Doona Trilogy Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  “Am I okay for Team One, this year, Dad?” Kelly asked urgently.

  Her parents laughed. “Formal notice came last week,’ her father said, ruffling her hair. “And Michael’s kept that Apple mare of yours exercised and has kept your snake-skin in her stall so she won’t disgrace you, us, or Todd.” Kelly breathed out a huge sigh of relief.

  “I was afraid we wouldn’t land in time.”

  “Afraid Todd wouldn’t remember to put you on his team?” her mother said with a raised eyebrow.

  “Oh, mother!” Kelly was glad of the excuse to go search for the luggage the handlers had just dumped on the tarmacadam.

  Kelly finally found and threw the bags into the back of the family’s power sled. It was exhilarating to be back on Doona. It couldn’t just be the weaker gravity or the invigorating pure air that made her feel so light. She was happy.

  As they flew toward their ranch, her mother and father pumped her for data about her life over the last four years. She didn’t stop talking for one moment all the way home. The weather was gorgeous, and Vic kept the top of the sled down so they could enjoy the sun.

  Then he was turning the sled into the gate of the family ranch, some klicks distant from the original First Community buildings. The new town had been built some distance from the original colony site, out of the path of snake migration. Their ranch abutted the Reeve farm on one side and the Hu property on the other. Behind them was the red sandstone back of Saddle Ridge, no-being’s-land except for the wild animals native to Doona.

  Beyond that and the river was the Hrruban First Village. Every landmark came rushing back to her like the tide coming back up the Bore River from the distant sea.

  She knew her mother and father were struggling against laughter as she kept inhaling and exhaling until she was hyperventilating. But she couldn’t seem to get her lungs cleared of all that stinking canned air.

  And she couldn’t keep from swiveling her head about her, wishing it were on a 360-degree socket. The sheer space, just loose and lying around, was a sight for her eyes.

  Student housing allotment on Earth was very cramped, even for a junior diplomat trainee in Alreldep. No special treatment was given one who had graduated with honors or taken the advanced degree in only a year. She had had to endure the same tiny quarters as any other beginner in what she liked to call Diplodep. She had missed having room to stretch out, and the view of faraway horizons. She had longed for that almost as much as she had missed her family. And Todd. And today was the Hunt.

  They were nearly at the ranch house now, and Kelly felt her heart pounding for pure happiness.

  Two of the farm dogs paced the sled, barking their heads off.

  Kelly leaned out, calling their names and trying to pet their heads as they ran. Vic coasted the sled to a stop in between the house and the barn. When he turned the ignition off, he gave Kelly one more quick hug.

  “Welcome home, sweetie. Hey!” he yelled at the house. “Lookit what I brung home!” Joyfully, Kelly leaped out of the sled and into the arms of her brothers and sisters. The two smallest, Diana and Sean, tried to jump into her arms. The dogs raced around them, barking and jumping and trying to lick her face.

  “Hello, coppertop,’ she hailed her brother Michael, who waved from the door of the barn and hurried up to meet her. Michael was a year her senior, but they had always pretended to be twins.

  Their faces were very much alike, with broad foreheads, wide golden hazel eyes, and strong pointed chins. His hair was as fiery a red as hers and just as thick. Their mother always said they reminded her of two matches in a box. Their father, more kindly, merely called them autumn-colored, to suit their autumn birthdays.

  “Hi, hothead,’ Michael said with a broad grin on his face, swinging her around in a circle. He was a very junior veterinary resident, working under Ben Adjei at the DoonaiRrala Animal Hospital.

  Michael was still clad in his white tunic, but was stripping it off as he steered her toward the house.

  “Hurry up and change into your gear. They’re going to start Gathering the Hunt at twelve hundred hours. Go scrub the ship stink off your skin, or the horses’ll run from you, not the snakes. Unless you’re too tired to participate?” he asked teasingly.

  “Not a chance!” Kelly said, wriggling free and heading toward the house.

  “It’s what I hurried home for! Oh, how I’ve missed Calypso.”

  “That’s what Todd said you’d say.” Michael nodded, helping her carry her bags. “Still horse crazy after those years of horseless Earth?”

  “Thank goodness, he and Hrriss got back from that Hrrethan assignment,’ Kelly said, ignoring her brother’s jibe. “Wouldn’t be a proper Hunt without them leading it.” As soon as she had showered in unlimited hot water and dressed in comfortable well-worn clothes, Kelly raced out to saddle her bay mare, Calypso. The mare gladly accepted the present of a couple of carrots and nuzzled her mistress’s hand.

  Kelly just hoped that she hadn’t forgotten too much in her years away. But Calypso would take care of her: she usually did. And there was just time left to get down to the Assembly Hall.

  Vaulting into the saddle, Kelly kneed Calypso forward, toward the fields leading to the village common. After living on Earth for a time, it was hard to readjust to so few people per square kilometer.

  By law, there could be only as many Humans as Hrrubans. After the Decision came into effect, more Humans had had to be imported to equal Hrrubans, and four more villages’ worth of Terran colonists-out of the millions applyinghad come to DoonaiRrala. Even so, the combined population made little impression on a planet whose diameter was three thousand kilometers greater than that of Earth.

  Kelly was proud that her mother an6 father were two of the original colonists. Over the quarter century since that historic Treaty, Admiral Sumitral of Alreldep had continued to negotiate with Hrrestan, Hrriss’s father and chief of the Hrruban village elders, to make room for more Humans who wanted to leave overcrowded Earth and more Hrrubans with a similar desire. The talks had been successful, and the population of Doona had increased a thousandfold. Men and women who had lived in cramped, crackerbox-sized apartments on Earth had built homes and ranches in the fertile river valleys and settled down with room to stretch out.

  No limit had actually been set on how much land each settler could claim, so long as waste, pollution, and senseless destruction of resources were avoided. As well as the native urfa, Vic Solinari, who had come to Doona as the storemaster, had elected to raise sheep and goats, his share of the precious breeding stocks sent from Earth. To keep the grasslands healthy, he rotated their pasturage every season to another part of their land. Typically Doonan, he also had a stable of horses, Kelly’s favorite animal as well as cats and dogs.

  It had been four years since Kelly had seen a living animal except Humans and Hrringa, the lonely Hrruban minding the transmitter grid in Alreldep block. Elated and exhilarated, she screeched greetings to a flock of goats milling around in a pen, and sighed with happiness as a cluster of young colts galloped in play across a fenced meadow not far from the house. It was wonderful to be home. Kelly legged Calypso into a canter down the hill toward town, revelling in the rhythmic gait and the joy of being back in the saddle again.

  CHAPTER 1

  DR. BEN ADJEl HADESMAThD ThE DAY this year-and he hadn’t been wrong in twenty years-when the great reptiles would migrate from the salt marshes to the low-lying desert fifty kilometers inland to lay their eggs. Only offworlders bet against him, the local population shrewdly inciting them to do so.

  A Sighter had landed her small copter behind the Reeve ranch house early in the morning to alert Todd that the egg-heavy female snakes were arriving in the desert and beginning to burrow into the dunes.

  Immediately, Todd called a meeting of leaders of the Hunt at the colony Assembly Hall.

  They had gathered from all over Doona and had been staying in or around First Village for the last few days, in case Ben Adjei’s es
timate was off a bit.

  For the past fifteen years, Todd and Hrriss had been in the first line of Hunters. Their rapport was instinctive: they seemed to read each other’s mind.

  They never took unnecessary chances or risked lives, theirs or others. Their impressive tally of kills and captures of the dangerous reptiloids had reached legendary totals. As they grew to an age when their parents would permit it, they came to lead the Hunt and had done so now for ten years.

  “You could see them in the underbrush, swarming toward the sands,’ Lois Unterberger informed the leaders who had congregated at the Reeve residence, the usual Hunt headquarters. Excitement made her brown eyes wide, showing white all around the irises. Her dark hair was intricately braided and pinned tightly to her scalp. “Hundreds of them, like a river, pouring onto the dunes and disappearing into burrows. I followed the leading edge all the way from the salt marshes. Hrrel is still in his copter over the dunes, watching until I get back.”

  “This is it,’ Todd said excitedly. “Lois, you fly back and keep an eye on the snakes. We’ve got to know the minute they start to leave. Dar,’ he instructed another Sighter, “go and check the snake blinds along the way to make sure everyone knows the snakes are coming and to stay inside. Take two of the Lures with you, and drop them at the vulnerable points we discussed.”

  “Gotcha! I’m away,’ Dar Kendrath said, dashing for his small craft.

  “And keep in touch!” Todd called after him. “We need to know the moment the snakes start to move out!” Dar threw him a salute from the seat of his copter as the vehicle took off.

  “We’re ready,’ announced Lou Stapley, who was in charge of the Beaters, who helped to keep the snakes in train by thrashing the undergrowth with flails or beating drums and cymbals.

  Wranglers, very experienced riders, were in charge of each horse platoon. Their main concern was spotting the nervous rider who could panic his mount. Or a horse who suddenly decided he had had quite enough snake hunting in his lifetime.

  Hrrula, one of the Reeves’ oldest friends, was both the leader of Team Two and a Wrangler.

  “Everrryone is prrrepared,’ he assured them.

  “Great,’ Todd said, checking them off on his list.

  All the preparations were falling together nicely.

  “We’ve got the pass blocked toward the Launch Center,’ Jesse Dautrish said, scratching his jaw.

  “Let’s hope it looks impassable to snake eyes. But it won’t take long to clear it after the Hunt’s over.

  The bridges have thorn barricades as well as mines, just in case the snakes try to cross the easy way.” Though the snakes could swim, the banks of the rivers upstream were too sheer and deep for them to get a belly-hold. “I need another shower,’ he added, scratching his waist. “Damn dust settles in every pore.” Jesse’s assistant, Hrrol, brushed at her short, tan fur, sending up clouds of dust. “All the charges are laid near rnsidences and rranchess,’ she said.

  “Here’s your copy back, Hrriss.”

  “Well done,’ Hrriss told the attractive Hrrol, and passed the list to Todd.

  “Okay, okay,’ Todd said, calling the Hunters to order. “Let’s go.

  Spread the word, we gather the Hunt at noon, and we’ll ride out as soon as we get the word from the Sighters. Robin, see you at the feast later.”

  “Right, Todd!” called Todd’s youngest brother, running for his horse. “Good hunting!” Todd and Hrriss saddled their mounts and rode to the Assembly Hall to wait for the rest of Team One. Horses were still the primary form of individual transportation on the colony world. Doonanbred horses were one of the colony’s most important assets and trade goods, especially on Hrrubansettled worlds. Hrrubans were fascinated by the gentle quadrupeds, and were natural riders. The breeding of horses, rescuing the beloved animal from near extinction by careful genetic husbandry, was done on nearly every ranch on the planet, both Human and Hrruban. The Doonan style of saddle and bridle included gems and other valuable pieces easily obtained from the planet’s generous storehouse of precious minerals.

  The style, which echoed the formal wear of the Hrrubans themselves, seemed unbelievably ostentatious to denizens of Earth, to whom a single one of these gems represented additional comforts not yet purchased. When gems could be picked up in riverbeds and rift bottoms and polished with little effort by the finder, it was difficult for young Doonans to take the awe and greed over such trinkets seriously.

  Todd was proud of the way his gray gelding, Gypsy, looked in the new tack he’d made, aglitter with gilding and pretty stones, many of which had no commercial value, but some of which were worth enough alone to buy a change of status on Earth.

  The colony folk had also rediscovered handcrafts. DoonaniRralan crafts were so well thought of that goods of that origin commanded a good price off-world: pottery; needlecraft; weaving; stone, metal, and wood sculpture; jewelry; and leatherwork. An object made of the porous rla wood could be dyed in rainbow colors before it was painted with rlba sap to seal and harden it to the consistency of stone without the weight. Todd’s saddle frame was made of rla, giving him a sturdy seat that required no effort for his mount to carry.

  He needed to travel light, because the Hunt was hours of hard riding.

  Gypsy danced beneath him as other Hunters and their horses gathered around them on the common.

  The gray gelding had caught some of the excitement Todd was feeling. The hard work of the last two weeks was about to pay off. He and Hrriss exchanged grins of relief.

  “Do you know, for a while I was afraid no one else was coming when the shuttles were late arriving?”

  “Not coming!” the Hrruban echoed, mocking disbelief lighting his eyes. “Many spend the time between Hunts looking forward to the next one.” A slender horsewoman on an Appaloosa mare rode down the hill toward the square, standing in her stirrups and waving. Todd recognized the flame-bright hair on sight and vigorously waved back.

  “Hey, Hrriss, Kelly made it back!”

  “Good!” Hrriss said, raising his own long arm to return her salute. “One more good backup rrriderr to keep order among the aliens.”

  “Hey, gal, welcome home,’ Todd shouted when she was near enough to hear him over the pounding of Calypso’s galloping hooves. “Mike said you were trying to make it in time for the Hunt. And you haven’t changed at all!” She plumped back in the saddle, to signal the mare to halt, and eased her between Gypsy and Rrhee, Hrriss’s mare. Now, grinning, she snapped her fingers, her expression mock-wistful. “Gee, and I worked so hard to create a new image.”

  “Don’t bother,’ Todd replied, grinning back.

  “The one you got’s not bad enough to put anyone off. Exactly.”

  “Oh, you! Hrriss, how are you?” and she turned to the Hrruban. “Heard you guys got drafted on that Hrrethan “do.”

  Todd and Hrriss exchanged quick glances. How had Kelly heard of that?

  But then, she was an AIreldep trainee.

  “Verry well,’ Hrriss answered, dropping his jaw.

  “The speeches lasted many hours. If it were not for the pleassure of having a functioning transportation grid, the people of Hrretha would most gladly have forgone the honor of having so many eminent speakers.

  “Spacedep and Codep both sent representatives,’ Todd added. “I was a little surprised to see Varnorian there himself, instead of sending a deputy as Spacedep did.”

  “A good thing you went to keep them honest,5

  Kelly said, making a face. “I’ve been hearing all about the two of you from my little cubbyhole in Alreldep block! You’re considered to be quite a pair of heroes there.

  Todd waved her words away embarrassedly.

  “You must tell us all about your experiences, as soon as the Hunt is over,’ Hrriss said, showing his fangs in the widest Hrruban smile.

  “Absolutely!” she promised them.

  Kelly’s mention of Alreldep brought back to Todd the full memory of his ship’s passage into the interdic
ted zone around Hrrilnorr, and the fact that two weeks had gone by and there hadn’t been the least hint that their “rescue’ had been recorded, or even mentioned to the Treaty Council.

  He would be interested to know if she had heard any rumors: especially one that might suggest the beacon had been planted by factions unsympathetic to the Doona Experiment. This was not the time to bring up such a sensitive topic. Riders needed their wits about them in the Hunt. Plenty of time to take her aside and get her reactions later on.

  “That medical kit been renewed lately?” Todd asked her, nodding at the roll neatly strapped to the cantle.

  “You bet. Mike made it up special,’ and Kelly gave him a wry sideways glance, “in case you fall off again!” Todd snorted. “And when was the last time you saw me fall off?” he demanded in mock outrage.

  “You have two to your credit,’ Hrriss said, his eyes narrowing slyly. “Did not Ken say it takes thrrree falls to make a rider?” Todd laughed and patted his sides tenderly.

  “More like two hundred, friends.” The rest of Team One began to close up to the leaders. Two more old friends, Hrrin and Errala, from one of the distant Rralan villages, rode up behind and greeted them happily. The three shook hands with the Hrruban mates. Todd checked them off his list.

  Places in the teams were always reserved for friends and friends of friends. The prestigious first six Hunter teams had to open further to admit high powered guests whose inexperience sometimes tested the experience and skill of their hosts. But their presence meant a healthy contribution to the success of the Hunt and thus had to be tolerated.

  Hrrubans and Humans in equal numbers joined the ride every year.

  Though Hrrubans required slight alterations to the standard saddle to accommodate the difference in their skeletal structure, they were keen on any opportunity to ride their beloved hrrsses. Ocelots, gifts to the Rralans from their Human friends, prowled alongside their masters’ mounts, waiting for the signal t9 go. The spotted hunting cats were among the few animals that were fearless in the presence of snakes, and kept down other pests that troubled the settlements. The more skillful, working in teams of four or five, even brought down young snakes and killed them.