Doona Trilogy Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  Much more fun to see than to learn.” And he made a broad gesture, dropping his jaw to show them how happy he was. “Were you born here on this planet?”

  “Yup, all of us, Alec said. “Mom was, too, but Dad was born on Earth.

  And hated it.”

  “Earzz?” asked Teddy.

  “Yeah, Hayumans originate on Earth and “Hrrubans come from Hrruba,’ finished Hrrunival.

  “But you are Rraladoonans?”

  “We all are,’ Alison said from where she rode slightly behind Teddy. “Let’s see if Teddy can manage to trot a bit, OK?” When they pushed their horses to faster movement, Teddy made a tentative grab for the cross piece but Teabag seemed to flow forward and soon Teddy released his hold, leaning back so his tail would keep him steady.

  “Hey, Teddy, you’re doing just great,’ Alison called but somehow Teddy did not trust his balance enough to turn around and thank her.

  Soon they pulled the horses back to a walk for they had reached a forested area and could no longer ride spread out. Teddy’s fur was beginning to dry in long rats and tangles. He combed at a few of the worst knots with his claws, fearing the thorough brushing at the hands of his sire if he arrived back at the ship so untidy. Eonneh was never unkind, but he was merciless with tangles in his cub’s thick fur, and smoothing them out sometimes hurt Teddy. Eonneh threatened, not seriously, to plait all of Teddy’s fur and leave it that way if he could not keep it neat. Working carefully with one hand, he undid a mass of stringy fur and extracted a strand of lakeweed. It smelled interesting, so he tasted it. Not bad.

  Hrrunival was behind him now. He was careless and inclined to show off. Without a strong hand to control it, his horse had its snout almost up Teabag’s tail, probably continuing some private argument on-going between the two animals. Teabag kicked backwards with one hoof to discourage the untoward familiarity. Hrrunival’s mount reared and whinnied a protest, moving in again. Teabag stopped short, making Teddy rock violently forward in the saddle, and turned to snort, as if to demand the other horse leave him alone. Instead, he caught a sniff of hot, wet bear, and his eyes rolled white. The horse’s neck arched and nostrils flared, and Teabag swung his head forward.

  “What is he doing?” Teddy shouted, alarmed, clutching for the saddlehorn.

  Alec turned to look, and his eyes went wide. “Hold him!

  Hrrunival, grab his lead. Teddy, pull back on the reins!”

  “It does no good!” Teddy bellowed.

  The sound of the Gringg roar was the last straw. The spooked gelding shot off along the trail with Teddy bouncing on his back. The little Gringg struggled to hold on, gripping as hard as he could with his knees to keep from tumbling off. He pulled at the reins, but the horse refused to respond to the pressure. It was running away as fast as it could from the funny smell.

  “Come on!” Alec shouted, spurring Tornado after the wailing Teddy.

  “We have to stop them before they hit the marsh. There could be early snakes rising.” The other three wheeled to follow. They were responsible for Teddy. How could they ever go home again if their guest got hurt? The ground in the swamps was notoriously unsafe. The horse could slip on the unsteady path, both mount and Gringg ending up in deep, viscous mud. As one, they urged their horses in fast pursuit.

  What would they say to Grizz if Teddy got eaten by a snake?

  “The horse bolted with him,’ Gallup radioed to Walters, now a dozen metres behind him. “We’ve got him alone.

  Deploying jammer.

  “Following,’ Walters said. “Stay out of sight. Radio silence, now!” Keeping their eyes open for the other children, the two men pelted down the hill, following the runaway horse and rider into the stand of young trees at the edge of the meadowTeabag charged off the path down into a deep gully, twisted down the sloped sides, then bounded across a narrow but fast-flowing stream. One of his hooves slipped on a stone in the middle of the brook, throwing Teddy forward.

  Anchored by only his frantic grasp of the cross piece, the reins had somehow got wrapped about his arms, effectively tying him in the saddle with just enough slack to let him bounce with every jolt of the runaway horse.

  “Help!” he cried and shifted one hand, his claws instinctively extending so that he clawed Teabag’s neck. The horse, already frightened, now reached the stage of terror where all he wanted to do was rid himself of what was on his back. Teabag charged up a bank and headed directly into a thicket, hoping to brush the predator off.

  Teddy had to cover his face with both hands to protect it against the thin branches which whipped past. The reins wound tightly around his palm jerked again and again as Teabag tossed his head wildly from side to side. He brushed against tree trunks and shot through bushes, snorting and neighing furiously. The Gringg, afraid of being thrown off, shifted his grasp to the cross piece again, digging his claws into the wood beneath the leather and shut his eyes tight.

  “Hurry!” Alec shouted. Tornado crested the bluff overlooking the summer creek and came to a halt. The other horses cantered up beside him.

  “Where’s he gone?” Alison demanded.

  Hrrana scanned the woods on the other side of the stream and pointed to where the bracken was disturbed.

  “Zere!” she cried.

  “We can’t get zrough zere,’ Hrrunival said, gawking. “It is solid forrrrst. Ze hrrses won’t obey if we zry to force zem in.”

  “You’re g, Alec agreed. “Teabag must have been scared so much he just went through like a rocket. We’ll have to go around on the path and hope we catch up with them.” He guided Tornado down the gully and up the other side so that they skirted the woods. They found the path, which was marked by yellow streamers tied around the two small trees flanking its entrance to show it’d been widened and cleared of dangerous plants. As she was the steadiest horse of the four, Alison urged Fairy in first, leaving Alec to bring up the rear.

  Once under the roof of leaves, the group scanned away to their right, looking for evidence of Teddy’s passage.

  There was nothing moving in the woods except for an urfa that looked up, chewing, with tender leaves sticking out on either side of its narrow jaws. It fled when Hrrunival sat up high in his saddle and yelled.

  “Teddy! Teddy! Can you heeaaaarrrr meeeee?” There was a slight echo as the trees caught his cry, but no answer.

  Alison led them as fast as she dared. The path was narrow and wound to avoid big trees and fallen trunks.

  Several small brooks cut through the floor on this side of the Bore River. The riders forded the streams, only centimetres deep.

  The four took it in turns to call out. “Teddy!”

  “Are you all right?” “Answer us!”

  “Teddy!”

  “Teddy!”

  “If we don’t find him soon, we’ll have to call for help,’ Alec said, peering ahead as he felt along his belt for his handset.

  “Oh, no,’ Hrrunival protested, as the boy pushed the signal button. “Do not. I will get in zrouble. It is all my fault. My hrrss made his nrrvous, and it rrran away. Please let us find him first.”

  “We’d better,’ Alison said, looking at Alec, stricken.

  She punched furiously at her handset. “My communicator’s not working.

  “Neither is mine,’ said Alec with an eloquent groan.

  “Mom will feed us to the snakes!” Alec said. “Teddy!

  TEDDDDIEEEE!”

  “Can’t . . . keep - - - up,’ Walters called to Gallup. The horse with the young Gringg was well ahead of them, vanishing in the thick cover of shrubs and trees. “You go on. Going.

  . . for car!” Walters slowed to a stop, and bent over to catch his breath.

  “Aye!” Without looking back, the other Spacedep man shouldered his light pack and kept running.

  The forest thinned eventually, fading away to whippy saplings and high grasses flattened where the deer and urfa slept at night. Alison led them around to the right towards, as Alec put it, “Teabag’s probabl
e trajectory.

  Beyond the woods, the ground was soft and soggy. The riders skirted the edge of the bright green patches of bog hoping that by staying close to trees which their fathers instructed them liked “to keep their toes dry,’ they would be able to stay out of the clutch of quickmud.

  About a hundred metres from where the path left the woods, Hrrunival’s sharp eyes spotted the first signs of Teddy’s passage. A long streamer of dark fur hung on the point of a broken twig about two metres into the forest on their right. To the left, the mud was churned up.

  Green-tinged water already filled hoofprints that pointed arrow-straight into the heart of the marsh.

  “Forget the snakes. We’ve gotta find him,’ Alec said, voicing what all of them were already thinking. Snakes could be anywhere. It was early, but even a Big Mamma Snake might be wriggling out there.

  “If anyone’s afraid, you’d better go home now. Get Mom, or Aunt Nrrna, or go call Uncle Robin or Uncle Dan.

  “I’m not afraid,’ Hrrunival said at once, though his green eyes were saucer-sized and his tail lashed.

  “Nor I,’ Hrrana cried. Alison just shook her head.

  “OK,’ Alec said, taking a deep breath. “Here we go.” The land changed around Teddy. First, branches stopped hitting him in the face and feet. Then, stinking, sticky mud got thrown up at him by the horse’s hooves. Suddenly, the mud changed to wet sand, then very dry sand. Teabag’s feet foundered and slid. Teddy cried out as the horse fell down and roiled on top of him. He wasn’t hurt because the sand was so soft but he was real scared with all that weight on him.

  Suddenly it lifted, yanked the reins one more time and they ripped free of Teabag’s bridle.

  Teabag scrambled to his feet and shook himself vigorously, splattering sand everywhere. Realizing that at last he was free of his rider who was floundering in the sand beyond him, Teabag made straight for the safety of his home barn.

  “Stop!” Teddy called to it. “Don’t go! I am lost!” The Gringg roar only served to speed the gelding on his way.

  Teddy pulled himself up out of the sand and brushed at his coat.

  Now it was not only matted, but dust and grit were ground in all the way to the skin. He scratched at his belly, which emitted a deep, rumbling sound.

  “They did not feed me yet,’ Teddy said, wonderingly, “and I am hungry.” Such a thing had never happened to him before. But what was there to eat in this hilly desert overlooking the smelly marsh, or in the big river he could see down the hill to his left? If his new friends were here, he could have asked them. This was their world.

  They would know what to eat on it.

  Wait, there was a smell! It was faint because the air was so dry, but he was sure he had caught it.

  The breeze that carried it was coming from behind him.

  He turned and clambered on all four paws up the dune.

  At the top, he saw a dark-furred being with its head busy over its front paws. It was eating! Teddy was so excited that he scrambled towards it.

  The crest of the dune gave, and tumbled him bawling with surprise into the bottom of a sandy cup. In the midst of the sandy nest of eggs, the mda looked up, startled.

  When Teddy appeared at the top of the next dune, it met his eyes.

  “Are you Gringgish?” Teddy asked hopefully. It was unlikely that more true Gringg had come here, but he might be one of the sort of Gringg that lived here. It was not impossible, he thought, remembering cats and Hrrubans. “I am Weddeerogh, of the Wander Den, cub of Grrzzeeraoghh and Eonneh. Can you help me? I am hungry and lost.

  What are you eating? It smells good. Can I have some?” The mda, accustomed to living alone and avoiding creatures which talked, was taken aback to hear unfamiliar sounds emitted by another mda. It eyed Teddy with suspicion. This mda was fully his size, and meant to defend its find. But surely courtesy would require this Gringgish creature to share with him?

  “Please. I am only a little Gringg. Will you not share?” Teddy waited politely. The strange Gringg did not reply, other than to start a low growling which reverberated in gibberish through the voder.

  Confused, but unwilling to leave a source of food, Teddy rolled back on his tail and settled in to wait.

  That calculated act suddenly unnerved the mda. Attack it could understand and knew how to defend itself. But the smell of this creature was different, subtly menacing and suddenly the mda decided that it had had enough egg.

  Growling with annoyance, it picked its way gingerly across the hot sand and disappeared among the marsh plants.

  That was a decision of sorts, Teddy realized, galumphing down and up the hill of sand towards the good smell. If the strange Gringg had none of his words, this was his way of telling him it was all right to share, and that he wouldn’t measure how much food Teddy ate.

  The stranger had already eaten many eggs to judge by the amount of shells strewn around but the nest contained many more, half-uncovered in the sand. Teddy picked one up carefully and it sagged around his handpaw. He sniffed and the smell was good, not tainted by unpleasantness.

  His father had told him that most of the food the planet offered was good for Gringg to eat. Reassured by both smell and paternal remarks, he tore it open with his claws. He plunged his muzzle into the heart of the egg and drank the delicious yolk. Extending his long tongue, Teddy licked his lips and square muzzle with pleasure. There were enough eggs here to make several good meals for a small Gringg.

  He would not be greedy.

  He’d eat only enough to take the edge off his hunger. He picked up another egg and pierced one end of the shell and sucked the contents out. That way he would keep his face fur clean.

  He had emptied quite a few eggs in this fashion when he heard hoofbeats. He stood up and, peering over the dunes, saw Alec approaching on Tornado. He pulled so hard on the reins that Tornado stood up on two hind legs which delighted Teddy.

  “He’s here!” Alec cried and the others quickly joined him. “But you’re in the dunes! Teddy. “We’ve got to get you out of here! It’s dangerous.

  “You’ve found him?” Alison cried in relief. “And Teabag, too? Is he all right? What’s he doing?” Alec squinted at the little round figure, who was waving something white at him. “Teabag’s not here but Teddy’s eating snake eggs.

  They climbed up to meet him, panting in the dry air.

  Teddy was ecstatic that his friends had found him.

  “Have some!” he said. “These eggs are good to eat, and I am so hungry.

  The strange Gringg let me have some. Are you hungry?”

  “Well, yes,’ Alison admitted, but looked queasily at the raw egg. “But we usually eat these cooked.”

  “Ooh, cooked!” Teddy opened wide, red eyes.

  “That would be good, also!

  “I like zis little guy, Hrrunival said. “He’s got class!”

  “Wait,’ Alec said, squatting down beside Teddy. He, too, refused the egg so Teddy felt obliged to eat what he had opened. Then Alec looked at him queerly. “What other Gringg?” Teddy swallowed a mouthful of yolk and pointed the way the stranger had gone. “He never spoke to me, but that is not unheard of,’ he said.

  Hrrunival scrambled to look at the tracks that led away from the snake nest. “It was a mda!” he gasped. “And it left you alone?” His voice cracked on the last word.

  “Reh. It did not speak to me, but we have not been introduced.” Alison was laughing. “Mda can’t talk. They’re not intelligent.”

  “Like the katz?” Teddy asked.

  “Not like cats at all,’ Alison said, her face screwed up in earnest.

  “Mda’re dangerous carnivores, Teddy.”

  “What is carnivore?”

  “It eats meat!”

  “So do I eat meat!” the young Gringg protested.

  Hrrana, ever cautious, was checking the perimeter for snake signs.

  “I see no tiddlers, but zere are ozzer nests already made. We should go away as quickly as possible.”<
br />
  “It’s zoo caurly for anyzhing but tiddlers,’ Hrrunival said, holding his head up to sniff the breeze.

  “Snake Hunt is only dayz away,’ his sister reminded him.

  “But not yet.” Since no one moved away, Teddy went back to eating eggs. They were so delicious, he could not understand why his friends did not want to share them. Nor why they kept looking around them nervously at the dunes.

  Gallup spotted the white-eyed horse with the torn pack saddle plunging towards him on the swamp trail. The young Gringg had been thrown off then. He had only to find the cub now. The horse saw him and shied away, continuing its panicked gallop down the track.

  Gallup palmed sweat out of his face and kept moving.

  He surveyed the path for footprints, but there were none except those the horse had just left. It must be heading for home. All he had to do now was follow its tracks back to the cub. The stink of the marsh was dying away as the terrain sloped up and into less fertile soil. Ahead of him were the snake dunes. Spacedep maps warned him against going into the desert unarmed. The big Rraladoon snakes were capable of eating an entire horse, let alone a winded lieutenant.

  As he topped the next rise, he looked down on to the dunes. And there, on the top of one of the sandy hillocks was the little bruin.

  Alone, too! A perfect opportunity!

  Gallup reached for his sidearm. If the kid agreed to come quietly, Gallup wouldn’t have to use force, but after a chase like that one, his patience was gone. The kid was looking down, busy with something messy. Gallup crept around the edge of the dune, staying just out of sight.

  Behind him, he heard rhythmic pounding on the sand.

  He jumped into cover just in time to avoid being seen by the five youngsters riding out of the woods. The little bear glanced up and waved. Gallup snorted in annoyance at the lost opportunity. By mere seconds. He hoped Walters would get to him quickly with the flitter.

  He checked his tracer stud to see that it was still working. This was their last chance to grab the Gringg. He and Walters would have to take the bear off in the full view of the other children. If they protested, he’d have to take care of them, too.