Freedom's Landing by Anne McCaffrey Read Free Book Online Page A

they’d
expect
us to waste him, wouldn’t they? So let’s find out—first—what he knows. Then you can kill him.” She said that cheerfully, hoping to God and little green apples that Mahomet would be able to show himself useful enough so that they wouldn’t kill him. She found it odd in herself to think that way about the Catteni but he wasn’t like the others…
    â€œWe sure could use some gen about this place,” Mitford agreed reluctantly, glancing around. He gave a convulsive twitch. “Place is too neat for an unsettled world and I’d rather know what we got to contend with
now
before we stumble into big kimchee with only knives and hatchets.”
    He strode on then, to the man who’d discovered the Catteni.He pointed in the proper direction and then followed them. It was Mahomet all right, and she bent down beside him, turning the heavy head to expose where she’d belted him with the tool. A scar was there but it was well healed.
    â€œOhho,” she said.
    â€œOhho, what?” Mitford asked as the other men ranged themselves around Mahomet. Their expressions were unfriendly and most of them had knives in their hands.
    She pointed to the scar. “I clobbered him there. And it’s healed. We were a long time getting here.”
    â€œKill him now before he wakes,” Arnie said in a snarl, leaning over, knife hand raised.
    â€œNo!”
Mitford’s word snapped Arnie erect. “The girl’s got something in keeping him alive, and able to talk. Don’t tell me he speaks English?” There was a little more respect for her in Mitford’s eyes now and Kris realized that he’d been thinking she’d been Mahomet’s toy.
    â€œEnough lingua Barevi for us to understand him.”
    She splashed the little water that was left in her cup over the Catteni’s face and he reacted by lifting a hand to his face and moving stiffly from side to side. When his foot connected with someone’s leg, she could see him tense. He drew his leg back and, in one quick lithe movement, was on his feet, arms held slightly out from his sides, alert and ready to defend himself despite the knife-carrying odds against him.
    â€œEasy there,” Kris said, stepping in front of him. “Remember me?”
    He shot a quick glance at her but his eyes went right back to Mitford. Though the Sergeant wasn’t holding a knife, Mahomet had immediately taken him as the leader. Kris gave him full marks for quick appraisals.
    â€œYes. You stole the commander’s flitter,” he said in lingua Barevi.
    â€œ
You
did?” Arnie exclaimed. “You bitch!” And he shoved his face right up at her. His breath was vile but she held her ground and glared down at him, once again glad of the extra inches that had made her adolescence a trial. “I got force-whipped because of
you!
” He jerked his coverall offhis shoulder so she could see the weals still purple on his skin. “So did fifty others at the discipline assembly they called because of
you!
She’s as bad as he is. No wonder she wasn’t for killing him.” Arnie glanced at the other hard faces, willing them to join him.
    â€œStuff it, Arnie,” Mitford said, holding his right arm up in a karate-chop position. “We can deal with her later, too, but let’s first find out what this mother knows.”
    Kris’ mouth was dry all over again and she was scared cold. But she couldn’t have let them just kill Mahomet out-of-hand. She owed him, if only because she’d put him in jeopardy before the twenty-four-hour moratorium had passed. She was sure that was why he was stuck here with the rest of them. She’d inadvertently told the truth. Cattenis had hated him enough to make sure he came to a dead end.
    â€œHey, sarge,” someone yelled across the field and they looked over their shoulders. In the interval quite a few people had roused and