"Please to say that we of Kenya are happy to provide this to your Masai chief."
"You must let the green coord know when you stand in need of medicines again, Sembu, and we will return."
"For more coffee beans, no doubt." The man's smile was under-standing.
"I shall send along more power packs for the float, too," Zainal promised, before he bowed formally to Sembu and waved at the other workers who were unwilling to miss any of this pageant. Then Zainal led them all back into the KDM and pushed the button to retract the ramp.
Carefully, so that little dust lifted from the ground to discommode Sembu, Jax lifted the KDM away from the heights and eased the ship over the forestry before she increased power. Heading west, she turned the KDM's nose skyward and increased power until the ship could once again engage its hypersonic drives and take them back to Newark.
It was almost anticlimactic to be back in Newark air space barely two hours after they had taken off -a fact that the air tower person-nel remarked on as they extended a warm welcome back, "so soon." They were assigned their previous landing spot, and by the time Jax had landed the KDM, there were all kinds of trucks waiting to offload the precious coffee beans.
Twenty sacks of robusta beans were left in the KDM's hold and a good half of the fresh fruit and vegetables they had acquired at Ki-ambu Ridge. On the way back they had all enjoyed various fruits they had acquired: bananas, oranges, passion fruit, cape gooseberries with their lanternlike husks, custard apples and guavas, avocados, coconuts, papayas, and pineapples. And there were even chicken eggs and milk. Kris made a huge custard for dessert and planned to treat everyone to pancakes for breakfast. The KDM had a freezer unit but not a refrig-erator, so she could not keep milk fresh for long.
Rummaging in the galley cabinets, Kathy had found a grinder of sorts and managed to reduce some beans to the proper consistency to brew coffee, so everyone had enjoyed the spoils of their excursion.
She gave Murray half a dozen eggs and the same to Jelco as well as a carton of milk for his young child and a hand of bananas. She had a huge stalk to present to the caterer. And two green stalks to ripen on the way back to Barevi as well as several crates of oranges, limes, and lemons.
Then she got in touch with the tower controller and bribed him with some of their own coffee beans to give her aerial maps of Santa Lucia so they could plot a course and see if they couldn't exchange a quantity of robustas for arabicas. Nothing else they had, even the largesse from Nairobi, would be useful for trade, and they had only three sacks of wheat left with which to trade on Barevi.
There was no need to mention to anyone that they planned to stop off at Santa Lucia but they did spend the night at Newark. If this next stop was anything like the Kiambu Ridge one had been, Zainal thought they needed to be rested.
Kathy and Jax plotted the southern course, which they figured would take about twenty minutes, allowing another fifteen first to get to speed and then to slow down enough to land without damaging anything. The volcano, while not active, was currently sending a gray plume skyward so they had a fine guide to it on the northern tip of the island and a great look at the plateaus as well as the choice of sev-eral obvious landing sites. They saw several long, low, galvanized roofs that looked similar to the type used for bean storage in Kenya. Well, that made sense to Kris.
Somewhat to their dismay, they found that Catteni must have vis-ited the plantation several years earlier for the KDM's type of ship was recognized and men armed with rifles and machetes were waiting as the ramp extruded. Chuck was their spokesperson and Zainal and his sons stayed tactfully out of sight. Kathy and Jax accompanied the ser-geant, with the remaining float carrying a sack of robusta beans. The sight of the logo on the sack turned out to be the reassurance needed, and with a minimum of talk and an excess of pleasure, they managed to trade five robusta sacks and the remaining float for thirty arabicas, plus thirty more pounds of unrefined sugar. They got more green ba-nanas and a case of local rum. Despite the fact that she was safe with Zainal, Kris did not join in the evening celebration once she had had a sniff of the liquor.
"That's stronger than Mayock's hooch," Kris remarked, after a smell of the rum and felt no desire at all to imbibe. She did reserve one bottle of the case for cooking. No one had cinnamon or raisins to trade. They were given more crates of citrus fruits, which would be novelties on Barevi. She wondered if she could manage to keep at least one stalk of the green bananas and a crate of oranges to bring back to Botany.
They stayed the night on the surface-at the owner's invitation-and evidently he had sent messages to his neighbors to come see what had landed on his parking lot. And they came in droves, on horse back. Peran was much taken with horses and was put in the saddle of one animal (very gentle, Kris was assured) for a walk around. Bazil, naturally, had to have a turn, too. It was a convivial evening and es-tablished their KDM as friendly, Catteni and all.
When Kris suggested that they would probably return, they were begged to do so, and she made a list of the items for which they would gladly trade. She was not astonished to note that tires, Toyota truck spark plugs, and twenty-volt batteries were the most important items. "We could keep all our KDMs busy hauling stuff in and coffee beans out," she said to Zainal.
"Mmmm," was his response. "But these folks don't have what we desperately need." he next morning, when the KDM lifted from Santa Lucia, everyone was refreshed and keen to get on with the next phase of their mission. They logged out of the system with the Watch Dog and were given a cheerful "farewell, come back again soon" from the Cheyenne Mountain NOR-AD facility. If Gino, who was pilot for the first leg of their flight to Barevi, cheer-fully assured them that they would, there was no demur on their part.
"The Botany boys will be back," he crowed as he signed out of Terran space, and the powerful engines of the KDM sent them galac-tically north toward Barevi. s they neared the trading planet, there was more chat on the l comm lines between Catteni captains, and whenever possible the duty officer repeated Peter's carefully composed commercial about the new trader and goods coming soon to Barevi. The other key members of the ransom group now spent shifts listening to Catteni messages and practicing with Zainal's sons, who were delighted to be in the position of teachers instead of pupils. They also absorbed new vocabulary and phrases.
When not on duty, Bazil and Peran indulged in what Kris knew was simple sibling bickering, but she was unable to discipline the boys. They certainly resented any interference in their "discussions" or the way they teased Floss. Fortunately, Kris could distract Floss, and Jax and Kathy both helped the girl make a dress from the fabric Kris had unexpectedly found at the market in Kenya. Floss had gushed with appreciation for Kris's thoughtfulness. Of course, the boys teased Floss about that-when Zainal and Chuck were absent-but she was well able to make sharp retorts. There were a few incidents when they tried the same tactics on Ferris and Ditsy, but the two Terran boys were more than able to deal with the Catteni ones and earned their respect. Kris knew they resented her monopolizing their adored fa-ther's free time and were inclined to disregard any requests she made of them; she had expected that, even if she didn't know how to counter their impudence. But it was a long flight to Barevi. She would be very glad when there was a tutor assigned to keep them occupied.
When it came time for the BASS-1 to contact the Barevi space station that regulated all traffic in and out of the system, Captain Jax Kiznet was the pilot. This included her insistence that she did com-mand the BASS-1, origin: Botany Free Planet. Zainal was sitting as copilot, letting her handle the contact and repeat the landing instruc-tions. Barevi Tower was sarcastically upset over having a female an-swering their orders and evidently in command of a ship: a pilot of unknown ability flying in busy traffic space. Jax was quizzed on dock-ing procedures by the space station commander, Ladade, who sounded surly until finally Zainal intervened and said that he, Zainal, had been her instructor and that she was competent to pilot, even in such a busy port.