Freedom's Challenge (36 page)

“With the Bubble gone?” And Gino's normally swarthy skin paled.

“Yes, damn it. To see if it's gone. We've got to know
what action to take if it is. That is, unless the Farmers vouchsafe to give us some indication that we don't need it anymore.”

Kris held up her hand. “I'm getting something…”

“Look!” And Jim was pointing to the bridge screen, which showed the moon that was coming up, and a small sparkle that couldn't be debris since it moved with astonishing speed on a steady, inward-bound direction.

“Oh, my God,” and Ray's voice was an awed whisper. “Have they been watching all along?”

“Does it mean that Zainal succeeded?” Jim Rastancil asked.

For the first time in her life, Kris fainted.

•   •   •

SHE CAME TO, LYING ON THE COT IN RAY'S spartan accommodation at the hangar, with a folded towel on her forehead. She could hear male voices beyond the open door. Carefully, hoping the attack of vertigo had passed, she sat up, holding the towel in place as it felt good on her forehead, and swung her legs over the side of the cot. However did Ray get a decent night's sleep on this thing? Then memory flooded back, and she whimpered.

An anxious Ray Scott was instantly beside her. “Sorry, Kris.”

That was when they both felt the almost electrical tingle that they had experienced before.

“We need more than
that
,” Ray shouted, raising a fist above his head in challenge.

But that was all they got, and everyone they checked with over the next half hour confirmed the sensation. The Council called a meeting of its main members in the hangar as soon as they could get there. Fortunately a good deal of Retreat's population was asleep and might even have been oblivious to the mild shock. Others called in, having seen what they thought were “shooting stars.”
Blandly, Gino had agreed that that's what they were. Few realized that the Bubble was gone, and Ray thought a general announcement could wait until the Council could figure out what to do.

Dorothy Dwardie took the chair next to Kris at the end of the table. The psychologist had been studying notes on her day's clinical sessions with some of the more unresponsive orphans when she'd felt the tingle. Unusual enough a sensation to make her want to find out if anyone else had experienced this phenomenon. She wasn't far from the infirmary so she opened a com link to the duty officer at the infirmary who had just been told to inform Leon Dane of a special meeting at the hangar. Dr. Dwardie ought to go, too. She was Council, wasn't she? And, yes, she'd felt the tingle, too. It had happened once before that she knew of. Then she excused herself to answer another message. No sooner had Dorothy closed the link than she was buzzed, and hurriedly informed that she was needed at the hangar.

Walking down from her cabin, it took Dorothy a few hundred yards to realize that she could see the stars. Then the moon came shining through a gap in the lodge-pole trees. She ran the rest of the way to the hangar. She arrived breathless and took the first available seat, which was beside Kris.

“The Bubble's down?” she murmured, and Kris nodded without looking directly at Dorothy.

Then everyone heard the unmistakable sound of a ship taking off, and the brilliance of the propulsion units in the darkness of the landing field made them cover their eyes.

“Who's going where?” Dorothy softly asked, trying to squelch a feeling of anxiety.

“Checking on the com sat. Everything else up there came down in a shower,” Kris said.

“I felt the oddest tingle, like an electric current running through me,” Dorothy added.

“The Farmers do that now and then. Counting noses,” Kris replied.

“The Farmers? Have we had a message from them after all?” She leaned toward Kris, having just realized that Kris sounded very subdued. “You look awfully pale.” She paused a moment, blinked as she came to a logical conclusion. “How would the Farmers know we don't need the Bubble anymore? If that is the case, then your Zainal succeeded?”

Just then Ray Scott's characteristic calm deserted him, and he banged his fist on the table.

“How the hell can we construe a reassuring message from one goddamned short tingle!” he said in a loud, frustrated voice to Judge Iri Bempechat beside him. “Are they so goddamned busy monitoring the rest of the universe that we don't qualify for an explanation?”

Judge Iri Bempechat raised a gentling hand. “The message, I would think, is clear. We no longer require the protection of the Bubble. They've done a planet-wide search and counted noses again. It is my opinion that we should be grateful for what they have done, instead of—if I may be allowed to use the vulgar expression—bitching about it.”

“The Judge is right.” And Kris rose to her feet, having heard all the wrangling and speculation she could stand. Not even the calm Dorothy had been oozing in her direction had helped. “And it took the Bubble away because Zainal and the others succeeded in…doing whatever they planned to the Eosi.”

“JUST…” Ray raised his voice above the immediate babble of comment, “in case, I want the crews of all the other ships standing by and ready.”

“Why?” Dorothy asked, almost amused. Obviously
that was what an ex-admiral immediately thought of as appropriate. “There're too many of us now to be evacuated and where would we go?”

“Earth, of course,” Geoffrey Ainger said, disgusted with her obtuseness.

“I dropped. I stay,” Kris said and walked out of the meeting.

AFTER THAT SCARE WITH THE THREE bogies looking as if they were coming straight at them, the ships had not so much as hailed the scout, so they had proceeded on their return to the asteroid belt.

“I don't see why we need to pick up Baby now,” Chuck said since that would lengthen the journey home.

Bert nudged him in the small of his back and held up one finger, making a grimace, and two, altering his expression of a beatific smile. Then he gestured to his whole body and winced.

Chuck Mitford had never considered himself slow in comprehension but the fright of that squadron bearing down on them—and then passing by, close but no cigar—made him interested in getting back to Botany as fast as possible. So Zainal wanted Baby back. Hell, why would Kamiton want this ship returned? He had a massive navy to pick from. But Bert's other point—that Zainal wanted to be as fully recovered as possible from his “disguise”—made more sense. Although Chuck had been there when the first layer of the “disguise” was laid on, so to speak,
he had been shocked when he'd seen Zainal in the cabin light.

They hadn't dared bring any Botany foods on Kamiton's vessel but there were some on board Baby. Chuck had some fresh goods in the galley, having enjoyed the daily haggle with the scruffy providers who brought their carts and baskets around to the occupied vehicles. A lot wasn't very fresh, probably rejected from the main markets in the city, but it was better than what was served in the mess where Chuck was permitted to eat as a Drassi crewman. Years of eating marine chow had inured him to practically anything remotely edible. Some of the messes served to the crewmen were definitely remotely edible. But he pretended the same lip-smacking enjoyment the others did, even if he didn't eat as many servings as the others did. He ate more slowly, though, so as they slopped food into their mouths, he seemed to be keeping pace with them.

He made a stew of the vegetables, then whipped it into submission as a puree which Zainal's abused intestines should be able to manage. He served the meal in small portions and often.

Then they encountered a squadron of mining vessels, and Bert had to scramble for his hiding place as the larger ship informed them that they were sending over a pinnace.

“We could outrun them,” Chuck said, thinking that their luck must have run out. The bogies hadn't bothered them but mining ships could only be searching for the precious metals that had been found by Emassi Venlik. There were times when one could get too clever by half, Chuck thought.

“No. They have missile launchers and tractor beams. We're a sitting duck for the one and too close to avoid the other,” Zainal said and opened a line to the DMV, the
leading ship, jovially awaiting the arrival of the pinnace and any news they might have.

The news was, indeed, that the Eosi had all been executed and every captain was free to do what he wished from now on.

Captain Kabas was half drunk when he arrived, and he and his pilot, Wenger, who was completely sober, brought the same nauseating stuff which Chuck remembered all too well from his stay at the boondock field they'd first landed on at Catten.

It was in character for Zainal to demand all the details.

If some of them didn't quite jibe with the facts as both Chuck and Zainal knew them, that was all to the good. They did hear, which was excellent news and their cheers were genuine, that most of the High Emassi who had not been part of the coup now backed the Supreme Emassi Kamiton to the last male of the line.

When finally the conversation got around to Zainal's presence in this area, he replied that he had been exploring in a distant quadrant, had seen the asteroid belt, and wondered if he should report it when he got back. Some of the bigger rocks looked as if they might contain useful ores.

“Well, now,” Captain Kabas said, “you can leave that to us. We're all our own masters now, you know. I wouldn't stop you going your own way.”

“Good of you.” Zainal turned to Chuck in a semi-confidential air. “We saw a place we'd rather like to be masters of, come to that.”

He lifted his mug, its opacity hiding the fact that Zainal's apparently hearty use of the contents had been faked, in a toast. “May you find what you deserve, captain,” he said.

The captain who had continued to sip while he gave details of the momentous news had now gone through
most of a new bottle. He laughed raucously at Zainal's toast and tipped back the last of his current glass. Gave a huge burp and, bloodshot yellow eyes turning up into his head, slumped slowly over the table.

“Help Wenger get him into the pinnace, Drassi,” Zainal said, slurring his words as if he had had more than enough, too. He waved them to remove the unconscious man.

“Were I you,” the pilot said, “I'd get out of this area as fast as you can fly this thing. Captain ain't the only one is worried about you being nosing around this belt.”

“Agreed,” Chuck said as he carried the captain's feet and helped the pilot arrange him in a seat.

When he returned, Zainal was already in the pilot's chair. “Fasten up, Chuck, we're making all due speed out of here.”

“The pilot suggested that, too.”

•   •   •

WHEN THEY FELT THEY HAD PUT ENOUGH distance between them, Zainal did insist on turning back, to collect Baby, despite Bert taking Chuck's part in trying to dissuade him.

They used a huge rock to hide their return, but their encounter with the miners had also skewed them far from the course that would bring them to the hollow asteroid. There had been a specific way in and through the belt to reach their destination. So they were forced to prowl counter to the spin of the belt until, just about the time they would have been in danger of being spotted by the miners, they found it.

Chuck insisted on remaining with Zainal.

“You need feeding. I'm not going to answer to Kris if you return like a goddamned scarecrow.”

“Scarecrow?”

Chuck explained. “Maybe even, you'll get a chance now to see one on Earth. Boy, while I was glad to be in
the thick of it on Botany, I wouldn't mind seeing a scarecrow again, or having a rock in the porch hammock. If it's still there.”

Piloting Baby, Bert kept on their port side, as escort, so that when Chuck noticed Zainal was having trouble keeping awake, he suggested putting on the auto-pilot and having something to eat. In the spicy rocksquat stew he'd heated up, he mixed into Zainal's plate a few dollops of a sedative that Leon had included in the first-aid supplies as a painkiller.

It did take some maneuvering to hoist the inert Catten from behind the table and into his bunk. Chuck took off the boots, loosened the belt, and covered the snoring man. He caught himself wondering if Zainal always snored and how Kris…he censored the rest of that and went forward to inform Bert what he'd done.

“Good idea, sarge, even if he will give you hell when he wakes. Okay, now here's how I pilot both ships,” Bert said and gave Chuck detailed instructions. “We've some days to go on this leg so let's arrange a schedule for each of us to get some shut-eye. I know Zainal was going to do one with me. We're unlikely to run into another thing in this zone. Nothing but planet-less primaries. No good to anyone.”

“I got enough sleep at the field,” Chuck said. “I'll take first watch for us both. Okay?”

“Right.”

And that is how they managed during the twenty-two hours Zainal remained asleep.

He was mad as hell at Chuck for dosing him but he calmed down when he realized that his energy had improved, as had his appetite. And that each of the pilots had also had some sleep.

Chuck's much vaunted six-hour requirement had him up and ready to take over from Zainal who tried, but not too hard, to continue for a full eight hours. Bert was
asleep in Kamiton's ship but Chuck insisted he could handle anything, and besides, he'd wake Zainal if there were any alarms.

•   •   •

THE FIRST THAT THE COLONISTS AT RETREAT knew of the success of the mission was when a cruiser of the Catteni navy contacted them via the com sat, requesting permission to land on Botany.

“RAY!” Matt Su roared and grinned at the scowl on the ex-admiral's face as Scott careened into the bridge room. “We got a cruiser of the Catteni navy asking permission to land.”

Ray ran to com desk. “Identify,” he snapped in Catteni.