Freedom's Landing

Chapter Six

A hand rocking her shoulder roused her from the stupor caused by the drugged dart.

"Kris, wake up." Zainal's voice.

"Lemme sleep." She ached and she was so-o-o-o tired.

"No, we go now or not.

That brought recent events back and she shot up so fast she nearly cracked her head on Zainal's as he knelt beside her.

It was dark all around, but she could make out both Slav and Coo, and then the odd stamping and heavy breathing, as well as animal smells, gave her another clue. They'd been dumped in a barn?

Classified as animals by the mechanical? She didn't know whether she was amused or indignant.

"Water?" And Zainal handed her a full cup which she sipped to revive her parched mouth and throat.

"Thanks." She got up as she finished and, when she would have handed him back the cup, he pointed to the empty loop on her belt.

"Oh! Yes. Thanks again." Then she felt for the important parcel of ration bars and her blankets. All in place and accounted for. She breathed a sigh of relief. "So how do we get out of here?" she asked, sensorially aware of the size, as well as the darkness, of the building.

"This way," and Zainal cupped one big hand under her right elbow and turned her in the right direction.

"Care kind: one of the creatures that made a liquid looing sound.

She blinked furiously to accustom her eyes to the gloom and took a couple of quick and careful steps to catch up with Zainal, Coo and Slav.

"The main door, of course," she murmured when she realized that that was their destination. A very large set of doors. And how they were to open them, when there was no apparent handle or lock or knob - She heard a little snick, a click and a pleased mutter from Zainal and heard the rumble of a door moving on a track as he replaced his boot knife.

"Come," Zainal said, and she and the others wasted no time in slipping out. Zainal carefully closed the door behind him and it snicked once more when shut.

They were by no means clear yet, for their temporary prison seemed to be only one of many such buildings set in a long line, visible as a greater darkness against the lesser one of the sky. For she could see stars above but none of the moons.

"Hold," and Zainal took her hand in his and then she felt Coo's dry fingers closing around her left hand.

Slav, with better night vision, was their leader.

They must have completed a full circuit of the immense yard before they halted again.

"Place to hide?" Zainal asked Slav. The Rugarian shook his head.

Coo said softly. "Up?" and pointed in the direction of the stack of crates that had been halfway round their exploratory circuit.

"Maybe we can see more when a moon comes up," Kris suggested.

Zainal nodded and they made their way back to the tall crates.

Once again, Zainal's height and heft made the difference as he boosted each of his team up onto the first level of the container stack. It took the three of them to haul him to their level. The process was repeated until Zainal decided they were high enough up not to be immediately visible from the ground.

Visible to what? was Kris's question but she didn't voice it.

They had at least reached enough space for all of them to lie down, which seemed the best idea although Zainal just sat, propped against the crate, obviously intending to stand the watch.

"Wake me to spell y,) Kris told Zainal and made to lie down on the hard surface. How odd, she thought, that a simple convenience like a mattress was a distant memo,y.

Then she felt hands pulling at her and, quelling her immediate resistance because the only hands that were that strong were Zainal's, she allowed herself to be pulled around, her head resting on his thigh.

Not quite as hard as the crate, and warm, so she made herself comfortable.

He shifted her briefly and gave her a sort of a pat before he crossed his arms. She was obscurely glad that there were only Slav and Coo to witness this cosiness. Well, hell, she didn't care. She rubbed her head into his leg, wishing the muscles were not quite so firmly packed.

There was rather a lot of Zainal that was commendable.

Slow down, girl, she warned herself. Why, then, do I frel more comfortable with him than with anyone else, even Jay Greene?

The sun suddenly blazing right in her eyes woke her more speedily than any alarm. She was facing into it unlike Coo and Slav who had carefully put their feet in that direction.

Zainal's head had dropped to his crossed arms and he was breathing heavily enough for it to be called snoring.

She was about to wake him when sudden activity below startled her.

Machines were whirring, grinding, revving and there were all kinds of noises, except those of intelligible speech of any kind. She eased away from Zainal - had he moved at all since he had volunteered himself as her pillow? - and crept to the edge and looked down: shuddered and then took a grip on herself. They had climbed considerably higher than she'd realized last night: there was only one more tier of crates above them.

And the crates looked fairly well used, scraped along the sides and dented in places: the usual result of careless packing and unpacking. Only what packed and unpacked them? Where did they get emptied? With what were they now filled?

One building now gushed forth smoke, and another a stench that was unmistakable. Kris had only encountered it once before when she passed a meat-packing company on a detour through a grotty area of Denver.

The abattoir?

And it was opposite buildings that resembled the barn they'd been in that night. To confirm her hideous surmise, the double doors of one of the barns now opened and its inhabitants, comprised of the six-legged grazers and some other smaller and different types, were being herded to the abattoir by a curious mechanical which had long extendable "arms' and which spat electrical sparks at laggard beasts.

All unconscious of their imminent demise, the beasts jogged into the building. Kris steeled herself but heard nothing and saw only the animals entering the building. The doors slid closed and noises she didn't want to describe issued forth, making her clamp her hands to her ears.

"They gather meat, too," Zainal said right beside her.

Instinctively and desperately wanting some comfort for the harrowing sound so near by, she burrowed against him. He was warm, alive and nearly human. To her surprise, he embraced her, soothing her with his hands and thus restoring her courage. It struck her as very odd that a Catteni could be comforting.

It was when the doors of the next barn opened and its occupants were driven out that matters changed abruptly.

For there were recognizable humans staggering out into the light, shielding their eyes from the bright sun that poured, almost obscenely, down the passage between the buildings. They, too, were being herded by a long-armed, spark spitting machine. They were not, as the beasts had been, amenable to such herding.

Even as Zainal reacted, rousing Slav and Coo, some humans were trying to evade the machine's extensions, which was obviously unaccustomed to any sort of protest.

In fact, all the humans seemed to be trying to escape, as if they had figured out the fate which awaited them.

"THIS WAY! HERE!" Zainal yelled, waving furiously and glancing towards Kris to shout directions.

One human spotted them, pointing upwards and calling to the others. Although Kris couldn't imagine how they could manage to help others escape when they didn't even know how to themselves, that was not as important as getting humans out of the clutches of the mechanicals.

The four scrambled down the big crates they had so laboriously climbed the night before. At least, down was easier than up. But it was up they'd need to do again.

The humans pelted down the alleyway to be met by Zainal who had halted his three companions on top of the ground tier with an imperious hand. He gave Kris the unmistakable order to stay where she was. But, as she saw him link his hands, she realized what he was going to do: throw the people up on to the first crate. Kris, Coo and Slav then pushed them to the next level, urging them to get higher up, out of any possible range of the mechanical's extendibles. So they formed a human "lift' system for the escapees: humans, Deskis and Rugarians, three green Morphins and two Turs, the goblins who were so short that Zainal was slinging them up.

In the panic of the effort to get everybody off the ground and started up the crates, Kris got bruised, cut, and had her right wrist wrenched so badly that she had to rely on her left hand. Then there was Zainal to get up to safety because the mechanos were now aware that something was distinctly out of order. Kris wondered if they had counted bodies coming out of the barn and had now discovered the appropriate number were not being processed. A shame to put their production figures out.

But they'd rescued more than twenty from slaughter.

Zainal had to jump to reach the helping hands that would take him off the ground. A funny little clicking machine was now quartering the passageway.

"Climb!" Zainal said to those on his level. "Seek heat.

We go to cold." They climbed and climbed until they reached the top with the others and then they all stopped in awe. As far as they could see there were crates stacked to the same height. Acres of them to the horizon.

"Now this is one mother of a stockpile," a human muttered with an understandably hysterical edge to his voice.

"And we damned near joined it, someone else said.

"More down there?" Zainal asked and Kris noted him breathing heavily for the first time since they'd started this reconnaissance.

"Hell, all we saw was that one stinking barn after those flying turrets darted us. Are we going to hang about to see?" Clearly that was not his preference.

"Hey, you're a Cat!" the first speaker said accusingly.

"Cat or not, he just saved our lives. Thanks, pal," the second man said to Zainal, holding out his hand.

He was filthy and the slight breeze on the top of this incredible'- stockpile wafted a stench off him that nearly gagged Kris.

Most of the escapees now sank to their butts to rest after their scrambling retreat.

"Zainal is my name. These three and I explore. You are?"

"Speaks good English for a Cat," the first man said "Kris Bjornsen, Slav and Coo are us," Zainal continued the introductions. Then he paused for the others to identify themselves.

Their stories were similar to the experiences of Kris's group except that they hadn't had the benefit of a Sergeant Chuck Mitford to marshal them out of danger. The field they had been dumped on had been attacked by the fliers in spite of Deskis' attempts to warn of incoming danger.

Everyone had scattered in twos and threes and small groups, only to be rounded up when they were spotted the second morning by a harvester unit. They'd been in the barn for several days but had survived on their food parcels which were now almost gone. Several of their number had been trampled to death in the barn when the animals had, for some reason, panicked the second night of their incarceration.

"That's why we all smell like this," said Lenny Doyle, a medium-built, dark-haired man with a pleasant, open face and a nice smile. Dick Aarens had been the first speaker and still regarded Zainal with frowning suspicion. He was taller than Kris, but he had a dreadful slouch and a mean slant to his mouth as well as deep scowl lines.

"Zainal got dumped down here along with the rest of us," Kris said with an indifferent shrug to relieve the sudden tension among the newcomers, "and I don't know why he's here, but he is and he was ready to risk his neck to get you out, so cool it, Mac." Dick Aarens reluctantly subsided but Kris caught him more than once glaring at either her or Zainal.

"So, do we go back and see if anyone else's stuck in those barns?" Lenny asked Zainal.

"Why should he risk his neck for more humans?" a stocky man of apparent Italian origin demanded in a surly voice.

Zainal had his head down in what Kris was beginning to know as his thinking pose. He looked up at the sun and then did a slow circle, squinting against the glare of the sun. He said a few brief words to Slav who nodded.

"Slav leads to camp," Zainal said. "The machines learn "Yeah, but do they have something that climbs crates like a spider?" Aarens demanded.

"You have food?" Zainal asked.

"What's it to ya?" Aarens wanted to know.

"Oh, cool it, Aarens," Lenny said. "The machines didn't search us. We got cups, knives and bars."

"No water," and again Zainal glanced sunward.

"I take the point," Lenny said. "Look, I'll volunteer to go back to the edge and see what's up with the mechanicals - -" He grinned at Kris for his description of their captors. "They must've… processed…another group yesterday. We heard screaming a coupla times." He shook himself convulsively. "So we figured we might have to make a break for it."

"There're a lot of barns down there," Aarens said, shaking his head.

"We go back," Zainal said. "See."

"Now, wait a minute - - Aarens said, holding up one hand in protest.

To the idea as well as the spokesman, Kris thought, marking Aarens as troublesome.

"Then go with Slav," Zainal said, shrugging his indifference.

"There is much to see and know." This time his gesture meant learning as much as possible about the machines and their operation.

"Can you open barn doors from outside?" Kris asked.

Zainal nodded. "Easy," and now he grinned. "Animals do not unlock doors. Humans, and Cats, do." Lenny laughed out loud at that and nudged the hostile Aarens. "Sense of humour, too. Shall I go back for a look-see? I had a long drink just before we got ejected from our happy home.

Zainal nodded and Lenny trotted back the way he had come.

"Hey, bro, I'm coming, too, and a second man followed.

"The Doyle brothers stick together. I'm Joe Lattore," the stocky Italian said with a grin, nodding at both Kris and Zainal. "So what do we do if there are a lot of other humans, and aliens, stuck in with the cattle?"

"We get them out," Zainal said and, hunkering down, unrolled one of his spare blankets and, taking out his knife, began to rend it into strips. To make ropes, Kris immediately realized "Yeah, a rope would be real handy," Lattore said and took a blanket as Zainal handed them around.

It wasn't easy to do, given the sort of indestructible fabric it was. Kris had to stop: her wrist ached and was next to useless.

Hauling folks to the top of the crates would be a lot easier. That is, if the mechanicals hadn't figured out where the escapees had gone which was possible. By the time they had acquired several lengths of sturdy rope, the Doyles returned. They had seen no more except smoke from the processing plant.

"Yeah, machines operate on logic and our escape since they classified us as "meat animals" - would be inconsistent," Kris said, as she worked. "Somehow I don't think their programming would extend to coping with inconsistencies. We came up as heat sources where heat sources shouldn't be - in there messing up their crop fields. That was easy for them. So they dumped us in with the other animals they were collecting."

"I don't think I like that," Joe said, shuddering. "Bad enough to be mistaken as food. How come they don't recognize people?" "Does sort of beg the question, doesn't it?" Lenny said.

"I dunno how they figure it all out. We were there four, five days without anyone taking a blind bit of notice of us, or even opening the main door. When they did, we couldn't get out for those six-legged things being crammed in. And suddenly there was only standing space.

Then - whammy! we're scheduled for the chop. They must have started. well, processing…yesterday if what we heard were human cries -. -" Lenny gave another shiver.

Kris watched Zainal thinking over this information.

She wondered how in heaven's name the Catteni scouts hadn't noticed such installations on their exploratory pass of this planet.

Surely they would have spotted such a vast number of crates? Unless, and she thought of the evidence, the scrapes and bad handling, these were new, and the last lot had been collected? By what? For whom?

"We see if there are…more people," Zainal said, having reached a decision. "You help?" He looked around at the recently rescued.

Ten decided to remain and help, including the two Doyle brothers and, oddly enough in Kris's estimation, Aarens. The others were led off by Slav, who once again assured Zainal that he could find the cave campsite. He kept pointing to the north and east. The two Deskis went with him, to keep a listen-out for the flyers and any roving mechanicals that would need to be avoided at all costs. If nothing else, this recon had taught Kris, and the others, the sorts of hazards that had to be avoided: sleeping on bare ground, avoiding the harvesters, and freezing when flyers were spotted.

Simple, homely, rules, Kris told herself facetiously. She was glad she'd had a good drink of water before they'd set out. Still, maybe they could sneak back down to the vacant barns.

Which is what they did when Zainal and his stalwans reached the yard. The fact that no-one had been searched, much less stripped, was discussed.

"They didn't search the six-legged critters," Lenny said.

"Why would they search us?"

"But we're…we're humans," Aarens said and Lenny's brother, Ninety, snorted.

"Did you introduce yourself? Well, then, how would the machine know we're different?"

"You mean, they thought we were animals?" Aarens was outraged.

"Not very flattering, is it?" Lenny said drolly.

"Just another warm body, bro," his brother, Ninety, quipped back with a grin. "Any warm body'll do. If it registers."

"That is how the machines know," Zainal said. "Heat."

"I'll buy that," Lenny said.

"And movement.

"There are no people.. on this planet," Zainal added.

"Yeah," Lenny said thoughtfully. "Think you're right.

I thought robots were supposed to protect humans." He glanced slyly at Kris.

"Not if they're not programmed to."

"So who, or what, programmed "em?" Lenny wanted to know. Kris could only shrug her ignorance.

Having made their way across the crates and to the nearest barn, they had climbed onto the roof and now looked down through one of the ventilator slats into the barn. It was empty. Empty and smelling of some kind of a disinfectant which had its own unmistakable stink.

"What a pong," Lenny said, wrinkling his nose.

"Could there be such a thing as a totally mechanized farm planet?" Kris said, wondering out loud. Then she turned to Zainal, who was lying on the roof beside her, still looking round the empty space below. "How many continents are there on this world, Zainal?"

"Four.

Two large, one not so large, one small."

"Which are we on?" Zainal shrugged.

"How come he knows so much?" Ninety asked, jerking his thumb at Zainal and addressing Kris "He once saw a report on the place. He lust didn't look hard enough to remember everything we're dying to know," she said, grimacing. "What he has recalled has already saved us a couple of times.

"Who's us?" Kris told them, and Lenny grinned at his brother when she described Chuck Mitford.

"They never quit, those old soldiers, do they?"

"Mitford's not old," she said defensively, "and we were very lucky indeed he was there, because we stayed free." Lenny gave her an odd look. "Can you be sure of that?" "No surer than I am of anything else on this planet." Zainal rose. "We look at all." As soon as a quick peek proved that there was nothing moving in the yard below them and the smoke was no longer coming out of the abattoir building, they checked the other barns: twenty in all, half of which reeked of the disinfectant. Three of the other ten they examined held nothing but animals. They would call down the vent, tentatively at first, but then with more vigour until they were sure there was no-one there to answer. The grazers kept making their stupid looooing sound in response to all questions.

"All the same," said Lenny in disgust. "Never did like cows.

"These aren't cows, Aarens said. "Nothing like cows.

"So? They're loo-cows instead of moo-cows," Kris said, a comment which brought chortles from Lenny and Ninety.

"They're still not cows," Lenny said. "Cows give milk.

Those things don't have any equipment beyond two extra legs." The next barn produced astonished and glad cries and a jumping about of obvious people shapes in among the loo-cow forms.

"Keep it down, will you?" Aarens called urgently, glancing nervously around.

Lenny Doyle crept to the edge of the barn, looking up and down the quiet avenue and gestured an "OK' "What do we tell "em?" Aarens asked, not looking at Zainal.

"We come at night. They keep quiet now," Zainal said, ignoring being ignored.

"Night's a long way away," Aarens said.

"We watch."

"We could let down those ropes we made and haul "em up?" Aarens suggested.

"It's much easier to open the door at night and let them out," Kris said firmly, knowing that she wasn't up to hoisting who knew how many heavy bodies. "Like we did."

"Night best," Zainal said, nodding.

"Why? Machines don't care if it's night or day. Machines don't need to sleep." Aarens was persistent.

Zainal muttered something under his breath. "Do not run at night.

Can't-' "Why not?" Aarens was getting belligerent, deliberately, Kris thought, trying to find fault with Zainal.

"I think the machines are solar-powered," Kris said, grasping at an explanation that fitted. "Sun power?" she asked Zainal who nodded, smiling that she had grasped the correct explanation.

"Yeah," and Ninety's eyes widened. "Yeah, they got those funny panels. At least the harvester did. Makes sense. There hasn't been any rain yet." Zainal grinned. "Rain very bad here. In places. We see who is where," and he gestured towards the other barns waiting to be searched.

Four more confining humans were found and the message of imminent release was repeated, caution urged and the prisoners were told to get as much rest as they could because the escape route was a rough one.

There was some protest but Kris, speaking for Zainal - as that seemed diplomatic - assured them there were reasons for the delay.

They returned then to the roof of one of the empty barns. Prying open one ventilator slot, Lenny Doyle, as the slimmest of the men, crawled through. He was going to check to be sure there were no interior sensors. They let him down far enough so that he could peer around, swinging on the end of the rope.

"Looks clean to me. Sensor eyes can't be all that different," he said in a loud whisper to those waiting on the roof. "Lemme down. I need a bath as bad as I need a pee. Begging your pardon, Kris." She chuckled and watched as he was lowered to the floor. She went down next and heard them ripping away enough of the slot to permit the heavy frame of Zainal to pass. The thin blanket rope was rough on the hands and she slipped a couple of times because her wrist wasn't functioning, but all of them made it safely to the floor.

There were a dozen or more watering troughs to service the animals the barn usually held, so a few on one side were designated as baths.

Piles of some sort of dried fodder had been placed in wall mangers and Kris looked forward to sleeping a tad more comfortably on a hay bed until moonrise.

Zainal, with Aarens and the Doyles, did a circuit of the empty building, checking for any other sort of sensor that might tell the mechanicals one of the barns was inhabited again.

While most of the men decided to bathe, Kris was more interested in piling up enough fodder to make a decent sleeping surface. She hadn't liked the leer on Aarens' face when he looked at her. He struck her as the sort of devious personality who'd peep if given the chance.

She wasn't going to give him one.

At that, he sought her out, his longish hair still dripping.

She couldn't really hold that against him but she disliked the proprietary way he made as if to join her on her pile of hay.

"You find your own, buddy," she said, as discouragingly as she could.

"Hey, lady, just thought you'd like some quality company. Can't say I approve of a nice girl like you having to be paired with a Cat.

Or is it voluntary?"

"I volunteered for the patrol, if that's what you mean and her tone implied that had better be "Are there more like you back at this camp of yours?"

"Aarens, get lost. I'm tired and I want to sleep by - - myself," she said, emphasizing her wish for solitude.

"Git!"

"The fresh stuff is over there, Aarens," Lenny said, pointing to the manger, his expression pleasant but there was no doubt that he wouldn't move until Aarens had.

When she was left alone she lay down on her pile, so comfortable that she fell asleep despite the muted voices ofthemen.

Mitford surveyed the camp, well pleased with the improvements of the last two days. They had plenty of game and some of the women had thought of sun-drying the leftovers into a sort of jerky.

"Waste not, want not," was the theme for the day.

Scouting parties kept coming in with little treasures throughout the long day. There was even fine sand that could be used for a timer.

"Like you use to time your boiled egg.

"No glass."

"Well, there're these nut husks. Cut a teeny tiny hole in one, let the sands run through. Turn it over. Couldn't be simpler." "You lose a couple seconds turning the damned thing over -.

"Complaints, complaints."

"Hey, what about a sundial. There's that flat place at the top of the rock just below the sentry post.

"Yeah, and how do we time it?"

"Hell, you're the mechanical engineer. You figure it out.

One one-hundred, two one-hundred, three one-hundred is still a second even here." A commotion midafternoon brought fifteen angry women and one bloody-nosed Arnie to Mitford's office.

Noticing that all the women had wet hair, it didn't take him more than a minute to figure out that Arnie had been peeping again.

"He didn't stay warned off, Mitford," an irate Sandy Areson said, pinching the man again. "He's a dirty pervert, is what he is. And with him doing latrine duty only makes it easier for him to know when we're going to bathe.

Chain him to a rock or by God, I'll sharpen my knife and Mitford had begun to chuckle as he'd had a sudden inspiration. "I think we can provide restraints for our little Arnold Sherman. And provide an object lesson at the same time. Jack Lemass, front and centre," the sergeant added in a bellow.

"Yo!" and a man who had been carving various types of woods available in the nearby copse loped over.

"You rang?" Most people were in good spirits, Mitford decided, and proving ingenious in what they could contrive. They didn't have nails but Jack Lemass, who'd been out ear!y in the morning on a hunting party, was sure they could fashion chairs and tables and other useful items from the larger trees.

"Yeah, d'you think you could construct me a pair of stocks?"

"Stocks?" Jack poked his head forward on his neck in surprise.

"Stocks?" Sandy exclaimed and then burst out laughing.

"Hey, that'd be great and we could belt him with rotten eggs - if we could find any rotten eggs. She gave the cowering Arnie another swat but she, and the other women, began to grin in happy anticipation of his future discomfort. "Make "em as uncomfortable as possible, will ya, Jack?" Jack went through a little routine of pretending to measure the quivering Arnie so that he moaned in apprehension.

"OK, ladies, as you were, Mitford said. "Sorry you've been pestered." "Thanks, Sarge," Sandy said and took his hint, shooing the women out of the "office'. "We've got work to do, too, ladies "Better yet, Jack,' Mitford said, "take him with you to cut the wood and make him help you build it. To fit him because I think he'll be in the stocks a lot. Won't you, Arnie?"

"I was only looking," Arnie whined in self-defence. "I wasn't doing more than that."

"That's enough. Shut your face and be damned glad I don't get Jack to put a stake and whip you at it."

"You wouldn't whip me?" His voice cracked in terror and his whole body trembled. "You're human, you re American. You can't," and Arnie ended on a note of pure panic "Be grateful then, because the next step for someone like you, Arnie," Mitford said, raising his voice loud enough for everyone working the area to hear, "is being staked out on a field for the scavengers. And don't think it can't happen. It can!' Jack's eyebrows were raised almost to his non-existent hairline and he whistled softly.

"OK, Arnie, we go walkies now "5'

Old-fashioned stocks wouldn't really hurt a man, or a woman, Mitford thought as he picked up another slate to record their construction as a deterrent. But it would prove his administration had teeth and wasn't afraid to bite. So far, people were far more interested in how they could turn their skills to improving their living quarters.

And that was what settling was all about. Living off the land you were on and getting the best you could.

Late that evening, long after the second serving of the evening meal, two more patrols reported in: one had found rock salt which could only improve the taste of food, and the other, geology and mining types, had located deposits of iron and copper and had brought back samples. Murph had bent his ear about all they could do with iron and copper. So Mitford said that he'd organize a squad to help Murph mine and refine. Murph went off, muttering happily to himself.

"Every day in every way, we are getting better and better," Mitford muttered to himself, able to see one more step in their adaptation. Another few months and no-one would recognize themselves as the dispirited dregs they'd been less than a week ago.

When night came Kris was roused with the others who had rested.

Zainal showed the Doyles and Aarens how he had manipulated the lock with his knife blade.

"The ol' credit card trick, huh?" Lenny remarked, then added when he saw the confusion on Zainal's face, "I'll explain later."

"More boy?" Zainal asked Kris, his teeth white in the dark as he grinned.

"More what?" Lenny asked.

"I'll explain later," Kris replied, chuckling. She wondered what Aarens would say if he knew she'd prefer the Catteni to his company any day of the week.

Or any night, come to think of it. Down girl, she told her self but having said that, the notion came back often enough to tease her.

They slipped out of the barn, Zainal closing the door carefully until they heard the lock snick. Then they went to the first of the inhabited barns and Zainal opened it, too.

"Oh, my God, I thought you'd gone and left us," cried the man, his voice sounding loud in the quiet night. He was only one of many crowded close to the door.

"Sssssh," said the relief team as a chorus.

"Damn mechanicals might hear ya," Aarens said.

"Follow me and fer Gawssake, be quiet." While Kris was asleep, the rescue had been organized.

Two men would lead each rescued group down the road to the crates and start them up the ropes hanging in readiness. Zainal and Kris took the last group since Zainal was the only one who knew the exact trick to open the doors.

In the group she and Zainal released there were two women, one of them heavily pregnant and awkward in movement, and the other one older and limping badly.

The pregnant woman was also slightly hysterical with the relief of being rescued.

"It's bad enough my Jack got killed on Barevi, but I thought I'd at least have my baby to cherish," she said weepingly. Not that Kris blamed her but this was neither the time nor place for true confessions. "Then that awful discipline meeting and I wasn't doing a thing but standing where I was told to stand and then I get gassed. I prayed that, somehow, God was with us still and we'd be rescued.

And we are, and I simply can't believe it. Oh, you're so good to risk your lives to save ours." Kris couldn't seem to stem her flow of talk. At least Patti Sue would shut up when told to.

"How're we going to get her up the crates?" she asked Zainal in a tense whisper as they started the people down the road.

"I carry. Not heavy. Big."

"Just don't let her see you're Catteni,' Kris said, glad that the poor light hid the tell-tale grey of his skin tone.

The pregnant woman, Anna Bollinger, presented less of a difficulty getting up on the crates than some of the others. Fumble-footed and fingered, some of them, and four, besides Anna, had to be hauled up because their shoulder muscles gave out on the third "lift' Eventually, all thirty-five were on the top and moving off north by east as Slav had. Not moving very quickly either, as if the release and climb had about taken all the physical energy they had left in them.

Sometimes, Kris thought as she trudged along beside Zainal, you can do the right thing for the wrong reason.

Her hands were stinging, her wrist ached despite the strip of blanket she had wrapped about it as a brace, her shins were scraped and raw, her toes hurt and she was sure her arm and shoulder muscles would never recover. She would have loved to have had a trough to wallow in.

By the time the first moon came up, they had not yet made it to the end of the crates. Again she wondered what was in them, if it wasn't halves of loo-cows, and for whom the machines gathered the supplies.

They had to call a break then, to rest the less able of their number. Anna, in particular, and Janet, the older woman, were totally unequal to a steady march. When it was discovered that most of them had eaten the last of their ration bars in preparation for escape, Zainal immediately gestured for the patrol to share out the extras they had brought along. Chewing the dry bars without water to soften them made eating a chore. One of the Turs gobbled his down as if he hadn't eaten in days "He didn't know the Cats had packed us rations," Lenny said. "Ninety and I have been sharing with him."

"That was damned good of you," Kris said, "considering you wouldn't have known where your next meals were coming from.

"Oh, I figured something would turn up," and Lenny grinned impishly at her.

"Why, may I ask, is your brother Ninety?"

"Aw, now, we're Irish, you see "I had noticed.

Another grin. "And we've this saying in Ireland - that the crack, the fun, is ninety "And we don't mean the cost of the stuff," Ninety said in an irritated voice. "I like the crack…pubs and all God, wouldn't a Guinness taste good about now.

"I told ya, don't, Ninety. I can stand anything but your mentioning Guinness," Lenny said, an edge to his usually cheerful voice for the first time in a very trying night.

"Sorry, Kris."

"So I'm Ninety because I look for a good crack," Ninety finished up and gave the final bite of his ration bar a wistful look.

"Damned micks," Aarens muttered. He had positioned himself near Kris, she noticed, on her other side, away from the Doyle brothers.

"Let me straighten you out on one detail, Aarens," Kris said, not that she cared if she saved him some knocks for his attitude, but his comments grated against her sense of rightness. "We're ALL in this together: humans, Deskis, Rugarians, Morphins and Turs. And especially the lone representative of our former captors. He got dumped on this godforsaken place just like the rest of us and he's in command of the patrol that just saved your skin, bones and meat. So cut the bigotry out. Understand?"

"You know him well?" and the man's tone was lewd and his suggestion unmistakable.

Lenny and Ninety both reacted but Lenny was nearer.

He leaned forward until his face was right up to Aarens' "If Kris here says the Cat's a good guy, we'll take her word for it, Aarens.

Now cut your belly achin'. He got you free and, if you want to slope off now and do your own thing, we'll never mention we ever met ya." Aarens subsided as Kris inched closer to the Doyle brothers.

"Where's the Cat?. - Ninety began, looking about him.

"His name is Zainal," Kris said, as ready to insist on that point with Ninety as everyone else.

"OK, where's this Zainal leading us?"

"To the camp our clever Sergeant Mitford established.

A series of good-sized caves with an underground lake.

It's a pretty good place. Hunting's great. How good are you with slingshots?" Lenny chuckled. "You see before you one of the great rabbit hunters of the Blasket Islands." Ninety snorted. "You used a two-two, and then he leaned toward Kris, grinning from ear to ear, "with a telescopic lens and a silencer."

"That was so I could get in a second shot without the little scuts hearing me on the odd time or two I missed my first shot. Once I got my eye in, I didn't need either silencer or "scope."

"We've also found a huge grain store," Kris went on, "so we should even have bread when we get back."

"How far is it?" and Lenny glanced over at Anna and Janet.

"I don't know Wait a mmute - - - Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Zainal suddenly rise to his feet, looking pointedly in one direction. Peering in that area, she made out several figures moving in the moonlight down the slope above the crates. "That's Slav come back. He either made damned good time or our camp's not far away." Slav had brought two other Rugarians and four humans with him - and cold roast rock-squat, some unleavened bread and earthern water bottles that were leaking slowly but still contained enough for everyone to have a drink.

They also carried ropes and more blankets "Sarge says go. We come,' Slav said in Barevi, grinning his jagged toothy smile which included Coo and Kris.

They had to split the meat portions further to give everyone a piece but Lenny and Ninety were definitely impressed.

Anna had to be coaxed to eat - mainly because she was exhausted, Kris decided - but Janet said she would have eaten anything on six legs. They were both given two cups of water as a special concession.

That was when Zainal noticed Kris's bandaged wrist.

"You hurt?"

"Just a sprain. Nothing to worry about," she said, feeling a little foolish at having strapped her wrist.

"You go with Pess. Lead walkers. Report to Sarge."

"I'll bet he's full of questions," Kris said, glad that Slav had arrived with humans to give Mitford a verbal report.

"But I should stay to help the women."

"No." Zainal said firmly.

"Much help. YOU," and he cocked his finger at her, "better to report.

"All right," and she conceded as gracefully as possible. There were more than enough men to assist the two women, and Deskis and Rugarians to help with portages.

Although Lenny and Ninety protested that they were more than willing to help, Zainal ticked them off to go with Kris. She wasn't surprised that he sent Aarens back with her as well as Joe Lattore and some of the other men, who were all too eager to see this great camp that had been contrived.

Revitalized by the meat and the water, Kris went to reassure Anna and Janet that they weren't all that far from the safety of the caves.

"We've got medical personnel, too," she reassured Anna.

"Medicines?" Anna asked hopefully.

"If they've found bread, they've got the start of penicillin, now don't they?" Kris said jokingly but she had the feeling Anna was hoping for analgesics to take the edge off her imminent delivery. She left quickly then, not wanting to have to face any further unanswerable questions.

As there wasn't a damned thing wrong with her feet and ankles, Kris set the pace, right behind Pess. Aarens started out beside her but she didn't fancy him for company and she gave him grunts for answers to his conversational gambits until he got her message.

Muttering curses about ungrateful bitches and butch women, he dropped back to the rear of the group.

Kris wondered if she had been wise in discouraging him.

But he was the sort who'd need a lot of discouragement and his attitudes irritated her. Better discouragement than an all-out brawl.

A couple of good long climbs were successfully negotiated in the light of the second moon, Aarens bitching about night manoeuvres. By third moonset, even Pess was slowing up. But when the Rugarian hit the beginning of the ravine he brightened and so did Kris, surprised to recognize the terrain she had first walked in a semi-stupor, carrying Patti Sue. But a landmark that led you home - to any home - was always heartening "We're nearly there, guys. Home stretch now," she called over her shoulder and worked her shoulders out of a tired slump.

By sunrise, they were back in a camp amazingly altered in the four days of her absence. As she turned the final curve, she stopped short, noting all the improvements.

And the sight of Sergeant Chuck Mitford more or less where she had last seen him, at his "command' post.

That, too, had improved. The hearth had been enlarged, obviously to be used as a barbecue site, and a fire burned cheerfully in the centre. Blocks of stone had been moved to form a semi-circle around Mitford's central "desk' which had also been enlarged. On one side he had a pile of thin slates, bearing chalk marks, but he was working on something thin, like paper, with a sturdy wooden affair that near as never-mind looked like a pencil.

Sentries topped the higher points around the camp ravine: the stairs to the main cavern now boasted wider risers and a handrail. On the opposite side of the ravine, she couldn't fail to notice what looked like medieval stocks. Two of them, one occupied though she couldn't see the face of the stockee since his head was hanging.

The thin frame looked like Arnie's. She wondered what he'd done to rate that sort of incarceration. And what a novel idea for discipline!

The ravine floor had been swept clean and she really couldn't take in all the other improvements because Mitford had seen her. He grinned as he beckoned her to join him.

As she did, she saw him lean to one side and lift a creditable pottery pitcher. It seemed to be clad in some sort of odd matting and a little steam escaped its lid.

"Pull up a rock, Kris, and tell me what you and that Catteni have been up to," he said, gesturing for her to present her cup so he could fill it. "It's hot, at least, and doesn't taste too bad. I've been in places with worse coffee."

"Didn't the first group tell you?" Kris asked, blowing on her drink.

"I'm debriefing everyone, Bjornsen," was his reply, emphasized by a slight frown at her objection.

She covered her embarrassment at questioning his methods by taking a sip from her cup.

The heat of the beverage was not its only recommendation, for it had an oddly minty flavour that knocked the dryness out of her mouth.

If she hadn't had the cup in her hand, though, Kris would have been tempted to salute Mitford.

Ignoring the fatigue that made it difficult to find the words she needed, she gave what she felt was a concise report of the patrol. She emphasized the dangers of night-time scavengers, of crop-filled fields, and the notion that the mechanicals were solar-powered.

Mitford nodded at that, making a short notation on the thin stuff "You've a source of paper, Sarge?" she asked, interrupting herself.

"Bark, don't know how long it'll hold the lead…even got a pencil - "and, grinning, he held up the thick shaft.

"One of the geologist types found some carbon lead The bark's a lot easier to handle than those slates. Doesn't break and flake. Tell me more about this solar power notion?"

"You've heard it before?"

"Patrols at the granary mentioned "em on the machines garaged there.

Nothing moves at night so it's safe to haul in supplies then. Go on.

Tell me more about the rescue.

That first contingent were too damned wiped out to do more than say they got rescued." He poured her more of the hot drink.

"Remind me to tell you how glad I am to be in the same outfit with you, Sarge," Kris said with a grateful smile.

"Ah!" and he dismissed her remark with a flick of his hand, turning his head briefly away in modesty. Then he grinned at her.

"Wait'll you hear what I got in mind for you tomorrow.

"So long as it's tomorrow, Sarge," she said, managing to produce a cocky grin despite her present fatigue. The drink was helping but the stimulation it provided wouldn't last very long.

"We got thirty-five more refugees." She looked about the camp.

"Can we handle them?"

"Handle as many as we can find. Picked up a few more coming south from another drop-off. They either picked the right sort of fields or were plain lucky. They were right glad to find our camp. We'll need all the reinforcements we can get to start our offensive."

"Our what?" She peered numbly at Mitford.

"You don't think I intend spending the rest of my life on this mudball,' Mitford said with a growl.

Kris shook her head. Mitford seemed so sane. And he was planning to get off this world?

"But that's for later. Any new useful recruits?" he asked, bringing her back to her report.

Well, I suppose so but I didn't think to quiz "em.

We've got one very pregnant woman and an older one who's not too spry. Zainal made me come on ahead." Mitford nodded and Kris looked back over her shoulder to see the rest of her group straggling in.

"The two guys in front are good people, Irish, the Doyle brothers.

Right behind them is Joe Lattore and he's OK." She paused, seeing Aarens stumping in behind the Italian.

"And the tall individual?" Kris hesitated long enough for Mitford to raise his eyebrows. "Name's Dick Aarens," she said as noncommittally as she could.

"I'll debrief him myself," Mitford said with a grin for her reluctance. "You go get yourself some rest, gal. You're off duty for the next twenty-eight." He pointed above his head at what she then recognized as a sundial. "Took the team three days! All the way from counting sand particles by the second to hourly divisions. Rough still, they say, and Greenwich Mean Time it ain't but it's an improvement." His tone was proud.

"All the comforts of home and time, too," she said, grinning at such a clever device.

"Not that a twenty-eight hour planetary revolution is an improvement on what we're used to."

"And the stocks? Your idea?" Mitford chuckled, without even looking up from the notes he was jotting down. "We got too many individuals," and by separating the word into syllables he made it sound like an epithet, "to deal with, who won't make life easier by disappearing when they don't like the way this outfit is run. Get some rest, gal." He gave her a good-natured buffet to her arm and jerked his head towards the cave.

She was halfway to the steps when he called the newcomers over, the Doyles startled to hear their names and Aarens giving her an accusatory glare.

At the top of the steps, she noted other signs of organization work stations along the ledge and the legend "Home Sweet Cavehome' scrawled in chalk across the entrance. On the space where people had written their choice of name for the planet, "Botany' was underscored and all the others erased. She grinned. Home now had a name.

Inside, the early morning crew were busy stoking fires, putting earthenware pots on trivets to heat, setting out slightly misshapen bowls for cereal. She noticed bowls of what looked like coarse salt by the hearths. On the ledges were other pots and pitchers: Sandy Areson had been very busy.

"Kris!" a voice shrieked and she was enveloped in Patti Sue's arms before she had a chance to evade the girl, who proceeded to weep all over her "I told you she'd be back safe, Patti," said Sandy, coming over and prying the girl off. "Now she's tired, and dirty, and you don't go moaning all over her. She's been just fine, Kris," Sandy added. "She was certain Mitford had put you in danger' "No, we got people out of danger, Patti," Kris said, "and there's a woman who's going to need your help especially: Anna Bollinger. She's very pregnant. Sandy, who's the medic to see to her when she gets in?

They're a couple of hours behind us."

"I'll see to that. You hungry, Kris?"

"Had a bar not long ago but I'd sure love a bath."

"I'll get a clean coverall, and do yours while you're sleeping," Patti said, gushing with her efforts to be helpful.

"Now, Patti, you're on breakfast detail."

"I know, I know," the girl said on her way to a pile of material stacked on one side of the cavern. "I'll just be sure she knows the latest improvements.

Sandy raised both hands, grinned reassuringly at Kris and went back to stirring the pot. Leakage sizzled into the fire but even that primitive attempt at a pot was an improvement over no cooking vessels at all.

"No chance at building a kiln for you, is there?" Kris said, realizing that the pottery must only be sun-dried.

Sandy's grin was beatific. "Mitford knows his priorities Got the "specialists" -" and she grinned, "working on a beehive type. Murph made bellows for me, as well as for his own forge. Jack the Nail found a nice hard wood that ought to burn hot. So we're cooking. And I am until I get that kiln up and firing." She gave Kris a humorous grin as she waved smoke away from her face. "Go bathe." Patti danced about Kris all the way down to the lake, telling about finding the clay and that she'd managed a cup or two that had been fired, and they needed a proper kiln for best results, and they had discovered a nearby crop field of some very tasty root vegetables that were almost like potatoes only the Deskis couldn't eat them at all without getting violently ill.

Kris grimaced as she hadn't remembered to tell Mitford that Coo had found a plant that was Deski-edible. The tunnel to the lake was now well lit. When she and Patti reached it, there were also wooden steps down, a well-lit area and a rack of pegs to hang clothing on, and a rough reed basket of cat-tail-like seed pods.

"Where'd you find reeds?" Kris asked, noting the construction of the basket.

"Oh, Bob the Herb did. He finds all sorts of good stuff Has two patrols under his command."

"And what're these?" Kris picked up one of the pods.

"You'll see," and Patti Sue giggled with anticipation of her surprise.

Then Kris saw that a raft had been anchored securely for safer bathing and there were even steps fastened to the side of the lake. So Kris stripped off the smelly, grimy coverall and slipped into the water.

"Here," and Patty handed her an oval pod. "It's not exactly soap and it'll ruin your complexion but it gets the dirt and…smells. .. off your skin." Kris would have welcomed a Brillo pad, which was what the pod felt like. There was an odd herbal - almost astringent smell off it and that was quite welcome after what she had been smelling like. She rinsed well and then clambered out of the water.

Patti, with an air of great accomplishment, then broke open one of the cat-tails which puffed up into a white fibre.

"Your towel, madam?" She grinned at Kris's surprise.

"It works, too, soaks up all the water. Then we put the used ones over there, in the other basket, and once they're dry, they're good fire-starting material. Clever, aren't we?" And she giggled as she handed Kris the fresh coverall.

"I think we need the twenty-eight hour day to get everything done," Kris murmured.

Considerably refreshed and cleaner, Kris was quite ready now to get the rest her body urgently desired. She yawned all the way to the cave. That had improved, too.

With beds made of mounds of branches and, she thought, filled in with more of the cat-tails.

She stretched herself out, turned to her right side, sighed with relief to have her sore hips cushioned, and never even felt the blanket which Patti lovingly spread over her.