“We may find more,” Seventh argued.
“How? Without better ships we are unlikely to find other asteroid belts where novas have collided and the minerals have formed into purralinium. The Hayumans are our only source of those ships, but they demand access to grid technology in exchange for spaceship technology. They will hold firm on that point,” Second finished with genuine regret.
“How they dare! They go too far,” Sixth said.
“They are curious,” Second explained wearily. “Hayumans wish to know how everything operates. I must admit that many of the arguments put forth by the delegate Landreau make sense. As we know from many decades of use, grids save time and lives.”
“Has no more purralinium been found?” Fifth asked Sixth Speaker.
Sixth stood up. “Plenty has been discovered, as the Honored Speaker may know from reading his texts. But never with the key trace elements which comprise the compound needed. I think we must curtail the establishment of any but the most urgent additions to our transport network. Research is, naturally, on-going to find alternatives, but we must face the fact that we have a finite quantity of material which is not renewable. We would do well to accelerate alternative power sources.”
”We cannot!” said Third Speaker, looking panicky. “We’ve thrown all our support into grid research. We haven’t the funds to advance new research into space technology. If the Hayumans remain on a hard line of negotiation, we are lost. In a short era, we will be circumscribed on every side by Hayumans and possibly by these, these Gringg. Something must be done!”
Fifth Speaker smiled grimly. “I heard through some sources who live on Rraladoona that the Gringg were not surprised by the grids when they first used them. Is it possible they might also have discovered matter transmission?”
Hrrto dropped his jaw and waved both hands dismissively. “The chances of their discovering matter transmission are exceedingly slim, Honored sirs, especially” —and now he drew himself up—“since the Hayumans have been unable to duplicate our process no matter how hard they have tried.”
“Yet you imply that the Gringg have searched many worlds,” Sixth said. “Might they not have found purralinium somewhere in their travels? We must discover what they have seen during their explorations. We must ignore no opportunity to replenish our supplies. Especially if we must use a third of our dwindling resources to erect an efficient grid in the spaceport facility. Never must the Hayumans discover how important purralinium is to us or how little we have left.” Sixth Speaker was all but babbling in his urgency. “We cannot fall from our present prominence and become vulnerable to either the Hayumans or these Gringg creatures.”
“Sixth, do not exercise yourself,” Second said kindly, for the old Stripe was spitting in his agitation. “After all, the Hayumans have treated fairly with us. The delay on the spaceport is actually due to Zodd Rrev’s contention that a spaceport is an infraction of both the Decision and Treaty.” Second smiled benignly. “Despite their desire to share our technology, I do not see Hrruba made vulnerable to Hayumans.”
“It is recorded that those who live on Rraladoona have always conducted themselves with honor toward Hrruba,” Fifth agreed, “but there are too many on the Hayuman homeworld who are willing to take advantage of us. We must protect ourselves, or our culture will be swallowed up and lost, as our natural resources—nay, even as the surface of our planet was—by our own carelessness. The spaceport is essential if we are to maintain the precarious balance of trade. In the matter of the Gringg, you must ensure that any concession from them that the Hayumans receive, so also do we Hrrubans.”
There was a murmur of agreement. Second realized he needed to walk carefully if he wished to be successful. Fifth was a determined and intelligent rival for Hrruna’s place. And yet he judged that he had not done so ill in this meeting. Mllaba seemed to be very pleased.
“I concur,” he said. “Steps shall be taken to establish Hrruba’s preeminence. And its safety.”
OVER THE COURSE of the next weeks, Hrrestan took over as many duties from Todd in their joint management of the colony as he could.
“Todd can get his tongue round ze new worrds bezzer zan I,” was Hrrestan’s comment, “for all my dam said I was borrrn grrowling.”
So, except for brief consultations now and then between the colonial co-leaders, Todd was free to spend long hours with Ken and Hrriss as they parsed and rehearsed Gringg sounds, memorized what vocabulary had been exchanged, and figured out the probable syntactical forms. As often as he could, however, Hrrestan dropped in, earnestly trying to refine those phrases he could enunciate properly.
Kelly and Nrrna kept pots of coffee available and the herbal teas that Hrrestan preferred, feeding them whenever the women could get their attention long enough, and reminding them that a good night’s sleep would do wonders for concentration. Finally Kelly laid down a law.
“No Gringg at mealtimes,” she said firmly on the evening when Alec had tried to emulate his father’s tones and inadvertently regurgitated his last mouthful. “Give it a rest!”
Surprised by Alec’s mishap, Todd offered sheepish apologies for his behavior and refrained from practicing the deep gutturals at mealtimes.
“Not that that improved his dinner conversation in the slightest,” Kelly complained to Nrrna and Mrrva the next afternoon. She made grunts and woofs to demonstrate. “Now that he’s got vocabulary and syntax, he complains because he only has present tense verbs!” She rolled her eyes in histrionic resignation.
“But zey are working togezzer,” Nrrna murmured, and the two women sighed once again with relief.
When the matter of planning for the upcoming Snake Hunt would have interfered with language lessons, Todd reluctantly acceded to Robin’s pleas that he could handle the pre-Hunt arrangements. Kelly offered to give her young brother-in-law a hand. That work gave her a respite from Todd’s current preoccupation. Robin proved not only completely conversant with the complexities of the big event but efficient in checking minor details to forestall accidents. Todd and Hrriss, as Hunt Masters, would spare a few moments to answer his questions and go over his work schedules and estimates, but that was one less worry for them.
Todd, Ken, Hrriss, and Hrrestan, separately or as teams, escorted Gringg visitors around Doonarrala or accompanied volunteer linguists up to the huge Gringg vessel to build vocabulary and language links for the translation voders. The Alreldep scout ship which had been assigned years before to Todd and Hrriss was back in service, shuttling people up without having to go through Barnstable, Greene, or Castleton. Only two of the smaller Gringg, like Eonneh and Koala, were small enough to fit in the scout. Hrrestan tried hard to get permission to put a temporary grid in the Gringg cargo bay, but Hrrto was totally opposed to the notion. Todd and Hrrestan did, over a great outcry from Barnstable and Prrid, give permission for the Gringg to use their own ship-to-surface transport, the smallest of the ones they’d seen on their initial visit. It was a cumbersome vehicle, like a great box, and looked totally out of place on the common of First Village where it had space to land.
Hearing about this, some of the more vocal dissidents made strenuous objections on grounds of noise, pollution, and possible damage to the expanse of grass which doubled as a playing field. But the vehicle was quiet, emitted no noxious fumes, and used an air cushion for landing and resting, leaving no marks despite its mass. The Gringg pilot, an oddly misshapen individual, smaller than any other adult Gringg, courteously asked for landing and departure permissions every time and remained in the vehicle, though Buddy, alias Buddeeroagh, was quite willing to show anyone through it.
Alec told his father that one day he had counted nineteen men and women, all of whom had the odd gait of spacefarers, requesting permission to board.
“None of ’em are from any of the villages, Dad. Me, I think that old Admiral’s busting his britches to find out something against the bea
r people. Isn’t he?” Alec asked his father, cocking his head with a shrewd look in his eyes.
“You might think that,” Todd answered cautiously, busy assembling the latest Gringg sounds on flash cards. Once again he reflected that children often saw more than their parents. “Why were you counting in the first place?”
“Aw, Allie, me, Hrr, and Hrruni were chatting with Buddy. He kept getting interrupted by these jokers when he was showing us this neat game. You know, if we could charge ’em for a visit, we’d make a pile!”
“You’ve been listening too much to your uncle Jilamey, I think,” Todd replied, amused by his son’s acumen but privately embarrassed at such gall, “but we can’t charge for . . . ah . . . curiosity!” When his son’s face contorted in dismay, he added, “And the navy is here to protect us.”
Alec gave a snort. “Ha! Then they should spend their time doing that instead of nosing about our planet’s guests!”
“Well said, Alec!” and he ruffled his son’s tangled curls and then had to wipe his hand. “What have you been into?”
Alec finger-combed his hair, inspecting the results. “Some sort of oil er somethin’. Musta got it when Buddy showed me how their drive works!” Alec beamed suddenly, but his eyes were twinkling with slight malice. “He didn’t show anyone but us kids!”
Todd decided he didn’t need to worry about Spacedep’s interest in the Gringg vessel when the pilot displayed such discretion. He also decided that letting the village children tag along with Gringg visitors would be a subtle way of disrupting the surveillance Barnstable and Greene had set up. What was the old tag? Qui custodiat? Who watches the watchers? The kids of Doonarrala!
So the almost daily unofficial visits by Eonneh and one or more of his fellow scribes to gather information and understanding of their new friends took on a new perspective. Of course, there were some diehards who wouldn’t subject their children to “such influences,” but these were fewer than Todd expected. When Alec casually mentioned the presence in the group of some youngsters Todd knew had been prohibited, he did have a qualm or two of conscience but decided their independence of mind should not be discouraged.
The positive reaction of the youngsters was also a grand buffer between the Gringg and the doomsayers who had managed to arrive from both Hrruba and Terra.
Somewhere underneath the busy exterior, Todd knew he was exhausted, but he’d hardly ever been so enthusiastic about a project in his life. Well, not since he’d been six.
The Gringg and the majority of Doonarralans were as delighted as he, cooperating like a dream. Frictions that had been caused by disagreement about the spaceport were mainly discarded by the generally held desire to establish relations with the aliens. The barriers of speech and unfamiliar custom were dropping farther and farther every day.
Sumitral, far from showing impatience with the laborious progress, made it a practice to interact every day with one of the male scribes, or with Grizz aboard the Gringg vessel. The Gringg captain herself had not yet set foot on Doonarrala, nor had any of her female department heads, preferring to save that portentous event, Todd was made to understand, for the day when she could make an official entrance, able to speak for herself.
Todd was grateful for her forbearance. His office received enough complaints from the very vocal Human and Hrruban minority who reacted negatively to the tercel males who had requested permission to wander about. The gigantic females would only cause a bigger stir and more friction. But he did identify most of the possible troublemakers and set up contingency plans to prevent outbursts from those quarters.
Todd also had reason to be very grateful to Jilamey Landreau, who set up entertainments and unofficial meetings at his hilltop home, well out of the way of Todd and those working on the language project. Superficially Jilamey seemed to be working both ends against the middle, soothing the disappointed members of the interrupted conference while making no bones about his Gringgophilia. He evidently made much of his being included in the first contact group.
The austere Barrington ’copted down daily to bring private and encouraging reports to Todd. Todd took these with a grain of salt, knowing Jilamey’s enthusiasms, but Barrington’s manner of reportage allowed him to hope that much of what Jilamey said was true. Especially when Barrington relayed Jilamey’s firm opinion, one Barrington seemed to support, that the Gringg’s only objective was to establish trade relations.
It was on this point that Jilamey urged patience until the translation problem could be solved, and how he managed to keep the frustrated delegates from leaving Doonarrala. Ironically, Tanarey Smith became one of Jilamey’s converts, especially after Landreau persuaded Eonneh to escort the shipbuilder around the Wander Den, a rough translation of the Gringg vessel’s name.
Todd could not ignore the undercurrents of dissatisfaction, even among Gringg supporters, that the talks about the space facility had been put hold. When he had time, he gave some thought to that. As a child, he had absorbed his father’s views about planetary cohabitation; as an adult, he shared his father’s opinion about any intrusive invasions of Hrruban lands on the planet. All right, it was Human greed that his father feared and it was the Hrrubans who had initiated the spaceport project. But did it matter which species encroached? If the rule applied on Doonarrala, it applied for both!
Had the arrival of the Gringg now altered the equation? No. Although he was optimistic about the outcome, the Gringg hadn’t been officially allowed to open trade on Doonarrala. Todd, well-conditioned by Captain Ali Kiachif over the years, considered trading a different matter entirely from occupation or habitation. The crunch came in discussions of where the spaceport could be sited.
Todd knew how cramped and inadequate the old Hall at the Spaceport was for the volume of commerce that flowed in and out of it. Something had to be done to expand the facilities. No one wanted a larger complex at the original landing site, oozing toward the First Villages, ruining the peaceful valley. So a new location was imperative. Each time Todd mulled over the problem, he still found himself opposed to siting a larger port anywhere on the lovely subcontinent that was now called Hrrunatan. That should be left as the natural memorial park to the old First Speaker, which he, and all Doonarralans, had intended for it to be. He finally decided to leave the sore subject for another time, when he was thinking clearly and logically, not so emotionally nor—he admitted to himself—close-minded. His brain was already working overtime trying to cope with a difficult new language.
Gradually the daily sight of the large, shaggy strangers moving about with their Human or Hrruban escorts took the edge off the “fearsome hairy monsters” appellation. The Gringg became the “big bears,” or Bruins, to most Doonarralans. But xenophobic pessimists somehow began arriving from Terra and Hrruba, and familiarity was not going to appease them. They visited every village, Hayuman and Hrruban, whispering against the “fiendish Gringg.” They muttered about “murders most vile” and “devastated worlds,” but would slip away before they could be closely questioned.
Todd worked all the harder to get the one tool that would throttle doubters and doomsayers both, and allow the Gringg to speak for themselves. Couldn’t people wait for that, instead of stirring up unnecessary fears and forecasts?
* * *
The voder that Cardiff had designed with Koala was a brilliant piece of audio-engineering. It made use of the tiny Gringg resonator, memory chips, and other components from both Terra and Hrruba in common use on Doonarrala, all fitted into a compact case seven centimeters by two by five. Worn about the neck on a cord, it “heard” what the wearer said and repeated it in Gringg or human. Its creators nicknamed it growl box, or simply, the growler.
Cardiff, with the help of two of the university engineers, worked long hours to turn out six of the growlers so that Ken, Todd, and Hrriss could discuss Gringg objectives with Grizz, Honey, and Panda. The session was filmed, and although Barnstable had a
fit at being excluded and decried the secrecy in which the interview was conducted, Sumitral pointed out that not even he, as Alreldep head, had been included, in an attempt to provide as relaxed an atmosphere as possible. Once again, Sumitral reinforced the prerogative of Reeve and Hrrestan to conduct their own planetary affairs. There had been some heated reminders that the Gringg vessel was the concern of Spacedep.
“I could agree with you if it carried armament,” Sumitral had replied suavely. “It carries only peaceful visitors!”
For Todd and Ken particularly, the session was a golden moment, for they established relations and exchanged meaningful data.
First: that for many spans of time (which Todd and Ken thought meant generations, since the Gringg travelled in family groups), the Gringg had been actively searching space for other sentient species as well as suitable resource planets. (It was a particular joy for the Doonarralans to learn that the Gringg had eschewed planets which probes reported showing habitations suggesting the basic intelligence of indigenous species.) The Gringg also required the availability of certain minerals and soils on a colonial world, for, despite being omnivorous and able to digest more substances than Hayuman or Hrrubans could, they had to have a certain range of dietary supplements.
Two: they were quite open about the direction of their homeworld; galactically speaking, north by northeast, though the speed at which their ships moved was still not translating accurately. They provided “strips” which, fed through a device, enlarged the data into star maps. The difference in eye structure made these difficult for Hayumans or Hrrubans to decipher, and Koala was working on an apparatus that would compensate for the different optics.
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