“No problem,” she said, collecting her wits. “Like you ordered, I changed the dressing before feeding this morning so it might need replacement.”
The chestnut horse stood half asleep in the sun. Mike hopped over the fence and approached with soothing sounds, running one hand down its back and to the rump. Its eyelids fluttered as it shifted a leg, denoting it was aware of Mike.
“Hey, watch he don’t cowkick you, Mike,” Bert said, nervously, “if he catches sight of Cinnamon!”
“He’s all right,” Mike assured him, turning to catch the tie-rope and halter in one hand.
The horse came fully awake and nosed at Mike’s chest. He pushed away the gelding’s muzzle.
“You’re almost better, fella,” he said affectionately. “Another couple of days and you can go home.”
Cinnamon walked halfway around the fence to get a better look at the animal’s face. Mike noticed the visitor was being very careful to stay downwind.
“We call horses the wealth of Doona,” Mike explained, patting the gelding’s cheek. “No one in the galaxy raises better stock than we do: jumpers, hunters, or just riding hacks.”
“How is it ridden?” Cinnamon asked.
“I will show you,” Errme volunteered, taking a headcollar and lead rope from those on the peg of the turn-out field. As the Gringg watched, the Hrruban quietly approached an animal grazing just beyond the sick gelding. Deftly he slipped on the halter, then tied the rope onto the far side to make an impromptu rein. Then, with the ease of long practice, Errrne leaped to the horse’s back and coaxed it into a walk.
“You hold on with your knees,” Mike explained. “You don’t need a saddle unless you’re riding a long distance. Then it’s vital for your comfort and the mount’s. They’ve got sharp spines.”
“Ah,” the Gringg said, his eyes glued to the graceful form of horse and rider. Errme coaxed the beast to a fast trot, then into a canter, which increased to a gallop.
“That Hrruban rides like he was part of the critter,” Bert said admiringly. “He breaks horses freelance.”
“He does what to hrrrsses?” Cinnamon asked anxiously, tapping the voder. Bert laughed as he tried to explain.
“ ‘Break’ is not the literal translation,” Mike said, his eyes dancing.
“Hello?” someone called.
“Back here!” Mike shouted back.
Footsteps ticked and scratched on the concrete floor of the barn. Nita blushed suddenly. Mike noticed her reaction with a grin. If she knew those boots just by sound, the wearer had to be Robin Reeve. The younger Reeve was a smaller, slighter copy of Todd. He had the same intense blue eyes, dynamite with the engaging grin that got him out of trouble as often as it got him into it.
“Afternoon,” he drawled, then noticed the visitor. “Well, hi!” he greeted the Gringg. “I’m Robin. Which one are you?”
“I am this one,” Cinnamon replied. “I am called Cinnamon.”
“Welcome, well-met, and well-named,” Robin said cheerfully. “As our old friend, Kiachif, would say. Are you enjoying Rraladoona so far?”
“Reh! Very especially the hrrrsses,” Cinnamon said enthusiastically.
“Glad to hear it,” Robin replied. “We’re all horse-crazy here.”
“Robin is my brother-in-law,” Mike said. “His brother is married to my sister.”
“A most complicated explanation of a simple relationship,” Cinnamon observed.
“Sometimes it’s very complicated,” Robin agreed. “Say, Mike, I’ve got a sow in the flitter out front. She’s due to farrow any time now, but she’s running a temperature. I’m afraid she’ll lose the litter.”
“How in hell did you get a sick, pregnant pig into a hover?” Mike demanded.
“It’s only because she knows she’s my favorite that she trusted me enough. I have this way with women. Oh, hi, Nita,” he said, mischievously peering at her sidelong from under his sweeping black lashes. Nita bent the bow of her delicious-looking lips into a shy smile, then retreated to the isolation stall.
“I’d better take a look at your pig, then,” Mike said, grinning. “I hope she hasn’t decided to give birth right in your car.”
Robin looked alarmed. “I hope not! It’s my sister Nessie’s car.”
Cinnamon barely noticed the two Hayumans depart, so entranced was he with the ruddy-coated gelding. He was mentally composing a poem to the species, and to this specimen in particular, when the Hayuman Bert Gross pulled at his forelimb fur.
“If you want to see some more horses, we’ve got a whole bunch of them in a corral over to the other side of the building,” Gross said, studiously casual.
“Reh!” Cinnamon exclaimed, picturing a sea of the beautiful animals. “I would be most grateful.”
The Hrruban pulled Gross to one side. “What are you up to?” Errme said in a low voice.
“I’m gonna show our guest,” Gross said with careful emphasis, “a whole lot of horses.”
Errme, understanding the joke at last, dropped his jaw in a big grin. “Let us go!”
The paddock contained some thirty animals, huddled together near the feed troughs. One tiger-spotted appaloosa stood near the gate, scratching the side of his nose on the post. It glanced at the Hayuman and Hrruban without interest, but started violently and snorted at the sight of the Gringg. As Cinnamon came closer, the horse retreated until it was well within the crowd on the other side. It wheezed a warning sound. All the others in the pen looked up and stared with wary brown eyes at the stranger.
“These are all two-year-old geldings,” Gross said.
“They are not hrrrsses?” Cinnamon asked, puzzled. “When is a hrrrss not a hrrrss?”
“Is that a joke?” Bert asked, elbowing his Hrruban companion. “Uh, when a horse—ah, forget it. Yeah, they’re horses. Nice, aren’t they?”
“Reh,” Cinnamon breathed. He felt a deep affection rising in him for the big liquid eyes, slender limbs, and smooth pelts of these animals. Oh, what very attractive creatures they were. “I understand why Rraladoon prizes them so.”
“Why don’t you just go in and get acquainted with them?” Bert asked, opening the gate and standing back to courteously gesture him through. “They’re all well handled.”
“Oh, I would like that,” Cinnamon said, and stepped into the paddock. Bert shut the gate behind him.
“What if he hurrrrts zem?” Errme whispered.
“Don’t worry,” Gross muttered back. “They won’t let him get anywhere near ’em.”
The veterinarian’s prediction almost came true. Wearing a beatific expression, Cinnamon walked toward the herd. Instantly, it split into two groups and cantered past him toward the opposite side of the corral.
The Gringg was disappointed that the animals were so shy around him. His new friend had assured him that they were friendly. Perhaps he was just too unfamiliar. If he allowed them to smell him, they would become used to him and come close enough to touch.
Extending one paw forward very slowly, Cinnamon walked toward the horses again. For the first ten paces, they stayed where they were, watching him approach. He had not observed before that their huge brown eyes were edged with white under the lids. He took another step, and one of the bigger animals tossed its head. That seemed to set off the others; who cantered away in a bunch, skittering and neighing, leaving the Gringg facing nothing at all. Patiently, he turned about and tried his approach again.
Try as he might, Cinnamon could not get close enough so that any of the lovely animals could sniff at his paw. Intent on his task, he could hear the gasps and bursts of sound made by the Doonarralans behind him, but he did not see them slapping one another on the back. He tried another approach: when the herd was downwind of him, he stood still, allowing the slight breeze to carry his scent to them.
The musk of his fur made a few of the horses
rear and toss their heads, but they didn’t bolt or show other signs of alarm. In a few moments, they calmed down completely except for a twitch here and there. Slowly, very slowly, Cinnamon moved closer with his paw out. As before, as soon as he was within a Gringg-length or two, the herd melted to either side of him and fled. Patiently, Cinnamon tried again.
“We could let this go on all day!” Gross said, red-faced with laughter. Errrne grunted breathlessly beside him.
Over and over, the same actions were repeated: the bearlike Gringg walked toward the herd, which split up and ran away from him. The Rraladoonans were enjoying themselves immensely. It was funnier each time it happened, and the Gringg’s disappointment increased their pleasure. Then one of the horses in the paddock began to rear and whinny. Its eyes showed wide arcs of white, and its nostrils were flared.
“What’s with that one? It’s spooking badly now,” Gross said, pointing. “I don’t want it jumping the fence.”
At first there seemed to be no reason for the horse’s growing anxiety. As the herd split one more time, the two men outside the pen saw why.
“A mare’s in zat bunch!” Errme cried.
“Oh, fardles, and her colt is there, too,” Bert said, hurrying to jump the fence. The mare cut out of the herd and made straight for the Gringg, swinging her head back and forth, showing her teeth.
“Cinnamon, get out of there!” he yelled. “Back off!” The Gringg stood waiting for it, his eyes wide with joy.
* * *
Even trained as he was for accurate recall, Cinnamon was not ever able to describe exactly how the collision came about. One of the hrrrsses came out of the herd, directly toward him. Welcoming, he put out a paw for it to sniff, but greeting him was not what it intended. He saw a flash of eye, then teeth, then hard, round hooves flailing at his face. It cut his muzzle, making him bleed. The hooves struck him on the shoulder, the chest. Cinnamon’s paw came up to protect his face, and hit the mare’s head instead. Her neck broke with an audible snap. As Cinnamon watched, stunned, she sank to her knees and, rolling to one side, lay still. A half-grown horse trotted out of the herd, and stopping uncertainly halfway there, it emitted a tentative whinny, which grew sharper when there was no reply. Cinnamon realized with horror that this was her young. He had killed a mother horse and left an orphan.
He threw back his head and wailed his grief. Then the horses began to stampede!
* * *
The instant the wild howling started, Mike and Robin exchanged a look and raced toward that side of the building. They’d never heard such a sound before—a cross between a siren and a foghorn, a very insistent and unhappy foghorn—but they knew it meant trouble.
In the stableyard, there was a penful of hysterical horses hammering themselves against the far fence, and Mike’s two junior associates staring with horror at the Gringg.
“What happened?” Mike demanded, looking from one to the other. “Why’s he yelling like that?”
“That beast killed a horse,” Bert Gross said, pointing wildly at Cinnamon, who was sitting on his haunches in the corral beside the body of the dead mare. “They’re dangerous! He broke her neck with one swipe!” He hoped that Mike would take his story at face value. Neither he nor Errme wanted to confess their part in the tragedy.
“Better get Todd,” Robin said grimly.
* * *
The Hayuman and Hrruban traders, chafing from their enforced idleness while awaiting the outcome of the postponed conference, had spent a lot of time in the pub of the Space Center. The Center wasn’t a large building, though additions had been made as trade to Doonarrala increased. In fact, there was more pub than spaceport facility. Ali Kiachif made it a point to stop in at least once a day and swap lies with whoever was hanging about. Any of his captains who needed to drop a private word in his ear could find him there, and many potential problems were quietly defused in that milieu.
Fred Horstmann and a couple of the others involved in the conference were having an afternoon drink with Kiachif. The subject, as it had been for weeks, was the Gringg.
“I can’t guess whether they’re funning us or not,” Morwood said. He was a middle-ranker, a Codep shipper who had been out a fair number of years. He wanted most of all to get a cargo and leave the planet. He’d been here far too long.
“Fun? For fish, flesh, or fowl?” Kiachif asked, ripping the seal off a fresh bottle of mlada and pouring himself a glassful. “I’d say they’re telling the truth.”
“But it sounds like a joke,” Horstmann offered, taking a pull on his beer. “Hard to believe they’d settle on such simple stuff, if you understand me.”
The other traders grinned. “You’ve been around Kiachif too long,” Captain Darwin said, looking open and innocent when the Codep chief turned a surprised glare on him.
“Not so simple, but it’s a foot in the door, to be sure, a foot in the door,” Ali said. “Nothing will do but fresh and new, which will keep our ships in the spacelanes. I like that well enough, if you follow my reasoning, and you do.”
The debate went on, with about two thirds of the spacers firmly in the Gringg’s corner, and the others uncomfortable and unsure of the new aliens’ motivations. It was shaping up to a fine brawl, when Kiachif spotted Jon Greene walking through the security gate toward the landing bays.
Thank the Stars I outrank him, Kiachif thought. I dislike him more than I hate stale bread and water. And I hear he’s sweeties with Grace Castleton, though you’d think a lass of her rank would have better taste. Greene was sure set on roiling up ill-feeling, and Kiachif knew, from his sources, that the commander’d come an alm’s ace to making an intergalactic incident happen. Which would have been bad for new trade possibilities and that was not in Kiachif’s lexicon.
It’s time he had a piece of my mind handed him, Kiachif decided. He gulped what was left in his glass and excused himself.
“I’ll be back,” he called to the publican. “Another bottle of the same, to be waiting.” The man snapped the towel he was plying on the inside of a glass pitcher, and nodded.
The mlada was burning a pleasant warmth in Kiachif’s stomach as he made his way through the chilly concrete corridors. He told himself he preferred a quiet life, but a good mill always helped the blood run warmer. If Greene didn’t tell Kiachif why he was trying so hard to queer things, it wouldn’t be for want of persuasion—of one form or another. He might even persuade the commander to show good manners.
Around the corner, the corridor was empty. His prey had a good stride on him; Greene must be pretty far ahead. Kiachif passed the control room. He waved a hand in at the door, and kept walking. One of the female technicians, a young woman with chocolate-dark skin, nodded to him. She was having a quiet talk with someone who wasn’t visible from the doorway. A lover’s chat, perhaps? Kiachif slowed down as he recognized the man’s voice: the importunate Commander Greene.
He doubled back and put his ear next to the doorpost.
Whatever was going on in there, it wasn’t love talk. He heard Greene say something about sensors, followed by a low and indistinguishable question. Chancing a quick look inside, Kiachif saw the woman shake her head.
“No, sir. It’s all been by the book, I swear,” she said. She sounded panicky; and her skin had a moist look of stress Kiachif did not like to see.
“And the records of the scans have all been filed under coded seals?” Greene’s voice was smooth and low, but there was an unmistakable threat in it.
“Yes, sir.” The woman’s throat constricted on the second word, sending it up an octave. Kiachif’s eyes went wide.
“Blank that screen!” Greene commanded. Hastily, she reached for the control, and the sensor pattern she’d been monitoring vanished. Kiachif hadn’t had time for a good look at it, but he fancied he could reconstruct it, given time. There’d been three ships on the screen-three ships with the yellow dataprints of heavy
weaponry. Fleet ships? But where bound, and why?
“It’s a crime to reveal secure data to anyone without the correct classification,” the commander said, continuing his harangue.
“I know that, sir,” the technician said. “I’d never do that, sir.”
“Good,” Greene said, standing up and moving into Kiachif’s line of sight. He leaned over her in an ominous fashion. That he scared her was obvious from her distraught expression. “See that you don’t. You are to keep me or Admiral Barnstable posted on any change, but no one else, do you understand? An infraction of the regulations could put you into a one-by-two cell in a military prison on Earth for ten years.”
The woman’s eyes widened until Kiachif thought they’d pop right out of her head.
“Well, if that gall don’t grease a goose’s gizzard,” Kiachif muttered. Abandoning his listening post, he strode boldly into the office.
“Afternoon, pretty lady,” Kiachif began cheerily, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “I’ve got a ship coming in from Tau Ceti way. Wondered if you could give me a vector and an ETA. If it’s no trouble, that is. Oh, hello, Greene. Leaving, are you?”
The Spacedep commander fixed Kiachif with a hostile stare. He was clearly unhappy to have been interrupted before he had totally cowed the poor girl.
“I was just going,” he said. “Remember what I said,” he told the technician. “Security!”
“Yes, Commander,” the technician replied unhappily. She watched Greene leave, then turned to Kiachif, beads of sweat visible on her forehead. “How may I help you, Captain?” she asked, readying her hands on the keyboard at her station. Her voice petered out, and she swallowed.
“Is that rattlesnake giving you trouble, my dear?” Kiachif asked kindly, sitting down on the edge of the chair Greene had just vacated.
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