Free Outward Borne by R. J. Weinkam

minutes. Then, two days later, shortly before lights up,
the entryway doors again slid open and Kit’s body was laid
carefully on the floor just inside the habitat. She was barely
conscious. No one knew at the time, but Kit was
pregnant.
    Anger and hostility boiled over.
The Cathians started to retaliate, but it was little more than
mindless destruction. Pacing back and forth, rubbing against the
wall of Zep’s room, Pok held an angry and guilty posture, unnerved
by what had happened. Zep sat slumped in the corner watching. Some
young fools, too angry, too frustrated, had destroyed a maintenance
robot and brought on more troubles.
    Tot and Cit had cornered a
harmless service bot and used clubs to bash its long arms when it
tried to protect itself. Another bot came around to help, but it
was equally defenseless and was smashed as well. The idiots ran
around posturing as though it were some great victory. They had no
idea that the flybots had come in. The things shot darts into their
backs, and into others who were watching them. They were all lying
about when the largest bot they had yet seen picked up Tot, Cit,
and two others. Many remained on the floor, not taken.
    Sut had just come from the bright room where
many of the Cathians had gathered. Zim was telling her story. The
fight took place near her room. She saw it all. Her sister Nib was
leading the call for revenge.
    Zep was convinced that would be
the wrong way to proceed. She jumped up stomping her legs. They
were living in a trap. The Hags have complete control. They could
gas everyone in here or stop providing our food. They do not care
about us and if we become a problem, they could just get rid of the
problem. They must find some way to confront the monsters
themselves, not just their robot machines. Somehow, they needed to
get to the Hags. The Cathians had not yet seen one of the ObLaDas,
who they called Hags, but they knew that those being controlled
their lives in the same way the controlled to bots. It was as bad a
name as the Cathians could bestow.
    Patrols continued with dubious
success to ambush bots that entered their space. They even seized
the robots that came to fix things or deliver supplies. But Zep and
her friends had begun to think of ways to escape from the habitat
and retaliate against the Hags. It would be no easy task. There
were no openings in the habitat. They had been looking ever since
they first arrived.
    Zep decided to approach Kit. She
was the only one that had been outside of the habitat. She must
know something. Zep was hopeful. Pok was not. She was even more
dejected than before and doubted that Kit had any ideas. Kit had
hardly talked to anyone since her abduction. Kit had said little
about her ordeal, and once she was found to be pregnant, she
refused to discuss what they had done to her. She was not pregnant
from any normal course of events. The Hags had done something to
her.
    Note:
    The ObLaDas’ findings from their
Cathian experiments were not in the available records. Whatever the
ObLaDas knew about the Cathian’s unusual biology was apparently
lost during the ensuing events.
    - MDK
     
     
    Zep brought Kit into the bright
room. She was determined to break through her reserve. Zep spoke of
the continuing abductions and of the declining morale among their
kin. She told of her intent to fight back, and how it was suicidal
to carry on a fight from within the habitat, how vulnerable they
were. She told of the need to confront the Hags themselves and
force them to return to Cathia. She did not know how this could be
accomplished, but that was why she was here. Zep told Kit that she
would not ask about what had been done to her, but must know as
much as possible about her capture and what she saw outside the
habitat.
    Kit only agreed to talk only
because it might stop it from happening to someone else. Her first
memory was of lying in a small, barred cage inside a much larger
dark grey room that was filled with equipment. Other cages