Freedom's Choice

by Anne McCaffrey

  They nearly ran over Marrucci, who had come back for them, and so they all made tracks to the flitter where Balenquah slumped, victim of the pilth.

  However, the state of him—or rather the smell that emanated from him, added to the bruised gorupears that had split open in the nets Kris had been carrying over her shoulder—made the flitter driver waste no time in getting them back to the dock. When they arrived, the merchandise had, too, with Pess, a cloth bolt in each arm, dealing with the loading.

  “Did the plursaw come?” Kris asked, racing up the extruded gangway.

  Pess grinned and nodded, speaking Barevi. “First thing. See me, ask questions. I say Drassi orders. Don’t know what he orders.”

  Well, she could hope no one heard her speak in English. Marrucci and Yuri were angling the unconscious Balenquah out of the flitter. She went back to pay the driver.

  “We the first?” she asked Pess as she helped him stow the cloth away, making sure that the needles had been included.

  Pess nodded. “What’s wrong with pilot?”

  “He drank pilth,” she replied. Then grinned as she added. “I told him it was no good.”

  Pess smiled broadly and she managed to look away from that yawning cavern of greenish gum without giving him offense.

  * * *

  Beverly and Bert Put came out of hiding and, though they seemed somewhat distracted, listened to their adventures, chuckling over Balenquah’s mishap. They approved her purchases, especially the spices, salt, vinegar, and pepper.

  “We had to quit because there was a roving band of Catteni looking for trouble,” Yuri said. “We’ll go for the electronics tomorrow,” he added, looking at Kris for confirmation.

  Kris shared out the gorupears and they all agreed that the fruit was very tasty indeed. “We can keep the pits and start our own bushes back on Botany,” she said, and was looking for something to store them in as she asked if there was any word from the other parties.

  “Zainal reported in when he and Mitford reached the restaurant. So did Coo and Slav,” Beverly told them. “But they had upsetting news.”

  “How upsetting?”

  Beverly and Bert exchanged anxious glances.

  “It’s not going to get any better waiting,” Kris reminded them, but a sick feeling started in her stomach.

  “There are large numbers of Terrans here now, waiting to be shipped out.”

  A pause.

  “What’s new in that?” she asked.

  “Coo says they’re damaged,” and Beverly tapped his skull. “They sit or stand and do not speak.”

  “What?”

  She, Yuri, and Gino reacted simultaneously and stared in horrified consternation at Beverly.

  “Coo says he heard their minds were taken from them.”

  “The Eosi have mindwipes?” she whispered, appalled.

  “Does Zainal know?” Marrucci asked, equally shocked.

  “Coo says everyone talks about it—quietly. Even the Catteni. Zainal will also hear.”

  Marrucci swore inventively and without repeating himself. Yuri looked pale under his gray face paint. It was cracking around the natural creases of his face and, absently, she reminded herself to tell him to powder up before he went outside again.

  “Zainal won’t do anything drastic until he can check with you, will he?” Kris asked Beverly. “What do the Eosi intend to get out of minds? They wouldn’t know about us.”

  “Coo said they are older men, mostly, some women…”

  “Scientists, I bet,” Kris said, and Beverly nodded sadly. “Oh, God, what did we start?”

  Beverly covered her hand with a reassuring grip. “We started a rebellion, Kris, as we wanted to on Earth, and couldn’t. But Zainal knew how and has.”

  “But the cost!” She gripped her hands together, holding in the pain of guilt.

  “When was there ever a war without casualties?” Yuri said in a bleak voice, absently doodling with the water spill on the table until it was spread out in a Rorschach blob.

  “What about Ninety and Dowdall?”

  “They say the pens are full of humans. They also heard about the zombies,” Beverly said. “They’re on their way back, too, before the guard changes.”

  “Dowdall remembered that, did he?” Kris said, nodding with satisfaction.

  * * *

  Zainal, Scott, and Mitford returned in a silence that spoke more profoundly of the tragedy than words. The first thing Zainal did was remove the cheek and chin pads that disguised him.

  “We managed to get into one compound,” Scott said, slumping into a chair and taking the glass of hooch that Kris immediately poured for all three. “I recognized a few faces from articles and newspapers. You’d probably recognize more, John, Gino. The ones I could identify were top people in quantum physics, organ transplants, and laser applications.”

  “Lasers can be used as weapons,” Kris murmured.

  “Eosi have such already,” Zainal replied, also speaking in a low voice.

  “Will they…recover?” Kris asked.

  Zainal shook his head but added, “It depends how long they were subjected to the probe. The Eosi have little pity.”

  “Other news is good, though,” Scott said shaking off that dispiriting vision. “Earth continues to rebel and Catteni are looting on a massive scale.”

  “I wondered about that,” Kris said. “I bought nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, salt, bolts of Earth-made fabric and needles, surgical equipment: no doubt part of that loot. I hadn’t enough money with me to buy everything Leon said he needed. Do we have more to spend?” she asked Zainal, who nodded.

  “No electronics?” Scott asked, perturbed. “We need them more than surgical tools.”

  “If the Catteni have looted as thoroughly as it looks like they have, we’ll find all the Terran electronics we could possibly want. But we encountered an off-duty squad,” Kris said, and Zainal grunted. “And left.”

  “We did, too,” Dowdall said. “The spaceport’s full. We were lucky to get a berth.”

  “Any damage?” Zainal asked.

  “Not to us.” Kris grinned. So did Dowdall.

  “Where’s Balenquah?” Scott asked, looking around.

  “Sleeping off a full glass of pilth,” Kris replied, still grinning maliciously.

  Zainal roared with laughter.

  “I told him it was no good,” Kris said as Yuri and Marrucci chuckled.

  “Serves him right, too,” Marrucci said, but Kris gave him a look and he didn’t elaborate.

  “Did you get the Deski plursaw?” Zainal asked. She nodded.

  “At a good price, too. I got as much delivered as I could. Pess has most of it already stored away. ‘Drassi says,’” and she smiled at him for the efficacy of that cryptic explanation.

  Coo and Slav returned then, Slav with a cut over one eye and Coo with visible abrasions down one side of his slender frame.

  “Trouble?” Zainal asked, on his feet.

  Coo held up one hand reassuringly. “Catteni gang. Hate aliens.”

  “They hate anyone,” Dowdall said forcefully. “Here, lemme fix that cut for you, Slav,” and he took him over to the cabinet containing the few medical supplies they had. Slav endured the ministrations though the brown Catteni antiseptic stung like fire—even for Catteni.

  “Bad news,” Coo said, joining the others at the table.

  Mitford fixed herbal tea when Coo politely refused to drink the hooch already on the table.

  “They’re after your people, too?” Scott asked.

  Coo shook his head. “We do not make machines.”

  “My people must work in noisy places,” Slav said, scrubbing his chest hair in agitation. “We are strong.”

  “You Earth no good working,” Coo said, grinning. “Too much trouble.”

  “We make trouble,” Slav said, “if word is given.” And he looked pointedly at Mitford.

  “All suppressed minorities rebelling at one time would be difficult for the Eosi to han
dle,” Scott said, immediately savoring the notion.

  Zainal, however, snorted and shook his head. “More species injuries.”

  Scott slammed one fist onto the table so hard the hooch bottle jiggled. “Damn it, Zainal, there’re already species injuries, on my people. You saw the state of them. How many more will be put through the same torture? Then sold off as mindless zombies and die who knows where.”

  Kris had never seen Scott so emotional, but then, she could only imagine the horror of seeing brilliant people reduced to imbeciles.

  “The Eosi look for ideas from your people,” Zainal said, and there was no doubt from the perturbation on his usually inscrutable face that he felt for the victims and agreed with Scott. “When they find none they can use, they will stop.”

  “When…” demanded Scott, stretching the “n” out to stress the urgency, “will that be?”

  “I heard nothing today. Tomorrow we can go elsewhere and listen, and maybe ask.”

  “And all those…those desecrated people?” Scott asked, grieving so keenly that Kris saw tears in the admiral’s eyes.

  “We can do something about that,” Zainal said firmly. Then he turned to Kris and Marrucci. “Tomorrow early get the wire, the plastic, the electronic supplies needed. Be ready to move if I arrange…”

  “What are you arranging?” Mitford asked, though the look on his face suggested to Kris that he already had a suspicion.

  “What can be done to help. The Farmers do not like,” and Zainal emphasized that word, “species injuries. We show them what can happen.”

  “We’ll bring them back with us?” Scott began, his expression brightening for a scant second before common sense overruled that possibility. “How can we possibly care for so many damaged people?”

  “We will somehow,” Kris said so fiercely that Scott recoiled. “How many are there?”

  “Hundreds,” Scott said, waving a despairing hand about.

  “Not all are damaged,” Zainal said. “But they will die in mines and fields with no care given.”

  “We can’t leave them if we can take them,” Dowdall said firmly, glancing around the table for agreement. Even the two Deski and Slav were in accord.

  “Zainal, did you notice the other ship of this class a few berths down from us?” Marrucci asked, his eyes sparkling.

  Bert Put, who had been silent through most of the discussion, sat up, an expectant look on his face, watching Zainal.

  He nodded, a grin turning his mouth up in one corner. “I maybe go see guard tonight, drink a little pilth.”

  “No,” Mitford said with an evil grin, “he’d be used to that. Take some of the hooch.”

  * * *

  The next morning as they breakfasted, Zainal had good news from his evening’s interview. Most of the KDM’s crew were on shore leave, having just completed a wide swing which had included Earth. In fact, they had brought two deckfuls of the brain-wiped humans to the slave marts and loot that would soon be available in the Barevi markets. Only two crewmen were on board, taking turns on watch. They were not happy about that duty but expected to be relieved in another two days. As was standard practice with Catteni ships, the KDM was already refueled and stocked. The crewmen said they were slated for another trip to Earth: to collect cargo as the Catteni invaders were systematically clearing warehouses and storage facilities, whether the items were useful or not.

  “Whatever the Eosi hope to find on Earth, they have not,” Zainal said. “Not even information. They may even be pulling out.”

  “What?”

  “Leaving Earth?”

  “Hurrah, we socked it to them and they couldn’t take it.”

  “No rush,” Zainal said, raising his hands to indicate caution. “Your Earth may never be the same.”

  “Then we improve it when we get back home,” Beverly said, a fierce expression on his face.

  Zainal pointedly said nothing. “I also learn that the port manager is very busy with so many ships going in and out.”

  “Which means he’s not checking on individual ones?” Beverly asked.

  Zainal nodded. “We come at a lucky time.”

  “Let’s leave lucky, too,” Mitford said gruffly. “If we get all the stuff we need, can we leave tonight? I got a gut feeling we’re crowding what luck we’ve already had. On our way back, I spotted just too many of those roving gangs charging about drunk. Glad we weren’t on foot.”

  Everyone looked at Zainal. He hesitated and then nodded. “Sooner is better than later, but first,” and he held up one finger, “we do not go back empty.”

  “Hey, if there’s only two crewmen aboard the KDM, couldn’t we hijack it?” asked Gino, eagerly.

  Mitford made a disgusted sound, dismissing the notion, but Scott leaned forward eagerly.

  “Could we?”

  “I think it would be very easy. Gino can be captain. Balenquah…” and Zainal looked around for the man.

  “He was sick all night,” Mitford said sourly. “He’s no use to us at all, I never did have more than a sip of pilth and that was enough to make me avoid it.”

  “I told him it was no good,” Kris repeated, with an innocent expression on her face.

  “Which made him all the more eager to try it, huh?” Mitford asked, giving her a dirty look.

  “He deserved it…” Gino Marrucci began, but Kris kicked him under the table. “Sullen bastard that he is,” the pilot said in place of what he had started to say.

  “All right,” Scott said, getting back to the jobs at hand, “we find out what we can about the…disabled. Right?” He looked at Zainal, who nodded. “You got yesterday’s list, Kris? So today escort Mack Su, Ninety, and Marrucci for whatever electronics we can acquire…”

  “We’ll find plenty,” Kris said, scowling. “I only had a quick glance but everywhere I looked I could see things that had to have come from home.”

  “Good,” Mack said, “that means we’ll have a good chance of finding what we need. We’ve done as much as we can with the Farmers’ material. But we could do a helluva lot more with familiar components, couldn’t we. Dowdall?”

  “Also get more hand units.” And Zainal tapped his Catteni comunit. “We need all we can get, or make.”

  Kris handed him a pencil and the thin plastic that the Catteni used for notes. “Make us out another shopping list, Drassi Kubitai!”

  Zainal grimaced. “I do not know the Catteni shapes,” he admitted wryly.

  “No word for ‘spare parts’ in Catteni?” Mack asked, grinning.

  “Ah, yes,” and Zainal deftly created the glyph, adding tails and squiggles to it. “That means anything to repair electronics.” He peered at it. “I think.”

  “Have we completely contaminated an upright Catteni lad?” Mack asked with one of his displays of whimsy.

  “Absolutely,” Zainal agreed heartily. “Let us make…con…con something plans…”

  “Contingency plans?” Kris asked.

  “Them. In case there can be two shipments of humans to mines or colonies or wherever they plan to send them. We are ready to go and take the problems with us,” Zainal said. “I call in to Chuck, I tell him where to bring KDM. Then, sergeant, you will take more hooch to guard on duty. The other will be sleeping. You will know what to do. Then Gino, Beverly, Coo, Pess, and Slav get aboard as crew. Bert, Gino, be ready to bring the ships where I tell you.” He flipped through the pile of maps and charts and found the one he wanted. “Here are slave pens, but you must go around the city, not overfly.”

  “Don’t we have to clear takeoff with the port authority?” Gino asked.

  Zainal slapped his forehead and sucked breath in between his teeth.

  “After we secure the KDM, I can come back and do that, Zainal,” Mitford said. “Give me the words for ‘slave compound’ in Catteni. I only know Barevi.”

  “Use Barevi if you need to,” Zainal said, rocking one hand to indicate that the port authorities would know both. Then he rose in a decisive manner. �
�Good luck.” And he gave the thumbs-up signal, grinning when his eyes fell on Kris.

  “Right back atcha,” she said as everyone else got to their feet. “And watch your face paint if you start to sweat, you guys. And, for godssake, remember to keep your caps down, shading your eyes. No Catteni I’ve ever seen has blue ones, much less brown.”

  “Slav, Pess, Coo, you guard ship,” was Zainal’s final order as he made for the hatch.

  * * *

  Kris, with Dowdall, Mack, and Ninety, got the last remaining flitter outside the port. The driver grumbled that the market wasn’t open yet.

  “Shop I go is,” Kris answered in Barevi. “Drassi says so.”

  That ended any further inquiries from the Catteni. He had no left hand, a hook attachment replacing it, but a flitter was easily driven with only one. Did only disabled Catteni get taxi licenses on Barevi?

  As the craft made its way to the market area, they all noticed smoke rising from various places.

  “Many fights?” Ninety asked in Barevi, grinning but remembering to keep his lips over his teeth.

  “Many,” replied the Catteni in his own language and in a sour tone. “Nine ship gangs. Biggest fights in weeks.”

  Which meant the survivors would likely be sleeping off pilth as well as any injuries from the fighting. Or hiding out for the requisite twenty-four hours. Luck was again with them, she hoped, and didn’t dare hope too loudly.

  Much of the first marketplace that they overflew—the one they had shopped in the day before—was a wreck of tangled stalls, debris, and shopkeepers sorting for what might still be salable. As they crossed over the line of apartments separating the two, she saw that streamers of fabric, probably from some of the shops she had visited, festooned the area.

  “Boys had lots of fun,” Ninety muttered, and got Kris’ elbow in his ribs for speaking in English. He rolled his eyes in apology but the driver had not heard.

  There was not quite as much damage in the third rectangle, the one they had directed the flitter to. Possibly because there were fewer drink and food stands in this one. But one section seemed to have been leveled. Kris just hoped it wasn’t the very one they needed the most.

  “Another ticco if you wait,” she told the driver in her gravelly Catteni voice. She was getting so she could do it whenever she needed to, though her throat was a trifle sore from all the rough-voiced bargaining she’d done yesterday.