Freedom's Ransom (19 page)

“I don't believe so,” Chuck said. “Though I might
need
a reason if I'm asked.”

“Good! I didn't know if you had only an in-and-out license or not.”

“I set it up to be able to get the stuff we need to trade with,” Chuck said.

“Great! Now, that package is drugs, badly needed in Kenya.”

Chuck
hmmm
ed diplomatically and glanced at Zainal to see if he understood. Zainal gave a quick nod.

“We don't have enough gasoline in any of our planes to make such a flight. How's your fuel situation?”

“Where do we have to go?”

“Like I said, Kenya. Outside Nairobi. If that ship of yours can do another short flight, it would help immensely if you could make a small detour to the west, to the Kiambu Ridge area—near the Great Rift Valley, to give you a landmark few could miss.”

Kris's eyes went wide. Chuck knew what that place meant and he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, to listen more intently.

“It also happens to be one of the big coffee-producing areas of Africa. They do the robustas, if you know the difference. Kiambu Ridge coffees are the crème of the crème for full flavor. Use 'em to give more taste to lesser beans. I gotta deal going with the local coord that if I can get those medicines to him, he'll see I can fill my
plane”—and now there was a decidedly wicked twinkle in the coord's eyes—“full of coffee beans. Roasted beans. Oh, we got a facility in Newark that roasts but they'd want their cut, too.”

“Wow!” Kris said. Since Catteni had become addicted to coffee during their stay on Earth, to be able to trade roasted beans would mean they'd have a surefire commodity few Catteni would pass up. Maybe they could even set up a coffee bar to serve those dealing with Zainal and the others for more important items, like spare comm sat parts, tires, batteries, and what was the other thing so desperately needed? Spark plugs, she thought, but they wouldn't be at the top of the list.

“My deal is that if you take that . . . KDM did you call it? . . . you can keep ten percent of whatever you bring back to me.”

“How do you know we'd come back with a KDM-load of coffee beans?” Chuck asked, grinning.

“You're the only one I'd trust to do so, Mitford,” Dan Vitali said, looking straight into the sergeant's eyes. “Now I've met you, I believe everything I been told about you.”

“Thank you,” Chuck replied with a nod of his head, but the grin hadn't left his face.

“Of course, Jelco will come with you as he's dealing for me,” the coord added with a sly grin of his own.

“Of course,” Chuck agreed affably.

“Is ten percent much?” Zainal asked.

“That'd be one in every ten sacks of raw beans.”

“Not raw, Chuck,” the coord said firmly. “Roasted. And I don't want to split more than I have to. Each sack of beans weighs fifty pounds.”

Kris sighed and Vitali laughed.

“We could do a lot with a KDM-sized load.”

“They made a deal for a plane load,” Chuck reminded him, “not a spaceship full.”

“Jelco will handle that detail. The stuff we bring is more than they asked for but it will stop the epidemic of
typhoid they got on their hands right now.”

“Typhoid?” Kris said. “Is that back?”

“I don't think it ever went away in some parts of the world,” Chuck said.

“There's broad-spectrum antibiotics in the package, polio, the latest cholera vaccine, on account of that's endemic where there's so little hygiene and lots of starvation, and some other stuff—ointments for the kind of sores that are rampant in Africa, which the laboratory said could be useful there. But Kenya is willing to trade for it. Especially as there won't be any ships going that way for a while. Not even by sea.”

“Then we can be, as you said, philanthropists as well as haulers,” Chuck said and looked at Kris and Zainal to see if they agreed.

“Coffee,” Kris said with a sigh. “Wow!”

“There is an area down by the Masai encampment on Botany,” Zainal mentioned idly, “hot enough and with sufficient rain on the mountains to grow coffee beans. It might be worth it to try cultivating our own coffee on Botany. If we were going straight back to Botany, I'd risk bringing some plants,” Zainal said and shook his head in regret.

The coord leaned forward across the table. “How can someone get into Botany?”

“Like, immigrate?” Chuck asked. “We discussed that before we left, sir. We can only accept so many invalids before our economy is disrupted. We took in a shipload of those folks the Eosi tried to brainwash and they've integrated well into our population. We agreed to accept applications, preferably people who have some sort of skill that can help the commonweal,” at which Vitali nodded sagely, “but we could use a discreet number of young folk to increase the gene pool for future generations.”

“All sorts?” Vitali asked, his expression intense.

“All sorts,” Chuck agreed. “We're pretty representative of races, creeds, and colors to begin with, on account of we had no choice in the first place getting dumped there.”

“Hmm. So, what sort of occupations are you aiming for?”

“Anyone trained in biology, botany, medicine. Even another dentist.”

“Will you be coming back here soon?”

“Oh, we'll be back when we spring loose some of the stuff the Catteni heisted,” Chuck said with a wave of his hand. “We can also send back more wheat, I think.” He looked for approval at Zainal and Kris, who nodded solemnly. “Maybe some protein. We got these loo-cows. Got six feet and no milk, but they make good eating.”

“Meat? Red meat?” Vitali asked in an almost wistful voice.

“I like the rock squats better myself,” Chuck said amiably, “but any kind of steak goes down easily.”

“Even rhinoceros, I hear tell,” Kris murmured, overcome by whimsy. Vitali flashed her a startled look.

“Yes, well, I can see that this might be the beginning of a mutually profitable association,” Vitali said. He lifted the medicinal package toward them and some papers, including a map and airplane charts.

“Got these from one of the airlines in case they'd be any use to a spaceship,” he said, handing them across to Chuck, who slipped them inside his shirt before shaking hands with the coord. “We don't, by the by, intend to hog all the coffee beans to ourselves, you know.”

“Glad to hear it, Vitali,” Chuck said, and then the man offered his hand to Kris and Zainal.

Jelco came forward and plucked the medicines from the desk and accepted his superior's handshake.

“Glad we could make a deal, Mitford.”

As they left the coord's office he was calling his assistants back in, searching through clipboards to see which had the priority of his immediate attention.

“Coffee,” Chuck said under his breath as Jelco led them down corridors and steps and eventually back onto the deserted expanse of the airfield. “We can sure use ten percent of what the KDM can hold.”

Kris was wondering about improving on a mere ten percent. She couldn't quite sort fifty pounds of beans into individual portions, nor how much weight the KDM could haul, but she did believe that they could probably sell any coffee they could bring to Barevi.

She wondered if the Kenyan coffee merchants might do a deal with them for tires, batteries, and spark plugs. She didn't want to be greedy but so much depended on their success. For both Earth and Botany.

She found herself rushing up the ramp of the KDM, grateful to hear voices, experiencing an unexpected nostalgia for the ship as a haven. Good Lord, what had gotten into her?

Then Kathy was there, giving her a big hug, Jax was beyond, grinning like a fool, and the boys rushed to greet their father, demanding his attention with glad cries at his return.

Kris and Zainal thanked Jelco and asked him to thank Wylee, Murray, and Dover for their assistance.

“Miss Kris,” and for the first time she detected his southern accent, “it was a real pleasure. 'Sides, you bake a mean loaf of bread! I'll see you tomorrow. Until then, ciao.”

And with another salute of two fingers to his eyebrow, he left them, lounging away toward the terminal building.

“We managed to trade for fresh food,” Jax told Kris excitedly. “You should have seen Ferris and Ditsy. They just knew where stuff was growing.” She waved a hand toward distant green fields. “And they brought back carrots! And potatoes! I haven't had them in years! We know you were successful with the dental stuff, and boy, did those guys covet the lifts.”

“I don't know how we would have gotten those units down eighteen flights without them. And, Kathy, thanks for helping me with the rolls,” Kris said, squeezing her arm gratefully, “because they opened doors everywhere.”

“Those simple rolls?” Kathy was amazed.

“We'll do a full report at dinner, as we've a lot to
discuss, but right now, is there enough hot water for me to have a shower? I feel sticky.”

“You don't look sticky,” Kathy said with mock horror and whooshed her down the corridor to her quarters. “We filled all the water tanks, and there should be plenty of hot by now.”

The water was hot and Kris let it sluice down her body, soaping herself well, luxuriating in the warmth until Zainal tapped on the shower door. The amenity was not large enough for them to share the shower as they often did at home, but she gave herself one more rinse before she emerged and let him in.

While dressing, Zainal said that they would discuss the upcoming coffee-bean project with the entire crew. Considering the benefits of such an excursion for the commonweal, she doubted anyone would object to the detour.

Before they left, Kris had told Ferris to barter another sack of wheat for a good supply of carrots and potatoes. They did taste unbelievably good. She wished they could take seedlings back to Botany but not with a long stopover at Barevi. There was a green salad as well with early lettuce (greenhouse lettuce, which Clune said was evidently a thriving business, delivering crates of fresh produce to be taken into the city) and spring onions, crunchy and sweet. She wondered about dried beans. Well, besides coffee beans.

Jax Kiznet had had more air miles on Earth than anyone else, so Zainal had given her the charts to see what she thought of piloting for the trip.

“Well, I haven't flown over Africa,” she demurred, looking at the flight charts, “but if we could land the KDM here, I don't see why we can't at Nairobi. The Jomo Kenyatta Airport's an international facility—or was,” she added. “There's a good one at Mombasa, too, plus the port. We aren't circumscribed to just this area, at least I didn't get that impression from our interrogation on the way in. I'll just check frequencies and weather reports.”

“We need to go to the northeast of Nairobi to the coffee plantation area . . . and the Kiambu Ridge area.” Kris found the place, which had been underlined on the detailed map.

“Oh, near the Rift Valley,” she said, following Kris's pointing finger. “Well, that's hard to miss and so is Lake Rudolf.”

“We don't need to go that far north.”

“No, we don't,” Jax said, staring down at the map. “I like the idea of getting coffee.”

“I think we all do,” Kris agreed. “Even Zainal's beginning to become addicted.”

Jax grinned back. She was doing some figuring. “Look, if we can go orbital, we can do the great circle route at orbital velocity and it'll only take the KDM an hour and ten minutes to reach our destination. Wow! Hey, I like hypersonic!”

“Kenya's where Chief Materu comes from, isn't it?” Peran asked.

“Right you are,” Zainal said, giving the boy a hug. “And we have another reason for being there. Alkoriti.”

“Oh, hey, that's right,” Kris said, remembering their earlier search for the acacia plant that had proved to be the unexpected weapon that had brought about the defeat of the Eosi, who had suffered respiratory failure from inhaling the dust.

She grinned at Zainal, spreading her hands in acceptance of the excuse. “As if bringing vaccines to Kenya isn't enough.”

“Only how did you happen to get to be messenger?” Clune asked cynically.

“Evidently, individual coords will arrange things to suit themselves.”

“We'll just hope that's a good enough excuse.”

“Well, we know the Biffs are at two hundred and fifty kilometers and their sensors are fixed outward, not inward,” Kathy pointed out. “So we're delivering medicines. Big deal.”

Jax talked with the meteorology folk at Newark Tower, got the latest reports—no turbulence anticipated—and had her flight plan checked. There had been judicious gifts of rock squats to the tower staff, so they were disposed to be helpful . . . once they got over the shock of a vertical landing and takeoff craft.

“We coulda used a whole flock of the durned squats,” Clune said as they finished the last of the supply.

“They're a game bird so they're also kosher,” Kris said, and no one else quite appreciated why Eric guffawed.

The equipment that was now lodged in the cargo hold had fascinated Ferris. Later Zainal told Kris that Eric had explained to Ferris exactly what he had traded from Eddie Spivak and what it was used for. They decided that a number C-4 Vitapan shade matched the boy's tooth color, and Eric had pantomimed how he would use it, bonding it to a tooth in layers. Although Eric couldn't set up his equipment, he did check Ferris's teeth and found some cavities that ought to be taken care of as soon as possible. Ferris did not remember ever having been to a dentist and, because he knew Eric, did not have any anxieties about having his teeth fixed. During the evening, Eric checked over everyone on the ship, even Kris, and he shook his head over the state of her teeth. Zainal submitted and Eric said that he could probably fix the chip off one of Zainal's eyeteeth: in Zainal's case, not caused by a brawl but by a fall against something tougher than Catteni teeth. Peran and Bazil were pronounced to have excellent teeth with not a trace of decay, though Bazil's bite could stand a little correction.