Decision at Doona

by Anne McCaffrey

  “What the hell?” Lawrence demanded, turning around in the empty site, incredulous.

  Where Reeve had first squatted under the needle tree with Hrrestan and the other elders of the village, there was no dust where restless fingers had made patterns; only an unblemished thick layer of tree droppings No indentations were left to mark where the heavy trestle bench had been; no burned-over area where the fire had flared. Only the silence of the forest and the frantic scuttling of Reeve and Lawrence to find some scrap of artifact that would bear witness to the village's existence.

  With a blandness that bordered on insolence, Landreau watched their hectic search.

  “You've had your fun but I'll set the pace on the way back,” he drawled at last. “And from now on.”

  Knowing that protestations were useless, Reeve attempted none and, shrugging helplessly at this unexpected development, he curtly motioned to Landreau to lead off.

  Suddenly a small body erupted into the village site, round-eyed, breath coming in staggering gasps. A panic-stricken Todd dug frantically in the mulch where Hrriss's house had stood.

  “They've gone. Where are they?” he sobbed, hysterically interspersing his gasping phrases with Hrruban wails of despair. “Daddy, where are they?” he demanded, darting to his father and tugging at his hand as if Reeve somehow could lead him to his friends.

  “I don't know, son. I just don't know,” Reeve admitted, looking about the clearing, anywhere except into the tragedy-filled eyes of his son.

  Todd dropped his father's hand and whirled on Landreau, who was watching the scene with an expression of cynicism that deepened into a puzzled frown. The small wiry body seemed to coil like an overwound mechanism. And, with all the hatred of a loyal soul, Todd directed his righteous anger at the spaceman.

  “You,” and the force of the small boy's contempt made the spaceman take an inadvertent step backward, “you drove my friends away!”

  Chapter XVIII. HEREAGIN, GONEAGIN, FINNEGIN

  REEVE WALKED PAST the half-finished barn, its bare studs pointing skyward like accusing fingers. He was going to report to the implacable Landreau the results of another day of fruitless searching. He had lost track of the number of drones he had launched and retrieved. As soon as one returned, a new trajectory was inserted, its film capsule was reloaded, and it was sent up again. He was now weighed down with exposed film which he hoped would keep Landreau up all night.

  Only one burn had so far shown up. With a triumphant gleam in his eye, Landreau had taken off in the copter, to return-silent. Eckerd had reported sardonically that there had been nothing more suspicious on the scene than a natural forest fire, caused by the lightning storm the morning of the barn raising. Some of the larger stumps were still smoldering but the charred earth was cool and devoid of chemical traces.

  When Landreau overheard someone mention the mountain caves, he had mounted a search party. To him they could easily harbor every variety of alien. All he found was dust, until Ben was attacked by a spider, the size of a dinner plate and extremely poisonous. But the spider was indigenous. And the necessity of getting the veterinary back to the camp cut short the expedition. The fact that Moody attributed Ben's continued life to Mrrva's yellow paste did not register with Landreau at all after a chemical analysis proved the paste to be composed of Doonan herbs.

  Reeve was forced to admire the dogged determination of the spaceman. How the Hrrubans could have escaped the notice of such Vigorous, intensive searching defeated Ken.

  He mounted the steps of the mess hall clumped wearily up to Landreau's neatly organized desk and tossed his load of reels down in front of the impassive spaceman.

  “Care to try submarine probes?” Ken taunted. “This finishes the aerial series. And, incidentally, the fuel for those probes.”

  The clear quick eyes locked with his briefly and then Landreau snorted. His self-assured passivity reminded Reeve, oddly enough, of Hrrula.

  «Switched sides?» Landreau asked. «Make up your mind, Reeve. Do you want indigenous personnel or don't you? Who do you want in the role? Yourselves or your – mass hallucination?»

  Ken said nothing and withdrew, trudging up the path to his cabin. Suddenly he wondered who he did want in the starring role. The colonists or the Hrrubans? If the colonists were indigenous, they had not abrogated the Principle and could remain. But, and Ken shook his head sadly, the colonists knew the Hrrubans were indigenous and that they must leave.

  Nevertheless, it was personally satisfying to see the haunted doubt flare occasionally in Landreau's eyes. And it was curiously gratifying, too, to find that the Hrrubans had been able to disappear so tracelessly. He knew the location of two of the other villages, and Dautrish and Gaynor had been at three others. No speck, spot or scorch could be found of any Hrruban habitation. A respect for them was mingled with a depressing sense of loss and frustration.

  There had been quiet talk among the colonists, half-verbalized wishes to justify their initial reports by at least one trace of the vanished natives. Then oblique relief when the most careful search elicited nothing. But the colonists could not avoid the moral issue. They knew the Hrrubans existed and no matter how keenly they wished to remain on Doona, their conditioning on Co-Habitation was too strong.

  “I'd like to know how Landreau can explain away those films we sent in of the first contact,” Lawrence had remarked in a hurried meeting Hu Shih had called after the first day's fruitless searching. “And those artifacts we sent in after the bridge was built. We can't repudiate them. I admit it makes us look a little foolish right now but . . .”

  “Landreau's looking for aliens, not natives,” McKee had said.

  “Yes, but goddammit man, where did our natives go?” Ken had demanded.

  That question sang in his ears as he stopped to look down the sweep of the Common to the bridge. The wind from the mountains cooled his face and he sniffed it for any trace of smoke. Only the cinnamony odor of the porous wood trees filled his nostrils, nothing more. He trudged wearily on toward his house.

  Under the needle tree that drooped over their roof stood what had lately been renamed the 'mourner's bench.' The central figure was the pathetically passive Todd, his hands for once limp on his thighs, his face immovably turned toward the bridge. He scarcely seemed to breathe. Beside him and on the ground at his feet sat several children, playing their endless quiet games, bearing him company in his sorrow in the curious way of the young.

  “No change?” Ken asked Pat, indicating his apathetic son.

  Pat hurriedly dried her hands to embrace him, her eyes sliding from his toward the child.

  “Maria finally got him to eat something,” and she gave a wry smile. “Some form of blackmail was used, I think. Oh, Ken,” and once inside the privacy of the house, her chin trembled and she dissolved against him, weeping.

  Ken held her close, wishing that he were permitted to indulge in the therapy of tears.

  «Ken, when I think how mean I've been to him – how mean we've all been – telling him to shut up, to sit still, to be quiet – and then to see him sitting there, hour after hour. Oh, Ken, I know he doesn't sleep. He just lies there, staring at the ceiling . . .»

  “Honey, honey, it won't be long now. Landreau's about given up,” and Ken tried to inject honest encouragement into his reassurance.

  “Do you really think so?” Pat asked, looking up at him with watery eyes, sniffling back her tears.

  “Looks that way. You know, in a sense, Todd brought this all on himself.”

  “Ken, how can you possibly . . .”

  “Well, Pat, one thing that has kept Landreau here is the look in Todd's face when he charged into the clearing. We might have some motive for deceiving Spacedep, but not that six-year-old kid. Although why Landreau thinks we invented natives, or aliens, I don't honestly know. But it's Todd who's kept Landreau looking. God knows, there's not a stitch of evidence to support our story.”

  «Ken – will they come back?» and Pat's face began to
crumple again. «I mean, after Landreau's gone, will they come back?»

  “That's not as big a question as how and why did they disappear in the first place.”

  Toddy was still sitting on his mourner's bench when the rest of his family had finished dinner. Resolutely Pat had taken food out to him. Ken turned his chair to watch. Every evening that week Pat had advanced on her fasting son with the grim determination that food would pass his lips that night or else. An hour later, 'else' had been reached and Pat would trudge back to the cabin to seek solace in Ken's arms. Tonight Pat's pilgrimage was interrupted by the arrival of Landreau and Kate Moody. The trio stood looking down at Todd and something in Kate's face prompted Ken to join them.

  “I don't care what your authority is, Spaceman,” Kate said in a harsh, almost defiant voice. “I will not permit a minor in my charge to undergo such an ordeal. The lasting effects of such a treatment are too brutal to be considered.”

  “So you intend to be a party to treason?” Landreau demanded. He jutted out his chin until his head appeared neckless, drawn down between his shoulders, giving him a vaguely Cro-Magnon look.

  Kate snorted derisively. “Don't be ridiculous and don't play the heavy militant with me. I will not risk warping a mind to ease your conscience or save your reputation; not on the grounds you supply.”

  Pat seated herself beside Todd, her arm thrown protectively around his shoulders. Todd paid no heed to their presence. He kept his eyes unblinkingly on the bridge. Reeve moved himself obtrusively into the spaceman's way. Landreau watched Todd through narrowed eyes. With a darting glance, he glared first at Ken, then at Kate, before turning again to Todd. Then he snorted, shrugged and, turning smartly on his heel, strode back to the office.

  Deep night was broken by the roar of his ship's departure. The noise roused Ken and Pat, and Ken, a sheet clutched around him, rushed out to witness the bright lance of fire arrowing skyward.

  “Just like him to take off in the middle of the night,” he grunted when he was satisfied that the ship was achieving an escape velocity instead of veering off for an atmosphere flight. “But I wouldn't put it past him to double back and hide out somewhere,” he added under his breath.

  As he padded back to bed, he passed Toddy's room and heard a long-drawn-out sigh. Peering around the doorpost, he saw Todd turn over in bed. Slowly the child curled up into the tight little ball in which he always slept. Pat called it 'winding the spring for the next day.' Quietly Ken leaned over Todd and saw that the eyes were closed for the first time that week. A happy smile curved the childish lips. Infinitely relieved, Ken watched a moment longer to be positive. Satisfied, he tiptoed back to bed.

  “Landreau's good and gone. And Toddy's asleep,” he told Pat.

  “Asleep?” Pat sat bolt upright, clutching at the sheet Ken was spreading back over the bed.

  “Yes, my dear girl, asleep. Bet you anything the Hrrubans are back in their village tomorrow.”

  “How can you sound so sure?” Pat demanded.

  Ken pounded his pillow into submission, dug his head into the depression and drew the sheet around his shoulders.

  “I'm not sure of anything on this crazy, mixed-up world, but just wait until tomorrow.”

  Chapter XIX. THE WRONG SIDE

  “KATE MOODY, I will not pump my child,” Reeve declared, pounding the table to emphasize his position.

  “Kenneth Reeve you're as wall-thick stubborn as he is,” Kate flashed back.

  “Good thing too. Seems to me though, Kate Moody, you're reversing yourself. I heard you tell Landreau you wouldn't . . .”

  Kate flushed. “You know damn well I'm not asking your permission to drug the child and dig into his subconscious. I'm merely asking you to ask him to . . .”

  “Get his best friend to give away trade secrets,” Reeve finished for her. “And I won't. No sweat, Kate, I want to find out as badly as you do. But I will not ask my son to violate his friendship with Hrriss. It means too much to him. Why jeopardize it for a woman's simple curiosity?”

  “That's just like a man, bringing sex into it,” Kate snapped with trenchant scorn and exasperation.

  “Bringing sex into it?” Ken gagged, trying to hold onto the shreds of his temper.

  “You most certainly do when you use the noun 'woman' as a possessive adjective,” Kate replied.

  “Now, wait just a moment, you two,” Pat said, stepping between them. “What makes you think, Kate, that we could get Todd to tell anything he and Hrriss have talked about?”

  Kate blinked at her in surprise. “What d'you mean?”

  "I mean that Todd is monosyllable king. 'Honey, did you have a good day with Hrriss?' " Pat mimicked herself, turning her head one way. " 'Yep.' " She approximated Toddy's oddly bass voice and turned her head in the other direction. " 'What did you do?' 'Oh!' " and Pat's shoulders lifted in a childish shrug, " 'nothing.' 'What did Mrrva give you for lunch?' 'Oh, nutty stuff.' 'You mean it tasted like nuts or it was nutty-nutty stuff?' 'Yep.' "

  Pat regarded the two with amused tolerance.

  “I absolutely defy either of you to get much information out of exchanges like that.”

  Kate had the grace to look sheepish and Ken straightened up, righteously redeemed.

  “I did, I admit,” Pat went on, “try to find out myself.”

  “What'd he say?” “What'd he say?”

  Pat shrugged and laughed, spreading her hands wide in admission of her failure. "He said, 'they went someplace else for a while.' "

  Kate sagged with deflation.

  “Kate,” Pat reminded the psychologist, “you were the one who told me Todd was unique and we'd simply have to let him 'dree his ain wierd in the world.' Mind your own advice.” Then she turned back to her needle-work, ignoring the other two.

  Aimlessly Kate wandered out and finally sat down on the mourner's bench. Ken joined her.

  “The ironical part of it all is that Landreau is right,” she mused. “They are aliens.”

  Ken leaned forward, supporting his elbows on his knees.

  "They must be, I suppose," he agreed reluctantly, "because I cannot figure out how else they could dismantle that village and the other five and hide them so effectively. Carrying houses through the forest? Up the mountainside? Throw 'em into the river?" He shook his head. "Even if they could have hidden the houses somewhere – in the deepest caves, for instance – it just wasn't physically possible in the time between Landreau's touch-down and our arrival at the village.

  “It just isn't possible, even with an advanced technology, to spirit away a substantial installation in a few minutes. I admit,” he said generously as the two saw Todd appear on the far approach of the bridge, “that they had more time to take the other villages apart, but not Hrrestan's.”

  Kate sighed over the enigma. Todd scuffled toward the bridge alone, his step still jaunty after a long, busy day. He turned toward the woods, his figure alert, and tentatively raised one arm in farewell. Hrriss must be just beyond their sight, Ken decided. Todd turned homeward, kicking a stone out of his path as he trod across the bridge. His purring song was now audible in the quiet evening air.

  “But I don't understand why they'd want to disappear in the first place,” Kate remarked plaintively. “Particularly since they know we've taken films of them and taped their voices. I mean, why hide from Landreau?”

  “I haven't figured that out either, but it's the nub of the solution.”

  “I should think that they would have shown themselves to Landreau. I mean one man, in a small ship, couldn't constitute a menace to the Hrrubans, so why leave without explanation or clue?” Kate was saying as Todd passed them on his way to the house.

  Todd halted and regarded them thoughtfully.

  “Hrriss said things aren't ready yet,” he volunteered.

  “Oh,” Kate drawled slowly, laying a warning hand on Ken's arm as she felt him stiffen attentively. “What things aren't ready?” she asked in the manner of the indifferent adult.


  Todd shrugged. “Oh. things.” He looked down again at his bare dirty toes. Then he gazed off again toward the bridge, his eyes squinting in the last brilliance of the setting sun.

  “So they had to go away to get things ready?” prompted Kate absently.

  “You mean when he was here?” and Todd jerked a finger skyward.

  “Hmmm,” Kate agreed. Ken was awed by the control of her relaxed, semi-indifferent manner.

  “Naww,” Todd replied. “Mom, can I have something to eat? Hrriss and me missed supper.”

  “Certainly. Come in and wash first, though,” Pat replied, unaware of what she was interrupting with her ready acquiescence.

  Ken and Kate exchanged disgusted looks.

  “What things?” Ken demanded in frustration when Todd had disappeared into the house. “Why must things be ready?”

  “Well, if the confusion from our planet is any indication, they must be overheating their computer circuits for a print-out on their own colonial program,” Kate suggested, sluffing off her own disappointment with wry humor.

  "How much time do they need? And for what? And how can you extrapolate a computer science for the Hrrubans – " and Ken stopped, suddenly struck by the memory of Hrrula scratching in the dust on Saddle Ridge. Goddammit, the man had drawn samples of a binary-type computer print-out. That couldn't have been a random design, the odds were too much against it. Ken squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to recall the exact pattern of 0 and 1 which Hrrula had inscribed. The Hrruban had been trying to give him a message, perhaps. But why not speak it out loud? Oh, he had had the tape on, but what would that matter? All right, Reeve, think a little. Ken slapped his forehead.