Freedom's Landing

Chapter Eight

At fourth moonrise three days after Mitford had sent out five teams to search and disable, the sergeant was reviewing plans: renovations made by the three architects among them for the abattoir barns. He'd sent a group of engineer types to bring back some of the most interesting junk. The processing equipment in the slaughterhouse had been completely dismantled although they'd have to have serious overcrowding before anyone who knew what had happened in that plant would live in it. However, there'd be more folks who hadn't a clue.

He heard one of the sentries hiss at him.

"Sarge, something's coming."

"Well, don't tell me. Challenge them, but Mitford reached for his spear with one hand and eased the knife out of its sheath with the other F"Who goes there?" the sentry yelled.

Yells answered him but not the passwords. He ducked.

"Shit, Sarge, they ain't ours," and he ducked behind the prominence on his height. "RED ALERT!" He clanged fiercely on the metal alarm triangle set on the height.

I"WHICH WAY ARE THEY COMING, GODDAMMIT, RAINEY!" Mitford roared.

"ATTACK! ATTACK! TAKE YOUR STATIONS!" It was fortunate that, even with many out on exploratory patrols, there was usually a handful of people awake at any hour of the twenty-eight.

"COMING DOWN THE RAVINE, SARGE! Omigod, and Rainey ducked as a spear clattered on the rock beyond him. "They're shooting at ME!" More spears came spinning out of the darkness, aimed at the source of light which was the "office' fire. Crouching to make a smaller target, Mitford dashed forward. In the stocks, Aarens was shouting to be released as two spent arrows and another spear fell close to him.

"C' MON," Mitford roared at the men and women rushing out of the main caves, spears and knives ready, just as they'd been drilled. With grim satisfaction, Mitford knew there'd be no complaints about his drilling them after this. Only how many were attacking? he wondered, as he pounded up the ravine and grinned as he saw the first attackers appear on the edge of the lighted areas. A good fight, that's what he'd been missing. Seeing a target, he paused long enough to launch his spear at an oncoming body. It pierced the chest of the leader who dropped like a stone. Now the sentries on the heights were using their weapons, firing arrows and launching their spears into the crowd. Then the next of the attackers was howling as he charged at Mitford.

The sergeant met the frenzied attack: the man had a knife in each hand but he hadn't the first clue about effective fighting, slashing the air in the hope that one knife would connect. Mitford ducked, sidestepped and then plunged his knife into the attacker's ribs. The man screamed, an awful wailing desperate sound, knives falling from strengthless hands as he fell back. Mitford remained in the crouching position as he quickly jerked his knife free and then tackled the next attacker. He was peripherally aware that his force was pressing in behind him. Then a stone, thrown from the heights, bounced off his shoulder and he staggered against the wall of the ravine.

"HEY, WATCH WHERE YOU'RE AIMING," he roared as he saw Bart, Taglione, and quite likely Sandy Areson swarming past him.

It was over quickly: the attackers had obviously had no real plan in mind. They'd seen lights and smelt cooking, then attacked at a time when they thought everyone would be asleep.

There were fourteen bodies to be buried and three whose wounds could be sewn up. They were starving and even their Catteni-issue clothing was torn and incredibly filthy. When the sun came up three women crept in begging for help. They were in a dreadful condition, not only starved but beaten and repeatedly abused. Mitford approvingly watched Patti Sue gently leading one of them, little more than a child, into the kitchen for probably the first real food she'd eaten since being dropped.

Only five of the defenders had been wounded: two of those by "friendly fire' from stones thrown down into the ravine. Mitford's shoulder was sore but he didn't mention it to Matt Dargle who was busy sewing up knife cuts.

Another man had tripped in the dark and broken his leg and was cursing his clumsiness while the bone was set.

"Sorry about that, Sarge," he said when Mitford walked round the infirmary to check the damages.

"Weren't you right behind me up that ravine, Bart?" Mitford asked as he watched Matt Dargle sewing up the nasty slice on the black man's arm. "Teach you to keep your guard up.

"Naw, they was aiming at you," Bart said, grinning.

"Saving my skin, were you? Good man!" Mitford gave his uninjured shoulder a quick squeeze of appreciation The battle had roused the entire camp, so the cooks made an early breakfast for everyone.

Mitford took advantage of the meal to drive home the lesson that they had to maintain vigilance.

"Good reaction, quick response time, folks, but they never should have got as far as the ravine at all. I think we'll move the guard perimeter out a bit."

"What about traps, Sarge? Maybe we could rig some on the approaches?"

"Draw me a plan," Mitford said, nodding approval.

"You know, with so many out on patrol, didn't we leave ourselves a bit thin of fighting men here?" Sandy asked.

"Not when you were right in vanguard yourself," Mitford said in blunt approval.

"It's my home, too," Sandy said with a shrug. "Besides, you drilled all of us!"

"Didn't I just?" Mitford said with a grin.

"All right, all right, we bitched," she said, flapping her hand at his inference. "You knew what you were doing.

I guess we've got a bit cocky-' "We all know better now, don't we?" Mitford said, glancing around him. "Hell, they didn't even get as far as my office, did they? Now I need a disposal patrol."

"You mean burial party?" Dowdall asked, looking up from honing his blade.

"No, disposal. I want those bodies dumped four fields over at least, Dowdall."

"Aw, Sarge," Dowdall groaned in protest at being tacitly assigned the duty "Don't want that carrion stinking up our camp, do we?

You, you, you, you and you," and he ended up with a full squad.

"Take care of it before the sun warms "em too much." As soon as he got back to his office to write up the incident, Aarens began his complaint.

"You'd've let me die here, unable to defend myself!

And you call yourself civilized! Think you're such a big leader." Mitford walked straight up to Aarens, jerking him by the hair of his head so Aarens couldn't evade his eyes.

"Look, you sorry piece of shit. You keep on this way and I'll stake your living body out right beside the others." Aarens gasped.

"You wouldn't dare?"

"Oh, wouldn't I? Just give me an excuse. Just give me one!" Mitford knew that his rage was fuelled more by a reaction to the stress of the surprise attack and the run-off of adrenalin in his system. He oughtn't to lose control by taking it out on Aarens, but better him than anyone else.

"Hey, Sarge, take it easy. Take it easy," and though there was a quaver in the man's voice, his conciliatory manner caused Mitford to let his hair go. "You don't want to waste me, Sarge. Not now. Not when you're going to need me."

"Need - -YOU?"

"Yeah, me, Sarge," and Aarens actually grinned. "Like I told you when I got here, I'm a mechanical genius. I can make machinery work when no-one else can. I don't even need manuals to tell me how things work. It's a knack I've got. I used to make big money back in the States, just telling executives how to improve the efficiency of their production lines.

Look, I heard what you were discussing with Mack Su, Capstan and the others. They're all desk jockeys. Me, I'm the guy on the floor who carries out their notions. And makes "em work. You don't want to waste the one real talent you've got who can give you lights for the caves? Hot water! Distant early warning devices."

"DEWs? How could you do that?" Mitford was suspicious but certainly willing to use Aarens - if the waste-of-space could produce the goods.

"You could mount solar panels - and their collectors, of course all around the camp," and Aarens gestured with his stocked hands, "with a circuit, say, of a lighter wire. Anything breaking that wire and the alarm sounds Simple."

"At night?" Aarens shook his head, denying that qualification.

"Collectors should save enough of a charge to be functional all night long. Or how do those mechanicals start up? I mean, it's simple enough." Mitford thought there was no harm in running the idea past Mack and Spiller "Yeah, simple enough. Now shut up for a while."

"Yeah, but I'm supposed to be out of this contraption today," Aarens complained.

Mitford gave him a long look and then pointed to the sundial.

"Not until the sun's on the first division.

That makes it exactly a day since you got sentenced for harassing the little Chinese kid." Mitford gave the man one more long stare before he turned to pick up a sheet and his pencil.

He almost regretted the fact that Mack, Spiller and Jack the Nail thought Aarens' idea had enough merit to make a prototype from materials that had been brought back to camp from the abattoir buildings.

Zainal's team made it back to camp just before the evening rains by jogging whenever the terrain permitted, and were met with a stern demand from the sentries for the password.

"Password?" Kris yelled back. "What password? You know who we are! Hell, it's Kris Bjornsen, Zainal, the Doyle brothers, Coo and Slav. Damn it all, Tesco, don't be so hostile.

"Well, it's my duty, Kris. We got attacked while you was all gone." His grin gave her the immediate good news F that the attack had failed and no-one in the camp had evidently been killed or badly hurt.

They passed by Tesco's post and hurried down to the caves, eager for more details about the incident.

When Kris saw that the sergeant wasn't in his office, she grabbed the first person by the arm, a youngster she remembered rescuing from the barns.

"Pete, where's Mitford?"

"Inside," the boy said. "Didja hear about us being attacked?"

"Yes, but we could do with some details."

"Who? What?" Lenny demanded.

"Aw, just some starving renegades. Sarge led the counterattack, he was something else…" and the boy's eyes shone with admiration.

"Bart and Sandy Areson right behind "im. I missed most of it," and Pete's face fell in disappointment. "The sentries rained down arrows and stones and clipped a few of our guys. Pete grinned irrepressibly.

"Friendly fire, the sarge called it. And they had fourteen bodies to dump - over that way," and Pete made a wild gesture that indicated a considerable distance "to keep the scavengers happy." He gave an expressive shudder. "So you see, you missed a lot!

"Were any of our guys hurt?" Kris asked urgently, glancing at the empty office.

"Aw, a broken leg and a couple of cuts is all. And the sarge took in the ladies the bad guys had messed up bad." Inadvertently, Kris's glance went to the stocks. They were empty. Could both Aarens and Arnie be on good behaviour? Had the attack scared manners into them?

"Death to all invaders of our Camp Ayers Rock!" And Pete shot his arm up in a clenched fist salute.

"Camp Ayres Rock?" Kris repeated, stunned.

"Sure, why not? The rock that protects us."

"Well, you are named Peter,"

"Huh?" The kid screwed his face up.

"Peter means rock, honey' "Oh, I never knew that."

"D'you know where the sergeant is right now, Peter?" Kris asked.

"Sure. Follow me," and he gestured them after him.

"He's rigging distant early warning devices."

"He is?"

"Yeah, that Aarens guy did "em. Not bad. And they work."

"Aarens?" and Kris turned n amazement to Zainal.

"Wonders will never cease," Lenny said, grinning at her, appreciating her surprise. "So he isn't a total waste."

"Takes all kinds to make a world," was all Mitford said when they met up with him on his way back from the perimeter.

"But Aarens?"

"Surprised me, too," Mitford said, leading them to a small cave that was his "inside office" - since the rains came, he said. "Did Pete there tell you all about the raid?"

"Can we debrief you, Sarge?" Kris asked, laughing.

"Later, give me the report on your findings first. You do all right?" He glanced around at the others.

"Fine, Sarge, we did great," Lenny answered him.

"Coo's gotten much weaker though, Sarge," Kris said quietly, not glancing in the Deski's direction. Mitford grimaced. "Has anybody else found something to help?"

"Matt Dargle has narrowed it down to the lack of potassium, Vitamin C or calcium and we're looking for sources of those," and Mitford looked dour. "Right now, there're only three Deskis strong enough to go out with foragers to search. He turned to Zainal. "You got any good ideas?"

"Deskis always need special foods.

Bring in to Barevi.

I do not know what." And Zainal sighed. "Good guys, Deskis!' "S'more'n I can say for some," Mitford said in a low disgusted growl.

He went on in a more positive tone.

"Believe it or not but Aarens is the mechanical genius he said he was "So we heard."

"Well, he cobbled together some perimeter circuit warning devices in case some other individuals think they can raid Camp Rock - -, He grinned when he realized they'd heard the location had received a name.

"He and Spiller believe we can even get to adapt the panels to make water hot and maybe even internal lighting and heat. D'you remember anything in that report about the winters here, Zainal?" There was a hint of deep concern in Mitford's eyes. "Like snow or floods or what?" Zainal looked down at his big hands as if they might hold the answers. Then, with a sad sigh, he shook his head. "My people did not explore well. They did not see a lot we have now seen. But this planet has air to breathe and food for most to eat." His voice held a tacit apology for the shortcomings of that exploration team.

"The basic are here. Air, water, food needed to survive.

And we survive well now, thanks to youMitford nodded in acceptance at that approval.

"Well, then, since the farm machinery seems to be shutting down after harvesting everything, and the farmers among us say that those loo-cows of yours, Kris, haven't been rounded up in a wintering environment, looks like we all can expect to survive whatever the winter season brings."

"Say, Sarge, if the machines are all shut down, either by us or their programming, couldn't we move into the buildings?

We've found enough to accommodate all of us," Kris said.

"That's being considered as an alternative," Mitford said. "Some folks are scared of the possibility of more marauders and feel safer here in Camp Rock. They'd resist leaving. However, those barns would be equally as defensible. Now lemme talk to the Doyles, will ya, and you two get some rest.

The rain was still pelting down when Kris and Zainal stopped in the main cavern for the hot soup and the rather tasty form of soda bread that was available. It was so good that she didn't even spit out the hard bits.

No-one she knew was on duty there so she ate with Zainal. She tried not to, but she couldn't help notice the sideways looks directed at them: some quite speculative and unfriendly. Well, it didn't surprise her that there would still be animosity levelled at Zainal.

Maybe that was why Mitford kept sending them out of the camp on patrol. Out of sight, out of mind.

She sighed, a little sound but Zainal caught it and looked enquiringly at her. She smiled dismissively and broke off a piece of her bread to soak up the last of the thick, tasty soup out of the rather lopsided pottery bowl. Zainal followed her example, grinning back at her.

They washed out their utensils and returned them to the storage racks.

"I go see Coo," Zainal said.

"I'll come…" but when Zainal shook his head, she decided that a dip was the next order of business for her.

"Give him my regards.

"Regards?"

"Warm greetings."

"Oh! Not a "boy" saying.

"Nope!" She grinned at him.

"One day you explain the "boy" thing?"

"Any day now, m "friend," Kris said with a laugh. "Your English improves in leaps and bounds."

"Leaps and bounds?" He frowned as he tried to figure out the meaning of what she had said.

"I'll explain that, too. Me for a bath," she said in farewell.

The water in the underground lake was cold enough to curtail any lengthy wallowing. She was out and blotting herself dry beyond the main lights when she heard voices.

"Aarens had a point. How do we know that Cat isn't a spy? How do we know he doesn't have a comunit of some kind? How do we know he hasn't left messages with those machine-things in the garages?"

"Come off it, Barker," and Kris, hurriedly dressing, recognized Joe Lattore's thick voice. "What would the Cats need to spy on us for, for God's sake? And he's no ordinary Cat anyway. I saw enough of the upper-class dudes and he's one of them.

"Then why's he here with us?"

"That Bjornsen chick told me he'd killed a patrol leader and they caught him before the day was up."

"Yeah, and who goes everywhere with that Cat?

Huh?"

"You also heard the Doyle brothers same as I did, and they said there's nothing doing between "em."

"They was careful, is all.

"Oh, stow it. The Cat's risked his neck to save us and I'm going to be grateful to him until I find a damned good reason not to be. And Aarens isn't good enough. I know his type and I tell you what, was I hiring, I wouldn't hire Aarens noway nohow.

Kris stepped as far back in the shadows as she could, a frisson of fear for Zainal running up her back. Did Mitford have any idea that such feelings were running against the Catteni? Probably, and that's exactly why Zainal was sent out on constant reconnaissance - to reduce the possibility of reprisals against him.

"When's Mitford going to axe him then? Said he would when he found out all the bastard knows. Seems to me he'd've done that by now."

"Maybe that's why he keeps sending him out of the camp? Get something else to waste him?"

"Next time he might just not come back," a new voice said with a malicious chuckle. "We don't need no Cats here."

"Ah, you guys make me sick. He's one man, and he's been useful.

You don't have to like useful people but you can use them. That's what Mitford's doing." Conversation altered when the first man got in the water.

"Keeee-rist, but that's cold! Freeze m'balls off, it will."

"You have "em?" Kris grimaced and stopped listening as the comments became more personal and derogatory. Men were worse gossips than women. She hunkered down in the shadows, her back against the cold stone, and waited. Fortunately the group was not any more inclined to stay in the cold water than she had been and they were shortly out of it and dressing. She waited another long moment until she figured they had reached the upper corridors of the cave and then she left the lake.

She stopped by Mitford's office but he had a crowd, all talking and pushing diagrams at each other, so she went to her own cave. Sleep was the next order of her day.

During her latest trek someone had taken advantage of her absence and stolen some of the brush which formed her mattress, so she didn't have quite as comfortable a night's rest as she'd hoped for. Still, she woke rested before dawn. When she got to the main cavern, hunters were grabbing a cup of the hot herbal tea before setting off to check snares or to hunt. With her cup in hand she wandered, hoping to find Jay or Sandy. They'd level with her about Zainal. At this point in time Kris couldn't really see Mitford executing the Catteni for any reason.

And there was no way Zainal had been "planted' among the prisoners. He was here because other Catteni wanted to get even with him. Sandy was absent, as was anyone else with whom she had some acquaintance.

Finding an unoccupied rock near the front of the cavern, she seated herself and kept watch of those coming into the cavern for their breakfast, waiting for Zainal's appearence. She wondered how Coo was doing.

They really shouldn't have let him fuss with that flying thing: that fall had not been good for him, even with Lenny and Kris cushioning his landing.

She heard the rumble and the warning yell from the sentinels at the same instant and darting to the outside ledge, tried to see what was making the noise. Whatever it was, it was still some distance but it sounded awfully like the harvester vessel: big! Only everything had been harvested. Hadn't it?

"Where's Mitford?" was the cry and several of the hunters took off to locate him. Kris went for Zainal.

She met him head on, bouncing off his hard body and cracking her head against the rock on the rebound. His hand grabbed her upper arm to steady her.

"Another big ship, Zainal, she said, pointing outside.

Still holding her arm, the Catteni drew her along with him and the others who had been roused by the general furore.

Once again, this time in the dark, everyone who could clambered to the nearest height and peered in the direction of the oncoming airborne vessel.

"Think they've come on reprisals?" someone asked.

"With us messing up their mechanicals?"

"Zainal?" Mitford called.

"Here."

"Any ideas?" Kris could see that Zainal had cocked his head, listening intently to the sound.

"That is Catteni engine sound," he said. Then pointed, as a bulk, outlined by running lights, materialized out of the dawn gloom. Even Kris could see the basic difference in design between the first ginormous vessel and this one which was not as large, if the lights indicated its perimeter. Zainal watched a moment more and then pointed in the direction of the abattoir.

"That way.

"Jaysus what're they doing?"

"Any chance they're landing more prisoners, Zainal?" Mitford asked.

"Yes. Good chance." And he began to climb down.

"Who comes with me?"

"I didn't say you should go, buddy,- Mitford said in a tense voice.

"Only fast runners," Zainal said, ignoring Mitford.

"They must unload."

"Yeah, but you'd get there fast enough to take off with them, wouldn't you?" Mitford said in a hard tone, coming out of the darkness to grab Zainal by the arm.

Kris caught her breath. Maybe, after all, Mitford wouldn't object to a summary execution of the Catteni and Kris did not, definitely did not, want to see Zainal killed. She liked him too much!

"Don't do anything foolish, Sarge," she said. "I'll go with him."

"Of course you will," Mitford said cryptically. They had to pause now because the noise of the overflying craft drowned out any conversation.

Zainal kept his eyes on the vessel, then nodded.

"Transport. More people. We must tiy. It is night still," Zainal said and, pulling Kris by the hand, hauled her with him down from the height.

"Try what?" Mitford called out in the same breath that Kris echoed his question but Zainal was already sprinting down the ravine in the direction the long ship above them was headed, dragging Kris along with him.

She was aware of some conflicting and confused orders behind them as Zainal ran onwards. In the first few strides she wondered why he was so keen on having her along but then she had to concentrate on her footing to keep up with him. The fact that she could was a plus. She was sure fitter on this crazy planet than she'd ever been. She could hear others following, cursing at the dark and the bad footing but she concentrated on watching Zainal's movements and the track in front of them.

They were well ahead of those pursuing when Zainal allowed her to pause for a few moments. They were on the downside of the ridge, the lights of the vessel obscured by the lay of the land. She quickly recovered her breath enough to speak.

"Will they stop the same place they dropped us off?" she asked.

"That would be good," he said. "Nothing there." She took that to mean that the field would be empty and thus a good spot to dump more unconscious bodies.

She wondered how long it would take, or did the Catteni have some way of just rolling bodies out of the ship's hold that didn't require individual handling? Then she remembered, all too vividly, what happened to living creatures lying on fields on this fecking world. No wonder Zainal was in such a hurry. Dawn was still far away. Would they get there soon enough to prevent slaughter?

He started off again and she followed, all too aware that it had taken them two days to reach the caverns from that site. Even at the pace Zainal had set, would they make it to the field before the ship took off again?

Well, they had to try. Or maybe he was hoping to attract attention from one of the hill points overlooking the field?

They clambered up a slope now, and Zainal stopped so abruptly that she ran into him.

"Hey, warn me, will -.." Her voice trailed off as she realized that the running lights were higher than they should be for a ship that might be landing. They hadn't seen its gradual ascent. Zainal cursed, whirled and looked back the way they had come, running his hand and arm along the line the ship had travelled as if trying to impress the direction in his mind. He started back up the slope they had just slid down, digging his toes in and slipping in the urgency of his passage.

Shaking her head, Kris followed him, pausing only briefly when the roar of engines told her that the ship was boosting out of planetary gravity. The flame of its propellant was as vivid as the launches she remembered from Cape Kennedy. She would have liked to watch but had to keep up with Zainal.

They met up with the others in moments, considering the pace that Zainal was setting.

"The ship's already dumped its load," she told them, clinging to someone as support as she gasped out an explanation. "Back that way.

We gotta get there before the scavengers murder "em all."

"Was that why the Cat was in such a flaming hurry?"

"Hell, he wanted to catch up with them and get off this bleeding planet," another man managed to gasp out.

"Think what you will, but are you going to help?" Kris cried, shouting the last of her challenge over her shoulder as she took off after Zainal.

They did gather more help as they went back through the ravine again. Dawn was brightening the sky, so it was easier to see where to put your feet. Where the track split, right down into the ravine, or left to continue on the upper ridge, Zainal signalled for Kris to report to Mitford who was standing in his office, fists on his belt as he saw them emerge on the height.

"Need Slav badly," Zainal added and then charged off again.

"What "n'ell's going on?" Kris stopped, hands on knees, catching enough breath to speak. "We need Slav. Ship took off. It's already dropped its load. We gotta get there or the scavengers will."

"Right on!" And Mitford snapped into action, yelling for Slav, Pess, Tesco, Su, and Dowdall as she took up her chase of Zainal.

She finally caught up with him when he stopped by one of the many streams to rinse out his mouth. The sun wasn't up yet and the air was cool, but she was hot from her exertions and wondering if she would last the distance.

"Mitford's organized more help. Is it far?" He shook his head.

"Ship climbing." He looked up at the lightening sky. "Lucky." She hoped so, but how long did those creatures scavenge? Would this half-light be sufficient to send them wherever they spent the daylight hours? She had her breath back and now dropped to her belly, burying her hot face in the cool water, intaking a mouthful to moisten her throat and letting only a little trickle down to her stomach. She was on her feet when he was.

And they ran on.

Actually this wasn't a bad pace, she thought, now she had her second wind. She tried to keep her mind off what scavengers could do to a field full of nice juicy warm live bodies. Now that wasn't a productive thought! At least it should now be clear to everyone at the camp that Zainal had been motivated to "save' people, not get himself off this planet. Though she wouldn't blame him if that had been his goal. Would he have taken her with him? That, too, was not a productive thought but she was beginning to appreciate how much the big man meant to her. She'd never found anyone else who treated her as a competent equal, who had never once tried to come on since the day she had floored him in the flitter. She knew from comments made back in the kitchens at Barevi that, while the Catteni were equipped, to put it discreetly, much the same way as human males were - only more so, as one woman had said drily - the two species were incompatible as far as procreation was concerned. No Catteni-Human offspring would be forthcoming. But, since the day she had clobbered him in the flyer back on Barevi, Zainal had never visibly lusted after her. And she was quite familiar with that sort of look. Zainal treated her not quite as he treated the male members of their patrols, but with a courtesy she found unusual and, maybe even, special to her - even when he knew that it was her fault he was stuck with this bunch of suspicious, unappreciative and sometimes intolerant mixed bag of humanoids. Oddly enough, though the Catteni were the subjugating race, the Deskis and Rugarians didn't seem to feel any animosity towards Zainal… certainly not as much as the Terrans did.

This was not terrain she was familiar with and Kris was relieved to see the sun coming up and clearing away the shadows so there was less danger of her stumbling on the rough ground. That was the one thing she did fear - an injury that their meagre first-aid supplies could not remedy. Or unfamiliar infections that were life-threatening.

The Catteni antiseptic lotion was not a specific cure for everything that could happen to the unwary. But the anaesthetic from the darts could be a boon.

Zainal was bounding up the hill in front of them now, then switching to a zig zag on the steeper parts. He waited on the height for her and pointed. Two fields over she could see the cubes of Catteni supply crates and the fringes of space occupied by inert bodies. At this distance, she couldn't tell if they were being beset by scavengers yet.

Zainal cupped his mouth and hollered a weird cry.

It was answered, she thought, by one of the aliens following. He nodded satisfaction and began the descent.

This hillside was covered with some sort of thorny growth that clung to the fabric of their coveralls with a tenacity which made her glad it wasn't her flesh that was bared.

Zainal, caught on a thick limb, hauled out his hatchet and hewed the limb. Even separated from the mother bush, it still clung to him.

"Careful," Zainal said, holding up his free hand to warn her back.

"Chop first," he added, pointing to the bushes in her way.

"Can I help you?"

"Go down. Hurry," he said, gesturing emphatically to the field now out of sight behind the next rise.

"Stamp, yell." She hesitated a brief moment more but the flash of his eyes when he glanced up from disentangling the thicket branch from his coverall was enough to send her on her way. She used her hatchet to slash and bash a way in front of her and succeeded in reaching clear ground, covered by a stubble of harvested crops, with no further delays.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him finally free of the branch. So she ran on, across the field, neatly leaping the low hedge on the far side and down into the next. She thought she heard cries rising from the drop field. That made her run faster, shouting, giving the cowboy yells she had practised as a tomboy. She paused long enough at the separating hedge to pick up handfuls of stones. Then she leapt over that hedge and almost landed on someone's face. A human. In fact, every body near her was human.

Some had already been attacked by the scavengers.

First she threw her rocks in as wide an arc as she could, shouting as she did so. Then she stomped her way up the long side of the field, sometimes running and jumping down as hard as she could on landing, yelling and yodelling as she stamped until she reached the upper boundary. There were no signs of the scavengers in the centre of the field so she continued her progress around the outer edge, stamping, yelling, pausing only when she had to get her breath and try to moisten the dry tissues of her mouth. She'd completed two sides of the big field when she saw others arriving and yelled and gestured at them to square the field in the other direction.

Then she spotted several people rousing from their drugged sleep and went to assist them. Once again the Catteni had dropped people comfortably near water and she borrowed cups from belts to give people that much comfort in recovering from their ordeal.

Dowdall was opening the crates, going first for the first-aid kits and blankets while the others did what they could for those the scavengers had attacked. She was so busy that she didn't at first realize that Zainal was not among the rescuers.

"Tesco, where's Zainal?" she asked when she did notice his absence.

"Saw him back there," and Tesco pointed vaguely over his shoulder before kneeling to give water to a groggy woman.

Reassured, Kris moved to the next group who happened to be Deskis.

A glance around the field gave her the irritating information that none of the rescuers were doing doodly to help the aliens so she concentrated on them. Not that she found herself kindly disposed towards the Turs, who regarded the water with great suspicion until she took a sip herself and deposited the cup on the ground beside them.

They could do as they chose. Three Morphins had been badly chewed and before anyone could stop them, they suicided, evidently by swallowing their own tongues and suffocating. Their facial skin turned from a normal dark green to almost black. Other Morphins came to view the dead, then piled the bodies to one side under the hedges. Morphin "faces' did not register any expression, so Kris didn't know if they were upset or not but as quickly as she could, she doled out blankets and knives to them, and indicated the first-aid kits.

More people arrived from the camp, including Mitford.

She was surprised to see him away from his office but was glad of his presence. That's when she realized she still had not seen Zainal.

"Sarge, you seen Zainal?"

"No, I haven't," Mitford said, frowning as he looked about the field where more and more of the latest arrivals were regaining consciousness.

"Did you come down the thorny hill?"

"No, Su was there to warn us away from it. Why?" Kris didn't answer but, grabbing up a first-aid kit and a handful of blankets from the nearby crates, she started off at a fast trot, dodging around groups and leaping over still sleeping bodies. She flew across the intervening field, now entirely visible in the full morning light, hurdling the low hedge without losing her stride and pelted to the thornbushy hill. They weren't like Barevi thornbushes but where she was damned sure she had hacked her way through was now as solid a vegetation patch as if she hadn't cut it back. There was no sign of Zainal.

Scared now for him, because Zainal of all people should have been able to free himself unscathed, she looked anxiously around. Since he wasn't up at the field, he had to still be around here, somewhere.

And, if the thorns had been toxic enough to slow down a Catteni, he'd have sought water. The thornbushes were not tall enough to have hidden his big frame and anyway his browny-grey coverall would have made him visible even in the dense undergrowth. Water!

There was always water on these damned mechanically cultivated fields. While this field had been harvested, there had to be water near by. She listened hard. Her ears finally caught the unmistakable sound of running water. Downhill there was a small copse of some of the diamond-leaved bushes. Those seemed to grow near the streams.

She heard a low groan, the sort that would reluctantly escape tightly closed lips. With a new awareness that the bushes on Botany could be dangerous, she parted the branches of the diamond-leaf and saw Zainal half-in, half-out of a little brook which welled up from the rocks around which the diamond-leaves clustered. A boot had been cast aside and his right trouser leg was rolled up over his knee, exposing the injury.

"Oh, lord," she breathed, seeing the massive inflammation on the outside of his wide muscular calf. The thorns of Barevi had been dangerous in a nuisancy way, but this injury looked serious. Bending over him, she checked first for any signs of blood poisoning. Not that grey Catteni flesh might exhibit such a trauma. He had blood, as red as any human's, and it had clotted almost black where it had run down his leg. That was when she realized by the size of the wound that he had evidently carved the thorn out of his own flesh.

"Ouch!" she murmured, shuddering convulsively. She sorted through the first-aid supplies for the Catteni antiseptic. That was definitely in order. And it would sting like billy-be-damned when she poured it in that open wound but what other choice had she? She took a deep breath and emptied the entire vial of the solution into the crater he had made in his leg.

"Rorrrrrrgh!" Zainal shot to sitting position in protest at the treatment, his right hand cocked back to strike, his left arm up in guard.

Kris lurched backwards, away from him.

"It's Kris, Zainal. I'm trying to help!" His eyes focused on her face, wild in reaction to the pain and alarm, but, in that brief instant, he recognized her.

"You came," he said in a barely audible voice before he seemed to collapse inward and fell back on the ground.

His eyes rolled upwards, the lids fluttering as well as any southern belle flirt could have done under different circumstances, and then he passed out again.

"Did I do the right thing, Zainal?" She shook, or rather tried to shake, the massive shoulder to rouse him. She retrieved the first-aid bag which had fallen off her lap and tried to think what else she could do to help him.

Swollen tissue could respond to cold compresses. With all the antiseptic in the wound, there wouldn't be much in the water that could exacerbate the wound.

There were sheets of some sort of material in the kit, so she soaked those until they were cold and placed them on the wound. He moaned a little but didn't writhe in pain so she felt it was safe to continue with that treatment.

She made a pillow of one of the blankets she'd brought, brushing the leaves and pebbles off his surprisingly fine, soft grey hair and covered his big frame with another.

It was Mitford himself who came looking for her. She emerged from the brush in response to his calling. Beyond him she saw the lines of the newest immigrants starting the trek back to the camp. He hadn't lost any time deciding to take them in, even if another four or five hundred souls to tend must be the lowest option on his agenda.

"What's the matter, Kris?" he said, trotting up to her in an effortless lope. How he kept sofit with all the sedentary work he was now saddled with, she didn't know but he rose another notch in her estimation.

"Warn people off those thorubushes," she said first, pointing urgently to the slope. But the line seemed to be taking the less direct route, around the inhospitable looking incline. "Zainal's down, with a thorn wound. He carved the thorn out of his own leg but it was toxic enough to knock him out. We'll need to make a litter to carry him back." Mitford winced and scratched his head, half-turning in the direction of his new charges.

"I know, you gotta get them back first, but considering how much Zainal has done "and she was surprised at the bitterness in her voice.

"Now, now, easy does it, Bjornsen, I'm not about to abandon him.

He is too damned useful." In the sergeant's voice, she caught the nuance that Zainal might be useful, but not popular, and knew that some of the gossip about him was true. "We're all in the same boat or," and Mitford gave her a wry grin, "on the same planet, but this new dump isn't going to help!" He sighed deeply.

"Don't mean to add to your problems, Sarge, she said apologetically "Damnitall, Bjornsen," and now he was angry at her apology, "you're not a problem and I won't let him be.

Can you hang on until I see this bunch installed?" With one hand, he gripped Kris's right arm, emphasizing his intent while he hauled his blanket over his head and dropped it beside her. Then he handed over the other sack he carried.

"Food, firing and other stuff. Now, where is he?" She led him to where Zainal sprawled. When Mitford lifted off the temporary dressing, he curled his lip and recoiled slightly at the look of the puncture, then carefully replaced the bandage.

"Nasty, all right. Hope he got all the thorn out, but probably he did,' and there was approval in the sergeant's tone for the measure of the man he knew Zainal to be.

"Hell's bells, he can't be comfortable like that," Mitford added so the two of them pulled the big body out of the water. Then, when Kris had hurriedly cleared a space and spread two more blankets, they managed to roll him into a more level, comfortable position.

Mitford stood then, surveying the area, kicking at the roots of the bushes. "How'd they find enough soil to grow in?" he muttered.

"Rocky enough so those scavengers can't come at you - "They come out at night," Kris began and then realized that it might indeed be night time before help for a Catteni arrived.

"Firing's in there and some of those matches Cumber made. We found sulphur, y'know."

"No, I didn't," and she wondered if sulphur had any medicinal qualities.

"Look, I'll send a litter back for him as soon as possible. Get some more firing when you can." He surveyed the massive Catteni's prone body. "Hope he doesn't get delirious on you or something "I'll manage, Sarge,' she said, gritting her teeth.

"Luck, Bjornsen, but you're the kind who can handle things." As Kris watched him make his way out of the little copse, she was somewhat heartened by his confidence in her. Mitford didn't often praise and while that might be a bit back-handed, she appreciated being thought capable.

She went back to her patient, resigned to a long wait, knowing that Zainal's welfare would be low on the list of everyone else's priorities. She wet the compresses again, glad of the almost indestructible quality of Catteni materials, and then she moistened Zainal's lips.

You had to keep people from getting dehydrated if they'd been poisoned, didn't you? His lips parted as if the moisture was what he needed so she managed to dribble water down his throat and he swallowed eagerly. A good sign. His forehead and cheeks felt warm, but not hot-hot.

She couldn't remember from her previous contacts with him just what a normal body temperature for a Catteni would be. She also couldn't tell if his skin had altered as a human's would with fever.

While one part of her was glad that Catteni were not totally impervious to natural hazards, she was damned sorry Zainal was laid low by as silly a thing as a thorn.