These had been improved by a reed-woven cushion, probably filled with fluff seed: much more comfortable than plain stone. My, but I've become soft, Kris thought, wanting mattresses and cushions to put my sit-upon upon.

Although Worrell looked first at Kris, it was Zainal who gave the report in an English that was almost as unaccented as Kris's. He even managed the tinge of a drawl she was in the habit of using. She drew out her map and showed Worrell the distance they'd covered which drew an appreciative whistle from him - and the new garage locations.

He was particularly interested in the sh.o.r.eline building.

"Think Mitford'll want that inspected and entered."

"Anything else exciting happen around here?" Kris asked, noting that the main camp did not seem as crowded as it had been when they left.

"Well, we've set up two more camps besides Camp Rock," and he grinned broadly at Kris who chuckled.

"Camp Shutdown's one of the garages you lot found on your last walkabout and Camp BellaVista's the other side which c.u.mber's patrol found," and he waved his hand to the east. "The miners've got living quarters in their adit, Ironclad."

"How many patrols have gone out?" Kris asked.

"At the moment, four others." Worry pulled a sheet from under a pretty agate used as a paperweight, checked that it was the one he wanted, before he showed Kris the small-scale map with its lines indicating patrol directions. "We'll know this place as well as the mechos do. "Is something burning?" Kris asked, aware of an acrid metallic stink in the breeze that was blowing across them in the office.

"Ah, yes, we got us a forge here, too. There's another one at Ironclad. Found us a real top-grade of iron ore, plus copper, zinc, tin, gold and bauxite." He winked at Kris with a grin on his face.

"You'll note how far down the list gold is. Any road, mines are over thataway," and he waved a hand northwards and then northeasterly.

"Got us two farriers, a wrought-iron fabricator and nine Fwelders.

We've screwdrivers, now, and screws, all kinds of other tools, nails and hooks; soon maybe even needles and pins and I dunno what all else.

Skillets, kettles and pots are being turned out of the sandpit daily.

Pretty good stuff considering we're back to re-inventing essential equipment." Kris grinned back at him, amused. "The mechs didn't mine any metals on the planet?"

"Nary a nugget, as far as we can see, and some of the ore was just lying around like they couldn't be bothered shovelling it up."

"So they bring in all their equipment," Zainal said thoughtfully, fingering his lower lip.

"Looks like. Leastwise we haven't found any garage or building or mine adit or anything suggesting the alloys they use in the mechos were indigenous. And oh my word, some of our engineers would give their eye-teeth (Zainal shot Kris a quick amused look) to know the composition of the alloys used for the cha.s.sis of those mechos." Worry whistled again.

Kris was wondering if this was an Antipodean habit - whistling for emphasis. Joe Marley was p.r.o.ne to whistle, too. Well, it made a nice change from swearing.

"And the computer guys are right beside "em wanting used in the motherboards 0m.

"So no-one re-invents the wheel here?" Zainal asked, astounding Worrell again.

"I thought you didn't speak much English, Zainal," he said, giving Kris a suspicious glance.

"I learn languages easily," Zainal said. "I learn -" and he paused briefly, touching his fingers in his counting, "fifteen with English.

"Some people got a real talent for it, that's the truth. I still have trouble with the Queen's English." Then Worry gave a big grin.

"You mentioned the wheel, well, I want to tell you, we have pa.s.sed out the need for something as primitive as a mere wheel."

"We did?" Kris asked.

"One of the engineer blokes got one of the air cushion mechos working. Only now they gotta reprogramm it to work when thy want it to."

"Boy, o boy, boy," Zainal startled Worrell into an On-mouthe stare, "then we don't have to carry all those parts back here."

"You bet!" Worry's smile was proud as he shuffled to find another sheet of paper. "Ah, here we are. Your patrol's bunked in Mitchelstown. You got tomorrow off and I think they'll want you hanging about here a bit."

"Mitchelstown?" Kris asked.

"Yeah, we started naming the caves. Makes it more homey. So the main cook cavern's now Cheddar. We even got nameplates so you'll know when you get to the right one. Mitchelstown's quite roomy. Second turn on the left past Cheddar. Near the jacks, too."

"How is the Deski, Coo?" Zainal asked and Kris was annoyed with herself that she hadn't thought to ask after their comrade.

Worry looked his nickname. "Not good. Leon says he's holding his own but the thorn greens are not enough Sometoohinn, but not enough.

Sure that message gets read g, hope "We found a lot of stuff on our patrol - maybe edibles that might be good for the Deskis," Kris said.

"Clams, berries, nuts."

"Clams? No oysters?" Kris shook her head.

"I liked oysters," Worry said emphatically. Then he slapped both hands on his knees, rose and shook hands first with Kris and then Zainal, before turning to Joe and calling him over. "So, Marley, pull up a stone and show me what you brought in." His gesture included not only Joe but Sarah and the two Norwegians.

Cheddar had improved almost beyond recognitio - not the least of which were the solar panels, like chevrons, above the entrance. There were tables and stools, and brick hearths replacing circles of stones, and ovens ranged on one wall. Bread racks showed the day's produce which was not limited to large, economy loaves, but featured small ones as well. The supply area now had a front counter and shelving behind on the wall to display goods which proved that ingenuity was rampant.

A neatly curved doorway gave into a storage area beyond the main cavern but the door was closed. Store shut!

Someone had also been successful in blowing gla.s.s, Kris realized, noticing that the corridor lighting had gla.s.s shades: sort of lumpy and blurred but gla.s.s nonetheless.

Mitchelstown not only boasted a carved nameplate, the letters outlined in black against the lighter stone, but also some rough bedsteads and mattresses, covered by the ubiquitous thermal blankets and probably filled by the fluff. At least it wasn't raw dirt or stone. Little alcoves had been cut into the wall for shelf s.p.a.ce and there were thick wooden pegs hammered into the wall for hanging things.

As if they had something to hang. But Kris did now - the map case which Worry had told her to hang on to for their next patrol and the comunit, which she carefully put on the pegs.

"Well," Kris said, settling tentatively down on the nearest bed, "all the comforts of home. What?"

"You did not give eye-teeth, Kris," Zainal said, his eyes twinkling at her "Didn't have to, she said, laying down fully but starting upright so quickiy that Zainal looked around anxiously to see what had startled her. "Muddy boots," she said and unfastened hers, kicking them off. "Definitely the comforts of home." She lay back again.

"What was your home on Terra like, Kris?" Zainal asked, removing the accoutrements from his belt and neatly bestowing them on the shelf above the bed next to hers.

"It wasn't a cave, that's for sure," she said, unexpectedly irked to be asked such a question. Suddenly she had a glimpse of why others could dislike Zainal simply because he was Catteni: his presence reminded them of what they had been taken from. She pushed down that irritation and, as civilly as she could manage, described the split-level ranch-style house she, her parents and her brother and two sisters had lived in: her neighbourhood, her friends. She rattled on, unable to stop talking about her black-and-white cat, about the dormitory she'd lived in at college, until Joe and Sarah appeared in the opening, Astrid and Oskar just behind them.

"Is this our home from home?" Joe asked in a bright voice.

"Yes, it is," Kris said and was suddenly impelled to leave.

Rising from the bed, she stamped back into the boots she had removed, left the room and half-ran across the cook cavern and out, taking the steps as fast as she could without any caution, and across the ravine and campfire site, beyond the stocks and up onto the heights, down behind them and off up the next rise, where she was away from anyone.

There she sat herself down and, burying her hands in her face, cried. She didn't know why she'd reacted in such a childish way, unless it was just that the "loss' had finally caught up with her. Up until the moment Zainal had asked her, she hadn't allowed herself to think about home, her family, and all the things that were dear and familiar. She had forced herself to concentrate on first, surviving, and then on the challenge of patrolling with Zainal, of proving herself useful on this crazy world.

She'd kept up, she'd done all that was asked of her, but that didn't make up - at this moment - for the future she had once planned for herself.

She sensed, rather than heard or felt, someone near by. Whirling around on her bottom, she saw Zainal.

"It was all your fault. . ." The moment the words were out of her mouth, she cried out. "NO! I didn't mean that, Zainal. I didn't mean it! Don't go." He stood where he was, rock solid and unsmiling, but apparently concerned enough to make sure she did herself no harm.

"Sarah says to cry is good."

"How did she know I'd cry?" A twitch of one huge shoulder. "She is woman, Terran like you. She was right, wasn't she? You cry."

"Don't blab it all over the mountain, d.a.m.n it," she said, blotting her cheeks so she had a reason for keeping her want Zainal to see her crying: she didn't. "Do Catteni women cry?"

"Yes," he said so stoutly that she knew he was lying.

"You're lying in your teeth." The knowledge that he would prevaricate made her feel better.

"My eye-teeth?" And the rumble of his voice under her ear was tinged with laughter "You're Jag at me . . -" she said in an ominous tone.

"I am laughing at the thought of teeth with eyes as if teeth can see." "Yes, that is a bizarre concept, isn't it?" Zainal had eased himself closer to her and his proximity was comforting. He had a different body odour to human males, she realized. It wasn't an offensive pong, not oniony like most guys, but she couldn't identify what it did smell like, except that she liked it.

"I rarely get silly," she said briskly. She didn't want a sentry to come by and see her: this meeting could be misconstrued and she didn't want any more rumours about Zainal scooting about the camp.

"What is your home like or will that make you sad enough to cry?" The notion of a Catteni in tears made her giggle.

"You are better now," Zainal said and, putting a hand under her chin, tilted her face up.

Kris was nearly unbalanced by the unexpected tenderness in his warm yellow eyes. Why had she ever thought them an odd colour?

Then he slid an arm around her shoulders. "Are you better now?

Food is ready. Are you not hungry? Hungry brings tears, too.

She shot him a keen look. "I won't blame tears on hunger. I got homesick."

"Home sick?" He was puzzled.

"Yes, sick for the sight of familiar things and people you love."

"I don't think Catteni understand "homesick"," he said at his drollest.

Now he eased her towards the cavern. "Why do they call this Camp Ayers Rock? Joe laughed." Kris grinned again. "That's a big landmark in Australia." She glanced about her. "Much bigger than this but I guess the outline might be similar. The Aussies must have padded the vote . . if they even took one."

"That does not make them homesick?"

"That wouldn't," she said. "Do you never miss home?"

"Not my home world," he said so emphatically that she wondered if it was the planet itself or the people on it. "We go see Coo and Pess. Tell them about the new foods."

"Yes, we should," she said, now ashamed of her weakness when good friends were in desperate need.

Coo and Pess, and the other ill members of their species, were all together in one hospital cave. Weakness lay on them like a palpable cloak, turning their skin a pale, sickly green. They were lying on plump pallets but to Kris it seemed as if it was an effort for them even to breathe. Pess looked nearly transparent: he was the oldest of the Deskis. It was their bones, wasn't it, that were weakening? Not their lungs.

All the Deskis seemed happy to have visitors and they all gabbled in their own language to each other when Zainal and Kris told them about the foodstuffs that they had found on their latest patrol.

"You think good, you do good," Coo said, looking from Kris to Zainal and nodding. "Coo walk with you soon."

"Learning more English, too," Kris said, shifting her feet and slightly uneasy in the face of such a wasting illness. She remembered how indefatigable Coo and Pess had been on their first patrols together, To see them in such poor condition really disheartened her. If she wasn't careful, she'd start weeping again.

"Do you have seas on your planet?" she asked Coo.

"See?"

"Large waters, salty." Comments were exchanged and Coo, as spokesman, shook his head sadly. Then Kris tapped the water jug.

"Big water, you can't see across it."

"0." Both Pess and Coo responded to that and vigorously nodded. "Big water good."

"Good for Deskis?" and again Kris was rewarded by a nod. "Maybe the clam things will help." Then Leon put his head around the door frame. "Don't overtire them but I hear you found some possible nutrient sources on your latest trek?" All too relieved to have an excuse to leave the Deskis, Kris was happy enough to describe what Joe had found.

"I'll catch him later."

"How are they, Leon?" Kris asked in a low voice.

"Holding their own and the female's pregnant." Kris glanced over her shoulder. "Which is she?"

"The one next to Pess. Her mate. We're hoping he can last until she gives birth but it's doubtful. His age is against him. He's not as resilient as the others. If they were humans, I'd say they had rickets and they'd need vitamin C. I've ordered a microscope," and he gave a brief grin, "from those engineering blokes who say they can make anything we need from mecho sc.r.a.p. Wish they'd hurry up.

At that point, Zainal joined them in the hall but he didn't need Leon's diagnosis to know how serious the Deskis' condition was.

* * * They made a good meal that evening, the highlight being a fermented beer that was being brewed in Camp Rock.

It had a kick to it, all right, but the taste was weird.

"We'll get it right. We'll get it right," said Worry who had joined them at the table with his cup and the pottery pitcher that held his ration of beer. "Castlemaine x.x.xX or Foster's it ain't, but we'll have a respectable pint by the time winter comes. We'll need it then."

"We will?"

"Hmmm, meteorologist bloke says he thinks winters are bad here. Sees signs on the trees and stuff. We'll do a good business in rock-squat furs."

"Business?" Kris asked. She seemed to be asking a lot of questions.

"Sure, worker's worth his hire - in privileges. Mitford won't allow gold used as barter or we'd never keep people at their ch.o.r.es.

They'd be out gold digging. Working on some wine, too, out of those green berries. Right tasty. And a cordial for them who don't like the taste of beer."

"There are such people?" Kris said, her expression bland. "How do you like it?" she asked Zainal who was cautiously sipping his beer. "Is there anything like this on Barevi or Catten?" "Yes! Not as good as this," Zainal said, a comment which did his credit no harm.