Freedom’s Choice (27 page)

“Or in it,” Kris had added, staying in the background but determined to go along for the ride for a variety of reasons. She'd learned all she could about the new equipment and had driven the Tub often enough to have gotten the hang of the Catteni-size finger pads on the control boards. She might never learn to pilot, but there were always other duties during a flight for which she felt herself well qualified.

She also had a feeling that Zainal had no intention of
giving up his plan to “hitch a ride” on the next Farmers' vehicle that darkened Botany's skies. How he could achieve that goal she hadn't a clue, and he was giving her none, though there were times when he stared blindly out at nothing with unfocused eyes, and she knew him well enough to know that he was turning over ways and means of doing it. Considering how quickly the supply ship had made its deliveries, would he have time enough to reach it before it took off again at its incredible speed? The scout was equipped with a tractor beam and she suspected that's what he hoped to use to secure himself to the exterior. But what if he got knocked off when the Farmers' ship accelerated or activated whatever it used to travel the immense distances they were now convinced it traversed?

She kept hoping that when his plans were completed she'd be part of them. For all the good friends she now had on Botany, she did not wish to be left here by herself. Especially since Zainal's presence protected her from importunities. Already she'd had several distressing interviews with men who wanted to be on her “paternity” list. They professed themselves willing to forgo a natural conception but they wanted her to bear their child.

She had managed to thank them for their interest—when she really wanted to clout them as hard as she could—and told them she would consider their offer. And made sure to stick closer to Zainal's side than ever, even though it meant stopping work on the quarters they were building. She did what she could without his help—until guys started showing up with offers of assistance…and the paternity requests.

Then Raisha discovered she was pregnant and deferred to whoever wished to take her spot.

“I've been up and it was wonderful,” she said, her eyes shining with the memory, “but I don't want to whoopsie in free fall, thank you.”

That condition was becoming widespread, Astrid, Sarah, and the three girls who had been Catteni decoders all announcing their pregnancies. She kept as close to Zainal as she possibly could, even sitting through repeated instructions at the scout's control board to avoid the “infection.” No wonder so many individual quarters were being built in the bay area.

There was no problem filling Raisha's place and Bert magnanimously offered to step down, too. Beverly and Marrucci went over the credentials of all those who volunteered for the flight and selected Antonio Gedes for Raisha's spot, but Zainal insisted that Bert remain, having had some experience with the craft and in space, while two other pilots, Alejandro Balenquah and Sidi Ahmed, were added to the flight list.

“Not that we're ever likely to go far,” Balenquah said gloomily.

He was swarthy, with deep-set black eyes that surveyed his surroundings with reserve. Kris wasn't sure she liked his noncommittal posture when here he was being offered what half a dozen less qualified men and women would have killed to get. Well, not would have killed, but definitely envied.

“Look at it this way, mate,” Bert Put said, also displeased by the man's attitude, “you never know, do you? Did you ever think you'd drive a ship in space again? Well, you're doing it now, and here.”

“I guess,” and Balenquah altered his attitude. He was actually the quickest of the three new men to become easy with the unusual equipment and the finger pad boards.

The flight had been planned in spite of severe reservations from Reidenbacker and Ainger. They were ground personnel, Marrucci had remarked privately to Kris, and suspicious of air and space maneuvers. If the satellites were no longer visible on the screens of the KDL and the scout, then it was two to one that the SATs
couldn't see within the Bubble. It was therefore not only safe but a wise precaution to see what the barrier was like up close.

“Not to mention the fact that you're dying to go up again,” Kris said, and he grinned, more boyish than ever despite having reached the rank of colonel in the air force.

“You got it, Bjornsen,” and he cocked a double-jointed thumb at her, making the rest of his hand into a mock pistol before dropping the thumb. He also had a habit of cracking his knuckles when he was nervous, a routine which fascinated Zainal, who could not, to Kris' relief, duplicate the action. Having one person do it in the confines of a pilot compartment was enough.

Zainal also wanted to see if he could locate a Farmers' satellite, or whatever was controlling the Bubble.

“If they spy on us, it is good. They want to know more before they come.”

“That's
your
interpretation,” Kris said.

He regarded her with his yellow eyes and a slight smile on his lips. “And what is yours?”

She thought for a moment and then laughed. “Yeah, we could very well be a mouse run.”

“A what?” Zainal asked, puzzled, so she suggested they take a break from house building while she explained about laboratory mice and labyrinths to test intelligence and learning ability.

“To add to whatever that scan of theirs discovered about us.”

“But we do what we want,” Zainal said, still puzzled.

“Maybe we just think we do,” she replied, just now identifying that possibility.

“Scott would not like to think someone else commands him,” and he chuckled as he got back to his feet and reached for another brick.

“No, he sure as hell wouldn't,” Kris agreed, and laughed as she rose to join him. “We've got just enough
mortar mixed for another course,” she said, scooping up a trowelful. “I'm getting quite adept at this.”

Then she remembered Sandy Areson's remark that plastering was like feeding an infant and that she'd use the same skills when she had one of her own. She tapped the next brick in place with such force that it split in half.

“That's the fourth one tonight,” she said irritably. “Maybe they need to bake them longer or something.”

Sandy was in fact in charge of the brick firing, so Kris knew it was no fault of the manufacture. Brick making was another chore shared throughout the community. But there was something soothing about shoveling the wet muck into the molds and knowing you were building your own place from scratch—including the ones on your arms, hands, and legs, collected in, the process of building.

Still, it would be a nice place, when it was finished. She and Zainal had picked the spot together, on that first trip. They had a splendid view of the bay, with enough clear ground around to plant vegetables and berry shrubs, with a stand of “young” lodge-pole trees behind them. After months of barracks living, nearly everyone on Botany wanted privacy and the bay area certainly afforded that.

The Narrow Valley mess hall had been disassembled, loaded aboard the KDL, and reassembled on a height above the bay. Smaller “offices” clustered around it on the natural terraces and levels below and above it. The hospital was the only other large single structure and Leon Dane announced that the medical staff did not have time to build a separate maternity wing. He was, however, training midwives for home births since he was certain all the babies would decide to be born at the same time.

Private accommodations spread out around the bay in all directions, at first built from the lodge-pole tree timber
before the brick manufactory got production up to a useful level. Those involved in cutting timber made the interesting discovery that even the smallest of the lodge-pole trees that had grown down into the plateau were at least a thousand years old.

“They have rings, just like trees on Earth,” said Vigdin Elsasdochter, the environmental specialist in charge of responsible logging, ready to show the section she carried around with her. “And tight rings to indicate the climate has not changed much throughout the millennium: no drought, no bad winters, no hot summers. Some of the larger trees may be ten thousand years old.”

Once again the question was brought up of how long the Farmers had been in possession of the planet. Especially since the “new forest” of “young” trees had been seeded by the much older ones. Even Worrell refused to worry about it.

“I got other more important things to worry about,” he'd said one night in the mess hall. “Like allocating glass to people who want to have picture windows and stall showers! Of all things,” and he'd flung a hand toward the bay, “as if we don't have a great big bathtub out there.”

* * *

Those who had been in the building trades on earth, like the Doyle brothers, were kept busy offering advice, showing novices how to do things he'd learned, Lenny said, “at me da's knee, so to speak.” Some of the Asians had the most trouble since they had been accustomed to different building materials. After assigned chores were done and the evenings gradually lengthened, everyone worked on their homes, and lent a hand to neighbors for jobs that required a gang.

While some of the brass-heads were living in the cliff hangar and bunking down on pallets in their offices, all of them had picked out sites but keeping track of work
assignments for nearly ten thousand people and aliens took most of their time.

“Someone has to do it,” Mitford remarked when Kris complained that the admiral seemed to be the unelected head of everything. “And hell, Kris, I might have run the battalion to all intents and purposes, and managed to whip us into some sort of order there at the first, but he had an aircraft carrier and they carry ten thousand. He's used to dealing with that kind of numbers. I'm not. I was only too glad to hand him the can, you know.”

Mitford remained in charge of exploration and mapping, attempting to fill in the spatial map with the details necessary for further expansion of the farming and ranching. “If you can call loo-cows ranch animals.”

Knowing that the sergeant was truly happier on reconnaissance in the Tub, Kris decided not to harbor any ill feelings toward Ray Scott. There was no question that he was working all the hours God gave the day here on Botany. And some days he seemed almost agreeable, as if Botany was mellowing him. At other times, she was certain he disliked and distrusted Zainal, and her by virtue of her association with the former Emassi officer. He vacillated between extreme cordiality when deferring to Zainal's knowledge of some matters and total dismissal of Zainal's opinions. He didn't have command all his own way, which somewhat mollified Kris, and she supposed that having run an aircraft carrier, he had the requisite experience. She had occasion to be grateful it was Scott who issued most of the orders, rather than Geoffrey Ainger, whom she didn't like at all. He was
so
British that he was almost a caricature of a ranking officer, and she knew he considered Zainal a dangerous commodity. She got along well with Rastancil, Fetterman, and Reidenbacker; John Beverly was the nicest of the lot because he always looked straight at her when he asked or answered questions. And Easley, but then he was as his name—easily to get along with. In fact,
meetings seemed less tense when he was involved, and often more productive. He had such a knack for gently redirecting tensions and making suggestions that kept discussions going around, instead of stopping at Ray Scott all the time.

Which brought her back to the present and the meeting Scott and Rastancil had called them in for. They wanted Zainal to check the more mountainous terrain that had not yet been explored during the flight. The number of orbits had expanded from a quick flight up to the Bubble and back down to five days of circumnavigating the planet.

“See if there are any blind valleys here on our continent or deposits of minerals. We could use more lead, copper, zinc, and tin, if this continent has them.”

“I believe it does,” Zainal said. “The miner, Walter Duxie, has copies of the original spatial survey maps.”

“Duxie? Do I know him?” Scott asked over his shoulder at his ever-present aide.

“Yes, he agreed to leave the other place and supervise mining here,” Beggs murmured. “Stocky man, balding, forties, English.”

“Ah, yes, get them for me to see,” and Scott turned back to Zainal and Kris.

She wondered what Beggs' description of Zainal was—and of herself. Then she decided she didn't want to know.

* * *

Two days later, Zainal was satisfied that those accompanying him on the Bubble Mission, as its participants named it, were sufficiently trained to put what they had been learning into practice. He announced a dawn takeoff and dismissed them, suggesting that they all relax for the rest of the evening. Not that he intended to follow his own advice, because they were ready to put the shakes on the roof on their two-room cabin. Kris decided she needed to be so thoroughly tired she couldn't stay
awake, because she was far more excited about the trip than she let on.

Zainal had just finished setting the piles of shakes in order and was steadying the ladder against the gable end when Mitford, Worry, Tesco, Sandy Areson, Sally Stoffers, and the two Doyles arrived, hammers in hand and with a second ladder.

“Can't have you breaking something the day before the Bubble,” Mitford had said gruffly.

Kris smiled gratefully. Zainal might have learned the rudiments of construction but she was terrified that he'd fall through the rafters, or break them, and he wouldn't let her go up on the roof by herself to nail the shakes.

“You can't help,” Kris said flatly to the two women.

“Heard about your design with my buff bricks,” Sandy said. She was puffing a bit from the walk up the hill and had brought along her own stool. She put it down facing the front of the cabin and nodded approval. “Didn't realize we had so much color variation…. Maybe it's all you novices mixing your own batches.”