Freedom's Landing Read Online Free PDF

forcewhip and a scream roused Kris to her recurrent nightmare. She was lodged between two warm and sweating bodies, her cheek against a cold hard surface, her knees up under her chin, in an awkward and uncomfortable position. She wondered she’d remained unconscious so long. Maybe she just didn’t want to recognize that she was in a Catteni holding cell. Which was holding far too many right now. It was dark, though not as dark as the hold of the transport vessel had been. She didn’t know if that was a blessing or not.
    She moved carefully, because she seemed to ache all over and she could feel bruises and scrapes on her uncovered legs, arms, and face. The cold of the wall felt good against a sore cheek.
    But there was movement now her eyes were open and adjusted to the semi-gloom. It was a low-ceilinged chamber of crowd-containment size: she could barely make out the perimeter. The place seethed with bodies but then she saw that there were two openings and bodies were being pushed out into a brighter space beyond.
    Catteni whips sssslashed out again and those around her got quickly to their feet, following the example of those in the outer ranks. Rank was right, she thought, breathing shallowlyso as not to taste the disgusting air she had to inhale.
    She got to her feet by supporting herself against the wall. The person on her right groaned in pain. Kris found herself trying to help the woman, for it was a female, one of the Deski, so slight and spindly-limbed that she was afraid even her helping hand would break a bone. They must be a lot tougher than they looked, she thought, or they’d never survive the usual callous treatment accorded all species by the Catteni.
    The whiplash sang dangerously close to her and she ducked. One of the disadvantages of being tall, but she’d got the Deski to her feet and supported her swaying body. Automatic reflexes of the Good Samaritan were also a disadvantage, she thought.
I can’t help everyone. So help the ones you can.
She put both hands on the Deski’s stick-thin shoulders to keep the creature upright as they moved away from the wall, in the general direction the Catteni wanted them to move—the doors.
    So she—and Mahomet—had been caught up in the Catteni crowd-control. Well, he was probably out of it since they could scarcely think he was one of the mob that they had quelled with their gas sprays. Her timing was as usual faultless: right back where she’d started. Well, not quite but near enough to make no nevermind. Still, if she’d escaped once, she could do it again. She had to cheer herself up.
    They moved close enough to the door now to see that the next room was full of spraying water. One of those mass showers the Catteni used to cleanse captives. There were occasional short pauses as the Catteni guard at the door stripped clothing off. She gritted her teeth. The procedure had overtones she didn’t like but she’d been through this sort of line in the slave pens and had come out the other side alive—and breathing fresh air. Anything was better than the stench behind her.
    Disrobing her was simple. The Catteni simply ran the cutter down the front of her tunic, pulled at the back, and shoved her forward, naked, into the hot spray. It felt good, battering her from below, above, and all sides. It smelled slightly betterthan the room she’d just left but the disinfectant was undoubtedly a wise and sensible addition. She walked as quickly as she could, her eyes front and unfocused so she wouldn’t
see
anything. The water was hot enough to cause a misting, so there wasn’t that much to see but bodies, green, gray, and other shades of pale, moving through it. Then they were in the drying room and assailed by jets of air almost too hot on skin roughened by the disinfectant, but she was dry by the time she had traversed that chamber. A slight pause at the exit and she was handed a bundle and peremptorily gestured