Freedom's Choice Read online

  CHAPTER 1

  As he was supposed to do, the Deski immediately informed the camp leader of what he had heard on the height above Camp Rock.

  “You heard a ship come down?” Worrell asked, rubbing his face hard in an effort to comprehend what Coo was telling him.

  “Come down,” Coo said, nodding vigorously, “not big. Not you-zoo-al,” he added, struggling with the syllables.

  “Not usual?” Worrell repeated while Coo nodded with a Deski-style grin which Worrell was now accustomed to. “You mean, not a drop?” Coo shook his head and then nodded, to be sure he was understood.

  Worrell sighed with relief. The damned Catteni had speeded up their deposits of “colonists” over the past month to the point where there was barely time to assimilate each new delivery.

  “No drop. No long down. Come,” and Coo gestured with his thin, oddly knuckled digits, swooping them down to close with his other hand, pause briefly, before elevating it again. “Go. Soft.” And now he put a hand to his ear and pretended to listen hard.

  Instantly Worry began to fret. His nickname was less a contraction of his surname than a description of his chief trait.

  “A quick drop, then. A few people at the most. Only what kind?” he asked himself more than Coo. “Nearby?”

  “Not near-near.” Coo dropped his head, orienting himself, then shifted his feet slightly to the right, so that he was facing due north. The Deski ability to know where they were was an extremely useful trait on Botany. They could get themselves back to the main settlements, like Camp Ayres Rock, from any point, so it had become common practice to include at least one Deski in every scouting expedition.

  Now Coo extended both long, double-jointed arms, kept the right one facing due north, and angled his left arm almost due west. “There. Not near-near.”

  “Really?” Worry rose and patted Coo’s bony shoulder. “Real good, Coo. Thanks.”

  “Good job done?”

  “Beaut job, Coo.” Worrell turned up the light so he could see the map hung on his wall. Much of the continent it represented was still blank but, over the past few wintry months, details had been added by scouting teams. “If we’re here, Coo,” and Worrell put his finger on the cave system of Camp Rock, “how far west?”

  Coo extended his head toward the map on a neck that seemed elastic, put one digit on the camp, and then slid it in the appropriate direction. “No more far.”

  “Really?” Worrell felt anxiety bloom in his gut. The point Coo had indicated was where Zainal and his team had met the scout ship: the one sent to take him back to his duties as a Catteni Emassi. “Thanks, Coo. You’d best get back on duty.”

  “I go.” And the Deski slipped quietly from the room.

  Worrell glanced briefly at his timepiece. Dawn was too far away for him to send a squad to check the landing site. The night crawlers would be all too eager to catch anything that traveled aboveground. Not even a large team, stamping heavily, would escape those winter-hungry denizens.

  Then Worrell chuckled to himself. If Catteni had indeed landed someone for some purpose…like getting in touch with Zainal again…they’d’ve had a welcome they didn’t expect.

  “Serve ’em right, too,” Worrell said, though he was not by nature a vindictive man. In a considerably more cheerful mood, he returned to his bed and went soundly back to sleep.

  * * *

  Worrell would have liked to have Zainal to send down to investigate the reported landing but he and Kris Bjornsen were out with their team on another long scouting trip: looking for more caves, or barns, or rocky terrain to house the settlers continuously supplied them by the Catteni. So he sent for Mic Rowland, one of the Fifth Drop group. He’d been a stuntman for the movies and could be trusted to observe, be discreet, and get himself and a team out of trouble. Worry told him about the late-night landing and where Coo thought the ship had touched down.

  “If a Deski said it landed there, we’ll find some signs.” Mic was far too accustomed to working with all-sorts, as he called them, not to appreciate talent wherever it was found.

  “Even scout ships leave a stench behind them,” Worrell agreed. “Take a party of those newbies with you. Give ’em a chance to hunt.”

  “Sure thing,” Mic said with a businesslike nod.

  Worrell grinned when he saw Rowland tag the first five people in the breakfast line whose new-looking coveralls marked them as the latest drop. He did let then eat first before he took them off.

  Worrell knew the trip would do them good. So many got to Botany still full of their Earthside sabotage activities and how many Cats they’d injured or killed and other kinds of derring-do, and they needed to be taken down a few pegs to the realities of Botany. Fortunately more were adapting well to the new world than Worry would have expected.

  What worried the Australian, and the other camp managers, was the indisputable fact that the Catteni were making more frequent deposits of dissidents. Zainal had been surprised, too, and had suggested, slyly, that it was because Earth was showing far more rebellion than any other race the Catteni had subjugated. So there were more rebels to be exiled. So far the colony had been able to absorb quantities of both human and alien species, though they had followed Zainal’s suggestion to let the belligerent and uncooperative Turs go off on their own in the small groups in which they arrived. However, the population of Botany had risen from the original drop of 582 to nearly 9,000.

  Worrell worried all day over what Mic Rowland would find. He also widened the perimeter guard, in case of infiltration, warning them vaguely that someone had seen Turs prowling about. It was possible, in Worrell’s view of human frailties, that even some specimens of Mankind could have been brainwashed into cooperating with their Catteni masters, and try to slip into the colony to cause trouble. That actually made more sense to him than a secret landing of Catteni, since they would be instantly noticed. So far Zainal remained the only one of his race resident on Botany. And he had barely escaped being killed that first day. Which was fortunate, since he had proved so helpful in the first days, and ever since: even to rejecting a chance to leave.

  Mic Rowland returned with enough game to justify the hunt. Dismissing his weary group, he caught Worrell’s glance, jerked his head toward Worrell’s office on the height, and moved quickly to join the camp manager there. He dropped the rocksquats with the cooks, but not the sack in his right hand.

  Once they were private, Mic upended the sack on the table and grinned at Worrell’s surprise.

  “Boots?”

  “That was all that was left. And not the same sort they issued us,” Mic said, “much better made. And this.” He took from his chest pocket a very thin plate about seven centimeters long, and maybe two thick. “I’d say it was a comunit, or some sort of call device. Maybe even an implant. I rubbed the gore off.” Then he picked up one of the boots, which was scored as if something hot, or very strong, had twined around it, leaving deep grooves. He twisted the heel and the whole lower part of the shoe swiveled free, showing a compact kit of small tools embedded in the material of the thick sole. “There’s something in each boot.” He picked up the smallest pair and opened the sole of one, revealing its contents to Worrell. “This looks like a drug injector.” He opened the other, which contained two small vials. “And the drugs.”

  “Drugs? Yes, well, I’ll give that stuff to Dane.” Worrell counted eight boots in an effort to defuse his mounting anxiety. “Dropped a team, did they? To do what?” Though Worrell had an awful suspicion his first guess might prove correct. Would Mic know?

  Mic shrugged. “You been here longer. An educated guess would be they were after Zainal.” When he caught Worrell’s sharp look, he grinned. “I heard. Damn few would have stayed if they had a chance to leave.”

  “Hmmm. No other…remains?”

  Mic shook his head. “Some bits of metal, probably from whatever they were wearing but even Catteni material is edible by the crawlers. Boots are just a touch too tough for ’em.”
And he flicked his fingers at one. “Big mothers wore ’em. Big even for Catteni. They have goon squads, too.”

  “One pair is much smaller. Would they have sent a woman with them?”

  Mic shrugged. “Who knows what Catteni will do.” He closed his lips on whatever he had been about to add and shrugged again.

  Worrell could very well imagine what had been left unsaid. Before his deportation, Worrell had seen enough of the higher-ranking Catteni women to know that Kris Bjornsen was a lot better-looking than the best of them. Many disapproved of her liaison with Zainal but no one had the gall, other than Dick Aarens, to complain or dispute it.

  “Thanks, Mic. Did the others notice?”

  “Couldn’t fail to, not with those empty boots scattered around. I don’t think the newbies noticed that the footwear isn’t the same stuff we have. So I’m reporting a missing patrol to you. Right?”

  “Too right,” Worrell said, “and I trust you rammed home the lesson?”

  “Never miss an opportunity like that, Worry.” And Mic left with a big grin on his face.

  Worrell made a mental note that Mic was ready for more responsibility. First he dialed Zainal’s team number for them to report in and then got in touch with Chuck Mitford.

  “Well, put ’em in a safe place, Worry,” Mitford said, “until either Zainal or I can have a look-see. Just give the medical junk to Dane. He might know what it is and maybe have a use for it. I suppose you better send those tools down here to Narrow for the engineering types. They could use some high-quality stuff despite some of the new items they’ve been able to turn out recently. I’ll have to figure out a way to explain their…ah…acquisition.” He contradicted himself a moment later. “I don’t have to explain anything, do I?”

  “Sure don’t, sarge.”

  Worrell grinned at the comment. In one of the recent drops there had been several ex-admirals, ex-generals, and assorted other brass, most of whom, when they had a chance to recover from the trials of their journey, were quite willing to refer respectfully to Mitford as “sergeant.” Those who didn’t soon learned how much was owed that sergeant, or found themselves settling into perhaps less amenable campsites. No one—except someone on sick call—shirked assigned duties and everyone took a turn at hunting, preparing food, sentry, and whatever other duty they were thought capable of managing. When he hadn’t anything else to fuss about though, Worrell worried that some sort of high-level executive type might try to bounce Mitford out of his current eminence. Of course, if Mitford decided on his own to step down, that had to be entirely his option. So far. Mitford’s management—and he had listened to suggestions from just about everyone in the first couple of drops—had worked pretty damn well.

  “Sarge, should we worry about human infiltrators?” he asked, hoping to have such a notion knocked down.

  Mitford’s snort made the diaphragm of the portable phone vibrate, and Worrell began to relax.

  “Not unless they can run faster than a crawler can grab. And if there were four Catteni, they’d’ve been heavy enough on those big feet of theirs to have alerted every scavenger four fields over.” There was a brief pause. “Worry, you can’t actually believe any human being would work with the Catteni, do you?”

  “There’ve been traitors, renegades, spies, quislings in every war, sarge. Why not this one?”

  Mitford cursed briefly but colorfully. “You could be right. Damn it. Only why send in infiltrators by special delivery? You could as easily send ’em in a regular drop. Anyway, why mess us up? Zainal says the Catteni prefer colonies to prosper so they can come in and take over when one gets going well.” Pause. “Furthermore,” and Mitford’s tone was adamant, “they’ll have their work cut out for them if they try that tactic on my planet.”

  Nor would anyone dispute Mitford’s use of the possessive pronoun.

  “We’d be with you four hundred percent, sarge.”

  Another brief pause. “I’ll tell Easley we’d better be double careful checking IDs on the next drops. Right?”

  With that he cut off, leaving Worrell not quite as anxious as he had been: no one was going to take over “my planet.” He grinned at the outrage in Mitford’s voice. Scouts had come across the remains of several rough camps in the hills, above the level the night scavengers inhabited, and the skeletons of those who hadn’t survived. But everything was much better organized now, especially the drops. Peter Easley, a former personnel manager of a huge international firm, had been responsible for that. His second morning on Botany he had sought Mitford out and made suggestions on how to simplify and speed up the influx, and how to catch the signs of those still in trauma, needing counseling. He’d deferentially organized additional men and women experienced in crowd control and personnel handling and passed on recommendations of other specialists that Mitford might want to interview himself. Mitford had turned the whole problem of drops over to Easley. The complexity of resettlement, after another of Easley’s sensible recommendations, had gone to Yuri Palit, previously a UN resettlement manager for displaced persons. There were now enough degree engineers, aviation and production-line mechanics, and inventor types to keep even Dick Aarens from getting cocky while speeding up their output.

  With enough hand-held communication units available, scouting teams could report in to Mitford on any unusual occurrences, as Worrell had just done, and the sergeant had actually been able to keep “business hours.”

  “I’ll get enough time yet,” Mitford had recently confided to Worrell on a trip through Camp Rock to Camp Silo, “to lead a recon group myself.”

  “Is that what you’d really like to do?” Worrell had asked, since that was the first time he’d ever heard something akin to a complaint from the man.

  “All this brand-new world and everyone else is getting to see it first!” Mitford had flung his hand up in frustration. “Well, I get closer to it all the time.” Then he’d grinned. “And I get less and less paperwork to do.”

  So now Mitford had more time to spend to organize the teams and send expeditions in every direction, trying to locate more bases, especially to replace Camp Rock, which was established just above a deep gorge that showed the scars from centuries of spring flooding. Zainal and Kris Bjornsen were on just such a scouting mission, hoping to find a site that was not an installation of the “Mech Makers” or “Farmers,” as many people were beginning to call them because of the agricultural emphasis of the planet.

  Worrell packed the boots back into the sack and he peered more closely at the plate. There did seem to be round indentations on one end: possibly touch points. He counted nine—as many as a numeric pad. He was sorely tempted but decided against any whimsical experimentation. He’d sent out the recall sequence, and Zainal and Kris should be back in a few days.

  * * *

  The team was at that time in a state of exultation, for they had managed to complete a difficult ascent up an irregular cliff mass and now looked down into a long valley that bore no traces of the neatness which typified the land the Mech Makers farmed. Their ascent had been a quick decision, prompted by certain anomalies that both Zainal and Whitby, the mountaineering expert of the team, had noticed. The first was a stream bubbling vigorously from what seemed like a solid rock face. Investigating, they found the stream had bored a channel through the stony barrier.

  “That’s not the kind of rock that water erodes,” Whitby said. “It was carved somehow.”

  The second curiosity was that the high mound of rubble that barred their way couldn’t, in Whitby’s estimation, have been caused by a natural landslide or depression, and he called their attention to the top of the cliffs, which did look shorn.

  “Could have been an earthquake,” Kris had suggested.

  “We’ve seen no other subsidence on our way here,” Basil Whitby had said, shaking his head, glancing along the cliffs on either side. “Not a landslide, not with that kind of stone.” Then he grimaced at the tumbled rocks of the barrier.

  “Don’t see
any kind of road leading up here,” Sarah said, swinging around to be sure.

  “As if mechanicals left any tracks with those air cushions,” Joe Marley reminded her, and she made a face at him. “Not even a mark where a big mother would have parked for a time.”

  “Animals do leave tracks,” she replied.

  “And we haven’t seen many of them lately, now have we?” he said in good-natured sparring.

  “There have to be other animals than loo-cows, rocksquats, night crawlers, and those vicious avians. Even I know that much about ecological balance.”

  “Maybe,” and Leila Massuri’s tone was cautious, “that barrier’s there for a good reason.” She and Whitby were the new members of the Kris-Zainal team. Leila contributed more to the pot with her crossbow prowess than to discussions.

  “Keeping something in? Or out?” Joe asked, accepting the premise.

  “We find out,” said Zainal, and began to pass out appropriate equipment for scaling the barrier. Though the air cushion of their all-terrain vehicle allowed it to traverse very rough terrain, the gradient of the rocky obstacle in front of them was too acute.

  They were far better equipped now for explorations than they had been in the initial days after being dumped on Botany. Leila slung her crossbow across her back, and made sure that the quarrel pouch was fastened, while Kris loaded her pouch with pebbles for her sling and slung the rope coil Zainal handed her over one shoulder. Whitby had fashioned himself a proper climbing pick, which he slid into the loop at his belt, stuffed pitons into thigh pockets, and secured the short compound bow and quiver of arrows to the harness on his back. Sarah and Joe had slings as well as boomerangs, a utensil that was becoming more popular: Fek and Slav armed themselves with lances and hatchets. They all carried blanket rolls and small sacks with food and water.