Freedom's Challenge Read online

  Ex-Admiral Ray Scott had elected to live in a small room behind his office in the hangar complex. It was he, disguised as a Catteni Drassi, who had insisted that the Victims be rescued from the fate to which the Eosi had condemned them: working until they died as mindless slaves in the appalling conditions that existed in the mines, quarries, and fields. There had been no way that those of his crew who had been among the first dropped on Botany would have allowed those battered people to be transported to their deaths.

  Considering the excitements of the day, the unloading of the victims of the Eosian mind-wipe experiment, which had occupied a good third of Botany’s settlers, the field was now abnormally quiet, peaceful. Kris sighed and Zainal gave her a fond look.

  “ZAINAL? KRIS?” Chuck Mitford’s parade ground voice reached their ears over the muted sounds that Baby was making. They looked back to the hangar and saw Chuck urgently waving to them. He was talking to someone who had just pulled up in a runabout.

  “Oh, now what?” The testy demand left Kris’ mouth before she could suppress it. She was tired and she earnestly desired a shower and a long sleep. She’d even arranged with the crèche to keep Zane overnight since she knew herself to be stretched to the limit after the tense voyage home and the stress of landing all the pitiful mind-wiped people.

  “We’d better see,” Zainal said, taking her hand in his big one and pressing it encouragingly.

  “Don’t you ever get tired and just…have too much, Zainal?” This was one of those moments when his equanimity bordered on the unforgivable.

  “Yes, but it passes,” he said, leading her to where Chuck Mitford waited for them with the passenger of the runabout.

  It wasn’t a long walk but long enough for Kris to get her irritation and impatience under control. If Zainal could hack it, so could she. But when would she get a shower? She stank! Well, maybe her body odor would encourage whoever this was to shorten their errand.

  “What’s up, sarge?” she asked, noticing that he was talking to a woman she vaguely recognized from the Fourth Drop: as much because she managed to look elegant in the basic Catteni coverall. Kris wondered if she’d taken it in at crucial spots to make it look so fashionable. She was fleetingly envious of such expertise.

  “Dorothy Dwardie who’s heading the psychology team needs some of your time, and right now,” Chuck said and had the grace to add, “though I’d guess another meeting’s the last thing you two need right now.”

  “It is,” Kris said without thinking but she smiled at the psychologist to take the sting out of her candor.

  “It is important?” And Zainal’s question was more statement than query.

  “Yes, it is, quite urgent,” Dorothy said with an apologetic smile. “We need to know more about that mind-probe before we can proceed with any sort of effective or therapeutic treatment.”

  “Why’n’t you use the small office?” Chuck said, gesturing to that end of the immense hangar.

  Zainal squeezed Kris’ hand and murmured: “This won’t take long. I know very little about the probe.”

  “I was hoping you’d know something, if only the history of its use among your people,” Dorothy said ruefully and then looked about for a place to park the runabout.

  “I’ll take care of it for you,” Chuck said so helpfully that Kris smothered a grin.

  Dorothy Dwardie gave him a warm smile for his offer.

  “We’ve had a bit of outrageous luck,” she said as they walked to the right-hand side of the enormous hangar where other small offices had been constructed.

  “We could use some,” Kris agreed, struggling for amiability.

  “Indeed we could, though I must say that hijacking all those poor people out from under Eosi domination is certainly their good luck. And you deserve a lot of credit for that act of kindness.”

  What she didn’t say rang loud and clear to Kris. There were some who weren’t sure she and Zainal deserved any credit? As well for them that Ray Scott had loudly declared that he took full responsibility for the decision to save the damaged Humans so no one could blame that on Zainal or her. Actually the guilty were the Eosi but too many people failed to make a distinction between overlord and underling. Kris’ mood swung back to negative again.

  “But until we…” and Dorothy’s hand on her chest meant all the psychologists and psychiatrists on Botany who would now take charge of the mind-wiped, “understand as much as possible about the mechanism…ah, here we are…” and she opened the door to the small office and automatically fumbled for a light switch on the wall.

  Kris had seen the cord and pulled it.

  “Oh…I suppose I’ll get used to it in time,” Dorothy said with an apologetic grin.

  “You’re Fourth Drop, aren’t you?” Kris replied as neutrally as possible while Zainal closed the door behind them. There were several desks against the long stone wall but a table and chairs made an appropriate conference spot by the wide window. There was nothing but darkness outside, since the hangar faced south and there were no habitations yet beyond the field. “You said you had a bit of outrageous luck….?” Kris asked when they were seated.

  “Yes, not everyone in the group you brought had been mind-wiped.”

  “Certainly the Deskis, Rugs, and Turs weren’t,” Kris said.

  “Nor all the Humans,” Dorothy said, smiling over such a minor triumph.

  “They weren’t?” Kris asked, exchanging surprised glances with Zainal.

  “Yes, some faked the vacuity of the mindless…”

  “Faked it?”

  Dorothy smiled more brightly. “Clever of them, actually, and they got away with it because those in charge weren’t keeping track of who had been…done.”

  Kris let out a long whistle. “All us Human look alike to Eosi? Proves, though, doesn’t it, that the Eosi aren’t all that smart after all. Clever of us Humans to run the scam.”

  “They’re also able to give us names for many of the people who no longer remember who they are.” Dorothy gave a little shudder. “I’ve dealt with amnesia patients before, of course, and accident shock trauma, but this is on so much larger a scale…and complicated by not only emotional but also physical shock and injury. We have established—thanks to Leon Dane’s work with injured Catteni—that there are more points of similarity than differences between our two species since both are bipedal, pentadactyl, and share many of the same external features, like eyes, ears, noses. We can’t of course cross-fertilize,” and to Kris’ surprise, Dorothy ducked her head to hide a flush.

  “As well,” Kris said dryly.

  Dorothy flashed her an apology and continued. “Internally, though the Catteni have larger hearts, lungs, and intestinal arrangements, Leon says that the main difference is the density of the brain matter. It’s also larger though similarly organized as ours are, as far as the position of the four major lobes is concerned. Leon was amazed at what damage a Catteni skull could take without permanent injury. I think,” and she paused, frowning slightly at what she did not voice, “that the initial injuries to the prisoners were attempts to recalibrate the instrument to human brains.”

  “Initial injuries?” Kris asked.

  “Yes,” and Dorothy seemed to wish to get over this topic very quickly, “though they would have been dead before their nervous systems could register much.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, and leave it at that, Kris,” Dorothy went on briskly. “Will Seissmann should not dwell on the details although he seems to want to…a part of his trauma.”

  “Will Seissmann?” Kris asked.

  “Yes, he and Dr. Ansible…”

  “Dr. Ansible?” Kris shot bolt upright. “But he’s—was, rather—at the observatory. Only I think he was away on some sort of a conference when the Catteni took Denver.”

  “Yes, he was and took refuge at Stamford,” Dorothy replied, nodding. “He tried to argue others he knew to follow Will’s example. I don’t know whether or not the dogmatic scientist has an innate
martyr complex but only a few would resort to the trick to save themselves.” She broke off with a sigh. “At any rate, we are able to put names to most of the Victims. But I need to know whatever details you may have, Zainal. They will be so helpful in correcting the trauma…if, indeed, we can.”

  Zainal shook his head. “I know little about such Eosi devices.” Then his expression changed into what Kris privately termed his “Catteni look,” cold, impassive, shuttered. “I do know—it is part of the Catteni history—that they have a device that increases and measures intelligence.”

  “Oh?” Dorothy leaned forward across the table in her eagerness. “Then it could possibly extract information, too?”

  Zainal blinked and his expression altered to a less forbidding one. He gave a slight smile. “It would seem likely since I only know of the one device. The Eosi used it on the primitive Catteni to make them useful as hosts.”

  “Really?” Dorothy’s expression was intensely eager as she leaned forward, encouraging Zainal to elaborate.

  “Yes, really. Roughly two thousand years ago, the Eosi discovered Catten and its inhabitants. We were little more than animals, a fact the Eosi never let us forget. About a thousand years ago, my family started keeping its records for our ancestor was one of the first hundred to have…his brains stimulated by the device. Each family keeps its own records—how many males it has delivered to the Eosi as hosts and details of children and matings.”

  “A thousand, two thousand years to develop into a space-going race? That’s impressive,” Dorothy said.

  “Humans did it without such assistance and that impresses me,” Zainal said with an odd laugh. “But that’s how the Emassi were developed. To serve the Eosi.”

  “They didn’t use the mind thingummy on the Drassi?” Kris asked.

  “To a lesser degree,” Zainal replied and turned to Dorothy. “There are three levels of Catteni now…Emassi,” and he touched his chest, “Drassi who are good at following orders but have little initiative or ambition: some were rejected for the Emassi ranks, but are able to be more than Drassi—ship captains and troop leaders. Then there’re the Rassi, who were left as they are.”

  “Rassi?” Kris echoed in surprise. “Never heard of them.”

  “They do not leave Catten and are as we all were when the Eosi found us.”

  “So you, as a species, did not evolve by yourselves? But had your intelligence stimulated?” Dorothy asked. She turned to Kris. “The Eosi evidently never heard of the Prime Directive.”

  Kris giggled. A psychologist who was a Trekkie?

  “The Prime Directive means an advanced culture is not supposed to interfere with the natural evolution of another species or culture,” Kris explained to Zainal.

  “The anthropologists will have a field day with this,” Dorothy added, jotting down another note. “Was one…application sufficient to sustain the higher level of intelligence?” she asked Zainal.

  He shrugged. “I do not know that.” Abruptly his expression again changed to his “Catteni look,” impassive, expressionless, shuttered. “When I had my full growth, I had to be presented to the Eosi, to see if I was acceptable as a host. And what training I should be given.”

  “And?” Dorothy prompted him when he paused.

  “I was passed, and I was to be trained to pilot spaceships.” Then his grin became devilish and his “Catteni look” completely disappeared. “My father and uncles had worried that Eosi would find me too curious and unacceptable.”

  “Too curious? Why would that make you unacceptable?” Dorothy asked.

  “Eosi tell Emassi what they need to know. That is all they are supposed to know.”

  “Before you start training? Surely you had basic schooling?” Dorothy asked, surprised.

  Zainal gave a snort. “Emassi are trained, not schooled.”

  “But didn’t you learn to read, write, and figure before you were fourteen?” Dorothy was having difficulty with this concept. “Surely you’ve had to learn mathematics to pilot spaceships?”

  Zainal nodded. “Emassi males are taught that much by their fathers…” He grimaced.

  “The hard way?” Kris said, miming the use of a force whip.

  “Yes, the hard way. One tends to pay strict attention to such lessons.”

  “And yet you were curious enough to want to know more?” Dorothy asked.

  “Because it was forbidden,” Zainal said, again with the twinkle in his eye. He must have been a handful as a youngster. Kris was also immensely relieved that his intelligence, which she suspected was a lot higher than hers, was natural, rather than artificially stimulated.

  “So the device assessed you. Can you give me any description of it?”

  Zainal looked down at his clasped hands as he organized his response. “I was taken into a very large white room with a big chair in the center and two Eosi, one at a control desk. I was strapped into the chair and then the device came down out of the ceiling to cover my head.”

  “Could you see what it looked like?” Dorothy asked, and Kris realized how eagerly she awaited details.

  Zainal shrugged. “A large shape,” and he made a bell form with both hands, “with many wires attached to it and dials.”

  “It covered your head or just your face?”

  “My head down to my shoulders. It was heavy.”

  “Did you see any blue lights?” Dorothy asked, scribbling again.

  “I saw nothing.”

  “And the sensations? What were they like?” She turned to Kris as Zainal once again considered his answer. “We’re trying to establish if any invasive probe is used: Needles or possibly electrical shock. We need to know whether the brain itself has been entered and damaged: whether or not there has been physical damage—rather than just memory, emotional, and fact erasures.”

  “There aren’t any scars on the Victims?” Kris asked, and Dorothy shook her head.

  “Not visible ones, certainly. Which is why Zainal’s recollection is so vital to us.”

  “Like electricity,” Zainal said, putting his hands to his temples and moving them up to the top of his broad skull. “And here,” and he touched the base of his cranium. “But no blood. No scar.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s interesting, very interesting,” and Dorothy wrote hastily for a minute. “No pain in the temples?”

  “Where?” Zainal asked.

  “Here,” and Kris touched the points.

  “Oh. Not pain, pressure.”

  “Isn’t that where lobotomies are done?” Kris apprehensively asked Dorothy.

  She nodded. “Anywhere else? Pressure or pain or odd sensations? I’m trying to discover just which areas might have been…touched by this device. If they coincide with what factual, emotional, and memory centers humans have,” she added as an aside to Kris. “There are more parallels than you might guess.”

  “A sort of stabbing, very quick, to the…” and Zainal put his hand to the top of his head, “inside of my head.”

  “Quite possibly a general stimulation,” Dorothy murmured. Then, with a kind smile, went on. “So you were assessed and passed. Then what happened?”

  “I was told who to report to for training.” Then he grinned. “I know that my uncles were disappointed that I was acceptable. My father was relieved. More glory for our branch of the family.”

  “How old are you now?” Dorothy asked, a question which Kris had never bothered to ask.

  Zainal hesitated and then with a grin and a shrug, “Thirty-five. I have been exploring this galaxy for sixteen years.”

  “Sixteen?” Kris was surprised.

  “That would make only four years of formal training? Of any sort?” Dorothy asked, surprised.

  “Three. I have been here two years now. Two Catteni years.” And he grinned at Kris.

  “Pilot training is all you had?”

  “I learned what I needed to know to do the job which the Eosi ordered for me. I worked hard and learned well,” Zainal said with a touch of pride.<
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  “Amazing,” Dorothy murmured as she made more notes.

  “But you know a lot about a lot of things,” Kris protested.

  Zainal shrugged. “Once I am officially a pilot,” and he gave Kris a mischievous look out of the corner of his eye, “it was no longer wrong for me to learn what I wish so long as I pilot well. The Eosi,” and his face slid briefly into Catteni impassivity again, “require their hosts to have been many places and seen many things.”

  “Then you don’t have any knowledge about your own body? No biology?” Dorothy asked.

  “Bi-o-lo-gy?” Zainal repeated.

  Dorothy explained, and he laughed.

  “As long as my body does what I need it to do, I do not ask how it does it.”

  Both Dorothy and Kris smiled.

  “When I compare what our astronauts went through to qualify as space pilots…” and Dorothy raised one hand in amazement.

  “The earliest aviators flew by the seat of their pants,” Kris remarked.

  “Seat of their pants?” Zainal asked, frowning so Dorothy and Kris took turns explaining the meaning.

  “I did that, too, when training did not cover all I needed to know. So I made those who build the spacecraft show me how everything worked,” Zainal said.

  “And those…engineers…were also trained by families who were engineers?” Dorothy asked, and Zainal nodded. “Very restrictive educational system. Only a need to know. However did they manage?”

  “The Eosi do the manage part,” Zainal said in a caustic tone. “Emassi follow orders just like Drassi and even the Rassi.”

  “It’s amazing even the Emassi can do what they do,” Kris remarked, regarding Zainal with even more respect.

  “Yes, it is,” Dorothy agreed, “and we tend to rely on the educational process…or the genetic heritage,” and she gave Kris a look. “Depending on which school of thought you adhere to.” She gave another sigh and then said more briskly, including Kris, “Are there any special aptitudes which Catteni have which Humans do not? For example, the way the Deski can climb vertically and have extraordinary hearing?”