Freedom’s Choice Read Online Free

ascent up an irregular cliff mass and now looked down into a long valley that bore no traces of the neatness which typified the land the Mech Makers farmed. Their ascent had beena quick decision, prompted by certain anomalies that both Zainal and Whitby, the mountaineering expert of the team, had noticed. The first was a stream bubbling vigorously from what seemed like a solid rock face. Investigating, they found the stream had bored a channel through the stony barrier.
    â€œThat’s not the kind of rock that water erodes,” Whitby said. “It was carved somehow.”
    The second curiosity was that the high mound of rubble that barred their way couldn’t, in Whitby’s estimation, have been caused by a natural landslide or depression, and he called their attention to the top of the cliffs, which did look shorn.
    â€œCould have been an earthquake,” Kris had suggested.
    â€œWe’ve seen no other subsidence on our way here,” Basil Whitby had said, shaking his head, glancing along the cliffs on either side. “Not a landslide, not with that kind of stone.” Then he grimaced at the tumbled rocks of the barrier.
    â€œDon’t see any kind of road leading up here,” Sarah said, swinging around to be sure.
    â€œAs if mechanicals left any tracks with those air cushions,” Joe Marley reminded her, and she made a face at him. “Not even a mark where a big mother would have parked for a time.”
    â€œAnimals do leave tracks,” she replied.
    â€œAnd we haven’t seen many of them lately, now have we?” he said in good-natured sparring.
    â€œThere have to be other animals than loo-cows, rocksquats, night crawlers, and those vicious avians. Even I know that much about ecological balance.”
    â€œMaybe,” and Leila Massuri’s tone was cautious, “that barrier’s there for a good reason.” She and Whitby were the new members of the Kris-Zainal team. Leila contributed more to the pot with her crossbow prowess than to discussions.
    â€œKeeping something in? Or out?” Joe asked, accepting the premise.
    â€œWe find out,” said Zainal, and began to pass out appropriate equipment for scaling the barrier. Though the air cushion of their all-terrain vehicle allowed it to traverse very rough terrain, the gradient of the rocky obstacle in front of them was too acute.
    They were far better equipped now for explorations than they had been in the initial days after being dumped on Botany. Leila slung her crossbow across her back, and made sure that the quarrel pouch was fastened, while Kris loaded her pouch with pebbles for her sling and slung the rope coil Zainal handed her over one shoulder. Whitby had fashioned himself a proper climbing pick, which he slid into the loop at his belt, stuffed pitons into thigh pockets, and secured the short compound bow and quiver of arrows to the harness on his back. Sarah and Joe had slings as well as boomerangs, a utensil that was becoming more popular: Fek and Slav armed themselves with lances and hatchets. They all carried blanket rolls and small sacks with food and water.
    The climb up the irregular and often shifting cliffside had taken most of the morning but the view at the top was more than worth the effort. Below them lay a peaceful valley, obviously undisturbed by the agricultural mechanicals that dominated the slopes behind them. At the narrow end of the valley they could see a distant waterfall, its descent a murmur as it fell into a small lake. The stream leading from it meandered down the far, lower side of the valley and blundered into the cliff, answering the question of its origin. The valley floor was interspersed with flat grasslands and some of the odd-looking thickets that in their season would bear edible berries. But the most unusual feature was the little groves of what Kris called lodge-pole trees: straight tall trunks that flattened at the very top into a thick crest of narrow