Freedom’s Choice by Anne McCaffrey Page B

scout came to take you back because you’d been chosen?” Easley asked.
    Zainal nodded.
    â€œI heard it was some sort of honor,” Rastancil said, though his expression suggested he didn’t consider it so.
    â€œIt is.” And then Zainal grinned. “But I was dropped. I stay.” He made a scissors motion with his big hands. “I am off the honors list.”
    Easley blinked and grinned. Rastancil did, too.
    â€œBut it was duty?” Fetterman said.
    â€œNot once I was dropped here,” And Zainal pointed emphatically at the ground.
    â€œSomeone has to take your place?” asked a black officer—late forties, Kris judged his age.
    â€œAnother male of my line. There are several,” Zainal said with a shrug.
    â€œWhat about reprisals here?” another man asked. Kris thought he was Reidenbacker. She’d been reviewing in her mind all the names and occupations on drop lists and was putting them now to faces.
    â€œThe last place they will look is here,” Zainal said.
    â€œYou’re sure of that?” Admiral Scott asked, his tone barely civil.
    â€œHe’s got a point, Ray,” Rastancil replied. “If you were deserting, the last place you’d go to is the place you deserted from.”
    â€œI do not desert,” Zainal said with a slight frown. “I was dropped. I stay.”
    â€œThen that’s some kind of duty or just a personal preference?” Scott wanted to know.
    â€œZainal is referring to the fact that no one placed on one of these trial planetary occupations is ever released,” Kris said firmly and trying not to glare at Scott. “This is essentially a penal colony, you know. Zainal
refused
the option to leave because that would break another rule: only because it suited his superiors. If they’d retrieved him before he was sent off with us dissenters, it would’ve been another matter entirely. But they let him get sent.” She added that, whether it was true or not, just to make sure Scott wasn’t going to call Zainal a deserter or coward or anything like that.
    â€œWe concede the issue,” Rastancil said, smiling.
    â€œSo we can be sure we won’t be in for any reprisals because you brought the scout here,” Scott added.
    â€œI think we’ve established that that is unlikely,” Easley said, trying to end that topic, “since Zainal deliberately took a course that would take him out of thissystem on his departure. Ah, here’s the sergeant.”
    Mitford cleared the look of irritation from his face as he stepped down from his runabout.
    â€œDamn Aarens claiming he had rights…” he muttered to Kris as he hunkered down beside her. “Finished discussing Phase One?”
    â€œIndeed we have…” Easley began.
    â€œCould we have a written report for the record?” Scott asked.
    â€œOne’s all we got paper for, sir,” Mitford said with no apology. “Kris, can you do it for me? So, Zainal, if you’ll describe Phase Two just as you told it to me three nights ago…”
    Zainal suddenly rose to his feet. Even though most of the brass were sitting on a slope, his new position required them all to look up at him, as neat a bit of strategy as Kris had ever seen.
    â€œThe transports that make the drops come more often. Your planet is giving Catteni trouble they did not expect. The ships are not in good repair. We have weapons now. We can take a second ship.” He held up one hand to forestall questions that goal provoked. The gesture was one of such dignified command that even Scott subsided, scowling. “We take transport. Then scout takes load of metals from mechs and bomb and explode in space far enough up there…” He extended his hand upward. “Satellite is geo-syn-chron-ous,” and if he sounded out the syllables, he had them in the right order. “Can only see this side. Will see explosion.” He made