Freedom's Choice

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Does the Mentat wish to land and speak to the humans?” the pilot asked, as more emerged from the caves.

  “I have no interest in pests.” The Ix had been more closely observing the signature of the humans than anyone realized. Primarily it searched for the unmistakable signature of a Catteni-life-reading and that was not visible outside or inside the caves. Deep inside the Ix’s mind, one pathetic whimper trembled.

  “The humans appear to have moved about a great deal,” Mentat Co said, “if these,” and it flicked a long nail at the screen where more clusters showed at different locations, “are indeed human pulses.”

  Ix Mentat regarded Co with some interest. “Moved where?”

  “On the smaller continent adjacent to this one. Many human life signs registered there as we overflew it.”

  “Return,” Ix Mentat said, and sat back, impatient to reach the ship and order it to the second continent. The Catten signature might be found among the other concentration of humans.

  As the AA1 lifted, having left a substantial declivity across most of the field with the weight of its visit, the Ix Mentat entered the bridge and stood behind the officer responsible for the life-form detection.

  “Set for Catten sign,” the Ix said, clicking its long nails together in a tattoo that had the Catteni officer cringing with nervousness.

  The AA1 made the next continent in a shallow curve. It had not yet reached even the intended altitude when the screen gave off a brief blip—registering the presence of a Catteni. It vanished so quickly that the duty officer wondered if it had been a legitimate sighting. The Mentat was taking no chances and ordered the vessel to circle the point, a prong of land extending into the narrow channel between the two landmasses. But nothing registered again on the screen.

  “An anomaly, perhaps,” the Co suggested blandly, after sufficient time had elapsed to have done several orbits about this wretched planet.

  “Perhaps,” the Ix replied irritably, and signaled to continue across the water.

  The greatest concentration of the lesser, human signatures was found around the northern bay.

  “They’ve infested the place,” the Co remarked as the babble was screened for any sign of Catten.

  The Ix pondered a long while as the AA1 held its position, using great quantities of fuel to do so. Then, with an abrupt gesture, the Mentat Ix ordered the captain to return with all possible speed to Catten.

  The captain wished to do so as well, anxious to be rid of his Eosi passengers, and he gave the necessary orders. And was nearly bounced from his command chair as the forward motion abruptly ceased. The engines were still running, their pulse beginning to reach up to a whine of frustration, as the ship met an impenetrable obstacle.

  “There’s some sort of barrier, captain,” the helmsman said, looking at the opacity which held them motionless. “It’s all around the planet.”

  “Destroy it,” the Ix said with an agitated wave of its long arm.

  The captain ordered a full barrage of all forward weapons, certain his firepower was sufficient to the task. The ship rocked and crewmen covered their eyes at the resultant flashback.

  “I see a lessening in the opacity directly ahead,” the navigator said, trying hard not to think of how futile this brand-new ship’s much vaunted weaponry had been.

  The captain called for more power and the ship moved slowly, slowly, slowly, pushing through the barrier it had been unable to destroy. Then, all of a sudden, the ship plunged forward through the obstacle, knocking to the deck many who were not holding on to something, including all three Mentats.

  Although several officers sprang forward in an instinctive effort to assist, the Mentats snarled away any help and slowly got to their feet, glaring around them.

  “Turn!” the Ix ordered the captain. “I want to know what that barrier is and how it could impede this ship.”

  The captain gave the order to the com board to switch to the stern view screen. Nothing happened.

  “I asked for the view astern,” he roared but, while the communications officer cringed from his captain’s anger, all his attempts to access the rear views came to nothing.

  “There is no response,” he said.

  “Damage report,” said the engineering officer, “indicates problems with the arrays, sir. It is an external problem.”

  “Fix it!” the captain said, bringing his fists down on the armrests.

  Orders were forwarded. And the Ix rattled its long nails with far more irritation than the captain dared show.

  “Well, then turn the ship around so that the forward view screens can enlighten us. I must examine that obstacle,” Ix said, making a small tight circle with one finger.

  In getting free, the full power of the AAl’s engines had carried them a considerable distance before that maneuver was completed. The captain muttered unhappily when he saw how far they were from the misbegotten Bubble, and an unhappy silence ensued in the bridge until they had returned close enough to examine the phenomenon. During that time, a damage report suggested that every protuberance of more than twenty centimeters and all the more delicate arrays had been snapped off. And indeed, as they neared the opaque Bubble, it was obvious in the forward view screen that every last one of the missing parts was embedded in the Bubble, outlining the less fragile silhouette of the AA1. And the Bubble completely enclosed the planet, just short of the two satellites. The orbital continued its programmed circuits but there would be nothing on its tapes but an endless view of the Bubble.

  “It admits sunlight,” the science officer said, relieved to find something positive to report, for he had to add that its composition was totally unfamiliar.

  “Examine it thoroughly,” the Ix said, looming over the technician, expecting answers.

  The Catteni, one of the top men in his branch of the service, used every technique available to him at a station that was supposed to have all the latest improvements for its duties, and could find nothing further to report. Finally he spread his hands to admit defeat. He dared not look above his head at the Mentat, so he did not see the blow that crushed his skull like a melon.

  The Ix stormed from the bridge, its juniors behind it, and the captain told the helmsman to return to the original course back to Catten. Then he gestured for the corpse to be removed from the science station.

  * * *

  “Hell, I don’t know what it was,” Marrucci told the others gathered in the bridge of the KDL. “Never seen anything like it—pushed all the gauges off line and it looked…” and he paused, “for a split second, as if deep space got lit up.”

  “Now let’s not lose perspective here,” Scott began, and then stopped.

  Beverly whistled under his breath. “I know it can’t be technologically possible,” he began slowly, “but then a lot of stuff we’ve been seeing recently is so far beyond what we’d generally consider science-fictional that maybe we can stretch that a little bit further and think it’s possible to put a barrier around an entire planet.”

  “There’s something out there now that wasn’t there earlier,” Scott said, leaning on the edge of the scanner board and staring at it. “Even if it only shows up like a mist or a veil or an opacity.”

  “There was a Star Trek episode I saw as a kid,” Marrucci remarked almost apologetically, “called ‘The Tholian Web’ and it was about building a lattice to keep the Enterprise in.”

  “So how did the Enterprise get free?” Beverly asked without a trace of irony.

  Marrucci thought for a long moment and then shrugged. “I can’t remember. But I can see the web being spun around it and they knew they only had so much time…” He trailed off.

  “So, are the Farmers keeping us in? And why did they let the Eosi ship in and then out?”

  “It blew a hole in the web and got out?” Marrucci asked, looking around the bridge for any other explanation. “That might explain that flash, the Eosi blowing it open.”

  “There’s no hole in it now,” Scott said,
standing up again but not taking his eyes from the screen. “And why was the Eosi ship here in the first place?”

  “Looking us over?” Fetterman suggested. They’d all been alerted by the Deski sentries here at Retreat Bay when the ship had overflown them. Then the group at old Camp Narrow had informed them that the ship had landed in the Drop Field. Discreet observation had followed, and reported, every move, including the skiff arriving at the abattoir and the subsequent removal to the field near Camp Rock, and Worrell had reported the skiff hovering over Camp Rock. And, in detail, what he had seen in the skiff.

  “I saw three…giants…in the skiff,” Worry said, his voice shaky. “They were staring down at us and I’ve never seen such nightmares. They were…sort of Catteni but no Catteni is that big and glows. The heads are all distorted and the features sort of caricatures of Catteni. Not even Catteni deserve that sort of fate. I’m glad Zainal missed out if that’s what he was avoiding!”

  “I concur with what Worry says.” Leon Dane came on line. “I’ve never seen anything like that, not in Sydney or in any of the material that we commandeered during our operations in Australia. There’s a disease—elephantiasis—that causes something that looks similar. But the gross enlargement of the head isn’t at all like an encephalic abnormality…. No wonder ordinary Catteni are frightened by the Eosi. They scared the shit out of me just now.”

  Shortly after that report, the warship was seen to pause just over the channel, where it circled for a long time. But time enough for those at Retreat Bay to complete the camouflage around the KDL and Baby, which were now housed in the big cave.

  “You don’t think they’ve been looking for Zainal, do you?” Mitford asked. “He’d’ve been about there,” and the sergeant pointed to the area that had attracted the Catteni hover, “in the Tub.”

  “What effect does several fathoms of water have on Catteni detection scans?” Marrucci asked those around him.

  “Zainal might know but let’s not call and ask him, huh?” Mitford said.

  No one could anyhow, since that was when the Eosi warship met the immovable opacity and the brand-new worry about whether they were sealed in or others sealed out.

  * * *

  Having completed its programmed task, the Bubble-drone assumed its monitor facet and observed the approach of a small spaceship which had just taken off from the subject planet. It had, of course, observed the arrival and landing of the same craft earlier but, as it was not programmed to take any action at that point, it continued its primary assignment, extruding the material that would form the protective barrier.

  However, when the spaceship did not heed the initial resistance of the barrier, it accessed its emergency instructions. In that brief period of time of adding scope on its activities, the spacecraft displayed force which had to be disseminated quickly through the barrier to diffuse the effect. The further efforts of the spacecraft to pass its confines weakened the barrier. Then the instructions were available and the barrier assisted the expulsion of the hostile craft. The substance of the barrier caught on and held protuberances and smaller exterior parts of the exiting body. But the overall integrity of the Bubble remained intact and the subject planet was now safe from external dangers, of which the spacecraft could now be considered one.

  Since there had been an attack, the orbiting mechanism initialized its message segment and programmed it with a full report of the proceedings. Once the message segment reached the point at which its hyperspace drive could safely function without a backlash affecting the integrity of a solar system, it made its quick passage back to its home base.

  This time its purport was quickly examined by entities able to deal with the subject matter.

  * * *

  By the time Zainal and Kris drove out of the water at Retreat Bay, they were aware of the excitement of those they passed, who waved vigorously at them as they made their way to headquarters in the big cave. That was where they found Mitford waiting for them in his little runabout.

  “The consensus of opinion is that they might have been looking for you,” Mitford told Zainal. “Get in, the pair of you. Let the others unpack the Tub.”

  “We just made it into the channel when the ship passed overhead,” Kris said, taking a seat. “We were well started when we heard the reports about the landing in the Drop Field, and Zainal here,” and she gave him a little grin, “put the pedal to the metal and headed toward the channel as fast as the Tub would go. It wouldn’t have done for them to spot it when it’s supposed to be shards in space with the rest of the KDL.” She glanced at Zainal.

  She’d said nothing to him about her other suspicion, which Mitford had voiced, that the ship might be looking for him. At least, not until the skiff was reported landing where Lenvec had, and where they had hijacked the scout vehicle. That was when Zainal started driving faster than was safe over the rough terrain. He was racing to the channel, to get as deep as the Tub could safely go. That was when she knew Zainal was really worried. Now he seemed amused by the incident and shrugged off Mitford’s report.

  “Worry saw three Eosi?” Zainal asked, his yellow eyes sparkling with an almost demonic glitter.

  “Yeah, and they scared the shit out of him and Leon Dane.”

  Zainal’s smile widened with irony. “They are frightful. It was only with great effort that I did not embarrass my father and all my line by losing water.” Then he gave his big shoulders one of his characteristic shrugs. “But only the first time.”

  “Is that what you would have become if you’d gone back?” Mitford asked, not quite meeting Zainal’s eyes.

  The Catteni nodded once, slowly. “So they came back? And looked at the machinery in Narrow, and at the field and at Camp Rock, and didn’t find Catteni-life signs. But they have gone. There was nothing on the screen when we got out at the bay. What happened? I wish to hear more.”

  “There is more to tell, too, that you wouldn’t have seen underwater. The brass-heads are waiting for you,” Mitford said with a big grin, stopping the air-cushion by the stairs at the KDL’s open hatch.

  They climbed in.

  “Good news, sarge?” Kris asked, remembering those last few klicks before the Tub immersed itself. Zainal’s expression had been so grim, so…frightened? She didn’t like to think of anything frightening Zainal even if she knew very well that the Eosi did. Did he suspect the ship might be searching for him…still? Especially if the others did. Could his brother, Lenvec, still be conscious enough to make an Eosi search him out and take revenge?

  “Well, sort of good news,” Mitford said with an odd twist to his smile. “Tell me, Zainal, could that warship scan underwater?”

  “I hope not,” Zainal said, and Kris, watching him closely, saw his jaw muscles tighten.

  “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think they can because otherwise they would have found you, if you’re what they were looking for,” Mitford said. “They did spend a lot of time circling the channel on the other side, about where you would have submerged.”

  “We cut it pretty close, I think,” Kris said, her eyes on Zainal.

  “But they have gone away,” Zainal said with a satisfied nod.

  “They’ve gone. With a bang,” Mitford said. Neither Kris nor Zainal had time to question him further because they had reached the bridge where Scott, Beverly, and Marrucci waited for them.

  “Glad you made it here safely, after all,” Scott said in welcome, but he gestured for Zainal and Kris to join him at the big screen. “Gino, replay the Catteni ship’s departure, will you?”

  Marrucci, grinning from ear to ear, tapped in the necessary keys as if he’d handled Catteni equipment all his professional life.

  Zainal echoed the gasp Kris gave when she saw the blip of the Catteni vessel stop short.

  “How could it hit a wall in space?” she asked. Only then did she notice the barely visible skin of the Bubble. “That’s what stopped it?” She turned first to Beverly and then Scott and Mitford, and finally to Zai
nal.

  He was shaking his head but his eyes were gleaming with intense satisfaction.

  “It circles the planet?” he asked.

  “We have reason to believe so. But watch,” Scott said, holding up one hand, fingers wide to give his eyes some protection from the flash.

  “Wow!” Kris said, blinking to clear the afterimage from her eyes. “What was that?”

  “The forward blasters of the ship firing at once,” Zainal said in a very odd tone of voice. “And it isn’t enough?” He continued to watch but a half smile turned the corner of his mouth and he began to chuckle. Now he folded his arms across his chest and, still chuckling, watched as the Catteni warship slowly pushed its way through the obstacle and became invisible. “Ah!” He dropped his arms. “That is very interesting indeed,” he said, turning to Scott.

  “Yes, we think so,” and Scott settled himself on the edge of the screen control panel. “We think they were looking for you…”

  “I told them,” Mitford said, seating himself at the next work station.

  Scott shot him a glance. “Could they have been?”

  “For what purpose?” Zainal lifted one shoulder negligently. “I speeded the Tub so they would not see it out in the open. They might have seen it submerging, if they had the scanners in the right direction. If they came, it was to see what their orbital saw. It was in place when the whiz-ball came over, and it was also there when the big one sent down all the new machines. The Eosi looked at those, did they not?”

  Mitford’s expression was one of relief and Scott regarded Zainal with a look close to embarrassment.

  “They come to see what’s new on Botany,” Zainal repeated, showing his teeth in a full grin. “Not for me.”

  Kris allowed herself to relax a trifle. She’d forgotten all about the fact that the Catteni orbital would have sent reports back. Of course that’s what they had come to see! Zainal didn’t enter into the matter. He was dropped and he stayed.

  “So, do you think the Farmers erected that space barrier?” Scott asked, his eyes intently on Zainal’s face.