Freedom's Challenge

by Anne McCaffrey

  “I don’t say I’d ever want to eat what they cook,” Beth said when they returned, “but at least they can now build a fire, open a can or unscrew a jar, make what they call ‘bread,’ fry fresh fish which they do like, by the way. One of them will make a good seamstress. At least she figured out how to take in the ship suits. The rest were happy enough to wear something new even if they did have to learn how to sew up the edges to keep the lengths from fraying. Who would have suspected that Catteni women would wear sarongs?”

  “Makes most of them look like boxes,” Sally said, grinning. “Even the ship suits have more shape.”

  “The Catteni women sure don’t,” Lenny remarked with a wry grin.

  • • •

  THE SHUTTLE REACHED CATTEN’S ATMOSPHERE and dropped speed quickly, homing in on the main government buildings. It hovered over the roof, though a surveillance guard ship instantly appeared to inspect it, recognized the security markings on the shuttle, and retired without questioning its presence.

  “There is something to be said for protocol,” Kamiton said with a grin. He was now attired in a fresh Emassi uniform, smartened with tabs of the highest rank available to Emassi. “Have Tiboud and Valicon reported in yet?”

  “Just got their signals now,” Tubelin said from the com desk. “They’re in position.”

  “Tell them to proceed,” Kamiton said coolly, knowing that several more unsuspecting Catteni who were dedicated to their Eosian masters would shortly be dead. He turned to the others, checking to see that his former security detail were now all clad in uniforms similar to his. It amused him that all members of the prisoner detail had been rewarded with major steps in rank. “We all know how to proceed.” He checked the nose plugs once more and then indicated to Zainal, in the pilot’s position, to land.

  He gestured for the others to precede him before he turned once more to the pilot.

  “Good luck, Zainal. I’ll keep you informed.”

  “You had better. I need to return your families. They will undoubtedly tell you how mistreated they were on Botany.”

  “Of that I have little doubt for they have been accustomed to luxuries not available on your home planet.”

  Zainal answered Kamiton’s rueful smile with one of his own.

  “Go finish the business, Kam.”

  Kamiton stiffened then and gave Zainal not only a salute but also the low bow that indicated great respect. He jumped off the ramp and Zainal shut the hatch.

  Zainal swung the shuttle away then and flicked on the com unit to wide range so he could hear what was going on…and know when the shock hit the sleeping planet.

  Nitin might be a pessimist but he was also a realist and they would be following his plan of reconstructing their world, and the worlds the Eosi had once dominated.

  They had not been able to get a dissident into a prestigious position on Earth, but he rather thought that once the news was out, the Terrans would double their efforts to regain control of their own planet. Nor were there sufficient colleagues on the various fleet elements to take control of the AA’s or some of the great H-class, but Catteni were so accustomed to being told what to do and how, that Kamiton’s forceful manner, the backing they did have, should eventually result in capitulation. Surely no Catteni had enjoyed the Eosian domination even if many, singly or in family groupings, had benefited by their loyalty to entities they had never before attempted to supplant.

  Often enough during Zainal’s flight to the main security landing field did he have to shield his eyes from the spotlights of other guardian vessels. But the purloined ship did have the right markings and permission to be aloft in night hours. Zainal put the vehicle down at the edge of the force-field-protected landing area.

  He rose, stiffly, hissing against twinges from the nerve whip. That had been a necessary ordeal, as had his starvation on the way to Catteni, but he had to look the part and whole-skinned and fat would not have been credible. His knees hurt from all the dragging but at least that posture had allowed him to keep his head down and his eyes closed as he faked unconsciousness.

  Now, all he had to do was find Baby, which should now bear the security markings of yet another authorized vehicle. He had to stride out purposefully and each heel jarred the various tormented parts of his body, from the scratches to the long welts of the nerve whip. Kasturi had not struck as hard as he might have done to a real offender but hard enough. Whippings endured from his father had been lighter. His stomach ached with hunger and, by the time he passed the first rank of unlit ships on the pavement, his mouth and throat were parched. He took time to drink from the flask he had brought with him from the ship, first swirling the water about his mouth and letting it trickle down his throat. Then he took the stimulant from his pocket and, with a big swallow of water, let that go to work in his empty belly. He’d have food soon enough. Fourth rank east, Chuck had said, second ship. Chuck had managed that discreet parking but it was a long way from first rank west.

  He walked inward now, shielded from casual notice from the parked vehicles, made it past a wide turning circle and on toward the distant fence and fourth rank. He had to lean against the side of the scout to catch his breath. At least there was a light on inside it to reassure him that this was right. He tapped out the code on the door to alert them to his arrival.

  The hatch opened immediately.

  “Keep back, dammit, Bert,” Chuck said and the Australian vanished from the brightly lit hatch. Chuck was down the steps, instantly supporting the sagging body, his eyes wide and then closing in relief as Zainal’s nod as well as his presence told Chuck that, so far, all had gone smoothly.

  “We’ve got to get out of here, and fast,” Zainal said.

  “Yeah,” Chuck said, his voice unsteady with relief as he helped Zainal up the short flight to the hatch, “it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.”

  “What fat lady?” Zainal asked, realizing that the sergeant had answered him in English as he made his way forward. “Why a fat lady?”

  “Explain later.” Chuck closed the hatch with a clank. “You got ’em? All of ’em?” Chuck persisted with his questions as Zainal made a slow way to the pilot’s compartment. Bert was now in the other chair, having let Chuck help Zainal.

  They’d had the harder job, Zainal knew, waiting without being able to use the com unit for fear the position of the scout ship might be discovered.

  “We got all but the fourteen who were not present,” Zainal said, noting that a course had already been laid in, preparatory to his arrival. He nodded approval at Bert, who was completing the last of the pre-flight checks. “They are unlikely to remain where they are. They’re too scattered to unite. In any event, once the news gets out, they may decide to leave the galaxy as we suggested. Coded messages should have gone out from the space station to our other colleagues who are waiting for our signal. Kamiton got to the center before the execution could be broadcast…” He shrugged and grimaced at such an unwary and painful action. “If it has. Or Ugred has managed to give us more time by deferring an announcement. Otherwise we couldn’t have landed at the building. But we were able to. Kamiton gave the word and those who could not be trusted have been eliminated by now. But let’s get out of here. Just in case.”

  “Too right,” Bert Put said. “Strapped in, Chuck?”

  “Only after Zay gets something into his belly,” Chuck said, thrusting a ration bar over Zainal’s shoulder.

  “I need that,” Zainal said and tore off the wrapping, taking a huge bite. “Clear us from the field, will you, Chuck?”

  And the sergeant leaned across to the com board. They had to wait for a reply.

  “They’re all bored,” Chuck said while Zainal impassively chewed.

  Bert was chewing, too, but on his lip as they waited until the line was opened.

  “Schkelk,” Chuck said in his hoarse Catteni voice, “Emassi has called. I go. Clearance?”

  “Given,” was the bored response and the line went dead.
<
br />   The ship lifted carefully out of the crowded parking area and turned away from the city.

  Having finished his slowly consumed meal, Zainal opened the com link, pausing at the various channels to check on the tone of exchanged messages. They were, in fact, in space and heading obliquely away from the vicinity of the space station before the first report was aired.

  “This is the Supreme Emassi Kamiton, informing you of a change of government on Catten and the execution of eighty-six Mentats and Juniors on the space station which is now under my control. High Emassi Ugred is now commander of the space station…”

  “Supreme Emassi?” Chuck asked, wide-eyed and grinning.

  “That is the title he picked.”

  “What’d Nitin get?”

  “Oh, he’s speaker for Parliament…”

  “Speaker?” Bert said in astonishment.

  “You guys don’t have a parliament,” Chuck protested.

  “We will soon enough.”

  “You learned a lot we didn’t know about on Botany, didn’t you?” Chuck replied but his tone was admiring. “Uh-oh, look! Bogies at three o’clock and coming in awful fast. Can’t we pile on some speed? We might be able to miss ’em.”

  • • •

  KRIS WAS ON COM DUTY: SHE HAD REQUESTED the assignment and, except for those weekly visits to the closed valley and the Catteni guests, that had been her duty. Now she didn’t even answer Catteni complaints but impassively saw that supplies were unloaded near enough to be easily carried to the mess hall for storage. So, she just happened to have the duty in Scott’s office that evening when Ray Scott and Jim Rastancil rushed in.

  “What’s going on up there, Kris?”

  “Up where?”

  “Up near the Bubble.”

  Kris gave her head a little shake, reset the earpiece. “Nothing. Nothing that I can hear since all those coded messages stopped shooting back and forth.”

  “Well, there’s something coming down. Gino says there’s some sort of shooting stars. And there aren’t any of them in this sector of space, especially not with the Bubble…”

  Ray stopped mid-sentence and rushed outside, Rastancil right behind him.

  Kris didn’t know whether to stay on duty or join their exodus to see what had made Ray and Jim move that fast. She heard startled cries, some panicky, others, loud and incoherent cheers. Her curiosity roused her from apathy. She abandoned duty and joined the others outside the hangar on the landing field. It wasn’t full dark, but the bursts of flame or brilliant light were obvious to the naked eye. The shower—of whatever it was that Gino now said was burning up in upper atmosphere—didn’t last very long even with several tiny late flashes. What was obvious was that the Bubble was gone. The sky above them was as clear as it had been before the Bubble had been woven into place. One of the moons was even visible, the one on which the Catteni had tried to build a base. Kris gulped, frozen to the spot. Unable to grasp the significance. There hadn’t been any more bombardments. Those had ended just before the surreptitious departure of Baby and the KDL. She strained her eyes, trying to locate any glitter that would be their com sat or even the roving spy satellite the Catteni had placed in the thirty-hour orbit.

  Why had the Bubble come down? Were the Farmers about to visit them? But surely they didn’t need to remove the Bubble to get in. Or did they?

  Ray gave her a little shake. “Back to your post, Kris. Tell us what you can hear?”

  “But there’s nothing up there. The Bubble’s down. How could the Eosi dissolve it…”

  Now Ray gave her a shove toward the hangar. “Tell us what you can hear. We need to know if the com sat’s still operating.”

  Kris didn’t ask how she could tell from just listening to static. Or maybe that, in itself, was proof the com sat was still operating? But it had been connected to the Eosi array that had been sheered off their ship in its attempt to exit. Surely, if what they’d seen burning up in the atmosphere were the bits and pieces dropping now that the Bubble no longer held them in place, everything would come down. No, no, that wasn’t quite right. Pete Snyder had told them that the com sat was independent, with vanes trapping solar power so that it functioned all by itself. But, what about what it had been attached to? She had this vivid image of an umbrella with a crooked handle, the rain shield pointing downward and the crooked handle pointing out toward empty space.

  Ray now hauled her with him back to the office and then took up the earpiece himself, frowning as he listened. Jim Rastancil, Gino Marrucci, and the others who had been in the hangar office stood about, anxiously waiting for his report.

  “All I get is static,” Ray said, handing the earpiece to Kris who put it on and sat down, listening to the same sort of static, which might be very faint messages. “So it is still up and functioning. Nevertheless, Gino, get a skeleton crew and the KDL up to check.”

  “With the Bubble gone?” And Gino’s normally swarthy skin paled.

  “Yes, damn it. To see if it’s gone. We’ve got to know what action to take if it is. That is, unless the Farmers vouchsafe to give us some indication that we don’t need it anymore.”

  Kris held up her hand. “I’m getting something…”

  “Look!” And Jim was pointing to the bridge screen, which showed the moon that was coming up, and a small sparkle that couldn’t be debris since it moved with astonishing speed on a steady, inward-bound direction.

  “Oh, my God,” and Ray’s voice was an awed whisper. “Have they been watching all along?”

  “Does it mean that Zainal succeeded?” Jim Rastancil asked.

  For the first time in her life, Kris fainted.

  • • •

  SHE CAME TO, LYING ON THE COT IN RAY’S spartan accommodation at the hangar, with a folded towel on her forehead. She could hear male voices beyond the open door. Carefully, hoping the attack of vertigo had passed, she sat up, holding the towel in place as it felt good on her forehead, and swung her legs over the side of the cot. However did Ray get a decent night’s sleep on this thing? Then memory flooded back, and she whimpered.

  An anxious Ray Scott was instantly beside her. “Sorry, Kris.”

  That was when they both felt the almost electrical tingle that they had experienced before.

  “We need more than that,” Ray shouted, raising a fist above his head in challenge.

  But that was all they got, and everyone they checked with over the next half hour confirmed the sensation. The Council called a meeting of its main members in the hangar as soon as they could get there. Fortunately a good deal of Retreat’s population was asleep and might even have been oblivious to the mild shock. Others called in, having seen what they thought were “shooting stars.” Blandly, Gino had agreed that that’s what they were. Few realized that the Bubble was gone, and Ray thought a general announcement could wait until the Council could figure out what to do.

  Dorothy Dwardie took the chair next to Kris at the end of the table. The psychologist had been studying notes on her day’s clinical sessions with some of the more unresponsive orphans when she’d felt the tingle. Unusual enough a sensation to make her want to find out if anyone else had experienced this phenomenon. She wasn’t far from the infirmary so she opened a com link to the duty officer at the infirmary who had just been told to inform Leon Dane of a special meeting at the hangar. Dr. Dwardie ought to go, too. She was Council, wasn’t she? And, yes, she’d felt the tingle, too. It had happened once before that she knew of. Then she excused herself to answer another message. No sooner had Dorothy closed the link than she was buzzed, and hurriedly informed that she was needed at the hangar.

  Walking down from her cabin, it took Dorothy a few hundred yards to realize that she could see the stars. Then the moon came shining through a gap in the lodge-pole trees. She ran the rest of the way to the hangar. She arrived breathless and took the first available seat, which was beside Kris.

  “The Bubble’s down?” she murmured, and Kris nodded without looking directly at
Dorothy.

  Then everyone heard the unmistakable sound of a ship taking off, and the brilliance of the propulsion units in the darkness of the landing field made them cover their eyes.

  “Who’s going where?” Dorothy softly asked, trying to squelch a feeling of anxiety.

  “Checking on the com sat. Everything else up there came down in a shower,” Kris said.

  “I felt the oddest tingle, like an electric current running through me,” Dorothy added.

  “The Farmers do that now and then. Counting noses,” Kris replied.

  “The Farmers? Have we had a message from them after all?” She leaned toward Kris, having just realized that Kris sounded very subdued. “You look awfully pale.” She paused a moment, blinked as she came to a logical conclusion. “How would the Farmers know we don’t need the Bubble anymore? If that is the case, then your Zainal succeeded?”

  Just then Ray Scott’s characteristic calm deserted him, and he banged his fist on the table.

  “How the hell can we construe a reassuring message from one goddamned short tingle!” he said in a loud, frustrated voice to Judge Iri Bempechat beside him. “Are they so goddamned busy monitoring the rest of the universe that we don’t qualify for an explanation?”

  Judge Iri Bempechat raised a gentling hand. “The message, I would think, is clear. We no longer require the protection of the Bubble. They’ve done a planet-wide search and counted noses again. It is my opinion that we should be grateful for what they have done, instead of—if I may be allowed to use the vulgar expression—bitching about it.”

  “The Judge is right.” And Kris rose to her feet, having heard all the wrangling and speculation she could stand. Not even the calm Dorothy had been oozing in her direction had helped. “And it took the Bubble away because Zainal and the others succeeded in…doing whatever they planned to the Eosi.”