Freedom's Challenge

Chapter One.

WHEN ZAINAL HAD ORGANIZED THE data he wanted to send to the Farmers via the homing capsule, he let Boris Slavinkovin and Dick Aarens fly it down to the Command Post for dispatch.

"You have a nasty sense of humor, Zainal," Kris said when the hatch of the scout vessel Baby closed behind the messengers. She had been surprised by his choice of Aarens, considering the man's behavior on their first visit to the Command Post.

"Well," and Zainal gave a shrug of one shoulder and an unrepentant grin, "Aarens has had experience sending one off. Let him do it official this time. As a reward for his improvement."

"What improvement?" Kris still had little time for the self-styled mechanical genius who had deliberately launched a homing capsule without authorization on their first trip to the Command Post.

They both stepped back from the takeoff area, as much to avoid the fumes as the wind, although Boris lifted the little craft slowly and cautiously.

They watched as it made an almost soundless vertical ascent before it slanted forward and sped off, disappearing quickly in the dusk of what had been a very long and momentous day.

The wide landing field that stretched out level with the immense, Farmer-constructed hangar could accommodate a half dozen of the K-class ships that had arrived today. They now were out of sight, within the vast hangar. At the far end of the landing area grew small copses of the lodgepole trees: young ones in terms of the age of the mature groves above and beyond the hangar. In the nearest of those groves the cabins of the colonists were being constructed, out of brick or wood, in separate clearings to allow the privacy that everyone preferred. Further up the slope were the infirmary, which today was crowded, and the huge mess hall, which served food all day long and well into the long Botany night. The largest building that faced Retreat Bay was the administration, where Judge Iri Bempechat held court when necessary, with the stocks just outside as a reminder that offenses against the community would be publicly punished.

The building also held the living quarters for the judge and other members of the body known as the Council, which included those with experience in management and administration to run the affairs of the colony. In the earliest days, when Master Sergeant Charles Mitford had taken charge of the dazed and frightened First Drop colonists, he'd kept records on pieces of slate with chalk. Now the admin building posted weekly work rosters and the community services that all were required to perform. (It still shocked Kris to see Judge Iri washing dishes, and he did it more cheerfully than many.)

Ex-Admiral Ray Scott had elected to live in a small room behind his office in the hangar complex. It was he, disguised as a Catteni Drassi, who had insisted that the Victims be rescued from the fate to which the Eosi had condemned them: working until they died as mindless slaves in the appalling conditions that existed in the mines, quarries, and fields. There had been no way that those of his crew who had been among the first dropped on Botany would have allowed those battered people to be transported to their deaths.

Considering the excitements of the day, the unloading of the victims of the Eosian mind-wipe experiment, which had occupied a good third of Botany's settlers, the field was now abnormally quiet, peaceful. Kris sighed and Zainal gave her a fond look.

"ZAINAL? KRIS?" Chuck Mitford's parade ground voice reached their ears over the muted sounds that Baby was making. They looked back to the hangar and saw Chuck urgently waving to them. He was talking to someone who had just pulled up in a runabout.

"Oh, now what?" The testy demand left Kris' mouth before she could suppress it. She was tired and she earnestly desired a shower and a long sleep. She'd even arranged with the crche to keep Zane overnight since she knew herself to be stretched to the limit after the tense voyage home and the stress of landing all the pitiful mind-wiped people.

"We'd better see," Zainal said, taking her hand in his big one and pressing it encouragingly.

"Don't you ever get tired and just… have too much, Zainal?"This was one of those moments when his equanimity bordered on the unforgivable.

"Yes, but it passes;' he said, leading her to where Chuck Mitford waited for them with the passenger of the runabout.

It wasn't a long walk but long enough for Kris to get her irritation and impatience under control. If Zainal could hack it, so could she. But when would she get a shower? She stank! Well, maybe her body odor would encourage whoever this was to shorten their errand.

"What's up, sarge?" she asked, noticing that he was talking to a woman she vaguely recognized from the Fourth Drop: as much because she managed to look elegant in the basic Catteni coverall. Kris wondered if she'd taken it in at crucial spots to make it look so fashionable. She was fleetingly envious of such expertise.

"Dorothy Dwardie who's heading the psychology team needs some of your time, and right now," Chuck said and had the grace to add, "though I'd guess another meeting's the last thing you two need right now."

"It is," Kris said without thinking but she smiled at the psychologist to take the sting out of her candor.

"It is important?" And Zainal's question was more statement than query.

"Yes, it is, quite urgent," Dorothy said with an apologetic smile. "We need to know more about that mind-probe before we can proceed with any sort of effective or therapeutic treatment."

"Why don't you use the small office?" Chuck said, gesturing to that end of the immense hangar.

Zainal squeezed Kris' hand and murmured: "This won't take long. I know very little about the probe;'

"I was hoping you'd know something, if only the history of its use among your people," Dorothy said ruefully and then looked about for a place to park the runabout.

"I'll take care of it for you," Chuck said so helpfully that Kris smothered a grin.

Dorothy Dwardie gave him a warm smile for his offer.

"We've had a bit of outrageous luck," she said as they walked to the right-hand side of the enormous hangar where other small offices had been constructed.

"We could use some," Kris agreed, struggling for amiability.

"Indeed we could, though I must say that hijacking all those poor people out from under Eosi domination is certainly their good luck. And you deserve a lot of credit for that act of kindness:'

What she didn't say rang loud and clear to Kris. There were some who weren't sure she and Zainal deserved any credit? As well for them that Ray Scott had loudly declared that he took full responsibility for the decision to save the damaged Humans so no one could blame that on Zainal or her.

Actually the guilty were the Eosi but too many people failed to make a distinction between overlord and underling. Kris' mood swung back to negative again.

"But until we…" and Dorothy's hand on her chest meant all the psychologists and psychiatrists on Botany who would now take charge of the mind-wiped, "understand as much as possible about the mechanism… ah, here we are…" and she opened the door to the small office and automatically fumbled for a light switch on the wall.

Kris had seen the cord and pulled it.

"Oh… I suppose I'll get used to it in time," Dorothy said with an apologetic grin.

"You're Fourth Drop, aren't you?" Kris replied as neutrally as possible while Zainal closed the door behind them. There were several desks against the long stone wall but a table and chairs made an appropriate conference spot by the wide window. There was nothing but darkness outside, since the hangar faced south and there were no habitations yet beyond the field.

"You said you had a bit of outrageous luck?"

Kris asked when they were seated.

"Yes, not everyone in the group you brought had been mind-wiped."

"Certainly the Deskis, Rugs, and Turs weren't," Kris said.

"Nor all the Humans," Dorothy said, smiling over such a minor triumph.

"They weren't?" Kris asked, exchanging surprised glances with Zainal. "Yes, some faked the vacuity of the mindless…"

"Faked it?"

Dorothy smiled more brightly. "Clever of them, actually, and they got away with it because those in charge weren't keeping track of who had been… done."

Kris let out a long whistle. "All us Human look alike to Eosi? Proves, though, doesn't it, that the Eosi aren't all that smart after all. Clever of us Humans to run the scam."

"They're also able to give us names for many of the people who no longer remember who they are." Dorothy gave a little shudder. "I've dealt with amnesia patients before, of course, and accident shock trauma, but this is on so much larger a scale… and complicated by not only emotional but also physical shock and injury. We have established-thanks to Leon Dane's work with injured Catteni--that there are more points of similarity than differences between our two species since both are bipedal, pentadactyl, and share many of the same external features, like eyes, ears, noses. We can't of course cross-fertilize," and to Kris' surprise, Dorothy ducked her head to hide a flush.

"As well," Kris said dryly.

Dorothy flashed her an apology and continued. "Internally, though the Catteni have larger hearts, lungs, and intestinal arrangements, Leon says that the main difference is the density of the brain matter. It's also larger though similarly organized as ours are, as far as the position of the four major lobes is concerned. Leon was amazed at what damage a Catteni skull could take without permanent injury. I think," and she paused, frowning slightly at what she did not voice, "that the initial injuries to the prisoners were attempts to recalibrate the instrument to human brains."

"Initial injuries?" Kris asked.

"Yes," and Dorothy seemed to wish to get over this topic very quickly, "though they would have been dead before their nervous systems could register much."

"Oh?"

"Yes, and leave it at that, Kris," Dorothy went on briskly. "Will Seiss-mann should not dwell on the details although he seems to want to… a part of his trauma."

"Will Seissmann?" Kris asked.

"Yes, he and Dr. Ansible…"

"Dr. Ansible?" Kris shot bolt upright. "But he's-was, rather-at the observatory. Only I think he was away on some sort of a conference when the Catteni took Denver:'

"Yes, he was and took refuge at Stamford," Dorothy replied, nodding.

"He tried to argue others he knew to follow Will's example. I don't know whether or not the dogmatic scientist has an innate martyr complex but only a few would resort to the trick to save themselves;' She broke off with a sigh. "At any rate, we are able to put names to most of the Victims. But I need to know whatever details you may have, Zainal. They will be so helpful in correcting the trauma… if, indeed, we can."

Zainal shook his head. "I know little about such Eosi devices." Then his expression changed into what Kris privately termed his "Catteni look," cold, impassive, shuttered. "I do know-it is part of the Catteni history-that they have a device that increases and measures intelligence."

"Oh?" Dorothy leaned forward across the tame in her eagerness. "Then it could possibly extract information, too?"

Zainal blinked and his expression altered to a less forbidding one. He gave a slight smile. "It would seem likely since I only know of the one device.

The Eosi used it on the primitive Catteni to make them useful as hosts."

"Really?" Dorothy's expression was intensely eager as she leaned forward, encouraging Zainal to elaborate.

"Yes, really. Roughly two thousand years ago, the Eosi discovered Catten and its inhabitants. We were little more than animals, a fact the Eosi never let us forget. About a thousand years ago, my family started keeping its records for our ancestor was one of the first hundred to have… his brains stimulated by the device. Each family keeps its own records-how many males it has delivered to the Eosi as hosts and details of children and matings."

"A thousand, two thousand years to develop into a space-going race?

That's impressive," Dorothy said.

"Humans did it without such assistance and that impresses me," Zainal said with an odd laugh. "But that's how the Emassi were developed. To serve the Eosi."

"They didn't use the mind thingummy on the Drassi?" Kris asked.

"To a lesser degree," Zainal replied and turned to Dorothy. "There are three levels of Catteni now… Emassi," and he touched his chest, "Drassi who are good at following orders but have little initiative or ambition: some were rejected for the Emassi ranks, but are able to be more than Drassi-ship captains and troop leaders. Then there're the Rassi, who were left as they are."

"Rassi?" Kris echoed in surprise. "Never heard of them."

"They do not leave Catten and are as we all were when the Eosi found us."

"So you, as a species, did not evolve by yourselves? But had your intelligence stimulated?" Dorothy asked. She turned to Kris. "The Eosi evidently never heard of the Prime Directive."

Kris giggled. A psychologist who was a Trekkie?

"The Prime Directive means an advanced culture is not supposed to interfere with the natural evolution of another species or culture/' Kris explained to Zainal.

"The anthropologists will have a field day with this/' Dorothy added, jotting down another note. "Was one… application sufficient to sustain the higher level of intelligence?" she asked Zainal.

He shrugged. "I do not know that." Abruptly his expression again changed to his "Catteni look/' impassive, expressionless, shuttered. "When I had my full growth, I had to be presented to the Eosi, to see if I was acceptable as a host. And what training I should be given."

"And?" Dorothy prompted him when he paused.

"I was passed, and I was to be trained to pilot spaceships;' Then his grin became devilish and his "Catteni look" completely disappeared. "My father and uncles had worried that Eosi would find me too curious and unacceptable."

"Too curious? Why would that make you unacceptable?" Dorothy asked.

"Eosi tell Emassi what they need to know. That is all they are supposed to know."

"Before you start training? Surely you had basic schooling?" Dorothy asked, surprised.

Zainal gave a snort. "Emassi are trained, not schooled;'

"But didn't you learn to read, write, and figure before you were fourteen?"

Dorothy was having difficulty with this concept. "Surely you've had to learn mathematics to pilot spaceships?"

Zainal nodded. "Emassi males are taught that much by their fathers…"

He grimaced.

"The hard way?" Kris said, miming the use of a force whip.

"Yes, the hard way. One tends to pay strict attention to such lessons."

"And yet you were curious enough to want to know more?" Dorothy asked.

"Because it was forbidden," Zainal said, again with the twinkle in his eye. He must have been a handful as a youngster. Kris was also immensely relieved that his intelligence, which she suspected was a lot higher than hers, was natural, rather than artificially stimulated.

"So the device assessed you. Can you give me any description of it?"

Zainal looked down at his clasped hands as he organized his response.

"I was taken into a very large white room with a big chair in the center and two Eosi, one at a control desk. I was strapped into the chair and then the device came down out of the ceiling to cover my head."

"Could you see what it looked like?" Dorothy asked, and Kris realized how eagerly she awaited details.

Zainal shrugged. "A large shape/' and he made a bell form with both hands, "with many wires attached to it and dials."

"It covered your head or just your face?"

"My head down to my shoulders. It was heavy."

"Did you see any blue lights?" Dorothy asked, scribbling again.

"I saw nothing."

"And the sensations? What were they like?" She turned to Kris as Zainal once again considered his answer. "We're trying to establish if any invasive probe is used: Needles or possibly electrical shock. We need to know whether the brain itself has been entered and damaged: whether or not there has been physical damage-rather than just memory, emotional, and fact erasures."

"There aren't any scars on the Victims?" Kris asked, and Dorothy shook her head.

"Not visible ones, certainly. Which is why Zainal's recollection is so vital to us."

"Like electricity," Zainal said, putting his hands to his temples and moving them up to the top of his broad skull. "And here;' and he touched the base of his cranium. "But no blood. No scar."

"Oh, yes, that's interesting, very interesting;' and Dorothy wrote hastily for a minute. "No pain in the temples?"

"Where?" Zainal asked.

"Here," and Kris touched the points.

"Oh. Not pain, pressure."

"Isn't that where lobotomies are done?" Kris apprehensively asked Dorothy.

She nodded. "Anywhere else? Pressure or pain or odd sensations? I'm trying to discover just which areas might have been… touched by this device.

If they coincide with what factual, emotional, and memory centers humans have," she added as an aside to Kris. "There are more parallels than you might guess."

"A sort of stabbing, very quick, to the…" and Zainal put his hand to the top of his head, "inside of my head."

"Quite possibly a general stimulation," Dorothy murmured. Then, with a kind smile, went on. "So you were assessed and passed. Then what happened?"

"I was told who to report to for training." Then he grinned. "I know that my uncles were disappointed that I was acceptable. My father was relieved.

More glory for our branch of the family."

"How old are you now?" Dorothy asked, a question which Kris had never bothered to ask.

Zainal hesitated and then with a grin and a shrug, "Thirty-five. I have been exploring this galaxy for sixteen years:'

"Sixteen?" Kris was surprised.

"That would make only four years of formal training? Of any sort?"

Dorothy asked, surprised.

"Three. I have been here two years now. Two Catteni years." And he grinned at Kris.

"Pilot training is all you had?"

"I learned what I needed to know to do the job which the Eosi ordered for me. I worked hard and learned well," Zainal said with a touch of pride.

"Amazing," Dorothy murmured as she made more notes.

"But you know a lot about a lot of things," Kris protested.

Zainal shrugged. "Once I am officially a pilot," and he gave Kris a mischievous look out of the corner of his eye, "it was no longer wrong for me to learn what I wish so long as I pilot well. The Eosi," and his face slid briefly into Catteni impassivity again, "require their hosts to have been many places and seen many things."

"Then you don't have any knowledge about your own body? No biology?"

Dorothy asked. '.

"Bi-o-lo-gy?" Zainal repeated.

Dorothy explained, and he laughed.

"As long as my body does what I need it to do, I do not ask how it does it."

Both Dorothy and Kris smiled.

"When I compare what our astronauts went through to qualify as space pilots…" and Dorothy raised one hand in amazement.

"The earliest aviators flew by the seat of their pants," Kris remarked.

"Seat of their pants?" Zainal asked, frowning so Dorothy and Kris took turns explaining the meaning.

"I did that, too, when training did not cover all I needed to know. So I made those who build the spacecraft show me how everything worked," Zainal said.

"And those… engineers… were also trained by families who were engineers?"

Dorothy asked, and Zainal nodded. "Very restrictive educational system. Only a need to know. However did they manage?"

"The Eosi do the manage part;' Zainal said in a caustic tone. "Emassi follow orders just like Drassi and even the Rassi:'

"It's amazing even the Emassi can do what they do," Kris remarked, regarding Zainal with even more respect.

"Yes, it is," Dorothy agreed, "and we tend to rely on the educational process… or the genetic heritage," and she gave Kris a look. "Depending on which school of thought you adhere to." She gave another sigh and then said more briskly, including Kris. "Are there any special aptitudes which Catteni have which Humans do not? For example, the way the Deski can climb vertically and have extraordinary hearing?"

"Night vision," Zainal said promptly. "Our hearing is more acute but not as good as the Deski. We can last longer eating poor food… or is that body difference, not brain?"

"Metabolic differences certainly," Dorothy said, having written "eye" and "ear" on her pad. Kris could read such short words backwards. Then the psychologist spent a moment doodling. "Could you possibly draw me a sketch of the device used on you?" She turned to Kris in explanation.

"Those that got a good look at it can't talk, and those who can talk didn't see it."

"Zainal's very good at drawing devices," Kris said, with a touch of pride.

"Yes," and Zainal complied, using the pen with the quick, deft strokes that Kris had seen him use in delineating the mechanicals. "There!"

Dorothy regarded the neat sketch and hmmmed under her breath.

"Hmmm, yes, well it looks like something an evil scientist would create."

She sighed. "Considering who the Eosi chose to brain-scan, they seem to have been on an information hunt. But why? Their level of technology is so much more sophisticated than ours. Or were they just trying to strip minds that could possibly help foment riot and rebellion? Or maybe reduce humans to the level of your Rassi?"

Zainal made a guttural noise and his smile, while it did not touch his eyes, was evil. "Ray Scott said that he recognized some of the people as scientists.

So the Eosi are looking for information. If they were wiping minds to make you like Drassi, they would start with children and block learning."

He grinned. "The Eosi look for ideas. They have had very few new ones over the past hundred or so years."

"Really?" Dorothy remarked encouragingly.

"Maybe they need to stimulate their own brains," Kris said. "Or would it work on them?"

Zainal shrugged.

"Will Seissmann and Dr. Ansible felt that the Eosi were taking a vicious revenge on humans by destroying minds in a wholesale fashion/' Dorothy said in an expressionless voice. "There seemed to be no reason to include some of the individuals-TV reporters and anchor men… and women…

"Really? Who?" Kris asked in astonishment.

"Who? Anchor men and women?" Zainal didn't understand the term.

"Oh/' he said, when Kris explained, and added, "information would be the first thing Eosi want to control. All your satellites and communication networks were destroyed in the initial phase of the invasion."

"Did you know they were choosing Earth?" Dorothy asked.

Zainal shook his head with a rueful grin. "I am exploring on the far side of this galaxy. I had stopped at Barevi for supplies and fuel when…"

And then he shrugged as if both women knew his history from then on.

"Zainal picked a fight/' Kris said, answering the querying look on Dorothy's mobile face, "killed a Drassi and went on the run. I saw his flitter crash and went to see whom the Catteni were after this time. I had no idea what I was rescuing. If I had," and she gave Zainal a mock dirty look, "I might have thrown him to the wolves. Then I decided I'd better get him back to Barevi. Only we both got caught in one of those gassings the Cat-teni spray to quell rebellion." Kris knew that Dorothy would be familiar with that tactic which was often used on Earth. "And ended up here on Botany."

"For which many of us are exceedingly grateful/' Dorothy said sincerely.

"Will, Dr. Ansible, and a formerTV reporter, Jane O'Hanlon, were able to bring us up to date with the situation on Earth, by the way. Which I can give you without benefit of sponsors or commercials/' Dorothy said in a droll tone of voice. "I think there was probably more than one reason for the Eosi to resort to extracting information from human beings. Not only have we here on Botany produced a new wrench in the works with the Bubble but resistance is increasing on Earth despite their attempts to control or contain it.

"I gather that there will be an effort made to support activities on Earth now that there're three spaceships at our disposal?" And she looked at Zainal for comment.

"We haven't heard of any," Kris said and added "yet." Zainal had been so busy getting pictorial proof to send the Farmers that they hadn't discussed any future plans.

He shrugged. "Three ships are too few against as many as the Eosi have."

"Not even for a teensy-weensy hit," and Dorothy left a very tiny space between her forefinger and thumb by way of illustration, "just to serve notice on the Eosi?"

"I think we've just done that," Kris said with a droll grin.

"They will try to penetrate the Bubble," Zainal said. "They will have to figure out what it is and how it is maintained. That will annoy them seriously."

And he was patently delighted. "We must hope that it remains. The Eosi have other weapons that destroy planets."

"Do they?" And Kris felt a twinge of fear under her bravado.

"If they cannot possess, they do not leave it for others to have."

"Oh!" Kris had no flippant reply for that.

"Does the Council know?" Dorothy asked, concerned.

"I will tell them," Zainal said, nodding solemnly.

"Well, then, that's all I can bother you with," Dorothy said, beginning to gather up her notes. Then she paused, tilting her head at Zainal. "You don't have any idea where the Eosi came from, do you?" When Zainal shook his head, she managed a self-conscious laugh. "From a galaxy far, far away?"

Kris chuckled, delighted that Dorothy was not only Trek oriented, but could also quote from Star wars.

"Thank you, Zainal. You've given me valuable information."

"I have?"

Dorothy smiled. "More than you might think. I do apologize for besieging you after what has been a very difficult day but we needed this input." She held up the notes. "We can design appropriate treatment now.

In so far as our resources permit, that is."

Zainal opened the door, and they stepped into a moonlit night.

"Over here, Dorothy," Chuck said, flipping on the runabout's light.

"Oh, thank you, and thank you again, Zainal, Kris." She hurried over to the little vehicle, murmuring her thanks to Mitford before she turned it northward.

"I've one of the flatbeds and there's room on the boxes for you two to ride back to your place," Chuck said. "Don't want any night crawlers grabbing you."

"Thanks, Chuck," Kris said, only too grateful for both the offer and the sentiment. She was really dragging with weariness right now. Sitting down for a spell had not been as good an idea as it had seemed. It only emphasized her fatigue.

"Over here," and Chuck reached the flatbed and turned on its light to guide them.

Kris was already climbing on the cargo before she realized that the boxes didn't resemble anything she had purchased on Barevi.

"What's all this, sarge?" She couldn't see the printed labels in the dim light.

"It's the books we found," Zainal astonished her by saying.

"Books?"

"Yes, books," Zainal repeated calmly. "Ray saw them. As trading captain of the KDI, I thought such paper stuff would be good for packing material."

He grinned. "The Drassi did not argue, glad to be rid of the stuff."

"But there must be fifty boxes here? They're not all the same book, are they?"

"Nope," Chuck said. "Catteni looted libraries, too. We've got some former librarians just drooling to catalog what we managed to 'liberate." This is only part of what we unloaded. Our kids won't grow up ignorant, though they might have some rather interesting gaps in their education."

"Books," Kris said and suddenly realized that she had missed books…

certainly the availability of books. "Wow! That was a real coup:'

"Books?" Zainal asked. "Schoolbooks?" His tone was sly though Kris could not see his expression in the dim light. "Bi-ol-o-gy?"

"Don't know yet," Chuck said, "though that's a possibility. Why?"

"Zainal has just acquired a need to know," Kris replied drolly. Oh, well, she'd had good grades in biology though just how much human biology would expand Zainal's understanding of how his body worked was a moot point. And she was too tired to inquire.

All three were silent for the rest of the journey.

Once Zainal closed the door behind them, Kris gave up the notion of a shower as being too much work and a ruse to keep her from getting horizontal, and asleep, as soon as she could make it to the bed. She did take her boots off, as Zainal was doing, but that was all she managed.

THE K-CLASS SHIP, which arrived at bay forty-five to collect a shipment of slaves for an ice planet's mining operation was furious to discover that someone else had taken them. The Drassi lodged a protest about that, and then another one that he had been forced to wait eight days before sufficient slaves could be assembled. So insignificant a report went unread.

The costs submitted against a ship with a KDI identification code were duly registered although it was later noted that this ship had supposedly been listed as "lost."The charges were paid and the anomaly forgotten.