"So what's this Kamiton doing here?" Sarah wanted to know.
"Seeing's believing, isn't it?" Kris replied.
"And if he likes what he sees, he brings in more dissidents?" asked another woman. Belatedly Kris recognised her as Jane O'Hanlan, the TV reporter been one of those rescued from Barevi in a mindless state.
"You've recovered!" Kris exclaimed.
Jane gave a rueful smile. "I'm improving. Many are. Dorothy Dwardie's -been marvelous;'
"Indeed she has," Sally Stoffer said, as she wiped cereal off a baby's face.
"I'm practically out of my job there."
!
"Really?"
"Seventy-five percent have recovered enough to function on their own now, to talk and help out. We've been busy while you were gone."
"I don't doubt that for a moment," Kris said. "But boy-oh-boy, am I glad to be home.
"Daddy, daddy," Zane cried excitedly just then, and Kris looked up to "see Zainal and Kamiton in the doorway. "'Scuse;' Zane said in Sarah's direction and ran up to his father, squealing in excitement when Zainal swung him up.
"Watch out, Zainal, he's just had lunch," Kris cried.
Obediently, Zainal positioned Zane on his back while Kamiton looked on in amused condescension at the sight of a paternally occupied Zainal.
LATER Kris heard all about the resetdement of the Maasai from Sarah at dinner in the hall. Zainal had taken Zane off for an evening walk and talk.
Zainal was also teaching Zane Catteni, and if Kris was there, he preferred to jabber away in English, which defeated the purpose.
"Well, I did do some work in the outback with Aborigines, so they guessed I, and Joe, might be able to help;' Sarah said in her matter-of-fact way. "Problem is that the Maasai're used to a totally different lifestyle, which was getting ruined in Africa even before the Cat… Eosi hit Earth."
"I remember the famine there in the eighties," Kris said.
"So they won't be happy up here but Chuck thinks that the southern end of this continent might do, where we found semi-desert."
"Why not the desert continent?"
"Maybe, in time, but right now, that'll keep them in a more or less familiar terrain. Oh, and you should have seen their faces when we showed them the loo-cows!" Sarah laughed. "They couldn't believe 'era and they wouldn't believe that the critters don't give milk until one was captured for inspection."
"What about night crawlers? As! recall it, the Maasai are nomadic, looking for grazing for their… cattle. Will loo-cows do for them? And they have huts or kraals… or something like 'em to live in."
"Well, tonight's the big demo on night crawlers and all the newbies are going to have to attend," Sarah said with a certain amount of grimness. "We gotta get that lesson across."
"What about using some of the closed valleys?" Kris asked.
"That's another solution but nothing to hunt and they don't like fish.
But you should have seen them looking at all the plants, grass, and stuff we wouldn't think twice about. Hassan was damned near tongue-tied translating for my Joe and the other herbalists…"
"It'd be helpful if there just happened to be a book on Swahili in that latest shipment…" Kris thought, remembering the crates of books she'd seen being transported to Retreat's library.
Sarah gave a snort. "They're rummaging through 'em right now. Has-san's running out of useful vocabulary."
"That'll be a first," Kris said with a grin. The former Israeli spy was the chatty sort at any time.
"Let's see what they got in. I'd love a good juicy murder mystery to read;' Sarah said.
"With this new lot in, how'll you find time?"
'I'll make it;' was Sarah's firm reply. Then she sighed again. "I have missed reading, I really have."
"That's because you weren't rescued from two college survey courses with required reading lists this long/' and held her hand out at about four feet above the flagstones of the hall.
"So this," and Sarah gestured ironically around, "is a much better way to spend your time." Before Kris could open her mouth to answer, Sarah added, "Actually, college would be pretty dull in comparison."
"Prof, do I get an A in this survival course?"
"Too right," Sarah said and they both rose, taking their dishes back to the window that led to the KP section of the dining hall.
WHEN THEY REACHED THE STRUCTURE, they found only Dorothy Dwardie unpacking and shelving books.
"Oh, good, some help. I've found the most astonishingly eclectic…
texts here.! can't imagine how all these books got in the same case together;' and she showed them the ones in her hand.
"Post-Renaissance Painters?" Sarah said, reading one title.
"How the Grinch Stole Christmas?" Kris read the second title and took it from Dorothy, leating through the colorful illustrated pages. "We may not have Christmas here, but I'm sure glad to see some good children's books.
Can we help?"
"Yes, please/' Dorothy said and pointed over behind her.
Cases had been stacked three and four high all the way back to the tarpaulin that covered the end of the present library and the addition under construction. Aisles allowed access to the cases.
"Marian, the librarian," Sarah began in a sing-song voice, "where's the mystery section?"
"Now that's a mystery to me," Dorothy replied, rising to her feet with an effort. "Have at it. I can't promise there will be any. I'm cataloging as I go along and thank God for more computers. Otherwise we'll never know how much we've got."
"You're not doing it all yourself, are you?"
"Well, I'm supposed to get some help shelving/' she said. "We had some Victims in here this morning and I think it's helping them remember some of the basic skills they once had."
"What're you looking for?"
"Anything, everything. Dr. Seuss for the children ranks in my eyes as a far greater treasure than anything Post-Renaissance. Though I've nothing against painters at all."
"Actually, light classics that we can read to the Victims: even Westerns or a good mystery story."
"Gotcha," Sarah said and closing her eyes, she turned herself around and pointed. When she opened them, her finger directed her to one of the side aisles. "C'mon, Kris."
Kris was still chuckling at Sarah's whimsical manner of choosing when they heaved a crate to the ground and opened it.
"Lord love us, how're we going to sort this mess out?" she said looking at the tumbled collection: books with spines bent and pages crumbled, all heaped together. A few loose pages only added to the tribulations of transfer.
"By starting at the top and working down. I'll get a few of those shelves over here/' Kris suggested, going over to one side where she'd seen the empty shelving, "and separate as we go."
"Good thinking/' and Sarah sat herself down and started pulling out books.
However, they had "unerringly," as Sarah remarked, migrated to a whole case full of mysteries and romances. Their conscientious efforts to perform their assigned task were interrupted by seeing books they either recognized or titles that looked interesting.
"A new Hillerman," Sarah crowed and settled against the back of the crate, shamelessly reading her find. "I'll just read a few pages…"
Kris worked more diligently but not much longer because she found an Elizabeth Peters' Amelia yarn and she, too, couldn't resist reading "just a few pages…"
"Ah, Doctor Hessian, have you come to help shelve books?"They both heard Dorothy say.
When Kris would have moved guiltily back to unpacking, Sarah grabbed her arm and whispered at her.
"No, let's just listen," Sarah said in a very low voice. "Dorothy's been trying to pin him down since he got his mind back. He wants all the Victims to undergo proper Freudian sessions. He feels that he should be in charge of the treatment team, not Dorothy."