Freedom's Challenge

by Anne McCaffrey

  There were bunks for the nighttime staff, two of which were already occupied, so Kris climbed as quietly as possible into an upper one and very shortly fell asleep.

  • • •

  A SLOPPY WET KISS WOKE HER: THE DONOR being her dearly beloved son, who had managed to clamber up the ladder at the head of the bunk. He giggled, delighted with his accomplishment, though Kris was only too relieved he had escaped unscathed. She’d take ladders away the next time she slept here.

  “Hey, love, you don’t know how to climb ladders yet,” she said, alternating between being frightened at the risk he had taken and proud that he had tried.

  “Ahh, Mummy.”

  Kris threw back the blanket, jumped lightly to the ground and held up her hands for him. Quick as could be and without a moment’s hesitation, he flung himself down at her, giggling when she caught him neatly. Sssshing him, they left the sleeping room. Two beds were still occupied.

  Zane was in great form and, as it was snack time, they went hand in hand to the dining room, which was crowded with others. With such long days, four or five meals were frequently offered. A hearty breakfast, a mid-morning sandwich, a three-course dinner midday, a mid-afternoon fruit and sandwich, and then a good supper. Late-night snacks were leftovers of bread, cake, and sandwiches, whatever needed to be eaten up and usually was. The herbal tea and, with spring now leading into summer, fruit juices were available all day long. Caterers worked in several short shifts but nevertheless worked a twelve-hour day. Food preparation was as often as not a punishment detail for minor infractions of colony laws, but everyone took a turn at those chores. The big difference here on the new land was that the food didn’t also have to be picked, dug, fished, or gutted: other working groups had already processed it for cooking.

  On the northern wall of the dining room were the listings of jobs and rotas so that there was no excuse for anyone to miss assignments. Diners customarily checked before or after they ate to see what their duties were for the next day or the next week.

  Zainal was listed as working with ex-Admiral Ray Scott, Bull Fetterman, Bert Put, John Beverly, Chuck Mitford, Jim Rastancil, Salvinato, Gino Marrucci, Raisha Simonova, Boris Slavinkovin, Hassan Moussa, Laughrey, Ayckburn, Peter Easley, and Worrell. These week-long meetings were scheduled at the hangar. Considering that most of these men were ex-service of one country or another, Kris had no problem figuring out that Zainal was probably talking up his master plan. Whether the others would go for it or not was debatable. Certainly there were significant absences from that list, such as the odious Geoffrey Ainger, the Brit naval commander, Beggs, who had been Scott’s gopher, and Sev Balenquah, who had so nearly blown their disguises on their sneak trip back to Barevi to obtain the supplies which were making all the difference in the efficiency and productivity of the colony.

  And if all those with experience in flying the Catteni craft, including Raisha, were there, she wondered just what escapade was being planned. And why wasn’t she included?

  • • •

  SHE AND ZANE HAD THEIR SNACK, A HOT rolled sandwich with a sort of sausagey filling, the constituents of which she did not wish to know but the result tasted good. Zane licked his fingers so hungrily that she found a small extra one to give him.

  “We’ve our garden to tend now, love,” she said, and he hopped and skipped alongside her as they returned to their cabin. She got out the hoe and his little weeder prong and they finished that chore by the time they saw Zainal being dropped off from the flatbed, still occupied by those living farther up the way to the main administrative area.

  “Daddy, daddy!” And Zane made a wobbly beeline to his father who heaved him up so high that Kris caught her breath, even though she knew perfectly well that Zainal would never drop the boy.

  “And what might I ask are you and all the high, low, and middle brass doing at the hangar these days?”

  “Heard one of your old girls remembered who she is,” he replied.

  “Ah, how good the gossip system is here,” she said drolly. “First, please, the answer to my question?”

  “Those who played…doggo?” and Zainal’s yellow eyes twinkled as he looked for confirmation on his use of the slang, “knew a lot more than they thought they did.”

  “That’s good. About what did they know more?”

  “I believe Scott calls it ‘the state of the nation.’”

  “And?”

  “We’re mounting an expedition.” He did not meet her gaze, but threw the delightedly squealing Zane up in the air again.

  “Soon?”

  “Quite likely.”

  “Who all’s going?”

  “That’s what’s taking so long to decide,” and Zainal gave a heavy sigh.

  “Just think how much more time that gives you, my dear, to learn how to operate computers.”

  “That is the only reason you find me in such good fettle.”

  Kris burst out laughing. Zainal knew just how to get her into a good mood…proving that he’d mastered yet another Terran expression.

  “Can we eat here tonight? Kurt Langsa—well, however you pronounce the rest of his long name—said he would come?”

  “I’m not good enough?”

  He had Zane safely ensconced on his shoulders now and pulled her against him, kissing her cheek. “I read nine books during the talking,” and he wrinkled his nose. “I need someone who uses computers all the time to show me what the manual says. It uses words I know but not the same way.”

  “I know exactly what you mean, Zainal. I’ll go get some food from the Hall.”

  “No, Kurt brings. I would like you to go over the words I have learned so that I pronounce them correctly. The spelling is always different and yet the words sound alike.” He sighed now in exasperation.

  “I don’t imagine it’s any consolation to you, Zay, but we had to learn, too, as kids.”

  “In Catteni, the sound is always the same…”

  “If you’re accustomed to gargling, yes, they would be,” Kris agreed affably, remembering how hoarse she had been when she’d had to talk to the Catteni scout ship before they captured it. “I do speak some Catteni,” she added, slyly glancing at him. “More Barevi.”

  He gave her a sideways look, so that she couldn’t really see the expression in his eyes.

  “That is known,” he said at his blandest. “But you must learn to understand more.”

  “When do the classes start?” she asked in an equally bland tone, determined to find out.

  “Soon.”

  “Ah, then let us continue teaching you antonyms.”

  Zane was busy in his play corner with the blocks and the miniature vehicles that Zainal had fashioned for him. He was mimicking the solar panel hum as he played, oblivious now to the adults.

  She had no sooner reached for the list than there was a knock on the door, and Zainal called out “Enter!”

  Kurt Langsteiner peered cautiously around the door, a thin-faced man with an expression of perpetual anxiety. He smiled, which altered his face considerably to a pleasant appearance, and stepped inside, carefully closing the door with one foot as both hands were full.

  “Name plates would help,” he said. “This is the third house I’ve tried in your neck of the woods.”

  “Let me help,” Kris said, rising to take the basket from one hand. She immediately exclaimed with real pleasure at the three long loaves of bread that stuck out around the stew pot. “Rocksquat…”

  “What else?” Kurt said with a droll laugh, “but they put some salad in as well and something for young Zane.” He stepped up to the table now and placed on its surface the six large bottles of beer that had been tied at the neck and clanked against each other.

  “Remnant of my student days when I found that beer made the studying go more easily.” He put the bottles down, and he shook his creased fingers to circulate blood to them.

  First Kris brought three glasses to the table. They were still sort of odd shaped, with uneve
n blemishes from the not-quite-expert glass blowers. In fact, some said that the glasses, with their slightly skewed sides, looked half-drunk. A new guideline had been formulated: if a drinker was asked if his glass was straight and he answered “yes,” you had proof he had had more than enough to drink. She was setting out plates and utensils as Kurt started pulling out notepads and books from the various pockets of his ship suit. It still looked new, by which Kris figured he must have been in the Sixth Drop. She didn’t know that group of arrivals as well as she did those from the other five.

  “What is the worst trouble you’re having, Zainal?” Kurt asked as he made an orderly pile of his materials.

  “It is the words that sound the same that are not the same,” Zainal said with considerable asperity.

  “Quite understandably. They’re bitches to get right at any age.” Then he turned to Kris. “I used to teach computer in junior high school before I got rounded up so Mitford thought I’d be the best candidate to do both jobs on Zainal,” Kurt said to her as he organized his teaching materials on the table. “And Zainal here,” and Kurt nodded at him, “said he’d teach me how to read and write Catteni.”

  Now Zainal grinned at Kris and pointed to the third chair. “You will learn, too.”

  Obediently Kris settled down. Leave it to Zainal to throw her a real curve ball. Oh, well, she had only herself to blame.

  “You learn a lot better on an full stomach…and it gives you a base for the beer. Zane, please wash your hands for dinner,” she said, using hot pads to lift the stew kettle to the table.

  The three males obediently went to wash their hands as she finished setting the table. Kurt must be well liked by the caterers for a whole cake had been carefully tied between two baking tins to keep it from being damaged by the hot stew pot. And so had a good portion of salad greens, though the heat from the stew had wilted some of them.

  • • •

  THEY MADE A GOOD MEAL, WITH ZAINAL beginning his part of the teaching bargain by using the Catteni words for everything on the table. Even Zane tried to repeat them, giggling as easily at his own mistakes as at his mother’s but had the good sense to cover his mouth when Kurt had trouble. Though Langsteiner certainly seemed to get the guttural sounds more easily.

  “German was my first language,” he said in an aside to Kris.

  “You’d never know it to hear you speak English,” she replied.

  “My parents spoke both,” he explained.

  “We really should make Zane learn Catteni, too,” Kris said, leaning toward Zainal.

  “And Rugarian and Deski,” Zainal said at his blandest.

  “Them, as well, of course,” was her quick, equally bland response, and Kurt laughed.

  “And what a hodgepodge they’ll all be speaking,” he said.

  “It will be helpful,” Zainal said, “when we free Rugar and Deski, too.”

  Kurt’s eyes bulged at that, and he looked quickly at Kris to see her reaction.

  “Why settle for freeing just ours?” she said with a diffident shrug though this was the first she’d known of that facet of Zainal’s master plans. “Besides, Zane already speaks some Rugarian and Deski at day care.”

  “Really?” Kurt was startled.

  “Gets a bit like the Tower of Babel in there some days,” Kris said, dipping the ladle into the stew pot to offer second helpings. The pot had been graciously full.

  They all had two pieces of the excellent nutty-flavored cake that had a topping of thick sweet blue-colored berries that did not at all taste like blueberries, or have similar seeds.

  As was often the case with young Zane, he was ready to go to sleep with his stomach nicely full so Kris prepared him for bed while the two men cleared the table. When she returned, she rather thought the humorous glint in Kurt’s eyes was for the accustomed manner in which the Catteni had performed the KP duties.

  The beer helped a great deal as the two Humans struggled with the guttural, harsh Catteni words, first jotting them down phonetically and then in the Catteni script. This was a cross between runes, Kurt’s definition, and glyphs, which was Kris’ notion. By the time the beer had run out, the two of them knew how to count to five hundred in Catteni, and Zainal could now spell all the words that had bothered him as well as understand all the computer abbreviations which had so baffled him. They set a time for the next lesson, and then Kurt got into the runabout and made a slow but competent turn to head back to the main settlement.

  • • •

  SINCE THE MIND-PROBE HAD DISCOVERED very little useful information—apart from some shady dealings among the former administrators and administrations of the planet’s political divisions—the Ix had abandoned the project: bored even by the occasional scientific theories that had yet to be proven. Most of these were already in use by the Eosi: and far more sophisticated usage than the silly Humans had ever thought to employ.

  Unfortunately the obsession to destroy those protected by the Bubble had become so entrenched in the Ix Mentat’s mind that it thought of nothing but the means to do so. Where the Bubble had come from and what comprised the amazingly invulnerable material was almost a secondary consideration. The Juniors—which was not how they were called in Catteni but the translation was close enough to their actual position and authority within the Eosi context—had repeatedly tried to divert the Ix with other matters. Lest the Ix be provoked by their counter-arguments into another seizure, they had no choice but to proceed with the Mentat’s latest plans: to organize the greatest force the Eosi had ever assembled, even larger than the one with which they had assaulted a planet that many High Emassi wished they’d left strictly alone. But it had seemed such a useful place: with a population density that would provide other, less desirable locations with an endless supply of workers needed to produce and refine the raw materials that kept Catteni ships in space. There was also the added fact that the Eosi were committed to extending their control of this arm of the galaxy as far as they could—and as fast as they could.

  So the orders were sent out to the naval shipyards and the plants and planets that produced the materials needed to build more AA-ships, and devise heavier, more devastating missiles to launch at this mysterious Bubble.

  The Ix Mentat was approached by one of its peers and tactfully asked why one small, insignificant world was its target.

  “Because it’s there,” the Ix replied, glowering and seething with rage. “Because it defies us!”

  “Defiance is not permitted,” the Le Mentat agreed and that was the end of that.

  Chapter Three

  MARGE BECAME MORE VOCAL BUT STRUGGLED painfully for sentences or words and would often burst into tears. Peggy would watch her, lean over, and pat her shoulder or her hand, then immediately go into what Kris called her “meditative” state.

  When discussing her charges with Dorothy, the psychologist advised her to suggest words, if she could, to Marge or show pictures. Peggy was obviously aware of what was happening about her, and that was a very good sign.

  “Miss Barrow,” and Dorothy gave the mischievous smile that made her seem much younger, “wants to take charge of our laboratory. She is naturally appalled at its primitive facilities and amazed that we aren’t all down with something fatal. Leon, Thor, and the others need her skills so much that they’re willing to put up with her…disorientation.” Dorothy sighed. “Miss Barrow will not be pleased when she accepts that she’s on another planet entirely and will never get more than the equipment we have.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that, Dorothy,” Kris said with a grin.

  “What do you know that they haven’t told me?” Dorothy asked, eyeing Kris with mock annoyance.

  “I’m not sure they’ve told me any more than you will have heard, too. Like they are going to try to get back to Earth.”

  “They couldn’t bring my shopping list with them, could they?” the psychologist asked in a wistful tone, then added more briskly, “I am encouraged, though. We’re getting almost daily br
eakthroughs now. Though how we’ll fit some of these people into Botany I haven’t a clue. I mean, an astrophysicist who was on the Hubble team and a meteorologist when the weather here is already controlled—Do we even have a clue how that’s done?”

  “Zainal thinks that huge square block we discovered on the seashore has something to do with it. There are four others in sort of a pattern.”

  “Any idea of when the Earth trip will take place?”

  “We’ve a lot of studying to do first,” Kris said and rose, not wanting to spread more gossip, even to someone as discreet as Dorothy was, professionally or personally.

  • • •

  KRIS FOUND HER NAME UP ON THE ROSTER board for a late afternoon meeting with the Central Council. She checked in with the day care to be sure that the day’s manager knew that she wouldn’t be in to collect Zane at the usual hour. Sarah McDouall had already been informed. Zane did not notice his mother, since he was involved in some complicated game with Fek’s child and two Rugarians whom Kris didn’t know. The Rugarian babies were born with as much body fur as their parents, and it really was difficult for humans to tell them apart without going through the list of names until the yaya (which was Rugarian for the unadult) answered to the right one. A Deski young one was called a slib. Some of them were easier to identify since their skin had different tones.

  Zainal caught up with her in the dining hall where they were both eating a quick meal.

  “What’s this all about then?” she asked him.

  “Plans have been made. Discussion now.”

  She knew him well enough to know that she would get no more out of him. Then she noticed Miss Barrow threading her way to an empty table. She wore a look of disdain, as if wrapping herself carefully away from the reality of an ambience she could not escape. Unlike everyone else garbed in the ubiquitous ship suit, she wore a dress, severely cut, in one of the dark greens, which Kris had brought back from her excursion to the markets of Barevi. The dress was long-sleeved and buttoned up to a high collar, with a hemline at calf-length. To Kris’ astonishment, Miss Barrow did incline her head graciously as she registered Kris’ presence, but she straightened into consummate distaste as she recognized that Kris was seated with a Catteni. She turned her face haughtily away.