"Who's to say they haven't?"
That brought his eyebrows up but she put one finger to her lips and winked. A harmless enough white lie if it helped reduce panic.
"Thought the Farmers were sent a message?"
"They were. I suspect that they have a lot of other planets and systems to manage, too. If we really get into trouble, they'll be back. They don't approve of injuring any species."
"I know one I'd like to take apart, bit by bit," Fred said, making tearing motions with his hands.
Kris merely smiled at him, took her coffee and a hunk of fresh bread, and found a table at the side where she had a good view of those eating.
Fred had probably expressed what many were thinking or fretting about.
And he had a hidey-hole picked out? Interesting.
Fragments of arguments, some of them heated, reached her. Most concerned the possibility that the Bubble would be breached. She heard snatches of complaint about being saddled with more groups who wouldn't pull their own weight. Community service hours were long enough as it was and why did they have to keep on increasing the population. There were already enough here. Some were earnestly discussing the deplorable conditions on Earth and would they have to go back and help rebuild, just when Botany was beginning to have at least some amenities. Where would coffee grow on this planet? All right, rationing at least gave everyone a cup a day but when you were used to having as much as you wanted, a cup barely got you started. How much more food crops would they have to plant to feed more new arrivals? What would happen if a Catteni warship did manage to sneak through the Bubble? Or one of the ships that left so precipitously got captured and was used to penetrate the Bubble with all the Eosi ships right after it? That could happen, couldn't it? There were Humans who were vile enough to collaborate with the Catteni, weren't there? Shocking to turn against your own kind like that. One of the nearer tables composed of women only were discussing how best to cope with the outrageous behavior of their foster children. The waifs had initially seemed so happy to have the basic essentials instead of having to scrounge whatever they could, you'd think they'd be more grateful to be well fed, well housed and not complain about the chores they were assigned. Everyone worked on Botany. This colony didn't tolerate freeloaders. Didn't hurt anyone to sweat? Making bricks wasn't that hard. Or weeding.
Then Kris realized she'd better make tracks for the hangar and her shift.
BABY WASN'T THERE, but then, the plan had been for it to be used for a fast round-trip to obtain sufficient olkiloriti. One of the K's was gone but not the KDL, which she had crewed on so often with Zainal. She took over the com watch from Matt Su.
"They're still pounding away," he told her as he rose from the station.
"My ears burn from some of the stuff they're saying about us and… what they'll do when they get in."
"Well, they can't and they won't," Kris said because there was just the hint in the Chinese's dark eyes that he was worried. "They have tried the heaviest stuff they have, haven't they?"
"Then why haven't they just left?" Matt asked, dubious.
"Well, the shah will hit the fit if they fail. More likely, they just don't know when to give up."
"That Mentat Ix is some mule," Matt said. "It's roaring more and more, and I think it axed some of the captains. I'm hearing new names."
"Maybe it'll have another fit and die," Kris said, very much wishing that was possible. Though how Lenvec's subsumed personality could have had any' effect on his host Eosi, she didn't know. She'd ask Zainal. The Ix was certainly the b amp;e no/re-wanting Zainal's hide for sure.
SHE STOOD HER WATCH, collected Zane, and took a turn at playing with other children: some of the five-year-olds who had been rescued. Most of them had to be taught games that children seemed to know instinctively.
"Well, none of them had a childhood, did they?" Anna Bollinger said, treating Kris in a very stiff and almost insulting manner, as if somehow this were Kris' fault. "Some of their personal habits are revolting:'
Ah, thought Kris, she doesn't want her litde darlings corrupted, does she?
"At least they have good role models now," Kris said mildly, pointing to Anna's well-grown youngster, nattering away to two boys, so undernourished at five that her three-year-old appeared older.
"I'd prefer that Jackie had proper children his own age to play with."
"Jackie seems to feel that it is his job to rectify their ignorance;' Kris said. Chattering away, Jackie was showing the others how to build a little cabin out of the small logs that had been whittled as toys. They watched, their faces expressionless, even if their faces were now clean and their cheeks rounder and tanned.
One of them sent a foot into the log cabin and scattered the blocks.
Anna gave an exclamation of concern but Kris caught her arm. "Let's see how Jackie handles it first:'
"Really, Kris, you exceed your authority. I'm in charge of the…:' Her voice trailed off as Jackie's reached the two women.
"Now that was very naughty of you," he said, hands on his hips and sounding exactly like his mother. "You collect them, and we'll start over. On Botany, we make things. We don't break them. That's what the Catteni do and you don't want to be Catteni, do you?"
The boys glanced over at the two women watching: Anna's expression was stern enough to frighten anyone. Kris grinned and made a gesture that suggested that it was wiser to obey. After a little more hesitation, possibly to show that they were making up their own minds about this, they bent to gather up the logs.
A little girl caught her finger on something sharp and she came rushing over to them, sobbing. Anna's whole countenance altered to one of concern and sympathy. Kris let her handle the consolation and first aid. For all her other faults, Anna was a very good mother and the children-at least the Botany-born-trusted her.
ZAINAL WAS IN THEIR CABIN when she returned with Zane and their evening rations from the main mess hall. He was busy with lists and diagrams and a curious gadget on the table, which, when she picked it up, Kris recognized as an inhaler bulb. The sort she'd seen asthmatics on earth use to forestall an attack.
"Think you can get close enough to a Mentat to give him a dose of this?" she asked.
Zainal looked up, saw the bulb, and took it from her. He squeezed it.
"There's nothing in it," he said as she instinctively swatted it away from his face.
Her heart pounding, she exhaled. "Don't scare me like that:'
Zainal chuckled.
"Baby got off all right? The Ix was still at it when I finished my shift."
"They must have ordnance-that's the English word, isn't it-"
"Right on;' Kris grinned.
"Resupply vessels. Only a Mentat would continue like this," he said.
"The Mentat, who once was your brother," she said and when he nodded, she continued. "Is there any connection? I mean, would… the Lenvec personality have any influence on the Mentat?"
Zainal leaned back, idly sliding a pencil through his fingers, up and down on the surface of the table.
"It could, but I'm,not certain how. The subsumation takes in the entire personality and then the dominant Mentat is in total control…" He paused. "Although it was the Ix Mentat, once my brother, who investigated Ayres Rock and then seemed to be searching over the sea we were safely under… possibly for me."
Kris began to assemble dishes and utensils to serve their meal. Zane was playing with his goes-inters-the shapes that Zainal had made for him to fit together. These afforded the child hours of pleasure. As she leaned over to put a glass before Zainal, she got a better look at the diagrams.
"Isn't that the space station?"
He nodded.
"When is the brave captain Venlik and his crew likely to set out for another mining expedition?"