Freedom's Landing

Chapter Five

The panorama from the top of the cliff was breathtaking - and Kris needed to get her breath back after the climb Zainal had led his squad on. Before them stretched, in a westerly direction - as far as the eye could see - the large neat fields, punctuated by streams that glistened as sparkling ribbons in the morning sun. Some of the fields were occupied by grazers whose form was difficult to decipher at this distance. Off to the south there was a huge body of water but whether it was an ocean or a lake could not be ascertained.

This party had also been told to hunt and Zainal had said tersely that it was best to hunt farther from the camp. To this, all the experienced hunters agreed. There was little grumbling from the humans about the Catteni - or none after they'd been on their way an hour for he set them a bruising pace, and sheer human perversity required the eight members of her species to keep up with Slav, the Rugarian and the two Deskis, Zewe and Kuskus - or that was what their names sounded like.

Mitford's claim that the Deskis were useful was borne out when the spindly creatures seemed to ooze up cliffs.

They didn't have suckers on their feet but that was the impression you got, Kris thought. They stood firm behind the ropes they let down for others. So did Zainal, who was the first humanoid to follow. Some way or other, in the five ascents made, Kris always seemed to get hauled up by Zainal, who grinned each time he handed her safely onto the next level. She felt oddly pleased by his continued attention.. . considering the fact that it was all her fault he was on this planet anyhow.

A day on Botany, which was what Kris privately decided to call the planet, was longer than on Earth and Barevi, so they'd been going quite a long time before the sun was at zenith, which was when Zainal called a meal-break halt on the summit. The ration bars would have gone down more easily with some water to soften them, though they'd all had a good drink at the last stream. Kris, dangling her legs over the edge of their vantage point, munched away and looked at the view, trying to figure out what crops were being grown, and for whom. As far as she could see, the land was cultivated or used as pasture, yet Zainal had repeatedly said the planet was not inhabited, so who was nurturing it and why? Considering that the harvestings were stored in caves, could the consumers be cave dwellers, residing deep within the planet? That would explain why there were no cities or visible occupants.

Not that Kris was eager to meet troglodytes.

The range of hills, of which this was an outcropping, loomed behind and around them, spreading to the east.

Mitford had marched them northwards from the field on which they had been dropped by the Catteni, up the ravines until the caves had been found. But those had showed no signs of occupation, past or present, even by the local wildlife which apparently favoured forested and vegetated areas. Curiouser and curiouser, Kris thought.

Just then the Rugarian, Slav, uttered an odd cry and pointed, his oddly jointed furry arm directing everyone's attention to the northwest. Kris could see nothing but more rolling fields in their neat patchwork arrangements.

Shielding his eyes, Zainal peered out and jabbered something to the Rugarian who gave his head a sharp affirmative nod.

Zainal turned to the others. "Slav has seen what is different'. .. not animal." He made a cube shape with swift gestures.

"Any people?" Kris asked, thinking that the presence of geometrical objects might indicate another drop point and more castaways. Not that she really wanted more people whose needs had to be considered.

The field was a fair distance away, though there were two little forests to traverse and, in each, the guys with slingshots brought down some of the alien birdy-like things and enough rock-squats to make the hunt worthy of the name. Kris had coaxed one of the hunters into letting her try her hand with the sling when he didn't need it. By the time they had reached the second wood, she was getting closer to the target she aimed at.

"Wait'll you see a covey of the critters," Cumber suggested, "and then, if you miss what you're aiming at, you might hit something else." "You're encouraging," Kris replied.

"Are you?" and Cumber cocked his head at her, his eyes bright with suggestion.

"Well, on that score, no, buddy, not encouraging," she said bluntly but with a smile.

She would have liked to stride forward, right up on top of Zainal's heels, but that didn't seem a good idea either, so she shortened her stride and dropped back with the Deskis, who were ambling along, both festooned with necklaces of the rocksquats which their unerring aim had downed. They were as good as hunters as they were as climbers.

The cubes were indeed Catteni-issue: one was even unopened and contained blankets, which Zainal parcelled out among the hunters to be carried back. There were dried brown puddles in an irregular pattern across the field but little else. Kris felt a wave of regret for those who had lost their lives here from "unknown assailants', as a news bulletin might say.

Reassembling her clutch of blankets, Kris saw the Rugarians quartering the field while Zainal had several others spread out and searching the borders.

"Think those flying things got "em?" Cumber asked, returning to her.

"Could be. But all of them? When the crates have been opened?"

"Or what comes out of the ground in the dark and sucks corpses dry," Cumber went on, waiting to see the effect his words had on her.

"This world does its own recycling," she replied. "No waste, no debris, no Coke bottles nor dead aerosol cans."

"Huh?" Cumber was plainly a literal-minded man and her facetious remark did not register with him.

Then one of the border patrol let out a shout and everyone, of course, had to go and see what he'd found: a clear trace that some large objects had pushed their way through the bushy hedge.

"Looks like something stampeded through there," Cumber told Kris.

She could see the line of retreat, or flight, through the foot-high crops in the next patch. At that moment one of the Rugarians shouted.

"Quiet, he says," Zainal said in his deep-voiced Barevi just loudly enough for the entire group to hear him.

Slav was gesturing with his knife, and then Kris clearly heard him use the Barevian word "hot' "Hot metal?" she asked, making her voice carry as far as she could. she strode towards the knot of people clustering about Slav.

"Hot metal?" he was asked. Someone else pulled out their knife, miming a hot blade.

"Yissss," and the Rugarian pointed downhill and inhaled deeply.

"He smells hot metal," Kris said.

Zainal took charge, directing everyone to hide behind the hedges, and for Slav and a human male to go and investigate.

"Hot metal? The people who farm this planet coming to see who's messing up their fields?" Kris asked of noone in particular.

"Bout time someone came to have a looksee, if ya ask me," Cumber said in a pessimistic tone.

"And all we got is knives!" The returning scouts were not much ahead of the "thing' that lumbered after them. Only it wasn't after them: it was following a course to the fields above. It was gliding along on an air cushion, for it negotiated the hedges in a smooth hop and, while Kris and everyone else watched in fascination, it reached one of the crop-bearing fields and immediately went into a different mode: spraying the field.

"Willya looka that!" The speaker rose to full height in his surprise. Immediately those on either side of him pulled him back down behind the screening hedges. "Ah, it am got no eyes. It's just a farm machine. An' I think I saw another one down below, spraying another field." He was correct, as everyone iminediately discovered, by the simple expediency of taking a careful look.

"Close look now," Zainal said in Barevi and pointed at not only Cumber but Kris and Slav to take the detail.

"Stay down. Stay quiet. Don't know what these machines can do."

"Wal, I doan mind restin' my dawgs," was someone's response. "That Cat can sure trot the clicks." Kris was rather pleased to be singled out as someone whose opinion on the machine might be useful. Crouching low, and indeed Zainal moved as close to being on all fours as she'd ever seen a man move - even in Rambo pictures - they traversed the field where another group of whilom settlers had been deposited. They could see the top third of the machine, diligently switching back and forth, spraying evenly.

"That's why the fields are so damned regular, Cumber muttered beside her. "So the machines don't have to do corners or nothin'."

"Work efficient," ris replied in a whisper.

Zainal's hand figgged at them, and they saw him put his finger to his lips for silence. Kris grimaced at having to be reminded.

Machines who came all on their own to do even methodical tasks might be programmed for other actions.

When they got closer to the farther hedge, Zainal motioned them to get even flatter to the ground. Kris suppressed a groan as she fell to her belly and inched along like the rest of them.

They found gaps at the base of the hedges, between the thick trunks of the vegetation, and peered out at the machine which was now on the far side of the field. It was still balanced on its air cushions, still spraying, and the only mechanism that it reminded Kris of was a Dalek from old Dxtor Who videos.

"Exterminate. Exterminate." The Dalekian cry echoed through her head and she wondered just how apt it was.

Was the thing spraying fertilizer or insect killer? It was nearly finished, whatever. When it got to the last corner, however, it turned and came towards them.

Zainal signalled for them to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible by squinching up against, under if possible, the thick hedge.

Kris heard the thing nearing just as she also damned near gutted herself on a pointy root. Grimacing, she endured the discomfort for what seemed to be hours.

She heard a clicking, whirring, and other such noises that were so much like the sounds of that old Doctor Who series that she was also close to laughter. Except this wasn't a laughing matter.

Then the machine "jumped' the hedge and they all got a blast of hot, smelly, metallic air before it swept across the field, not touching any of the debris but certainly, Kris felt sure, checking it over.

Another hopscotch leap and it left, fortunately never getting into the field where the rest of the hunters were, hopefully, making themselves as scarce as possible.

"That thing's dangerous," Cumber told Zainal who merely nodded.

"We get the others and leave, he said, emphasizing the last word significantly.

Slav, who had been listening carefully to the Catteni, now raised his hands to his lips and emitted a shrill sound that wasn't bird call or dog call or anything.

It was answered by a similar call from Zewe.

"Tell. Go," and Slav pointed uphill, the way they had come.

"Good!" And so they started on the way back, joining the rest of the hunters by the time they reached the next field.

The Deski then gave one of their warnings, quick gestures indicating flying things and everyone froze in their tracks. A formation of five flyers came gliding in from the east, swooping down over the field and then quartering it. As nothing moved, the predators were baulked of their reward and, with squawks of complaint drifting back to the breathless waiting hunters, they proceeded on down the slope.

"Wow!" Cumber said in a low and respectful voice.

"That damned machine called in an alarm."

"We weren't seen by it," Kris said thoughtfully, "so it must have some sort of sensor because it sure knew we were there. Like a Dalek."

"A what?" Cumber clearly had never watched the old SF serials.

"A robot with deadly intentions.

One of the other men grinned and said in a nasal falsetto, "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

"Hey, Mac, keep it down!" someone else ordered in a nervous whisper.

"What is said?" Zainal quietly asked in English.

"The machine reported our presence," Kris said, miming the actions of her words. "It may be heat sensitive. Knew we were in the hedge because of body heat." Zainal nodded. "Take good care. We go to caves now.

Hunt. But watch always." He tapped Slav and Zewe and gave them some rapid orders. "They hear best," he added to Kris.

The two Deskis moved to the sides of the group and then, on Zainal's signal, everyone moved off again.

The return home was even rougher, with all the descents to be made while they were laden with the rewards of their hunting. No unusual hazards were encountered. On the plus side, the six-legged grazers which they had spotted in the field bled red blood when nicked. Two were slaughtered and dressed right there in the field so that their meat could be portioned out among the hunters to carry home. The additional blankets were put to good use. And were very helpful later when the insects began to rise after the sun went down.

Deskis evidently had a sharp homing instinct because they led the way back in the serni-darkness. Kris had never been so glad to see the campfires of home!

There was certainly applause for the hunters when they returned so well laden. No sooner had Kris divested herself of her burden than Zainal touched her arm and gestured for her to join him in reporting to Mitford.

Cumber and Slav were there, too.

"Cumber said you identified these machines, Kris," Mitford said.

He looked very tired.

"Me? No, not really, only that they're some sort of robot.

"Cumber said they didn't even touch the ground."

"Air cushion propulsion?"

"Hmmm. High tech. And heat seekers?"

"Well, the machine must have called in those flying predators," Kris said. "And there were five of "em, so I'm extrapolating that the machine sensed our five bodies hidden in the hedge. But anyone's guess is as good as mine," she ended modestly.

"But yours is a tad more educated from watching all those kidvids.

I'll buy it, Bjornsen, I'll buy it. G'wan now, and you as well, Cumber. We've got a sort of bread tonight, soda bread." He grinned.

"One of the chemists found a deposit of sodium bicarbonate. Bread doesn't taste half bad - if you're hungry enough and you ignore occasional grits from the grinding.

No sooner had Kris reached the main cave, to stand in line for her hunk of bread, than Patti Sue discovered her.

The girl threw her arms about Kris's neck and howled with tears of relief.

"Hey, now, Patti Sue, I was perfectly all right," Kris told the girl, trying to calm her down to mere hysterics.

Sandy came to her rescue. "There now, Patti, I told you Kris can take care of herself." Patti Sue was persuaded to release her death hold on Kris. As she stood back, she looked down at her front, now smeared with what also covered Kris's garment.

"Oh my gawd, what's that?"

"Probably blood," Kris said, for the meat she had lugged back had dribbled down her, attracting the insects.

"Oh my gawd!" And Patti Sue backed away from Kris as if she had turned leprous.

"Guess I need a bath," Kris said cheerfully and, taking her portion of bread, ate it on the way down to the underground lake to make herself more presentable.

She wasn't the only one to want to get clean. There were quite a few white bodies splashing in the water.

Someone had added more ropes. Pausing only to add her wrap-around boots, food packet and blanket to the row of similar belongings awaiting the return of their owners, she grabbed a spare tether and plunged into the water. Twisting the rope about one wrist, she then winkled herself out of the garment and rinsed it thoroughly. The water was invigoratingly cool and somewhat restored her energy level. She got out, drying herself on her blanket and then wrapping it sarong fashion. She squeezed the water from her coverall and then made her way back out of the lake cavern. She was sure she'd sleep that night.

She did. Until Zainal roused her. It had to be the middle of the long Botany night because everyone around her was fast asleep, especially Patti Sue who would have had a ii6 knicker attack if she'd awakened to see the Catteni so close by.

There was just enough light supplied by the ffickering torch in the passageway for her to see Zainal touch his lips for silence.

Groaning involuntarily because she was stiff from yesterday's exertions, she had trouble rising.

Zainal put out a helping hand and - zip - she was on her feet.

She grinned up at him as she followed him out. He didn't release her hand and she was content to let it stay in his strong mitt. She had to entertain the thought that she was definitely attracted to the Catteni, and not just because he was taller than she was. He had conducted himself with such dignity and tact during the past few days that surely even those who violently hated the Catteni couldn't fault him.

Certainly Mitford had made it plain to the motley crew that Zainal was a large and useful entity in their continued survival. Once the euphoria of the past few days settled into boring routine and less exciting uncertainty, she suspected there would be problems.

"Trouble?" she whispered in Barevi once outside the room. "Don't you ever sleep?"

"Not in danger," he murmured back and led her on.

It was third moonset when they got outside. Kris could see faces lit by the campfire in the ravine; one of them was Mitford's.

"Sorry to rouse you, Bjornsen," he said with a grin and gestured for her to hold up her cup. She didn't realize until that moment that she had unconsciously gathered up her accoutrements; her blanket, the cup and her ration bars. "As far as my internal clock is concerned, this is well past dawn."

"And you're a creature of habit?" she grinned at him, accepting the warm liquid. It was some sort of herbal tea which was an improvement on bare, naked hot water.

"Pull up a stone," he added and she sat on the one just to his right. "I want you to go with Zainal, here, and Slav and the Deski Coo, and suss out what other surprises this place has in store for us.

No sense in thinking we're safe in this ravine. One of the egg-heads mentioned that there are indications this," and he waved about the walls of the ravine, "may get flooded in spring. High-water marks and scrapings of trees on the sides, higher up than we can stand, and I ain't that good at treading water." With a start Kris wondered if he was quoting an old Bill Cosby routine.

"I want you to take several days circle around our position here," and he gestured.

"Go straight out as far as you can go in a day's march, making a map of the terrain. Zainal here says he knows how to map. He's picking up English real good. Officer material for sure." This last Mitford said in a lower voice and with a grin meant for Kris alone.

"Seeing as how you know him, and seem to be able to charade things to Slav and Coo, you'd be the human in the team. Unless you got any real objections to the duty."

"Is there going to be trouble for the… ah…aliens, Sarge?"

"Ain't there always?" Mitford said in a cynical tone. "I can trust you, Bjornsen," he added in a dark low tone.

"You've proved you can hack it, too."

"Thanks, Sarge," and Kris felt a good deal taller for that unexpected praise.

"And with the Catteni along, he'll see you don't come to harm."

"Thanks, Sarge, she said, this time wryly. Build "em up to knock "em down, but she grinned to show she had ii8 no ill feelings. It was enough that the sergeant wasn't as misogynistic as some career soldiers she'd heard about.

"I want you to draw additional rations from Greene for all of you.

Seems like the Deski can't stomach the red meat and they need somethin' in their diet, though what it is I haven't been able to figure out." He sighed.

"That's another reason I'm sending one along with you And you're to eat!" He shot one thick index finger at her so suddenly that she rocked back. "We've got enough to supply patrols away from camp. That stuff may be less tasty than field rations, even, but it's got all the nutritional crap you need to march on. Get another issue of blankets and an extra coverall. Got it?"

"Got it, Sarge," she said, her hand half way to her brow to salute when she realized that might not be appropriate even if it was an instinctive reaction to his manner.

"Good," and he grinned in the firelight, having caught that abortive gesture. "Zainal, get the rations and supplies and move out at your leisure."

"Leisure' in army parlance meant right smart. So, in next to no time, they were making their way in dawn's early light up the ravine and into undiscovered country.

Zainal led at a spanking pace that didn't seem to alter, whatever the terrain they had to traverse. But, like Mitford, he did call a halt when full daylight lit the skies.

The first thing Zainal did was tie a knot in a thin strip of blanket, of which he had quite a few tucked inside a thigh pocket. A tally rope? Well, they had no writing materials and Zainal, strong as he was, couldn't exactly carry a sheet of rock with him to chalk up the miles.

Or should she say "klicks' since she was on a military operation?

"What are you counting, Zainal?" she asked.

"Steps, so I know distance," he said in Barevi.

"Oh…" and that steady pace now made sense. "What's the Catteni word for miles, or kilometres? How do you measure distance?"

"My…step. - he said tentatively in English.

"Stride is the better tem," she said.

"Stride is one Catteni pleg."

"Pleg for the leg," she said, using her own brand of aide-rninoire. "Make a stride for me, please?"

"Hnunm,' and he complied.

Stretching her own long legs to their limit, she could lust about make the same length. "Hmmm. Over a metre then. Hmnnn. Well, I could almost spell you on a level surface so you could have a break."

"Hmmm,' he said again, blinking rapidly as he sifted the meaning of her words.

So she "charaded' what she'd said and then he understood with a grin.

"One pleg is almost dead on a metre. One pleg, one metre," she said.

Slav and the Deski were watching, too, their expressions keen enough to show they were interested in the demonstrations. So she pointed to the Rugarian, gestured for him to take a stride. His was the same length as hers, but the Deski's was much longer since he had spider-like, long leg-bones. Although Kris tried to get Slav to tell her what a pleg was in his language, and attempted to extract the same information from the Deski, she had no success.

Both kept saying stolidly "pleg, pleg' A plague on it, she thought but smiled and patted each in turn before she sat down again to get the good of the rest period. She wasn't sure if they didn't care to have a language lesson or if they had some obscure reason for sticking so perversely to the Barevi words. Both Rugarian and Deski had rather flat, inflectionless voices, but then what she knew of Catteni was flat and inflectionless, too.

The lingua Barevi had had more rhythin and tone to it than the languages in which Zainal had spoken to both Slav and Coo.

As they hiked on, they reached another plateau where a second break was called: another knot in the tally string.

When Zainal told her how many pleg each knot represented, she realized they were travelling at slightly better than four miles an hour… that is, if Zainal was stopping every hour. So, in the next onward push, she counted the minutes while he counted his paces. She thought she might have lost a few minutes because she got sidetracked watching the Deski check the vegetation on the plateau what there was of it because there were no fields or hedges or much of anything. But just when she felt they had been marching the hour, Zainal called a halt.

"Gee, man, you got a clock in your head?" she asked as he made a third knot.

He raised a querying eyebrow at her. It made his face seem more humanish, less Cattenish.

"Lordee, how do Catteni tell time?" she muttered to herself, trying to remember if he'd had some sort of digital device on his wrist, like good space farers should, when she'd first encountered him.

"Time," he picked up on that word and tapped his skull.

"Time kept here. Good time.

"Now, don't tell me your home world has long days and nights like Botany?" The two of them spent the rest period explaining and understanding that concept.

"Full turn of planet is not as long as here," he said in the best English sentence he had so far made.

"Boy, you sure learn fast."

"Is "boy" a good thing to say of me?" Again that quizzical expression.

"Well, yes," Kris replied, grinning, delighted with his sense of humour: something she hadn't thought Catteni possessed. "But you are a man, I am a woman. Boy is a young man. I'm using it in the context of a slang expression so it doesn't mean the same thing as the word should." He grinned in such aolite way that she wasn't sure if he understood her explanation at all before he gestured them to take up their journey again.

The day grew warm on the plateau, which had no shade at all on its sandy and gritty surface, only the wiry plants with their odd-shaped leaves that didn't look like anything on any Earth. Coo kept tasting plants and even different coloured patches of soil as they went, usually spitting the samples out, so that Kris wasn't sure what verdict was being rendered. She was becoming so thirsty that her tongue felt swollen so on what was the midday rest stop she didn't have the desire to banter with Zainal. The others took out "lunch', gnawing off good hunks from their bars, but she didn't think she had enough saliva in her mouth to chew much less swallow.

"You bite, you chew, be better," Zainal said kindly and rolled his mouthful about to show that he wasn't swallowing either.

She tried a small piece and discovered that something in the bar helped generate some moisture. She didn't eat as much as the other three but felt better for what she did put in her stomach They travelled on then, the plateau gradually sloping down to a lusher sort of terrain. And a stream. She had to summon up all her self-restraint not to prostrate herself in the stream but carefully to re-educate her mouth and throat to wetness.

"God, what I'd give for a canteen.

"What is this "god" so many call on?" Zainal asked.

"Another "boy"?" Coming as the question did in Zainal's rich guttural voice, it sent Kris into a fit of the giggles. She'd often been told that she had an infectious laugh - and had proved it from time to time by setting a whole classroom off - but it pleased her no end that the effect extended to another species. The Catteni's chuckle sounded very human. Slav cocked his head at her and frowned while Coo merely looked at her in consternation, as if the Deski thought Kris was having a fit or convulsion.

"I won't answer that question now, Zainal," she said when she had reduced giggle to grin. "God" was never a boy! I will explain another time when we have several years at our disposal." Zainal frowned, not having understood all she said.

Which was about par for the course, she thought. And just as well.

Having drunk sufficient water to revive herself, Kris now pulled out the rest of her lunch-time bar and finished it. She was ready to go then but Zainal did not urge them away from this pleasant spot, as much because there were new varieties of plants along the stream bank which Coo was sampling with great eagerness. He came back with something which he showed to Kris, the first time he had done that.

"Looks like a kind of watercress to me, she said, testing one of the stems and a leaf. "Can you eat it?" she asked, gesturing to her mouth with the sample.

The Deski nodded, popped a stalk into his mouth and chewed with every indication of pleasure. Kris nibbled carefully and, feeling her lips and gums go slightly numb, buried her face in the water and gargled vigorously. She felt Zainal's hands on her shoulders supporting her. She rinsed and gargled, being careful not to swallow, and rinsed and rinsed until the sensation was washed away.

"Thanks, Zainal," she said and then saw how concerned all three of her companions were. "Oh, I'm fine. I didn't swallow any of it. All yours, Coo, all yours." The Deski nodded vigorously and made a show of clutching the rest of the sample plant to his chest.

"No more try," Zainal told her sternly.

"You bet!" His concern altered to a glare of frustration. "More "boy" words?"

"Well," and Kris rocked one hand back and forth to indicate neither one nor another. Lord, but she'd never appreciated how complex English is. Or did she mean idiomatic American?

They went on then, until Kris wondered how much longer she could ignore the swelling of her feet which the wrap-around boots were not compensating for. And she'd thought she was fit! Ha! She had dropped behind the two aliens - two of her companions, she amended quickly and found herself watching the rippling of the hairs on the Rugarian's legs. His feet did look funny in the wrap-around Catteni footwear and he didn't seem to have "muscles' where humans did: but depressions came and went with each stride sort of laterally instead of up and down the way calf muscles did. And in front of him, Coo seemed only to have leg bones, no muscular movement at all, only the tendons - or what passed for tendons on a Deski - on either side of the one leg bone, lifting and lowering it, like the shaft of a crane. She tried to imagine the anatomy of her companions, sans skin, and failed utterly. Biology had not been one of her stronger subjects. Oh, the gaps in her education.

Well, there's nothing like on-the-job training, she thought, or whateve? it was they were now doing.

Some place and time later, she was able to stop moving her legs and was sat down on a rock. There was a small fire enclosed in a circle of rocks and around a cairn of rocks. Odd formation, she thought bemusedly. Then, as the buzz of fatigue allowed it, Kris could hear the babbling of a brook near by. Water! She half rose and then was pushed back onto the rock and presented with a big leaf.

"Drink!" She grasped the leaf, feeling the thickness of it, and found a "lip' from which to drink. The water was ever so cold and tasted ambrosial. Real Adam's ale!

"More?" asked Zainal, looming over her.

She struggled to rise. "I can get my own water - Ohhh, no," and her voice came out just this side of a wail. Zainal's big hand pushed her back onto the stone just as she realized how weak she was.

She sipped this time and was able to take in more of her surroundings. Someone was chipping rocks?

She looked around and saw Slav and Coo hammering a hole out of the slab of rock not far from the fire. They were on an outcropping that edged yet another of the fields, a metre above ground level.

Large-leaved plants formed a bit of a canopy over the portion of the cliff, affording them some shade. Beyond this small campsite she saw the spray from a little cataract that spilled off the rock and down into a pool, then on down across the field. A crop field, she noticed.

Looking back, she realized with a start of amazement, they were making a rock cauldron. On the far side of the campfire were the limp carcasses of rock-squatters and some other smallish beasties she hadn't seen before - six-legged - which, she thought idly, would make skinning them tedious. Then Zainal knelt to perform that task. Rather deliberately, she thought, he gathered up the entrails and threw them off, onto the field below.

"Zainal," said Slav and pointed to the now sizeable hole they had chipped into the rock.

"Water," Zainal said, and Slav and Coo, reaching up to pluck more big leaves from the trees shading them, made several trips each.

When the hole had been filled to within a handspan of the top, Zainal threw in the dissected joints of the animals and Coo added some roots, similar to the ones already in use at the cave. Then Zainal, deftly using a forked stick, started transferring hot rocks into the improvised stew pot.

Kris was delighted and clapped her hands that someone was making use of her suggestion. She reached about her and gathered up more stones which she piled in the centre of the fire. They'd probably need a lot to get the stew cooked enough.

Full dark and first moonrise had occurred before they were able to eat, using twigs like chopsticks to get the pieces from pot to leaf. A little salt would have made it even more palatable but hot food in the stomach was enough of an improvement in itself over dry, hard rations no matter how nutritious.

When they had eaten as much as they could, Coo covered the "pot' with a flat rock, wiping his hands as any human would for the finish of a good job.

"Slav, first moonset," Zainal said. "Then Kris, to second moonset. I third, Coo, final.

No-one argued but Kris was glad to have a long enough sleep to restore her energy. She visited the waterfall, drank and then, unfastening the boots, presented her swollen, tired feet to the cascade. She had to set her teeth against the pain but soon enough the abused flesh was too cold to send any other messages to her brain. She stood the cold as long as she could before she hobbled her way back to the fire. She thought her feet flesh had been reduced but she couldn't be sure, they were so numb. Coo and Slav had been off on a necessary absence, too, but they all arrived back to settle down for the night.

She unrolled her blankets, spread them and settled herself on the rocky surface, her freezing feet towards the fire. A good pile of dead material had been piled near at hand to feed the fire through the night. What primeval hold-over made her feel better for having a fire?

It also didn't matter that there was no way to cushion her hips and shoulders on the hard rock: she was too tired to care. Briefly her mind dwelt on the distance they would have travelled that day but she hadn't really noticed how many tally knots were on Zainal's string.

Well, a good night's sleep mended many aches.

Slav woke her and the first thing she noticed was that the first moon was still visible in the sky. But it gave enough light for her to see that Slav was agitated - all the fur on his head was standing up.

He had also roused Zainal. He pointed down to the field and gestured for them to come. Whatever it was did not require either stealth or quiet.

Slav just pointed and looked at them for their reaction.

Kris wanted to throw up. Zainal simply watched the -. things: things with long tentacles and writhing hairs, and seemingly no body unless the body was still underground: the things were crawling over the intestines that he had discarded onto the field. There wasn't that much left of the entrails, for whatever was feeding on them absorbed the matter quickly and, before many minutes had passed, there was only the grassy covering left, no trace of the refuse. Maybe she had lust imagined the squirmy, wriggling roundnesses that had feasted.

Zainal was nodding his head as if this was what he had expected.

Kris swallowed. Was that what had happened to those who had bled on the other field? And the bodies that had been left on the one she had awakened on?

"Neat," she said softly. "An internal garbage collection!

Sure keeps the neighbourhood clean. And those are not "boy" words." In the moonlight his teeth showed whitely "You knew?" she asked him.

"A thinking."

"Thought, you mean.

"Think, thought?"

"Right."

"Sleep now. Show's over." Now where had Zainal picked up that one? Kris wondered as she returned to the warmth of her blankets.

She sighed, maybe she should stay awake and give Slav lust that much more uninterrupted rest. But she was asleep again so quickly and without a single dream - until Slav roused her, to a moonless sky.

She stood her watch, walking the perimeters of their rocky outcropping. Was that why Zainal had picked this camp? Or was it because they could make a stew pot in rock? Not that she didn't put it past this planet to have rockdwellers of horrific abilities, too.

There was no sign of any further activity on the ground, however. And she was a little tempted to throw another piece of garbage down there to see what happened: the sort of compulsion one has to be sure that what one saw was just as horrible the second time as the first.

Night time and silence were great aids to imagination and she had to keep her mind firmiy on the positive things: she was alive, her stomach was full, she was as safe as anyone else in the camp, even if this planet had too many anomalies and mysteries to give anyone peace of mind. So, to keep from thinking of the wrong things, she reviewed all the camping trips she'd ever made the stone pot was a good notion to see if she could remember any other "do-ables'. A knife, a hatchet, a cup and a blanket were not much to survive on, with, by. Not that they hadn't been doing pretty well with just that basic equipment. But there were so many things they lacked. A pail to carry water in, a frying pan to cook food in, a fork or two would be right handy. Why, when she needed it the most, did she not have her Swiss Army knife?

Boy, that item would be worth its weight in platinum!

Of course, there were spare blades back at the main caves. Wasn't there someone at the camp who thought he could manipulate blades into other useful tools? Her stomach began to rumble. Damn this planet!

Even meal times were skewed. She slowly ate half a ration bar.

Nowhere near as tasty as that stew.

Despite such a positive bout of thinking, she was glad enough to rouse Zainal to take over sentinel duty The next morning Zainal had already heated up the remainder of last night's stew for breakfast and a hearty one it was - to fill night-empty stomachs. They cleaned up the leftovers, sopping up the last of the juices with another ration bar. Kris was stuffed but she'd work it off soon enough.

She asked Zainal how far they had travelled the day before and he showed her the tally string. She whistled appreciatively: they'd made forty klicks, no mean feat when you considered the ups and downs they'd had to negotiate. Her feet, which she had bathed again in cold water, certainly knew they'd walked that far. Maybe she shouldn't have asked.

It made her feel tired to think she'd trekked that far.

Zainal kicked out the fire and used the stew pot rocks to make a cairn before he signalled them all to move out.

"Where are we heading for today?"

"Circle," he said, gesturing a wide arc, and ending with his finger pointing to the cairn. "Find what is find."

"What we can discover, find, see, know." Kris had never thought of herself as a pedagogue but she had this intense itch to correct Zainal and improve his language skills.

Thank goodness he was amenable to learn-as-you-go.

They jumped down off the outcroppmg and made their way across the field. Zainal moderated his pace from yesterday's stride but not by much. Maybe his feet hurt, too? How much walking did a space trooper get to do?

Coo found some green globes in one of the hedges, which he gobbled juicily, humming happily to himself but Slav curled his upper lip in distaste - a process which fascinated Kris, as Slav really did curl his lip up and into a fold above his uneven set of teeth. She wondered again how Rugarians kept from seriously biting the insides of their lips with such dental equipment.

Everyone kept their eyes open, surveying behind them and above them, especially when they were out in the open. A rear-view mirror would have been right handy, Kris thought. Dead things got sucked into the ground at night but clearly the avian critters patrolled by day for their sustenance on things that moved.

"3' The fields were endless on this gently rolling terrain.

Streams were laid on at such intervals that Kris's earlier wish for a canteen was redundant. There were no roads, no bridgs, no fly-overs, nothing more serious than rather abrupt little hillocks of stone that seemed to rise straight up out of the ground. She'd seen something similar somewhere on Earth but it took her some time to dredge up Ethiopia from her memory. Most of the hillocks were bare but a few seemed to have caught enough soil to support bushes, and one or two were crowned with the almost-trees that baby bushes became if they had a chance to live long enough.

Then they came to a whole series of fields that had recently been harvested. No track to tell them what direction the harvesters had come from or gone to.

Although the direction would take them out of the circular loop Zainal had proposed they make, they followed the harvesting signs.

They heard it before they saw it and only had time to take cover before the mechanical gadget floated over the intervening hedge in the very next field.

"Do we stand or run?" Kris whispered hoarsely to Zainal. He shrugged but he was stuck as far into the hedge as he could get, and stock still. She imitated him, wincing as branches dug into the softer parts of her.

They could smell hot metal, combined with odder smells that must have been fuel - only that begged the question in Kris's mind, Who manufactured the fuel, not to mention the machiny? They waited in this position until she got a knotting cramp in one side and grimaced, trying without moving much, to relieve the spasm.

When was that mechanical going to move on? Or, and the thought pierced her with a good deal of fright, was it waiting for reinforcements? Did the machiney on this planet learn? Very carefully craning her neck up, she could see through the funny-shaped foliage of the hedge material that the Dalek hadn't moved a smidgeon: it lust hovered there, on the other side of the hedge.

She poked Zainal who was also watching for movement, and when he carefully turned his head to her, she raised her eyebrows in query.

Just then Coo came alert - not that the Deski hadn't been tense with the waiting. He turned his glance down the field and very carefully pointed out a direction. Something was coming for them? The fliers always seemed to come out of the sun at them. What would be coming up the hill? And should they leave? If they could, with the mechanical monster an arm's length away. And if they did make a run for it, where would they go? There wasn't even a hillock close enough that they could scramble up.

Kris didn't like this at all.

She liked it even less when Coo let out a whimper and pointed with more agitation down the hill.

The things moved so fast that Kris barely saw the glint of them in the sun when they were upon them - and -shooting their little darts.

She felt the prick and she lost consciousness from one moment to the next.

She just avoided tripping over a sleeping beastie of some