Freedom’s Choice (11 page)

“What sort of fuel do you use?” asked the test pilot.

Zainal rattled out some Catteni sounds and then grinned at the pilot.

“Can't make here.” He made another correction, moved a toggle, and the pilot gasped.

“You're gliding in?”

“No need to waste fuel,” Zainal said, and pointed his finger just as the entrance to Camp Narrow appeared in the hillside.

There were a lot of people watching now, waving their hands, mouths open though no sound penetrated the scout.

“Fraggit,” Mitford muttered, his face pale, as he grabbed for something to hang on to as the scout seemed to slide down a corridor that had once seemed much wider.

“Easy as pie, sergeant,” Beverly said, grinning broadly as they headed inexorably toward the target barn's wide-open doors.

“It'll fit?” Mitford asked, taking a firmer hold on the ceiling handle he had found.

“No problem,” Bert said.

Kris sympathized with Mitford. She tried not to hold her breath. The flight vanes on the rear of the fuselage must be just clearing the sides of the alley. Then she noticed someone encouraging the forward motion with hand gestures as he backed toward the barn. Zainal held up one hand, caught the man's attention, and gestured him to stand aside. With the slightest possible touches
on the thrust handlers, Zainal lifted the ship above the cliffside, and with equally delicate movements, turned the scout around, lowered it, and began backing it into the barn. The ground crew leaped in front and now made pushing gestures, as he stood to one side so he could judge when to wave off.

“No rear mirrors on this thing, huh?” Mitford murmured in Kris' ear, but he had color back in his face now that they were nearly parked.

The wave-off came and, with one final adjustment, they felt the scout ship settle to the floor.

To Kris' surprise, the observers clapped their hands, even Scott.

“You'd've been a great Atlantis pilot,” Marrucci said.

Zainal stood up, squeezing up against Mitford and Kris in the cramped space. “Bert, show Marrucci how to shut her down.”

“Can we watch?” asked John Beverly.

Zainal shrugged, looking at Mitford.

“Sure, why not,” the sergeant said, and eased himself toward the passageway to give the others more space. But he looked over his shoulder to observe that Scott stayed as well.

“Did it go well?” Raisha asked from her position in the passageway. “I couldn't see a thing with all the bodies in the way but I felt it turn around.”

Zainal undogged the hatch and stepped out into the barn, giving Kris a hand down first, and then Raisha.

“Can this be locked, Zainal?” Mitford asked in a low voice because the man who had acted as ground crew was loping up to them.

“There are six of these,” Zainal said, showing Mitford the small grayish-brown rectangle in his hand. “I have hidden three. Bert and Raisha each have one. Is that right?”

Mitford looked thoughtful, almost sad. “For now but
I think the flyboys and the brass will decide who gets to use this baby.”

“Baby?” Zainal asked, turning to Kris. “Is that like ‘boy oh boy,' and ‘man oh man'?”

“Ships are generally referred to as ‘shes,' female,” she said, grinning. “And special ships are ‘babies.' Specially good ships!”

“That's a lot of baby,” Zainal said, with suspicious laughter glinting in his eyes as he looked down the length of the scout.

“Hey, Zainal, that was some sweet job of piloting,” the crewman said, running up with his hand out for Zainal to shake. “I used to be flight deck officer on the
George Washington
…”

“Aircraft carrier,” Kris explained.

“Boy, you landed that baby as sweet as if you'd been backing her into this hangar all your life!”

Zainal gave yet another of his shrugs. “I had to learn. And pay for holes made.”

“Didja?” Somehow that pleased the man. “Need any more help with her, I'm your man. Vic Yowell's the name.” He gave Zainal's hand another shake and then went to prowl around the vessel.

“All that brass isn't going to take the ship away from us, are they?” Raisha asked, keeping her voice down and her eye anxiously on Mitford.

“Listen up, you lot,” Mitford said, catching them with a stern glance, “that ship makes this a whole new ball game. I know General Rastancil by reputation—he has a good one. I heard good things about General Beverly…don't know about the navy, but I do know,” and he waggled his finger at them, “that there'll be some changes and we gotta be flexible. So let's go with the flow. Right?”

“Where I flow, you go,” Zainal said, poking Mitford in the shoulder with one finger with each word. “Right?”

Mitford gave a short laugh but Kris knew that he appreciated Zainal's statement of loyalty.

“I don't know about you lot, but I need some chow about this time of day.” He walked out of the hangar.

“Me, too,” Raisha said. “I didn't like Catteni shipboard rations. They tasted like cardboard wadding.”

“Healthy,” Zainal said as he took Kris by the arm to follow the lead.

“
Will
we get to Phase Two?” Raisha asked over her shoulder.

“For fuel we must,” Zainal said.

“So if I get a chance to learn to pilot the scout, I could pilot a transport vessel?”

“You can now,” Zainal said, grinning at her surprise. “Drassi need very simple controls.”

“Say, Zainal,” Mitford asked, “how many ships do you think we can hijack before they stop landing here or your destroyers come to have a look?”

Zainal just grinned.

* * *

They had finished with the noontime meal when Bert and the others who had stayed on in Baby, as the ship was unimaginatively called, joined them at their table. Marrucci and Beverly were full of questions for Zainal about the performance levels of the ship, its cruising range, cargo capacity, weaponry, and maintenance requirements. Kris translated terms as well as she could, with help from both Bert and Raisha when she bogged down over unfamiliar words and meanings. Mitford sent someone for paper and pencil.

“Would you have such a thing as a manual?” Ray Scott asked at one point.

“What good would a Catteni manual do us?” Kris asked, almost defensively although Scott's attitude had modified considerably since the docking hop.

“Diagrams,” Scott said, and Kris was ashamed to have missed the obvious.

So Zainal told Bert where to find the service manuals in the pilot compartment. The day became a session of terminology and translation. Engineers were sent for to decipher the schematics while Zainal struggled to explain with his inadequate technical vocabulary. For Kris there was only guesswork, but she came up with appropriate ones more often than the others did. Zainal did know the basic maintenance routines and checks required since he had often flown this type of craft and had had to make repairs.

Worrell arrived at one point and took Mitford off with him. Reidenbacker left later on and took Fetterman with him but Kris was far too occupied with spatial and aviation words to do more than register that there were other faces where those men had sat. There was also no question that the capture of Baby was the best thing that could have happened on Botany at that particular moment.

It was full dark before Zainal suddenly shook himself and stood up.

“I can talk no more tonight.”

Then everyone became solicitous and grateful and said that by all means he should get some rest.

“You, too,” he said to Raisha and Bert. “No sleep last night. Not good. Minds must be rested to learn how to fly Baby.” He caught Kris with one hand, Raisha by the other, and gestured for Bert to follow them out.

There was a brief lull in the various conversations as they stood, but by the time they reached the door these had picked up again, and sheets of Zainal's meticulous diagrams were being passed around along with the manual.

All four walked wearily to one of the less crowded end barns. A “people” door had been cut into the larger one and a narrow entry area established before three aisles sectioned off the floor space. Screens of woven reeds divided areas into living spaces, affording a certain
degree of privacy. Single pallets stuffed with fluff weed, spare blankets, a rough box to hold possessions, and two stools made up the furnishings of the one Zainal and Kris took. He moved two pallets together. Kris got her boots off, emptied her pockets of the comunit and items she hadn't realized she still had with her, and lay down. Zainal covered her with a blanket, before removing his boots and settling down beside her, reaching out to grasp her hand before he took one deep breath and fell asleep at the end of it. She wasn't far behind him.

* * *

Still unaccustomed to Botany's longer diurnal period even after nine months, and despite the excitements and exertions of the previous day and night, Kris found herself waking before sunrise. Zainal was awake, too, lying on his back, hands behind his head.

“What's up?” she asked in a low voice.

He released one hand, curled his arm around her head to stroke her cheek. “Thinking.”

“Good thoughts?”

He nodded.

“Share them?”

He rubbed his knuckles against her cheek: she could see his teeth in a smile in the dim light. “I must outthink Catteni.”

She caught his hand, holding it against her cheek as she turned toward him, her lips closer to his ear. “Then there could be trouble over the scout.”

“Not here yet.” She could feel his cheek muscles lifting as his smile broadened. “Lenvec may not be…fooled. Or it is ‘joke' this time?”

“Fooled. Why?” She tried not to stiffen against him in concern but he sensed it, far too aware of her body language now, and his hand flattened soothingly against her head.

“He does not wish to do Eosi duty.”

“Is he the other male you meant yesterday?”

She felt Zainal's shoulder twitch and the rumble of amusement in his chest. “He is next but may not be chosen.” That seemed to amuse him even more. “He has life mate and several childs already,” Zainal added as if that should be a consolation.

“Children,” she corrected automatically. “Don't you?” she heard herself ask.

“No chosen has life mate but I have two males. Too young to be chosen.”

“So if Lenvec is chosen, we don't have to worry?”

“He did not say how soon the chosen must go. If there is time, maybe. He will be commanded where to search first.” Then Zainal paused, and she sensed he deliberated on whether or not to continue. He stroked her head slowly. “Maybe…he gets better satellite over Botany.”

“Higher-tech? More sophisticated?”

Zainal nodded. “But even that will take time.” And she felt his laugh. Felt him stop, too. “I must be very careful.”

“Shouldn't we tell Mitford all this?”

Zainal gave his head one shake. “Not now. He has enough troubles with—what did you call them—the brass? Beverly, Scott, Rastancil, them?”

“Yeah, they're all brass, admirals, generals: Marrucci was a colonel, I think. Watch out for Scott.”

Zainal grunted agreement and surprised her by smiling. “I like a good fight.”

“You mean, convincing Scott you're all right for a Catteni? Or getting Phase Two and more fuel for the scout?”

“Both.” He gave her hand a warm squeeze. “This gets interesting.”

“Don't get smug, Emassi Zainal.”

“Me? Never. This Catteni bastard watches his step.”

“Zainal! Where did you pick up that language?”

“Is it not correct?”

She knew he was teasing and laughed. “I'm damned glad you know as much as you do, particularly right now…”

“For the brass-heads.”

She giggled, ducking her head into his chest to muffle the sound. “Brass-heads”—she must remember to tell that to the sergeant.

* * *

At Lenvec's insistence, which was beginning to annoy Perizec both as patriarch and commander, he listened to the record tape and replayed the satellite's recording of the scout's takeoff, the suddenly erratic course which straightened into a dive toward the subject planet's second moon, disappearing beyond the satellite's visual limitation.

“But analysis proves that is
not
Zainal's voice. None of them are. What has Personnel said about Arvonk?”

That was the one flaw in Lenvec's arguments. “There is none of Arvonk, who was only a woman and not in service as Emassi. She was used because Zainal had chosen her several times for intercourse.”

“There are no other Catteni down there. Who else but another scout could have responded?”

“Some of the Terrans have learned our language.”

Perizec snorted. “But not how to operate comunits.”

“Zainal could teach them.” Lenvec spoke through his teeth with aggravation—an unwise attitude to show his senior and parent, but he had absolutely no doubts that Zainal had somehow escaped capture: had probably piloted the scout off the planet. And then, for reasons Lenvec could not understand in a Catteni Emassi who had been chosen to serve the Eosi, Zainal had returned to the planet. He had not taken refuge anywhere in Catteni space because everywhere he would be hunted: nowhere would he find asylum.

Zainal's taunt “I drop, I stay” was like a pulse in the back of Lenvec's brain. What good did it do Zainal to
go back to the planet, no matter what technology had been found there? Could Zainal know the origin of the original occupants of that planet? Was that why he took the scout? What good would such a move do?

“He has somehow made friends with the Terran dissidents,” Lenvec went on, desperate to persuade his father to believe him. “Now he has transportation. He has some plan in mind.”

Perizec dismissed that consideration as he rose. “For all the good it will do him.”