Doona Trilogy Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  Second Speaker, unaccustomed to travelling in Havuman spaceships, stared over the shoulder of the pilot, reading the control panel as if reluctant to trust the Hayuman female’s expertise.

  Mllaba glanced occasionally at the Hayuman who was her opposite number. Greene was attempting to meet her eyes. She wondered what he wanted. It was unusual for a Havuman to remain silent; normally they chattered away, regardless of the gravity of an event. Perhaps this male was different.

  It was the middle of the night on the Treaty Island Centre.

  The cleaning staff, busy with brooms and a floor polisher, paid no attention to the mixed group on its way to the grid.

  Mllaba took her place behind the controls.

  “Ze Firrrst Village grid,’ Hrrto said to Mllaba, as he walked between the upright pillars and assumed a dignified pose. The female’s claws clattered swiftly on the keyboard. Second Speaker vanished slowly in the rising mists. Barnstable looked uncomfortable and wary as he strode up on to the dais, and squared his shoulders.

  “Bring me back in four hours,’ the Admiral directed.

  Mllaba inclined her head.

  “I, too, must return to my home world to report to the Council,’ Mllaba said to Greene, when the Admiral had been dispatched. “May I assist you to travel somewhere first?” The Hayuman seemed in no hurry.

  “No, thank you. I’ve waited because I wanted to talk to you alone,’ Greene said, his warm, brown eyes meeting her yellow-green ones directly. She could feel the power of his personality being brought to bear upon her. “You have no reason to trust me, and I don’t trust you,’ he continued disarmingly, “but we could help one another to our mutual benefit.”

  “How?” Mllaba asked politely Greene turned and gestured to a bench facing the grid station. Mllaba shook her head, so Greene sat down alone.

  He drew up one knee and wrapped both hands around it nonchalantly.

  The arrogance of the pose put Mllaba on guard. She slipped her hands protectively into her robe sleeves and stood stiffly before him, waiting.

  “I know that election for the Speakership is imminent,’ Greene said, gazing up at her. “If Speaker Hrrto were to gain that honour, a new Speaker for External Affairs would be appointed.” If Mllaba was surprised to learn that a Spacedep officer was conversant with the intricacies of Hrruban government, she did not show it outwardly.

  Inside, she felt a prickle of excitement, as if he spoke to the carefully tended ember of ambition she bore within her. She concentrated on keeping her tailtip from flicking back and forth.

  “And should I display more zan usual competencee in zis most difficult and dangerous affair,’ Mllaba said, “I should be ze favoured candidate. Is zat your idea?” Greene nodded, grinning. “I, too, am trying to stay on what we call a “fast track”. I’m a risk-taker. I was sent to these talks partly to get me away from Spacedep HQ, and out of the line of promotion. So far, the Admiral is getting all the glory here but I’d like a little of it to drop on me.

  If we work together to save Doonarrala, as well as Earth and Hrruba from the Gringg menace, both you and I would gain favour in the eyes of our superiors. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “And you in the eyes of ze attractive Hayuman captain?” Mllaba asked, and complimented herself for making a telling stroke. The naked skin of the Hayuman’s face flushed red. Had he thought the signals going back and forth between them were invisible to the others in the room?

  “I’ll tell you why Admiral Barnstable has really gone back to Earth,’ Greene said, changing the subject. “He is ordering the Human defence fleet to Doonarrala.

  Only he has the authority to do so. From its current position, it’ll take thirty days for the fleet to get here.

  Then, if the situation warrants, the Admiral could declare martial law.

  Mllaba nodded. “Hrruba should prepare a similar defence fleet,’ she said. Second Speaker is not acting as decisively in this matter as he should be, she thought. Hrruba ought to have been the first to take such steps, not Earth. He should have made such an order. She resolved to bring it up to the Council in his name. “And so you and I will cooperrrate and share knowledge?” she asked. “Only because zis is a crrrisis, and zat is what is best for our own species, you understand.” “Of course,’ Greene agreed, gravely. He stood up and put out his right hand to her, thumb upward. Mllaba stared at it for a moment before offering her own in the same position. He clasped her hand strongly, then released it.

  Hayuman customs were so strange! She tucked her hands primly back into her sleeves, and Greene stepped away.

  He respected her; that was good. She intended to maintain the uppermost hand in this relationship. He needed her cooperation far more than she needed his.

  Mllaba set the grid controls for a thirty-second delay, and stepped on to the dais between the pillars. “I will return in four hours,’ she said. As the mists rose around her, she watched the Hayuman turn and stride away towards the landing pad.

  The procession into the Human First Village had taken on the aspect of a parade. Hordes of children, led by Kelly’s and Nrrna’s, danced around and around the cluster of adults walking with the Gringg.

  When they reached the doors of the Doonarralan Medical Centre, Dr Kate herded the Gringg, Ken, Lauder, Frill, Sumitral, Hrrestan and the naval escort inside. Almost as an afterthought, she pointed at Jilamey Landreau.

  “You, mind the children! I need Nrrna and Kelly as lab assistants. OK with you?”

  “Anything to help,’ Jilamey agreed cheerfully, and was promptly dragged away by Alec and Alison demanding to hear all about the Gringg ship.

  To the adults, Kate said, “Go on with you. We’ll give you the news when we have any.” She smiled, scattering them with her hands as if they were chickens. When the door had closed, she turned around and let out a deep sigh. “Well! Welcome to you folks,’ she said, inclining her head to the Gringg. “And welcome to you. Who’s my lab partner today?” Lauder raised a timid hand. “I am, ma’am. Ensign Maura Lauder’ “Just Kate, all right?” She smiled at the young officer.

  “I’ll call you Maura. Everyone this way, please?” She led them to her office and pointed towards the waiting room.

  “The rest of you stay here. I’m going to take this bruiser first,’ she laid a hand on Ghotyakh’s furry arm. “Be good and you get a lollipop.

  The door to the examining room shut behind them. Ken looked around at the wooden-walled waiting area, remembering how many times he’d sat here with a sick child or a farm-related injury Pat hadn’t been able to mend.

  “Now, Reeve,’ Sumitral said, beaming, “tell me all about the confrontation.” Ken recounted their adventure without benefit of the tapes he and the others had made but he didn’t think he left out any important details or observations. Sumitral, who believed that the mark of a good diplomat was to be a good listener, nodded occasionally as Ken talked, only interrupting once in a while to clarify a point.

  “Very interesting,’ Sumitral said. “Very, very interesting. I want to see those tapes as soon as we’re through here. Thanks to Hrruban technology, I got here a lot faster this time.”

  “I think we need you more this time than we ever did with the Hrrubans,’ Ken said.

  Sumitral’s eyes twinkled. “I’m good for show and to wrap things up nicely.”

  “Much more than that, sir,’ Ken protested at such modesty.

  “I don’t have your fine honesty and instinct, Ken, which incidentally I respect immensely. Anyway, you’ve more experience in first contact than anyone else here. And, with creatures as large as the Gringg, I’d really feel easier when we establish a communication medium! I don’t want misunderstandings of any kind with folks that big.” He grinned.

  But the Gringg were not without ways of making themselves understood.

  “Genhh?” Eonneh asked, then paused, as if puzzled how to make his question clear.

  Ken sat up straighter. “Go ahead, Honey. What?”

  “Rrss.
>
  Rroobvnnn?”

  “Sure is,’ Ken said. “Er, yes.” Eonneh cupped his hands together, the way he had while holding the Hrruban cub, then drew them to his breast.

  “Nrrna. Rroobvnnn?”

  “Yep. I mean, reh,’ Ken replied.

  “This is fascinating,’ Sumitral said, studying Eonneh closely.

  “What’s he trying to ask?”

  “I don’t know yet,’ Ken said.

  “Vocabulary’s very limited.”

  “Rroobvnnn, Rrss? Genhh, Ayoomnnn?”

  “Reh,’ said Ken.

  “Gelli, Rroobvnnn?”

  “Ah. . . ah. . . morra. No. Ayoomnnn.

  “Morra,’ said Eonneh, disbelievingly. He made the sign for baby again.

  “Gelli. Morra Ayoomnnn?”

  “Reh Ayoomnnn, Kelly,’ Ken said.

  “She’s my daughterin-law.”

  “Nrrna morra Rroobvnnn.

  “Reh Rroobvnnn.” Ken nodded firmly.

  “What’s the problem?” demanded Sumitral, exasperated to be on the fringe of understanding.

  “I’m not positive but I’m beginning to get the drift,’ Ken said with a wry smile.

  They went through the pantomime several times, with Hrrestan and Frill attempting to guess what explanation Eonneh was trying elicit.

  Eonneh took hold of his own tail and held up the end.

  “Rroobvnnn, shrra. Nrrna, shrra. Nrrna,’ and he made the baby sign again. “Morra?” Ken fell back in his chair and burst into loud hoots of laughter. “Oh, I get you now! Oh. no!” He clutched his sides and beat his feet on the floor.

  The noise brought Kate Moody running out into the waiting room.

  “What’s the matter?” she demanded.

  Lauder, Nrrna, and Kelly were right behind her.

  “It’s hilarious,’ Ken gasped, coming up for air. “They think “Hrruban” is the word for male, and “Hayuman” is the word for female.

  Or maybe the other way around.” When the others looked puzzled, he sprang the other half of the joke. “They think we’re one species!’ “How could they think that?” Lauder asked, appalled as well as slightly indignant.

  “why shouldn’t they? We arrive together on their ship so we are together. They see us living together here on the surface. Why shouldn’t they think we’re the same species?

  They thought the Hrrubans were males and Hayumans females. The sight of Nrrna with a baby that’s obviously hers knocked their assumption into a tailspin!” Sumitral grinned at Ken’s inadvertent witticism, his grey eyes alight. “So we are a species more than usually dimorphic?”

  “They thought I was a girl?” Lauder demanded, huffily.

  “I don’t think that’s funny.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t take it to heart, lad, you’d be a good looking girl - if you were one, which you’re not,’ Kate suggested mildly, “but, under the circumstances, I think the Gringg copped on to the error of their assumption pretty quick.” Noticing how politely Eonneh and Ghotyakh waited for further explanation of his unusual behaviour, Ken shook his head. “I haven’t got the words to explain laughter yet.

  Much less how to explain that we’re two species, male and female each, from two different worlds?”

  “Watch it, Reeve,’ Frill said.

  “That’s strategic information.”

  “It might be if either of us knew exactly where the other’s home world is,’ Ken said in mild disgust.

  “Lighten up, Frill.

  A basic explanation won’t give away any more than our kids get in primary school.”

  “We can’t base a solid future relationship on deceptions,’ Sumitral said more mildly. “Can you help us with the gender explanation, Dr Moody?” Kate grinned. “Sure can. Take the bull by the horns, so to speak. While Lauder and I are taking samples, we’ll show them tapes on Hayuman and Hrruban reproduction and birth.

  They’ll get the idea.” Kate ran the tapes used for sex education in the middle school, all the while taking blood, skin, and hair samples from her unprotesting subjects. Honey and Kodiak watched the tapes with every indication of understanding what they were seeing.

  They muttered - “A little like embarrassed twelve year olds,’ Kate said later - and growled furiously between themselves.

  “I’m running a CAT scan on each of them. They seemed very interested in everything, the equipment and procedures. They’re both very intelligent. By the way,’ Kate said with a grin, “they’re male.

  What we’d classify as male. Both of them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I got them to give me urine samples. There’s no way that a baby could be born through that orifice, and there’s nothing else appropriate. I did a very careful physical examination. No womb, but very substantial generative organs. We went through some pantomime to confirm it. But that big captain on the tape, the one you keep calling Grizzly, and referring to as he? She’s female! All of her and that squat one’s her secondborn cub. Honey’s the sire.”

  “So they are dimorphic with regard to size, but the other way round to our two species,’ Ken said, nodding.

  “Right. There’s precedent for this configuration living on Earth at this minute. The males are tercels, an old world meaning “a third smaller”, Terran birds of prey.

  The large birds, falcons, are the females.

  “Well, I’m glad we got that figured without making a serious gaffe. It doesn’t matter what gender one is, so long as we don’t mistake one for t’other,’ Ken said.

  Eonneh, emerging from his turn in the ring-shaped scanner, sought out Genhh and Frrrill and the new Ayoomnnn.

  They were sitting in the wooden room, speaking softly to each other. He sat down beside them.

  “I am terribly sorry for mistaking your gender,’ Eonneh said in his own language, pantomiming disgrace, which involved drawing an invisible line from his bowed forehead to the floor. “You are larger than others of your species so we thought you were female. We didn’t realize you were males of two different species of alien.

  “what’s he saying?” Frill asked, mystified.

  “I think he’s trying to apologize,’ Ken said. “It’s OK, you know,’ he said, putting a hand on the Gringg’s upper limb. The fur was smooth but thick, like horsehair. “It’s no insult to be thought female, or male, for that matter.

  I know you’re trying to learn all about us, but who said you had to get it all right first crack?”

  “Nereh?” Eonneh understood his forgiveness, but missed the colloquialism.

  Sumitral sighed. “We have got to make some sort of device so we can start understanding one another.”

  “We’ve got one problem,’ Kate said, leaning out the door. “I can’t get this lad into the x-ray.

  He’s too big! It’s only made for Hayumans and Hrrubans. We’re going to have to take him over to Ben Adjei’s unit at the Animal Hospital for a peep at his insides.” While Kate Moody continued physical examinations, Lauder made use of an unused biochemistry lab to start work on the Gringg tissue samples and foodstuffs.

  Nrrna, who worked in the bio-lab, prepared samples for the centrifuge and electron microscope.

  “I’m a duffer at chemistry,’ Kelly informed them. “My training is in diplomacy. I’ll wash glass, or whatever you need me to do.”

  “One thing I’ll need,’ Lauder said, very tentatively, “and I’m not sure I should ask you, is a volunteer to taste the footstuffs if they test out as safe.”

  “Ouch,’ said Kelly, wrinkling her nose. Nrrna looked alarmed. “Well, if you promise me I won’t die of it, I’ll try anything.”

  “Oh, you won’t be the only guinea pig at the table,’ Lauder said, with a shrug. “We need to try at least one of the Gringg on Doonan food. Once we’ve got results on the tissue, I’ll know what we can offer them and what we shouldn’t.”

  “That’s good,’ Kelly said cheerfully. “I do hate to eat alone.”

  “Them?” Kate replied, when asked ab
out the Gringgs’ gastro-intestinal system. “Anything that isn’t moving too fast. I did a whole-body sonogram on Ghotyakh as long as I had him over at the vet clinic. He watched everything I did, and I got the impression he doesn’t like to go to doctors of his own species!

  That digestive pouch you detected below the stomach is one tough little organ. I wouldn’t try it on concrete, but there’s not much shy of that they can’t eat. Ezra went home to get some supplies.

  We may as well all dine together.” In the Federation Centre, Jon Greene waited before the transport grid. Only moments before the four-hour time limit the mists arose on the grid platform. The form of Mllaba took on shape and substance. Greene stepped forward to greet her.

  “Did you meet with success?” he asked. The glare of her yellow-green eyes warned him not to get too close.

  He stopped short and gestured a fine bow as she left the dais.

  “I have accomplished ze firrst of my goals,’ Mllaba said, settling her black robes back on her narrow shoulders.

  “Others from Hrruba will be following me very shortly to aid in slowing down ze Gringg agenda. As forr ze second, it awaits ze Speaker’s own presence to be set in motion. But I have laid ze groundwork well,’ she said with a degree of smugness. The two of them discussed plans for a few moments, then Greene glanced at his wrist chronometer.

  “Now,’ he said.

  The Hrruban put her clawed fingers on the controls.

  The air over the grid thickened, gradually revealing a crowd of Hayumans exclaiming to one another at the novelty of transporting by grid. Barnstable was at their head. Greene recognized two of the men and one of the women as members of the Humanity First! Movement.

  Another was a prominent journalist with a talent for rabblerousing. Three others were minor politicians and animal rights activists. Greene grinned. The Admiral hadn’t missed a trick.

  As soon as he was aware of where he was, Barnstable looked around.

  “No unauthorized personnel present.

  Good. My thanks, Mllaba, for our safe transport. Greene, I’ll want a report from you in an hour’s time.”