Decision at Doona

by Anne McCaffrey

  «Reptile, I ought to say, to give it full marks. One thinks of snakes as being small. This here now reptile had a jaw span wide enough to eat a mare – in one bite. I didn't stay around to note further details.»

  “There was no mention of reptiles of that size in the report,” Ben protested, his face blank as he absorbed the full meaning of Reeve's news.

  “There was no mention of Hrrula's ilk either,” Reeve reminded him succinctly, shaking the water from his hair. The motion started the nosebleed again.

  “Of all the misbegotten, unprintable days,” Reeve swore. He felt like such a fool, standing there dripping water, blood and stale sweat, too saddle-sore to stand erect. “Scared mares, stamping urfa and starving snakes!” He caught the listening look on Hrrula's face as the Hrruban jerked his chin suddenly skyward.

  Pressing his bloody nostril shut, Reeve limped bow-leggedly to Hrrula and grabbed his arm.

  “Disappearing again?” he demanded roughly, not bothering to use Hrruban.

  "These are our orders, Rrev, much as I would desire to stay,'' Hrrula grinned and, disengaging his arm, trotted away toward the bridge.

  “What did you mean?” asked the perplexed veterinary. “What did he mean?”

  “You'll catch on, Ben, you'll catch on,” Ken assured him and staggered off in the direction of home.

  Chapter XX. TURNABOUT

  “KEN,” Pat called plaintively through the locked bathroom door, “Hu Shih wants to know how soon you can attend the meeting.”

  “When I'm damned good and ready,” Ken replied, easing his buttocks into another position in the steaming tub. The damned plastic was slippery.

  The ice cube at the back of his neck slithered into the water and disintegrated before he could locate it. He waited expectantly but the bleeding didn't start again so he resettled back into the warmth.

  “Are you feeling any better?” Pat asked tentatively.

  “No! Go away!”

  When Hu Shih himself tapped politely at the door, Ken had finally emerged from lukewarm water and was drying himself with great care.

  “Ken, I need your support at this meeting,” the man began calmly. “The Hrrubans have disappeared again and, if it were not for the film evidence of their existence, I'm afraid the entire personnel of the colony would be reclassified as neurotics.”

  “Good!” Ken said savagely and then swore because he had inadvertently translated the forcefulness of speech into action and rubbed the rough toweling over a particularly raw place on the inside of his leg. “For Christ's sake, honorable and respected sir, send Ez Moody over with something for these unprintable saddle galls . . .”

  “Did you say the Hrrubans are gone again?” asked Pat. The note of fear in her voice took Ken's attention away from his sores.

  «Yes. When Lee took the – was Toddy there today?» exclaimed the metropologist.

  Pat's horrified gasp answered him.

  Wrapping the towel around his middle, Ken yanked the door open, barking his finger on the catch as he flipped it. “And there's no sign of Todd anywhere either?” he demanded, sucking the scraped finger.

  “Oh, Ken, your legs!” cried Pat, her eyes widening.

  “Damn my legs! When I get my hands on Hrrula, I'm going to yank his tail out and leave him a bloody stump!”

  «Oh, Ken, you don't – you can't think they'd hurt Todd?»

  Ken stopped midstride and stared down at Pat. Her face was white. She was scared breathless, her hand flattened against her cheek in the age-old gesture of feminine distress.

  "No. Todd's safe. They set great store by honor," he said without explaining his remark. "But this whole bit is ridiculous. Ridiculous! Ridiculous!" he shouted, pounding his fist on the wall with frustration. "And, dear Shih," he continued, whirling on his heel to face the man, "if you insist on dragging me up in front of those half-baked, half-dozen, semimoronic xenophobes, I'll damn well tell 'em exactly what I think of their unprintable department.''

  “Kenneth Reeve!” Pat exclaimed, aghast at his explosion.

  Reeve glared at her so fiercely that she stepped backward and closed her mouth with a snap on what she had been about to add. He gave the colony leader one more glance, unable to express his seething fury coherently and stalked off to his room.

  “What are you going to do, Ken?” asked Pat timorously.

  “I'm going back to the bed I never should have left this unprintable morning.”

  “And Toddy?” she quavered, following him to the door.

  “Todd is the only one on this whole unprintable planet willing and able to take care of himself.”

  With that, he slammed the door in his wife's face and did exactly as he said he would.

  Stewing to himself and unable to get comfortable even in bed, Ken could hear the low mumble of a hasty conference between Pat and the metropologist. He ignored it. Silence fell. Still muttering under his breath, Ken twitched his resisting body this way and that. Never in his life had he experienced more than momentary discomfort. The events of this notable morning had heaped indignity after indignity upon him. Wallowing in the totally new emotion of physical self-pity, Reeve wondered what the hell was keeping Moody. They must have sent for him. They must know how painful these galls were. Why didn't Moody arrive? It was inexcusable that he was allowed to suffer so when relief lay in a hypospray. Where was Moody? What was keeping him?

  He was ready to storm out in search of the doctor when there was a quiet knock at the door.

  “Come in!”

  The door swung open but there was no greeting, no sound of anyone stepping into the room. Irritably Ken swung around, but at the sight of Ezra's expression, he had to laugh.

  “I've a good idea what Pat said to you but for Christ's sake, man, make with the salve. I hurt deep.”

  Moody grunted as he entered the room. However when he had flipped the towel away, and surveyed the extent and condition of Reeve's sores, his attitude thawed considerably. He immediately administered a shot. With unexpected gentleness, he sprayed a salve on thighs, knees and ankles and motioned Ken to reverse.

  Already relieved by salve and painkiller, Ken grinned as he flipped onto his stomach; displaying the ultimate indignity horse can perpetrate on man.

  “I'd better take a look at the mare's back,” Moody chuckled.

  «As far as that pigheaded, pigmy-brained mare is concerned,» Ken began, gritting his teeth against the exquisite tenderness of his rear, «she can – – .»

  “You're nowhere near as inventive as Vic was,” Moody remarked. “Now this is what he suggested would be fitting.” And by the time Moody had finished Solinari's theory on the care and treatment of recalcitrant mares, Reeve was restored to good humor.

  "You really had better get up to the office," Moody said to Ken seriously when he had finished. "The chief is getting a hard time he doesn't deserve and he's too much of a gentleman to retaliate in kind. A little plain speaking is required. By some incredible semantic gymnastic, it seems that we, the colonists, are at fault.''

  “Are you kidding?” and Ken reached for his coveralls.

  Moody shook his head gloomily as he handed Ken his boots. As they made their way to the office, Ken noticed the columnar shape of the Codep ship on the landing field. It was larger than Landreau's, for Codep was in the habit of sending delegations rather than single officers.

  “They give the distinct impression that we created the Hrrubans to annoy and embarrass Codep.” Moody said.

  Reeve quickened his steps. His physical discomfort was numbed but his mind was honed to such an edge he'd have tackled the giant reptile confidently.

  «So, instead of showing the Spacedep these misbegotten natives and thrusting the blame on them?» Moody said, «we allow – get that, 'we allow' – the Hrrubans to decamp; heaping coals of ridicule on Codep's collective head.»

  “And how in the hell do they think we feel?” Reeve muttered angrily, stamping up the steps injudiciously, jarring his sore body even through the
analgesia. He slapped the door open with the flat of his hand and stood on the threshold, surveying the scene coolly.

  At one end of the large room stood Hu Shih, looking harassed; Gaynor and Lawrence appeared about to explode, while Dautrish was overenthusiastically showing the four Codep officials various artifacts of Hrruban manufacture.

  In the light of his suspicions, Reeve found himself wondering if the Hrrubans had run these items up especially for Terran benefit. The rest of the adult colonists were grouped at one side, a tension of sullen, stunned silence emanating from their environ.

  Pat half-rose when she saw Ken enter. Dautrish, noticing her movement, saw Ken and trailed off in midsentence, causing the Codep men to look around incuriously.

  “Ah, Ken, I deeply appreciate your coming in in view of your injuries.” Hu Shih said.

  “I'll live,” Ken assured him expressionlessly as he limped toward the delegation.

  “Gentlemen, may I present Kenneth Reeve, our jack-of-all-trades and our Hrruban expert,” Hu Shih began politely. “These ranking officials of Codep . . .”

  “Is this the man who reported seeing a giant reptile?” asked the short, plumpest member of the group. Showing no more courtesy to his confreres than toward Hu Shih, the man pushed past intervening bodies until he stood alone, eyeing Reeve patronizingly.

  Pointedly waiting until a name was supplied him, Ken remained silent.

  “Now, Chaminade,” a tall, skeletal man began, touching his superior's arm deferentially, “I'm well acquainted with Reeve's father-in-law; you know Masaryk in Detailing and . . .”

  “Yes, Chaminade,” Ken interrupted, “I reported seeing a giant reptile. It was no, particularly interested in me as it was busy eating a mare at the time. I didn't wait to be introduced then, either.” Ken heard Pat's indrawn gasp of astonishment.

  “The mare was being ridden by one of your so-called cat natives?” asked Chaminade contemptuously.

  “No. And Hrrula is a natural horseman, unlike us poor ill-equipped ill-trained fools who landed here on an unexplored, improperly surveyed, inhabited planet, expecting by the sweat of our brows and the galls on our asses to make it our home.”

  Ken ignored Hu Shin's frantic gestures.

  "Furthermore, I'll take you to see my giant reptile that is not listed among the things that walk, swim, fly and crawl on idyllic Doona. Of course, it too may have disappeared, like our natives and our villages. And my six-year-old son. But spare us the contemptuous glance and the patronizing sneer. We could easily have denied ourselves the pleasure of your charming company but we thought that a certain basic principle was involved and in all innocence reported the violation. However, the matter is no longer your concern, but Alreldep's and I just hope the hell that that omniscient, omnipotent agency stirs itself to do more than try to pass the buck again.

  “Eckerd, warm up the copter. I insist on showing these gentlemen,” and Ken larded that courtesy title with venom, “another of our own special, personalized Doonan hallucinations.”

  Turning on his heel, Ken strode from the hall, not really caring if the Codep men followed but knowing they would.

  Despite an overload, the copter made it to the plain in considerably less time than it had taken Ken to cover the distance. Coldly he pointed out the swollen body of the immense reptile. It lay, torpid with sun and satiation, the mare's carcass straining the skin of its midsection coils.

  Chaminade alone maintained his composure. When no one asked Eckerd to make a second pass over the reptile, Buzz opened the copter up, leaving the scene in haste. Ken sadistically noted the varying reactions of horror, fear and active nausea.

  “I cannot understand, however,” Chaminade remarked coolly, “why you have allowed a child of such tender years to wander unprotected with such menaces as this in the vicinity.”

  “You don't know Todd,” Eckerd answered him nervously when Ken kept silent. “Besides, Mr. Chaminade, as Ken pointed out, we didn't know there were such menaces as gigantic reptiles and catlike natives on Doona, Not that the natives are menaces, mind you.”

  «We're the menaces, Chaminade,» Ken snapped. «Or rather, you're the menace because you won't look at something you don't want to see: at something that threatens your oh-so-comfortable niche; your oh-so-comfortable theories and procedures, and your all-important status – which Doona threatens with its reptiles and its natives. Well, you all have to admit you saw a reptile back on that plain, with an undigested mare carcass midsection . . .»

  “Mr. Reeve, is that necessary?” the skeletal man demanded, his complexion tinged with green.

  “No, not necessary but true. Or are you going to erase that from your tapes too, because, like us, it's too much for your overcivilized mental digestion to cope with?”

  Chaminade did not waste energy sputtering with indignation as did his colleagues. But his eyes narrowed and he bore a striking resemblance to the fat reptile under discussion.

  “You know, Chaminade,” Reeve continued inexorably, “I know why Codep made up that Non-Cohabitation Principle. And don't give me that nonsense we've all been so carefully conditioned to accept. Do you know the real reason?”

  “Perhaps you'd better tell me,” suggested Chaminade very quietly and very gently.

  Eckerd shot Ken an appealing look, a halfhearted attempt to restrain him.

  «Because we Terrans would make such a miserable showing compared with the most barbaric tribes in their own environment that the myth of Terran superiority would be exploded forever. We're not trained, as barbarians are, to survive no matter what the odds against us. Last winter three of us damn near froze to death because we didn't have sense enough to recognize the danger of a blizzard. I won't count the number of near fatal accidents with the most primitive of implements until we mastered them. And it was sheer good fortune that we had enough pre-processed foods to last us through the long cold because we couldn't have killed a brna if it had sat down to be killed. It took us months to be able to butcher what we did manage to kill, and a few more months to get hungry enough to eat it because of our conditioned revulsion to natural foods. All we'd been trained to do – in spite of all our book learning – was to exist – stupefied, spread out Hall by Corridor, by the Aisleful – stale, stupid, stagnating.»

  “Why, this is preposterous!” Skinny exclaimed, shocked. “When I tell your father-in-law . . .”

  “Tell him anything you want,” Reeve snapped, not taking his eyes from Chaminade. “He'll listen to you. He has to. I don't.”

  “You ought to,” Chaminade reminded him softly with a slight smile.

  “You mean because you're Codep?” said Ken as the copter landed. “Oh, Chaminade, we're not under your jurisdiction any longer. Nor is this problem, you'll be relieved to know, on your backs. The Hrrubans are not native to this planet. So we are officially, and by the fine print in our contract tapes, part of Alreldep. And the sooner they get here and attend to the business at hand the better. Not that I expect any more intelligent treatment from their hands than we've had from you and Spacedep.”

  Ducking his head, Ken jumped from the copter brushing past the anxiously awaiting colonists and striding across the bridge.

  Chapter XXI. RETURNABOUT

  ALTHOUGH HE KNEW a search would prove futile Reeve went directly to the village site. Grudgingly he admitted that the Hrruban disappearing act was thorough. He stood on the site of Hrrestan's home, in the spot where Hrriss's room ought to be. He kicked and prodded through the mulch and uncovered not the slightest trace of habitation.

  Whatever their motives, he was positive that the Hrrubans intended no harm to Todd. The boy was safe with them and probably far happier than he had been in his own settlement, among his own people. That thought no longer rankled. Ken had come to realize that he would have to wait until Todd bestowed his friendship and affection on his father; it did no good to chase after it. If Ken didn't force himself on Todd, Todd would someday decide to trust him.

  Ken sat gingerly down o
n the cushiony mulch and tried to draw some rational conclusion from the present disappearance. Actually, the Hrrubans could have escorted Todd to Saddle Ridge. The kid've been safe. Why had they taken Todd along with them? And what kind of time did they need? Their technology must be considerably more advanced than the Terrans to effect such a total withdrawal. Ken snorted to himself; it had taken them no time at all to develop those convenient artifacts, all of bona fide Doona origin.

  The quiet glade calmed him and the sweet cinnamony perfume of the forest soothed his overburdened senses. He relaxed enough to fall asleep, until the orange eye of the sun glinted warning of day's end. Reluctantly, but feeling refreshed, Ken rose and went back to the settlement.

  Pat raced across the bridge as soon as she saw him. Knowing how anxious she must be, Ken felt conscience-stricken for his delay, and ran to meet her.

  “He's with them all right, but I'm sure he's safe, Pat.”

  She buried her face in his chest and sobbed. He comforted her gently, letting her cry it all out. After a few minutes, she pushed him back, snuffling and fumbling in her jacket.

  “Damn,” she stammered, realizing she had no tissues. She smiled and wiped her eyes with her fist. “Landreau's back,” she announced. “He wants to see you.”

  “I'm not surprised. He was probably lurking on the further moon.”

  “He was,” Pat said in surprise. “And do you know what?” she added angrily. “They found out we're collecting things to bring back to Earth and they're going to decide what we can take. At the rate they've been vetoing anything that would bring a decent credit, we might just as well forget the whole idea. And another thing,” Pat's eyes were flashing now. “Remember that sapphire Mace spent hours cutting? Well it just happened to disappear.”

  “And so the exalted are tempted, hmmm?” and Ken felt sick with the bitterness of additional disillusionment. “The sooner we get off Doona, the better. We don't deserve its bounty.”