Anne McCaffrey Freedom 2 Freedom's Choice

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"The water's real dark down there,' she said, grinning. 'Too bad we don't
have any big ships. Yet." Mitford nodded to Bjorn to report now.
'The ground is fertile, though it has not been tilled in many years."
'You mean it was? Once?" Scott sat forward, dropping the second picture he
had taken up.
Mitford pulled the telltale picture away from those overlapping it. 'The
Farmers always put their facilities on unusable real estate, rocky or sandy,
or plain non-arable. Look at the way this cliff has been hollowed out. We
could damned near hide the KDL in here. For sure, it'd take Baby and all our
converted equipment. This whole area shows signs of previous usage. And we
found another section further along that ridge that reminds me of the way the
abattoir was set up."
The four bent their heads to examine the suspect photos, and it was obvious
they agreed with him.
"We found two more garage-type installations further up here,' and
Mitford indicated the positions on the map. 'We didn't concentrate on finding
any more because they had so obviously been vacant a very long time." 'We
think we saw some likely spots on the other side of the bay,'
Whitby said, 'but the terrain was too steep for the Tub, so we didn't cross
the bay." 'Is it possible that the Farmers have just allowed the land to
remain fallow because they have enough here?" asked Scott.
"It has been fallow many, many years,' Bjorn said. 'But the soil is
rich and would grow everything we needed. Especially if we used the land as
wisely as the Farmers do,' and he ended on an admonitory note.
"All we need is another shipment of replacements,' Beverly said with a grin.
"Hell's bells, General,' and Mitford grinned, 'we saved everything we didn't
use, so we've still got the ploughs and other farming junk. I'd heard none of
the scraps were vacuumed up or beamed or whatever. We only have to mount
ploughs and stuff back on the air cushions and use
'em for their original function. No big problem!' "That's true, though some
will not want to give up their runabouts,' and he winked at
Mitford, 'for ploughing. What about the scavengers?"
"Nary a sign of them,' said Mitford.
"And that's a puzzle,' Whitby said. 'We left out our garbage every night we
were there - and found it still there the next morning.
But the terrain is very similar to what we have here."
"No night-crawlers on that continent?"
"None we could find, at any rate." Mitford took up the recital.
"We did find rocksquats, whole colonies of them up in the hills and just as
dumb as the ones over here. There were avians where the lodge-poles have
grown up into forests. Perhaps the damned crawlers died of starvation." He
grinned. 'We can always rustle a few loo-cows from here and see what happens.
There're none there that we could find." 'Many of the same root vegetables and
berry bushes already grow there, and other vegetation is similar,' put in
Bjorn, his expression glowing with pleasure. 'And fish and clams . . ."
'Roasted corn would have gone so well with them,'
Kris said suddenly, and sighed. 'I'm sorry." Scott bent an understanding look
on her and his lips twitched in a slight smile.
"You're not alone." 'We may yet find something similar,' said Bjorn, his wide
face eager to please her. 'We don't really have a complete catalogue of the
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planet's flora." 'By the way, Mitford,' Beverly said, 'we disarmed the darts
as you recommended. That's quite a powerful anaesthesia!'
"Indeed,' Zainal and Kris said in unison.
"That's right,' and Scott turned to them, 'you were caught and subsequently
saved another, less fortunate group." He paused a moment.
"If there are truly no night-crawlers . . . There are many valid reasons
for shifting our operations to that continent." Mitford leaned forward,
circumscribing the area they had searched with his index finger. 'It's great
country, sir. It'd take quite a few trips in the transport, but it might be
the smartest move we've done since we got dropped here." 'If we could be sure
the Eosi aren't watching murmured and looked at Zainal.
"They will still be "considering", Scott,' Zainal replied to the unasked
question. 'Eosi consider long and hard before acting.
Here, we use transport at correct times so the orbital does not see -
short trip. If thrusters are used carefully, in short bursts, the
geo-synchronous one will not show enough to read." 'Besides which,'
Mitford said with great satisfaction, 'they don't even know we've got those
ships. And if they've any smarts at all, once they've seen reports of that
monster, they'll stay the hell away from Botany."
Everyone looked at Zainal, who looked right back around the table and then
shrugged.
. . ." Scott
Not every valley being utilized as new accommodation was as far along in
supplying shelter and other amenities as the headquarters establishment.
Nevertheless, the thought of picking up again and resettling was met with a
certain amount of resistance, especially from the technical and engineering
groups who intensely disliked a second displacement because they were already
involved in various projects and didn't want to drop tools - even the ones
they were making. However, the availability of the massive caverns, when they
were having to put together sheds from primitive substances, did cause them to
reconsider.
Then, all of a sudden, they wanted to be the first to get over there and
resettled.
The miners were less happy - especially Walter Duxie, the mining engineer in
charge - since they'd already reached a good iron lode and wanted to continue
working it. While the Catteni space mapping did show mineral deposits on the
target continent, they were loath to leave one that was already showing
results. So it was decided that they could continue where they were: they had
an adequate work-force which could take turns hunting and supplying their
needs, and the nearby caves were already habitable. Judicious use of the KDL
would bring ore to where smelting and fabrication processes would be handled.
"What about the fuel situation?" Beverly asked Zainal at one meeting.
'What happens if we run out? We've scarcely the technology to make it even if
the natural resources are available."
Zainal grinned. 'I know where more supplies are kept."
"You pirate,' Beverly said with a laugh, and then had to explain the tem.
"I will make a very good pirate,' Zainal decided, pleased with the definition.
'Not the only one, too." 'Hey, what else could you lift at the same time?" Su
asked. He was head of one engineering group that found themselves constantly
having to invent the tools that had once been always available.
"Depends on what you went,' Zainal said. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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