Freedom's Ransom

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Wow!”

  “Hey man, think big.”

  “We’d charge the Barevis for the shipping, wouldn’t we?”

  “What about the captives, Zainal?” a woman asked, nearly having to shriek to be heard over the comments from the audience.

  “Well now, I’ve thought about that a lot., since some of you may know that Kris and Kathy nearly got sent to a slave colony. It’s one of my plans. Look, if we start transporting Botany ores and metals to Earth, and to Barevi, we will hurt their markets, which, I must tell you, are already hurting. One”—he held up his hand as he ticked off his points—“Earth gets the ores it needs to start manufacturing again and, two, cuts off the market for slave colonies’ produce. If they don’t need slaves to work, maybe we can buy their freedom. That’s what you want, isn’t it? The slaves freed?”

  “This civil war has to do with plantery rights,” someone with a marked southern accent cried.

  “D’you think it’d work?” a woman called.

  “I’d give it a try,” Zainal said. “Now what I’m going to say may distress some of you, but I was talking to the judge.” and Zainal swiveled his body so he could see the judge, who was nodding encouragingly, “and, with all due respect, we—Catteni and Humans—are not that different.”

  “Yeah? Since when?” No one was quick enough to see who had said that.

  “Since I know that both our species want to explore space and both our populations need additional worlds on which to develop.”

  “A point well taken,” the judge said with a little tap of his gavel.

  “Are you suggesting we make partners of the Catteni?” Dick Aarens jumped to his feet.

  “Why not? They couldn’t dominate you, could they? Your tactics made them leave.”

  “But partner the Catteni?” Aarens objected.

  “Beat them at their own game?” the judge suggested.

  “It’s better than fighting them,” Dorothy Dwardie said firmly. “Where would Earth be if we had Catteni technology?”

  “Look I don’t know what the coordinators on Earth—the effective governors of Earth, I should point out—what they’ll think about this notion, but I’d like to put it to them and bring some essential supplies that we know they need. And bring back to Botany coffee plants and banana trees and other Terran plants that might adapt here, as well as people who can teach us how to grow them properly.”

  “We’re all for the coffee,” someone yelled.

  “Tea bushes would do well here, too,” a woman suggested. “They grow tea in Kenya, you know.”

  Zainal nodded and made a note on his clipboard.

  “It wouldn’t cost Botany anything,” Zainal said, “now that we have how much, Sally?”

  She stood. “I figured out that the catteni gold coins equal about three quarters of a billion dollars on the last gold-exchange figures.”

  “That’s enough to buy out everything the Barevis looted from us, if we get good prices.” Zainal said. “I want to ask the coordinators in the metropolitan New York area if we can use Newark Airport for the swap meet of the century. We’ll supply the coinage, which we got free anyhow, and your planet can ransom back all they need to reequip abandoned manufacturing. Why should we waste our time and fuel bargaining at Barevi when we can make money off them by carting it all to Earth and getting other folks to haggle?”

  “Haggling’s the fun of it,” a female voice protested.

  Worry got to his feet and waited until there was silence. “I think Zainal’s suggestion have merit and provide positive advantages—to us, to Earth, and, however inadvertently, to Barevi. I was talking to Chuck and Kathy Harvey about their adventures on our home world. I’d be real fun to outsmart the Catteni, no offense meant, Zainal, but you’re more Botanical than Catteni anymore. In any event, since you don’t really need our approval, being free citizens and the person who helped us acquire the ships that comprise our Space Force, I think you ought to have a say in how they are used. And if that takes some shenanigans to free the slaves, why, work away. No one else’s doing anything to get them back, are they?”

  While that straight talk ruffled some sensibilities and caused an outbreak of loud conversation and rebuttals, the judge permitted it to continue until he felt the need to curb some of the more vociferous arguments.

  “Let us vote first on whether or not Zainal should go back to Earth with the goods he acquired for them by trading coffee beans on Barevi.”

  Chuck sprang to his feet. “I request that the assembled allow Zainal to return to Earth and deal with the authorities there on how best to relive their shortages. I request that he be allowed to suggest to the Terran coordinators that the Botany Space Force can transport Barevian goods to Earth for the purposes of barter.”

  “I second both motions.” Dorothy Dwardie said, jumping to her feet.

  Others were quick to support the motions, and they were very quickly passed. Zainal bowed his head at such support.

  “I think the idea of forcing the slaves to give us back our people is a bit far-fetched, Zainal,” Dick Aarens said, but he had stood in support of the first two measures.

  “It probably is, Dick, but if you can think of another way, I’d be interested. I also intend to suggest it to the coords. I’m hoping to meet with more of them when we return.” He held up his hand or silence again. “And I wonder if I can bring back a select number of folk from Earth. My crew will tell you that people were envious of what we have here and how often we were asked to make room on Botany for deserving cases.”

  “We don’t need a population explosion on Botany, Zainal. Hell’s bells,” Leon said, “we just don’t have the facilities.”

  “We can always build more homes,” Dr. Hessian said, rising to his feet in his ponderous way. “We cannot be lost to compassionate assistance.”

  “I volunteer my services,” Dorothy said, “to assist in winnowing out applicants, and since we now have a spaceship business, they can come for limited periods.”

  “Under proper contracts,” Sarah McDouall suggested.

  There were so many other comments fired back and forth in the hall that the judge had to make vigorous use of his gavel.

  “If Dorothy is willing to volunteer her services.” Zainal said, “could we bring back a limited number of folk? Limited, of course, to how much space we have on the KDM.” He gave a wry smile.

  “No one will come first-class.” Kris said.

  “The Newark coord, Dan Vitali, has an asthmatic grandson who would benefit from our clear Botanical air,” Zainal said.

  “And he asked if he could take applications. We need more trained botanists, Leon Dane tells me and possibly more miners. Right, Mike?” Kris said, pointing in the direction of the men. “Practical specialists like agrarians to see what Terran things, like potatoes, would do well here and what might be sent back to Earth to be propagated.”

  “And a dentist. With his equipment. Where is Eric Sachs?”

  “Doing a very good business on Barevi. He didn’t care to desert his patients at short notice.”

  “We’ll pick him up on our next visit,” Kris remarked, though she wondered if they would repatriate the ebullient Dr. Sachs.

  “I’m sure we need time to discuss the details of these ideas,” Judge Iri said, banging his gavel so he could be heard, “but let us be resolved, here and now, to do what we can to relieve Earth’s problems as best we can and to try to establish harmonious relationships with the Catteni government and the Barevi merchants. What say you?” There was a roar of approval, much stamping of feet, and loud applause.

  “You’re stuck with it, Zainal,” the judge said, with a tap on Zainal’s shoulder for the work that he had cut out for himself. “You asked for it. You got it.”

  Kris rushed forward, ahead of the crowd, to hug Zainal, who was now grinning widely with relief.

  Maybe this exceptional man could indeed manage the feats he had promoted himself for. He returned her embrace, not embarr
assed to be seen displaying such an un-Catteni demonstration of affection.

  “I dropped, I stay.”