Freedom’s Choice (3 page)

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.

The climb up the irregular and often shifting cliffside had taken most of the morning but the view at the top was more than worth the effort. Below them lay a peaceful valley, obviously undisturbed by the agricultural mechanicals that dominated the slopes behind them. At the narrow end of the valley they could see a distant waterfall, its descent a murmur as it fell into a small lake. The stream leading from it meandered down the far, lower side of the valley and blundered into the cliff, answering the question of its origin. The valley floor was interspersed with flat grasslands and some of the odd-looking thickets that in their season would bear edible berries. But the most unusual feature was the little groves of what Kris called lodge-pole trees: straight tall trunks that flattened at the very top into a thick crest of narrow branches fanning out, and were covered in needles
during the warmer weather. Specimens did grow in some of the hedgerows that lined the mechanicals' fields but only as single trees, not in copses like these, and certainly not as many groves as could be seen from their vantage point. A pungently scented breeze cooled their sweaty faces.

“It's as good as Shangri-la,” Sarah McDouall said, beaming down at the valley. “It's lovely. So peaceful, so…”

“Secret?” Joe supplied. “I wonder what else we'll find down there.”