Freedom's Choice

by Anne McCaffrey

  * * *

  Zane was just five months old when the Deski sentinel startled everyone on the south side of Retreat Bay with a warning warble. For such a slender species, with no great lung space, they could make a god-awful amount of noise. The baby was teething, so Kris was awake, trying to soothe him. Zainal’s comunit buzzed and he shot straight up in bed, alert, unit to his ear before she could take a single step to intercept.

  “What?” He was on his feet and, hopping about on one foot, listening as he pulled on his coverall. Even in such a ridiculous pose, Kris admired his physique. If only Zane could have osmosed a single gene from his foster father…

  “It’s down,” Zainal added as he closed the hand unit and concentrated on dressing himself as fast as possible.

  “What’s down?”

  “The Bubble.” He had both boots on now and was starting for the door.

  “I’m coming, too,” she said.

  “Not like that!” He raked her with a disapproving look, for she was draped in a blanket.

  She thrust Zane at his father and dressed as quickly as he, retrieved the blanket and two spare reed pods, and was inserting the baby into the sling she usually carried him in even as she settled into a passenger seat of the air-cushion truck. Zainal spun the control wheel and the vehicle charged off into the pale light of dawn toward the hangar. Lights were coming up throughout the settlement and occasionally someone called out, “What’s the matter?” when Zainal was identified at the wheel.

  “The Bubble is just down?” she asked as they sped along.

  “Deski heard something, not like anything else they have heard,” Zainal was saying, “and warned the bridge. The bridge watch had already seen something on the screen but couldn’t make out what.”

  “The Farmers?” Kris asked, scared to the pit of her stomach as she jiggled her son. Motion always put him to sleep, even upset with teething as he was, and even this short trip worked its magic on him.

  Those alerted were arriving on air-cushion, running as fast as they could and often faster than the basic push bikes that had been developed for short-distance transportation. Pneumatic tires were still to be perfected but the iron rims did well enough on the flagstone and dirt tracks and were speedier than walking.

  All the lights in the hangar were on, and the hatches on the KDL, Baby, and the office were open. Runabouts were parked helter-skelter.

  Zainal guided Kris to the office, which was nearest. The bridge there would show just as much as the ships’ would and there’d be more space for her and the baby. In such little matters, Zainal always considered her and Zane.

  Scott, Beggs, Fetterman, Yowell, and Coo were in the office and Scott waved Zainal in urgently.

  “A full orbit already and it’s not large. Not small enough to be a programmed orb but moving too fast for us to get an accurate picture of its dimensions or shape.”

  “That,” and Coo pointed to the trail left by the orbital, “is not heard. Something landed.” He spoke with more force than a Deski generally did. He’d probably been repeating it to Scott. Now Coo stabbed his spidery finger at the Farmers’ command post, the one Kris, Zainal, and the others had investigated well over a Botanical year ago: where Dick Aarens had deliberately activated a homing device.

  “Then what…” and Scott irritably followed the course of the orbital with one finger. Just then its track shifted to a north/south orientation. Even as they watched, it completed several circuits of the large globe of Botany. “What is that?”

  “We will know…” and Zainal paused, eyes watching the progress of the orbital on the screen “about now.”

  They felt the tingling zap of a scan. He chuckled.

  “Ohmigod,” Fetterman said, sitting down as if his legs had given out.

  Kris had felt it course through her and Zane squirmed slightly against her in his sling. She felt his cheek, wondering if the scan could have been too much for so small a body, and then Zainal’s reassuring touch to her back.

  “I will volunteer to go,” Zainal said.

  Kris barely prevented herself from saying, “Oh, no you won’t,” before Scott lifted both hands in a refusal, his eyes not moving from the screen. The comunit bleeped and he toggled it open.

  “We were just scanned?” It was Beverly’s voice.

  “Coo says they landed at the command post.”

  “Nothing’s showing up there,” Beverly said.

  Coo nodded emphatically, reaffirming his report.

  “Fek agrees,” Beverly went on. “Haven’t we established they use matter transmission?”

  “Oh, oh,” Yowell said, and he stumbled backward to collapse on the nearest stool, his face a study of conflicting emotions: hope, fear, anxiety, and confusion.

  Coo’s head turned toward the office door and he rose to his feet, raising one arm to point straight ahead.

  “They’re here?” Scott asked.

  Kris gulped, her arms automatically tightening on Zane. But as soon as Zainal moved, she was right behind him, ahead of the others who had hesitated just that split second longer before acting. If their destiny was coming to them, she wanted to see it.

  As they left the office, she glanced over at the KDL and saw Fek’s unmistakable shape in the hatch, then Balenquah’s stocky frame silhouetted briefly in the hatch light, followed by Worrell’s slightly stooped figure, the tall erect one that was probably Rastancil, and the slight frame of a woman whom she didn’t recognize and Slav. From Baby came Mitford, Easley, Yuri, and Judge Bempechat.

  They converged, forming a semicircle facing outward.

  What happened before their eyes did not resemble anything from a Star Trek program. No colored lights or beams or columns. Nor any other special effect Kris remembered from all the science fiction films and videos she’d seen. And yet…something was out there, forming a solid mass which moved toward them, a nimbus around a darker interior. Something which even by the dawn light looked larger than the tallest of the waiting humans.

  Then it wasn’t taller and seemed to spread out. She recognized the distinctive spider-legged form of a Deski. Beside her, Coo gurgled once and stiffened. With her free hand, Kris reached for Coo’s long fingers and gripped them. She had Zane’s face shielded with the other. Zainal had shifted his body so he overlapped her in partial protection. But most of the forms that coalesced out of the mist, only it wasn’t mist, were human in appearance as the details of face and appendages became obvious.

  “They’re shape changers,” she whispered. “They’re changing into us?”

  Coo sucked breath in, a slow sound. Terror? Apprehension? Defensiveness? Kris tightened her grip, not knowing if she was giving, or seeking support.

  “Shape changers?” Scott hissed, eyes never leaving what was in front of him as he leaned slightly in her direction.

  “There’s a Deski and a Rugarian and the rest are humans. But not as many of them as there are of us.”

  When the transformation was complete, and there was no doubt that these visitors showed representation of the three species facing them, each group regarded the other.

  “There’s no Catteni.” Kris’ comment was barely audible. But the omission caused a little giggle to escape her which she hastily suppressed. If these were the Farmers, and every evidence pointed to that assumption, for who else could have lifted the Bubble, then they weren’t all-seeing and perfect. Somehow that gave her a lift of confidence.

  But no one was saying anything and the tension was mounting. So, if the visitors weren’t showing immediate aggression, maybe they should be treated like visitors, all eight of them. We outnumber them, she thought, though outnumber is all we do, considering what they just did. It was so silly to just stand there, looking at each other.

  “Hello,” she said, making the word friendly and inquiring. She stepped around Zainal and inadvertently pulled Coo with her just as Judge Iri Bempechat took a step forward. She knew she had a silly look on her face as she looked at the judge for a sign as
to what to do next.

  Whether she was impertinent or not she never did find out, but the judge grinned fleetingly at her—so she felt she hadn’t done anything really wrong—and he held out both hands, the (she hoped) galactic indication of being unarmed.

  “We have hoped that we would meet you, and explain our presence on a planet which you have clearly used for many thousands of years,” he said, inclining his upper body slightly forward in a gesture that was as dignified as it was hospitable. “I realize that you do not understand what I’m saying but I hope the sincerity with which I speak will be apparent. We do realize that we have trespassed on your property but we were brought here against our volition and cannot return to our own worlds.”

  As the judge spoke, Kris felt the very slightest of pressures against her forehead and at the back of her neck. Zane gave an odd little movement and she jiggled him gently, stroking his back in a reassurance that usually quieted him.

  “We moved to this continent because you are not farming it now. We did not wish to interfere with your installations here. We wish to stay. With your permission. If it is at all possible, because we do not have sufficient transportation to leave here. Can we try to make you understand? Somehow?” He opened his hands toward them again, with dignity and entreaty.

  “It is understood,” said a voice remarkably like the judge’s.

  Whoever had spoken had done so so quickly that Kris hadn’t seen any mouth moving. Then she realized no one had spoken. The voice was right in her own head. Zane moved restlessly again.

  “We have come to meet with you. Do not be afraid. We do not injure. We do not kill. We do not inhabit. You are very young, all of you.”

  “Young species?” Iri Bempechat asked, amused.

  “Yes,” and one of the males used his mouth to enunciate the word, though she still heard it more inside her head than in her ears. “Very young.”

  Judge Bempechat smiled. “We humans are. I believe the Deskis,” and he gestured toward Coo, “have lived much longer than humans,” and he pointed to himself and then to Kris.

  “We have seen the Deski and passed them by. They do well as they are. Why are so many here? Why are three…no, five…species here on this planet?”

  “We were dropped here. We have to stay,” the judge said in a wry voice, flashing a glance at Zainal.

  “Because the others, like this one,” and now the spokesperson gestured a well-shaped hand toward the Catteni, “have put you here against your will to make a colony of this world.”

  “I see that we will not have to tell you much,” Judge Bempechat said. “You read the thoughts in our minds.”

  “Such as they are.” There was a kindness rather than a condescension in his tone that was sounding less like an echo of the judge and more obviously like a reflection of this speaker’s personality.

  “We try to improve,” the judge said, inclining his upper body respectfully.

  “A very long, hard process that is eternal. But you are not.”

  “And you are?”

  “In essence.”

  “Not as the Eosi are,” Zainal said.

  The entity turned his head to the new speaker. “We are not familiar with either the name or your mental image of these Eosi.”

  “That’s the best way to be,” someone remarked softly, and for a moment Kris thought it had to be Mitford. It sounded like him. Or maybe Yowell, since the sergeant was in the central group, and Vic much closer.

  “We seek your help to escape from the domination of the Eosi over my people, the Catteni, and these other species,” Zainal said, gesturing urgently at those around him.

  “Such a process includes species injury, which we do not condone.”

  “Even if injuries continue to be perpetrated on innocent species who have no protection against the superior force?” Judge Bempechat asked.

  “If force is used, there is no reformation of the desires which caused force to be used,” and the entity’s face now reflected a gentle reprimand.

  “How do you avoid force then?” Scott said, speaking for the first time.

  “There are ways. Learn them.”

  The figures began to dissolve.

  “How are you called?” the judge asked, taking a quick step forward in an effort to prevent their leaving.

  “You have named us Farmers. It is appropriate.” The spokesman smiled in the most benign way.

  Kris mused that this entity would have been well cast as Jesus Christ.

  “He is not among you?” was the thought inserted in her mind.

  “Don’t leave,” Zainal said, also stepping forward, one hand raised, “not yet. How do we avoid force when it is used against us? How do we free ourselves and our friends from Eosian domination?”

  “Are we allowed to stay here? On your planet?” Kris jumped forward, startling Zane awake. He let out a yell.

  One of the Farmers glided forward. The legs moved but the female—she appeared subtly feminine to Kris as she approached—did not make contact with the ground in an actual walk.

  “They observe well.” Again a thought was inserted in her head as the being reached her and looked down at Zane. Despite Kris’ attempts to soothe him, the first yell segued into soft, fearful crying. Not that she blamed Zane for reacting to the tension, the disappointment, and the fear that clogged the air around him. Certainly those were her feelings.

  “We have so much to ask you. So many questions,” Easley said beseechingly.

  “This is your child!” the female said, and she turned back to Kris.

  Kris could no more have refused to display her son than she could have resisted the contractions that had expelled him from her womb. She turned Zane, his face reddening in baby distress, toward the entity. The entity bent over him, slid one graceful, almost transparent hand over his face, and he instantly switched to smiling contentment, burbling charmingly up at his newest admirer.

  “There are many new young here,” she said, and Kris thought she sounded envious. “We are!”

  “Then we may stay?” Kris asked earnestly.

  “You stay. We will observe but we do not interfere.”

  “May we leave?” Zainal asked, making a sphere with his hands.

  “It is for your protection,” the first speaker said.

  “We are grateful,” Judge Bempechat said, shooting a warning look at Zainal.

  “That is more than the others were.” The thought crept into Kris’ mind, and the female reversed her glide to rejoin her group.

  The instant they were all together again, they disappeared.

  Like zap! Kris thought, as her son gurgled happily in her arms.

  Everyone started talking at once then, the main argument being that they had learned very little, and who had made the judge the spokesman, and why hadn’t more questions been asked while they had the Farmers’ attention? And who did Zainal think he was, demanding assistance from obvious pacifists?

  Scott called for quiet. Judge Bempechat said in a humble tone that he had certainly not intended to speak for everyone but suddenly was speaking. Balenquah railed at Kris for her stupid “Hello.”

  “Well, we couldn’t ask them to take us to their leader, could we?” she responded, “and keep your voice down around my baby!”

  “Were you going to give him to them?” Balenquah demanded.

  “Don’t be such an idiot. She wanted to look at him,” Kris said, and walked away from the egregious pilot. She’d thought Aarens was obnoxious, but Balenquah opened up a whole new category of insufferable.

  “NOW LISTEN UP,” Scott said, raising his voice over the babble. “We are allowed to stay. That is the most important fact we needed to know, wasn’t it?”

  As he spoke, the sound of excited voices and the hum of air-cushion vehicles nearing the hangar could be more clearly heard.

  “Hey, they came. We can stay,” Lenny Doyle was shouting as he jumped from the air-cushion and ran into the hangar. “They just appeared outside the mess ha
ll and—” He broke off, being close enough to see expressions. “We can call them Farmers,” he finished, his words trailing off. “They were here, too?”

  Worrell, Leon Dane, Mayock, and two nurses were next, piling out of the air-cushion flatbed that doubled as ambulance. Their faces were wreathed with the elated grins of people big with news, which faded as they, too, realized that their experience was by no means unique.

  “How many shape changers came?” Kris said into the silence.

  Then the main comunit was buzzing as all lines into the office seemed to go off at once.

  “Rather unusual mass hallucination then,” Dane said wryly. “Should we compare notes? We can stay, or so they said, and we can refer to them as the Farmers…”

  “Since that is appropriate,” the judge added in a tone much like Leon’s.

  “Did we all ask the same questions?” Leon asked, looking at Scott and then Zainal.

  “We’d better compare notes,” Scott said, “after we’ve answered those calls. Kris, Yowell, Zainal, help me with these…” and he gestured to the busy com board.

  * * *

  “How many were there?” Kris asked when there was time to review the astonishing simultaneous manifestation of Farmers to all major groups on Botany. Even the miners had had a visitation of ten.

  No group of Farmers had been larger than those they had confronted. The five people on watch at the command post had been approached by three; those at the mess hall, where the majority of people had been having breakfast, had counted thirty. The hospital had been favored with fifteen.

  “All at the same time?” Leon asked, astounded.

  “Fifty at least, and they could not all have fit in that orbital!” Beverly said.

  “That depends on how much space shape changers need,” Kris remarked.

  “If they appeared to all of us, why didn’t someone find out more about them?” Scott demanded, exasperated. “We all had the chance to make the confrontation substantive.”

  “We all had the same chance,” Rastancil said, “but I sure couldn’t get my wits to work fast enough, nor did I notice you asking leading questions, Ray.”