Freedom's Choice

by Anne McCaffrey

  Ex-teachers had gotten together with an ex-cartoonist and created a language primer for those who wished to learn English. There were fifty copies in print, thanks to supplies on the KDL, and they were well worn by the time Kris snagged a copy for Boris.

  Leon and Mayock managed to dilute the potency of their distillation so that it not only had the faint aftertaste of a Botany nut variety but did not cause such speedy and legless inebriation.

  The only person whose metabolism could cope with the previous grain whiskey was Zainal, so rather than water down what was left (which Leon felt was a crime), they gave the remaining keg to him. The first time he sampled it, Kris told him about Pete Easley getting her drunk on barely two half glasses of it and the hangover she’d had the next day. That reminded her that she hadn’t seen as much of Pete Easley as usual. But she thought nothing of it, going to her stints at the hospital or the brick factory.

  Then they were ready to leave on their exploratory mission and it was a great relief to all the team to be back together again and out on their own.

  “One can get too accustomed to the comforts of home,” Sarah announced, settling back in her seat on the big air-cushion truck. “Though I wish we could have started the cabin before we left. And thanks again, Kris, for all those bricks. Worry’s put his name in for a hundred and so has Jay Greene. We should have enough by the time we get back.”

  “We do appreciate the ones you did for us, too,” Leila said in her often inaudible voice. She was holding hands with Whitby, while hanging on to a strap with the other.

  She looked a bit white, Kris thought, and wondered if she, too, was pregnant. Sarah was, and was very cocky about it, taking it in her stride like any modern woman.

  “Sure thing, Leila. Kept me out of mischief,” Kris said.

  And actually, kept mischief away from her, for any of the importunate men who tried to charm her found themselves also making bricks, if that was where they caught up with her, or feeding a bed-bound patient, which was scarcely a romantic setting for the sort of offers they hoped to make.

  Boris Slavinkovin put in his bid and she had to threaten him with her absence at mealtimes if he kept it up.

  “You’ll have to sometime, you know,” Sarah said bluntly.

  “Oh, I will, I will,” Kris said airily, and did not meet Zainal’s eye when he glanced at her beside him. “Ah, that’s another klick, isn’t it? We’ve gone one thousand plegs again.” She added a slash to her sheet.

  * * *

  They found a way through the hills, through twisting but connecting ravines separated by banks which the air-cushion could manage easily. They marked the more accessible routes with 0’s in the blue, almost luminous paint that was a recent innovation. (Red and yellow had already been produced from local vegetable dyes.) The cul-de-sacs were marked with an X. For some reason, Zainal found the procedure very amusing and wouldn’t tell her why. They did not find any blind valleys or night crawlers but they did find a new variety of rocksquat and some avians that were almost as good eating as chickens, though some, caught closer to the sea, left a fishy aftertaste in the mouth.

  They made their way down the coast until the rocky terrain was impassable even for the remarkably maneuverable vehicle. They were headed back, up the eastern coast, two weeks later when Kris experienced some fleeting nausea first thing in the morning. For a couple of days she was sure it was caused by the ripe soft fruits that flourished in the almost tropical weather that far south. She ignored the minor discomfort until one morning when Joe was replacing the splints and bandages on her arm. The bandage material came from the legs and arms of Catteni coveralls, cut in strips, softened slightly by much washing and use, and adequate for their purpose. Her arm was sweating so much in the heat that she was glad to change the wrappings with the extra roll of bandage that Joe had in his medical kit.

  “Arm’s healing well,” he said, feeling the breaks with careful fingers. “I can feel the thickening of the bones where they’ve knitted.”

  “Doesn’t hurt anymore either,” she said, though she sighed as he replaced splints and bandage strips.

  He gave her an odd sideways glance. “Trip’s done you good. You were looking a little off-color before we left.”

  “Which reminds me…. Anyone else having trouble digesting that pink-fleshed fruit we had last night?” she asked.

  Joe was not only medic but botanist.

  “No, but we didn’t gorge on it either. Why? Got the runs?”

  “No, a touch of indigestion, I guess,” and she shrugged it off, but Sarah had overheard her query and joined them, peering into her face with an intensely disturbing grin on her face. “So?” Kris demanded when Sarah didn’t explain.

  “Breasts hurt? Had your period? How long have you noticed the nausea?”

  Defensively, Kris crossed her arms over her breasts and, as if Sarah’s comment had been a curse, they were tender. She didn’t dare change the position of her arms as her mind raced to the conclusion Sarah had obviously just come to.

  “I can’t be pregnant,” she said, jerking her chin up. “I’ve never—”

  “Never what?” asked Sarah with a sly expression on her face.

  Kris closed her eyes, remembering the potent hooch she’d had for her arm, remembering Pete Easley offering more, and more, and enough so that she had…

  “I’ll kill him,” she said, meaning it fervently. No wonder he had kept out of her way. Just wait till she got back to Retreat. She’d—

  “Is something wrong with Kris’ arm?” Zainal asked, and Kris wanted to seep into the ground like a night crawler.

  “Nothing, nothing’s wrong with my arm,” and she shot to her feet, glaring at Sarah and Joe.

  “No, but she’s pregnant,” Sarah said, gleefully.

  Kris hauled back her left arm to punch Sarah but Zainal caught her around the waist.

  “You had to go blab it!” she shouted, trying to reach Sarah, who had nimbly danced out of her way, with the grinning Joe moving into position to protect his mate, hands out in a placatory move.

  “Now, Kris, don’t go off half-cocked,” he said as Leila and Whitby came running over to see what could possibly have happened.

  “Kris is preggers, too,” Sarah crowed.

  Then Zainal was holding her so tightly to his chest, leaving her feet dangling above the ground, that she had to hang on to him for balance.

  “Thank you, Kris,” he murmured into her ear, and all the fight went out of her.

  She hung limply against him as his arms around her assumed a kinder hold, a loving one. There couldn’t be many males on any world that would thank a woman who got pregnant by another man.

  “You’re welcome. I think,” she added, and squirmed to be released. When he put her back on her feet, she apologized to Sarah and Joe with as good a grace as she could manage. “I wanted to be sure,” she said mendaciously. “It could have just been the ripe fruit.”

  “So, tell us who the lucky guy was?” Joe asked with the familiarity of an old friend.

  Kris chuckled, deciding on an entirely different course of action that meant she couldn’t publicly go after one sweet-talking lothario of a Peter Easley, but neither would she confirm it to him or anyone…unless of course the newborn gave some clue to its paternity. That would serve that so-and-so right. Taking advantage of a girl in her condition…and yet…. She suppressed any recollection of an incident that would result in a lasting and visible proof.

  “That’s for me to know, and you to guess,” she said, delighted to be able to pay Sarah back for blurting out what Kris would rather have kept secret.

  * * *

  The long trek up the Eastern Coast went well, all other events considered. Everyone settled down to the fact of her pregnancy. At night Zainal held her against him with a tenderness she certainly had not expected of him: enough to make her eyes water and make her wish, with all her heart, she might have transcended the barriers of species biology and been pregnant by him.


  By the time they got back to Retreat Bay, she felt better than she ever had in her life. She had to see Leon about her arm and he was very pleased with its progress. He wanted her to keep the splints on anyway, since she insisted on working, but she could use her right hand now. He also confirmed her pregnancy and had the grace not to inquire further.

  “Actually, you’re lucky you’re here on Botany. Doesn’t take as long,” Leon said with a wry grin.

  “What do you mean, it doesn’t take as long?”

  “Average pregnancy is two hundred and sixty to eighty days. But it’ll only take you two hundred and twelve point eight Botanical days to gestate.” When she blinked in confusion at him, he grinned and added, “Thirty-hour days don’t change the development rate of a fetus but it sure alters the days you stay pregnant.”

  “Oh!”

  “Most of my OB patients find that comforting.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  * * *

  Word of her pregnancy got around and she could find additional comfort in the fact that her “admirers” went elsewhere with their persuasions. And when she saw Pete Easley across the crowded mess hall one evening, she merely gave him a cheerful wave and left him wondering. She did like the man, in spite of that dirty trick. He’d been drinking that day, too. Maybe she was assigning his solicitude to exterior motives because he’d been drinking as much of that hooch as she had. How could she fault him for getting drunk and doing what was natural enough? Pregnancy was also mellowing her.

  The temperature was definitely warming up and bushes were blossoming, spreading a heady smell that the inland breeze wafted down to the bay area. The agricultural teams had plowed during their absence and sowed the fields with seed purloined from the now deserted Bella Vista camp in a special trip of the KDL. As no ship had come to collect what was left of the grain, the KDL did, for the supplies brought across the channel were low.

  The silos were swept clean for this year’s storage.

  On the continent that had been evacuated, the machines had been plowing, too, and many of the fields sown. Some wit among the Aggies set up a competition, one-sided though it was, as to the growth and health of their crops versus the Farmers’ and the resultant yield per acre. The Aggies had already elected to use fields the same size the Farmers had, since the arable land seemed to divide into such sections: another clue that this continent might once have been farmed, too. The rustled loo-cows grazed the less desirable fields and the hillsides.

  About the time the crops were a good six inches high and thriving, a most unpleasant discovery was made: there were night crawlers again. Not many, but enough to let them know that there was a resurgence of the menace.

  Astrid put forward the theory that the loo-cows excreted internal parasites that had a second cycle as night crawlers. There were a few who agreed with her, but it made for an interesting argument in the evenings, and had those with wooden floors in their huts replacing them with thick slate or flagstones. And many of those who had not sited their dwellings moved nearer the better-traveled areas. No one walked out at night on any field and the sentinel positions were either made of stone or set high above the ground on stilts.

  This was, however, a very minor setback. Compost heaps were hastily shifted to stone tubs, and the disposal of noxious wastes was no longer a problem. Not that anyone wanted night crawlers in a latrine. Since such facilities no longer had to be dug, it became a punishment chore to do the late-evening dumps, far enough from the rapidly expanding community to reduce the hazard of night crawler infestation to the populated areas.

  Spring lasted months but the fine weather assured the Aggies of excellent crops, as good or even better than what the Farmers were cultivating. The varieties of tubers and pulses occupied half as many fields as the grain crops, and caves were found to store the harvests rather than having to search ever farther afield for the edibles. The night crawlers were not attracted to vegetable matter unless it was mixed with bloody substances, so these crops were not disturbed. The rocksquat compound flourished and it was discovered that baby rocksquats were far more delicate in flavor and texture than the adults.

  Evening classes in various skills were given. The nights that Admiral Ray Scott threw his first successful pot, or Bull Fetterman completed a set of six dining chairs, or Marrucci managed a creditable mortise-and-tenon drawer for his chest remained landmarks in the assimilation of the disparate ex-professionals into true Botanicals.

  There were failures, as Mitford put it: people who refused to do their share of work or felt themselves put upon by “authority” to always have to do the less glamorous tasks. Judge Bempechat gave each offender three chances to redeem him or herself in the eyes of the community. Then the unrepentant had a one-way trip back to the old continent, where they could fend for themselves, with cup, blanket, knife, and hatchet. After the expulsion of the first dozen or so, delinquency was reduced significantly.

  Once a month, the two valley prisons were visited. The Turs disappeared one by one until the valley was empty. The Catteni eventually put up shelters, and when they asked for supplies, like nails or meat as a change from a fish diet, these were provided. But nothing that could provide them any assistance in escaping. Zainal doubted they would try.

  “They are Drassi and Tudo. They have enough to eat, a place to sleep, and that is sufficient.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to better conditions,” Marrucci had said, for he was often in the pilot’s seat in one of the two small airships that did the run. “I mean, when you consider we’re damned near city size with our own distillery…” Marrucci was hoping to add wine to the spirits and had already been south for the soft fruits as a basis for his “cordial.”

  “They like it the way they have it now,” and Zainal shrugged.

  “D’you think the Turs did escape?” Marrucci asked.

  “Who cares?”

  “You got a point there.”

  * * *

  The Tub went regularly to the mines with supplies for the men and women working there, to rotate personnel and bring back ore. The judge often gave a month’s sentence at hard labor for misdemeanors, and only one ever found mining an enjoyable occupation. He stayed on.

  For evening entertainment, those with any talent provided shows, managing to remember enough of a musical comedy or even a play to put on abridged versions or invent dialogue and action to add to what they remembered. Decks of cards were manufactured from the heavy wrappings on stores in the KDL and Baby. The cards didn’t shuffle well but that didn’t keep the players from betting an hour’s work or a special bit of scrimshaw to make it interesting.

  Gold had been found but it was decided, not without heated debate, that barter made a better system for a small community like theirs where everyone was expected to work community hours, not pay to get out of the labor. Among the diverse trades of the colonists, there were several jewelers. They would contract to produce jewelry for those who found gold, and even a few gemstones, and decided among themselves what was fair payment in grams of the metal.

  Iri Bempechat had taken on several assistants as legal advisers in disputes, most of which could be settled by compromise. The ex–military personnel had formed a lower court but their decisions could be appealed, leaving Judge Bempechat to give the final verdict on an issue.

  “We don’t need a formal government,” Beverly had said one evening, when the topic came up again in a mess hall that was more crowded than usual due to an unusually heavy fall of rain. (It was the beginning of many such rainfalls, which limited themselves to night-times.) “Why complicate what has been working rather smoothly?”

  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Mitford called out, and got a good laugh for the old army axiom.

  “We have a form of government, actually, though most of you don’t realize it. We just don’t have elected officials or a nominal head of state. Nor do I believe one is required,” Iri said, his cultivated and mellifluous voi
ce reaching to the farthest corners. “Those of us with special expertise have taken on the duties required to ensure peace and tranquillity. Community hours handle public services, such as they are, and the rest of us work where we can be useful and at our previous professions for the most part, even in the limited fashion due to the constraints of supplies. I suppose we should thank our lucky stars that we have so many skills among us. Practically every walk of life is represented. Our alien associates,” and he gestured to the Rugarians, sitting in their usual group, and the Deski, who were more apt to mix in with humans, “have supplemented us in many ingenious ways. I think some of us may have a chuckle comparing what we used to do with what we’re doing now, but frankly, I think it’s been beneficial as well as instructive. We’re all doing very well indeed. And able, for the most part, to do what we do the way we want to. Certainly without any bureaucratic interferences and certainly without a thread of red tape. You don’t know how happy that makes me!”

  Good-natured chuckles greeted that sally.

  “Why indeed should we fix something that isn’t broken?” he added, raising his hands in appeal.

  “Yeah, but what happens to our pleasant Utopian dream when the Farmers come?” Balenquah asked, glancing around.

  “Leave it to Balenquah,” an anonymous male voice said.

  “What does that mean?” the pilot asked, rising from his chair and staring around, trying to discover the source.

  “It means,” Marrucci said, reaching across the table and hauling Balenquah down, “you’re out of order, off course, and being a pain in the arse again. You’re alive, you’re sure kicking, you’re even flying, and if that isn’t better than starving in a Catteni prison for blowing up their freighter, you’re gone in the head.”