Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [110]
The breeding prisoners gasped. Even Osira'h was surprised by his abrupt decision, though she was sure Daro'h would never tell them the full truth of why they had been held here, what the experiments were meant to achieve, or what the Mage-Imperator was doing behind their backs.
Although the Burton descendants had never known any other place, any other life, Osira'h thought some of them would want to go far from here. They would pick up their belongings, tools, seeds, and travel to the south, in the vast unclaimed openness. If Daro'h gave them that much freedom.
Inside the camp boundaries, the humans milled around. When work parties actually started to cut the wires and uproot the barricade posts, the captives finally believed what was happening. Stoner gestured, and humans came forward on the other side of the fence. Together, they tore down the barrier that had always enclosed them.
Daro'h said to the former prisoners, "We need you to continue working in the communal fields, but you will also till your own acreage and provide for yourselves." He looked at the weathered breeding barracks. "We will assist you in building new dwellings in an open settlement. Your ancestors came here to found a new home with freedom and independence. I give that back to you."
Nira began to cry, shaking and overwhelmed. Osira'h hugged her mother, feeling her relief and cautious joy like wind rushing through the worldforest canopy--a sound the girl knew well in her secondhand memories, but which she had never heard for herself.
They all worked with great enthusiasm. With a clatter, the wires were cut and torn down, the fence material pulled away, and the bleak encampment opened to the rest of the world. Daro'h called for the storage sheds to remain unlocked and available, so that Stoner and his people had unlimited access to basic farming equipment, plows, hoes, planters, power-diggers, irrigation components.
Osira'h could feel surprise and joy all around her. Some of the people cheered, while others could not accept such changes all at once. With so many lost generations behind them, the captives had forgotten the skills and knowledge necessary to create and sustain a self-sufficient colony settlement. That information would have been in the Burton's databases, but the old generation ship was long gone. They did not know how to live on their own and be free.
But they could learn.
Next to Daro'h, the Ildiran guards remained uneasy. A lens kithman said, "Designate, I must caution you. These humans have been prisoners for generations. Is it wise to provide them with tools that could easily be turned into weapons?"
"I have given them their freedom. Is that not our best defense?"
The lens kithman glanced away. "I would not know, Designate."
Osira'h still felt the pain that lingered after two centuries of oppression. She applauded Designate Daro'h for what he had done, but it was not enough. She knew what the Mage-Imperator was really planning with the hydrogues, how he had agreed to betray humanity. Osira'h understood something about these prisoners that the new Dobro Designate could never fathom.
He did not comprehend the human need for revenge.
64
KING PETER
Ever since the King had reacted decisively in the Soldier compy emergency, the royal guards viewed him differently. Previously, the ever-watchful men had deigned to obey Peter's instructions only after checking with the Chairman or some Hansa functionary. Now even stiff Captain McCammon had started snapping to attention whenever the King asked him to do something.
Peter had done what seemed right, since Basil's usual caution would have cost far more lives, and McCammon's guards had noticed who made the decision--the correct decision. Hearing Nahton's words, the guards at last understood that King Peter rarely received the information a true ruler needed. No