Lenny grinned at his brother when she described Chuck Mitford.
“They never quit, those old soldiers, do they?”
“Mitford’s not old,” she said defensively, “and we were very lucky indeed he was there, because we stayed free.”
Lenny gave her an odd look. “Can you be sure of that?”
“No surer than I am of anything else on this planet.”
Zainal rose. “We look at all.”
As soon as a quick peek proved that there was nothing moving in the yard below them and the smoke was no longer coming out of the abattoir building, they checked the other barns: twenty in all, half of which reeked of the disinfectant. Three of the other ten they examined held nothing but animals. They would call down the vent, tentatively at first, but then with more vigor until they were sure there was no one there to answer. The graziers kept making their stupid “looooing” sound in response to all questions.
“All the same,” said Lenny in disgust, “never did like cows.”
“These aren’t cows,” Aarens said. “Nothing like cows.”
“So? They’re loo-cows instead of moo-cows,” Kris said, a comment which brought chortles from Lenny and Ninety.
“They’re still not cows,” Aarens said. “Cows give milk. Those things don’t have any equipment beyond two extra legs.”
The next barn produced astonished and glad cries and a jumping about of obvious people-shapes in among the loo-cow forms.
“Keep it down, will you?” Aarens called urgently, glancing nervously around.
Lenny Doyle crept to the edge of the barn, looking up and down the quiet avenue and gestured an “okay.”
“What do we tell ’em?” Aarens asked, not looking at Zainal.
“We come at night. They keep quiet now,” Zainal said, ignoring being ignored.
“Night’s a long way away,” Aarens said.
“We watch.”
“We could let down those ropes we made and haul ’em up?” Aarens suggested.
“It’s much easier to open the door at night and let them out,” Kris said firmly, knowing that she wasn’t up to hoisting who knew how many heavy bodies. “Like we did.”
“Night best,” Zainal said, nodding.
“Why? Machines don’t care if it’s night or day. Machines don’t need to sleep.” Aarens was persistent.
Zainal muttered something under his breath. “Do not run at night. Can’t.”
“Why not?” Aarens was getting belligerent, deliberately, Kris thought, trying to find fault with Zainal.
“I think the machines are solar-powered,” Kris said, grasping at an explanation that fit. “Sun power?” she asked Zainal who nodded, smiling that she had grasped the correct explanation.
“Yeah,” and Ninety’s eyes widened. “Yeah, they got those funny panels. At least the harvester did. Makes sense. There hasn’t been any rain yet.”
Zainal grinned. “Rain very bad here. In places. We see who is where,” and he gestured toward the other barns waiting to be searched.
Four more contained humans and the message of imminent release was repeated, caution urged, and the prisoners were told to get as much rest as they could because the escape route was a rough one. There was some protest, but Kris, speaking for Zainal—as that seemed diplomatic—assured them there were reasons for the delay.
They returned then to the roof of one of the empty barns. Prying open one ventilator slot, Lenny Doyle, as the slimmest of the men, crawled through. He was going to check to be sure there were no interior sensors. They let him down far enough so that he could peer around, swinging on the end of the rope.
“Looks clean to me. Sensor eyes can’t be all that different,” he said in a loud whisper to those waiting on the roof. “Lemme down. I need a bath as bad as I need a pee. Begging your pardon, Kris.”
She chuckled and watched as he was lowered to the floor. She was sent down next and heard them ripping away enough of the slot to permit the heavy frame of Zainal to pass. The thin blanket rope was rough on the hands and she slipped a couple of times because her wrist wasn’t functioning, but all of them made it safely to the floor.
There were a dozen or more watering troughs to service the animals the barn usually held, so a few on one side were designated as baths. Piles of some sort of dried fodder had been placed in wall mangers, and Kris looked forward to sleeping a tad more comfortably on a hay bed until moonrise.
Zainal, with Aarens and the Doyles, did a circuit of the empty building, checking for any other sort of sensors that might tell the mechanicals one of the barns was inhabited again.
While most of the men decided to bathe, Kris was more interested in piling up enough fodder to make a decent sleeping surface. She hadn’t liked the leer on Aarens’ face when he looked at her. He struck her as the sort of devious personality who’d peep if given the chance. She wasn’t going to g
ive him one.…
At that, he sought her out, his longish hair still dripping. She couldn’t really hold that against him, but she disliked the proprietary way he made as if to join her on her pile of hay.
“You find your own, buddy,” she said as discouragingly as she could.
“Hey, lady, just thought you’d like some quality company. Can’t say I approve a nice girl like you having to be paired with a Cat. Or is it voluntary?”
“I volunteered for the patrol, if that’s what you mean.” And her tone implied that had better be.
“Are there more like you back at this camp of yours?”
“Aarens, get lost. I’m tired and I want to sleep…by…myself,” she said, emphasizing her wish for solitude. “Git!”
“The fresh stuff is over there, Aarens,” Lenny said, pointing to the manger, his expression pleasant. But there was no doubt that he wouldn’t move until Aarens had.
When she was left alone, she lay down on her pile, so comfortable that she fell asleep despite the muted voices of the men.
* * *
MITFORD SURVEYED THE CAMP, WELL PLEASED with the improvements of the last two days. They had plenty of game and some of the women had thought of sun-drying the overage into a sort of jerky.
“Waste not, want not,” was the theme for the day.
Scouting parties kept coming in with little treasures throughout the long day: fine sand that could be used for a timer.
“Like you use to time your boiled egg.”
“No glass.”
“Well, there’re these nut husks. Cut a teeny tiny hole in one, let the sands run through. Turn it over. Couldn’t be simpler.”
“You lose a couple seconds turning the damned thing over.”
“Complaints, complaints.”
Freedom's Landing Page 13