Freedom's Challenge

Freedom's Challenge by Anne McCaffrey

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Authors: Anne McCaffrey
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her from going along, even if she had to remain in the artificially lower gravity of the ship the entire time. She now had enough Catten to answer any communications the ship might be sent.
    â€œWe have been away a long time, whoever we are,” Zainal said with a little sly grin, “so it doesn’t matter that we have landed and changed the ID. Who will know?”
    â€œHow fast does your paint dry?” asked Ninety facetiously.
    They still had the uniforms that had been tailored to fit the first Barevi raid but Sandy Areson had some new artifices to contribute. First, she’d an awful-smelling mixture that bleached their hair a dingy gray. One of the recovering Victims was a skilled optician (though he never did explain what he had done on Earth that would have caused him to be victimized by the Eosi). When he realized that gray hair and skin would not entirely present the team as Catteni, he finally managed to produce yellow contact lenses, cursing the need to improvise, since he had not considered his first attempt to be successful. But he managed.
    â€œYou’ll have to take them out and wash them every day,” Riz Kamei said, unhappy with that necessity. “No plastics here at all.”
    â€œYet…” one of his helpers said with a grin.
    â€œWhatever,” and Riz flicked his long fingers irritably, “but the lenses will do what’s necessary.” Then he shook his head as if he found even the requirement of yellow as an eye color an offense.
    He showed them all how to put them in, how to cleanthem in a solution he provided, again muttering about insufficient supplies until everyone really did wonder what his Earth side job had been. He did however allow himself a slight smile of approval when the contacts were in place.
    Kris had never considered herself especially vain, but she had had a brief flush of dismay when her hair had not only been clipped very short on her head but bleached such a hideous gray. Now, with the yellow eye lenses, she looked so much like a Catteni, she was almost nauseated.
    â€œYou’re still much too pretty to be a typical Catten broad,” Ninety Doyle remarked. He added a smile that, with his yellowed teeth and dyed skin, made him look all too much like other Drassi they’d seen in the Barevi markets.
    She gave a shudder of repulsion. “You look awful, Ninety. Lenny would disown you.”
    â€œLenny’s mad enough he couldn’t come along,” Ninety said, closely examining his gray complected face. Their Botany suntans also helped approximate a Catteni gray skin. Sandy had said both body paint and hair dye would last about two or three weeks, depending on how often they bathed.
    â€œYeah, but Lenny’s closer to a Guinness than I am,” Ninety said gloomily.
    Looking around, Kris remembered that the Catteni who had crewed Baby hadn’t washed at all, remembering the stench in their quarters.
    â€œIf there is any Guinness left, Ricky Farmer wasn’t so sure about that. But I’m sure he’ll bring you back a bottle,” Kris said, meaning to console.
    â€œBottle?” Ninety roared in dismay, as if she had uttered an unforgivable blasphemy.
    â€œCan?”
    â€œWhat’d you bet he frees the last vat in Dublin?” Mack Dargle said.
    â€œI never bet on sure things,” Kris said, grinning.
    â€œThey gotta get your teeth yellower, Kris. That smile’s a giveaway.”
    â€œAnd not a tube of Colgate to whiten my teeth anywhere on this planet,” she said in wistful retort.
    â€œThey may bring some back, you know,” Mack Dargle said, taking the mirror from Doyle so he could inspect himself and did a good comic double take. “My own mother wouldn’t recognize me.”
    â€œJust so long as a Catten wife doesn’t,” Ninety said.
    Mack shuddered. “I saw some of those crew-women. No thank you. I’d sooner wrestle with a

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