Crisis On Doona

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Hmm,” grunted the technician, unimpressed. Everyone was always in a hurry. His tail began to twitch impatiently.

  The Treaty Controller, clad in his magnificent red robes, appeared out of a corridor and addressed the technician, who stood to attention. Nrrna slipped into the shadows of the terminal to keep from being noticed. “Hasn’t the transmission from Hrruba arrived yet?” the Controller asked.

  The operator made the proper bow to such an important Hrruban. “No, honored sir. It is scheduled to arrive in three dots. You do not have long to wait. I could have notified you if you had called me.”

  “Hmm,” the Treaty Controller growled his dissatisfaction. His eyelids lowered halfway over glaring green. “I was informed that it would be here at half past the tenth hour.”

  The grid operator courteously gestured to the display of quartz timers, synchronized with grid transporter terminals in the other spheres of Hrruban autonomy. “That time approaches rapidly, honored sir,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  The Controller turned away from the nervous young Hrruban and noticed Nrrna. To distract the grid operator, she had put on some of her most attractive ornaments, and a spicy cologne which approximated the pheromones of mating. She had not counted on anyone else coming along, especially not the Treaty Controller. At once she assumed a position both humble and hardworking, hoping he would look away. To her horror, she saw his nostrils flare as he scented her.

  “Rrrmmm,” he purred, moving toward her. “And who is this? What is your name, lovely one?”

  Flustered, she murmured her name, and was gently asked to repeat it. “Nrrna.”

  “Nrrna. A soft name for a soft pelt. I find you most attractive, Nrrna.” He rubbed his hand along the length of her arm. Offended by the familiarity of the contact, she moved her arm, trying not to give deliberate insult. After all, she was wearing a provocative scent.

  “You honor me, sir, but I am already promised.”

  “Surely no single male will be sufficient to relieve one as young and feminine as you, Nrrna,” the Controller said, pitching his voice intimately. “I would be the one honored if you would choose to favor me with your company.”

  Nrrna looked to the grid operator for assistance, but he had folded his ears tight to his head in an effort not to overhear. Which was only discreet of him, Nrrna had to admit. Why had she chosen such an alluring scent? She really had left herself open to offers. The operator she could have teased, but it would be most unwise of her to lead on the Treaty Controller.

  “Please, sir, I am promised as lifemate.” She hadn’t wanted to admit that yet. Particularly not to this old male. She edged away. He sidled closer to her, and she could feel the heat of his body against hers and the rising scent of his sensual response to her condition. “I am not yet at full cycle,” she added as coolly as she could. Indeed she was a few weeks away from her season and sexual activity would be distasteful. He had no right to be harassing her.

  “Really?” and the Controller looked genuinely surprised. “I think perhaps you have misjudged your readiness, soft Nrrna,” the Controller suggested in a low voice. “My quarters are most comfortable.” He was a much older male, with persuasive ways that should overwhelm such a young and obviously inexperienced female.

  She shifted away from him, revolted by his manner. Any decent male would have desisted, but this old stoker obviously didn’t recognize a genuine denial.

  “The transmission from Earth,” the operator announced.

  With the agility of her youth, Nrrna sprang toward the pallet in a graceful leap that took the Controller totally by surprise. With her own hands, she helped the operator roll the crate off the transport grid to make room for the next transmission.

  However, the Controller, not to be done out of his prize, followed her. Ignoring him, she opened the top crate, which did not contain Kelly, and began to inventory the materials very slowly, checking each box several times as she marked it off on her list.

  “One box of size 00 sutures, one box of size 0 sutures, four cases of plas-skin ...”

  “You haven’t answered my question yet, Nrrna,” the Treaty Controller pressed.

  She gave him a smile. “All thought of personal indulgence must give way to duty, honored sir.” She paused to give him the most courteous and coolest of bows. “You must forgive my diligence but it is my first position and I cannot discredit my Stripe with less than my closest attention. Everything must be inventoried before it can be transported to the village center.” She began her count over, glancing from the clipboard to the pallet with an anxious expression. “One box of size 00 sutures, one box of size 0 sutures ...”

  “I thought you needed to get this to the medical center as quickly as you could,” complained the operator, wondering that the pretty female was silly enough to ignore a Controller.

  “As soon as it is counted,” Nrrna said firmly. “Earth must be notified promptly if the count is short.” Once again, she began at the top of her list. Just as the Treaty Controller moved in to pursue her, the grid bell rang.

  “Honored sir, the transmission from Hrruba!”

  On the grid platform a cluster of small boxes appeared. The Treaty Controller bent over them and straightened up with an exclamation of self-satisfaction, one of the document cases clutched in his hands. “Yes, this will ensure the number of days is finite.” He glanced at Nrrna, who was still pantomiming a diligent inventory and walked over to her. “Silly stripe,” he said in a voice low enough to reach her ears only, “you would do better to accept my protection and virility so that I can provide well for you when you have to return to Hrruba. It is not too late to reconsider.”

  “My Stripe has a long tradition of honoring its promises,” Nrrna said with a swift sideways glance toward him before returning to her inventory check. Halfway between checking off a film tape for educating small children about bacteria control and reaching for the next film in the stack, she heard an annoyed snort, and the Treaty Controller swept away, holding the small document box. She sighed with relief.

  “My goods are all accounted for,” she told the grid operator. “Will you transport me and this shipment now to First Village?”

  The gesture with which the irritated technician directed her onto the platform showed that he would be very glad indeed to get rid of her. For her sake, he had nearly had to annoy the Treaty Controller. No male, not even a Treaty Controller, should persist when a female has made her disinterest so plain. He would be glad to see the last of both of them and the end of a possible disgraceful incident.

  The moment that the village coalesced around Nrrna, she shoved the crate off the grid and tapped the code to open it. Kelly exploded up in the midst of a snowstorm of plastic packets. They were plastered all over her like wet leaves.

  “Oh, my poor neck,” she groaned. “This was such a good idea but neither of us counted on sweat and plastic suffocation. I hope I don’t offend your nose.”

  “I am so glad you are all right,” Nrrna said, trying hard to keep her nostrils from flaring at the reek of the Hayuman. She couldn’t help her current odoriferousness and Nrrna helped Kelly out. “I would not have left you in it so long, but that wretched ol’ cat”—and Kelly blinked at such an epithet coming from the gentle and polite Nrrna—“of a Controller was revoltingly offensive!” Nrrna almost spat in outrage and Kelly could see every single hair of her stripe was standing up.

  Nrrna began to pick the static-charged packets off Kelly’s hair and clothes. Each time she tried to put a pile down, they seemed to spring back to adhere to her fur. When Kelly tried to help, it only made matters worse. The packets merely transferred themselves from Nrrna to Kelly. Frustration gave way to laughter and then Nrrna thought of moistening her hands, and when that seemed to help, Kelly wet hers and they began to divest themselves of their unusual decorations.

  “I heard him, the old tomcat,” Kelly sai
d, grinning at Nrrna. “But he’s a persistent bugger, isn’t he? I thought males didn’t bother females without permission.”

  “It’s partly my fault,” Nrrna said. “I used too much of a provocative scent.”

  “Not to get his attention, I’ll warrant.”

  Nrrna wrinkled her nose. “The operator was too well mannered to pursue me, but it kept him interested until white muzzle interfered.”

  “All’s well that ends well. But remind me not to ride in a crate again,” Kelly said when the last of the gloves were stuffed back into their container, and the top was clamped down again. “I also caught that bit about you reconsidering him so he could provide for you when you had to return to Hrruba. What’s happened since I left here?”

  “Nothing,” Nrrna said, but she was as worried about his phraseology as Kelly was. Possibly more than Kelly was, for she had lived on Rrala all her life and the quarters of her clan on Hrruba were very crowded.

  “What was he waiting to collect? Did you see?”

  “A document box. Well covered with Third Speaker seals, that much I did notice.”

  “Neither the Treaty Controller nor Third Speaker is a supporter of the colony. Strikes me as odd that that Stripe should be in control with Treaty Renewal approaching. I wonder what kind of documents were in that box.”

  “I don’t know how we’d find out, but I’d better complete this shipment without any more delay.” Nrrna spoke into a radio unit which was hooked to her belt, contacting the Health Center’s operator. “They will send a flitter for the shipment. Now, did you have any luck on Terra?”

  “I sure did, Nrrna. We’ve got a Poldep inspector on our side, willing to look into certain oddities that came to light. I want to tell the Reeves, but I’ll meet you later at Hrriss’s so I only have to tell this twice, but tell him I got good news.” She was stretching and working her arms and legs to relieve the kinks. “I never could have found out so much without your help, Nrrna. You’ve been a star! See you soon.”

  With a final wave, Kelly jogged off toward the Friendship Bridge on her way to collect Calypso and make her way to the Reeve Ranch.

  * * *

  Todd took one look at her and yelled, “What did you do to your hair?”

  “My hair?” she shrieked back at him, hand to her head before she remembered the rinse. “I couldn’t go back to Earth in my own hair and expect to be unnoticed!”

  “To Earth?” he roared, white-faced with shock. When he had finished bawling her out for the risks she had taken, she got just as angry right back at him for not letting her deliver her good news.

  “In the first place, I was never in danger, Todd Reeve. In the second place, I got more information than I ever thought I’d get, and thirdly, we got Inspector DeVeer actively pursuing an investigation on our behalf.”

  “Is that Kelly Solinari with you, Todd?” Pat called, and rushed into the room, her expression both anxious and relieved. “Young woman, where have you been? Your family’s been worried sick about you. And what have you done to your hair?”

  “It washes out and I left my parents a note to say I’d be away a few days. Didn’t they get it?”

  At that moment, Ken Reeve came bursting into the room. “Robin was right. It was Calypso tearing up the road. Where have you been? And what did you do to your hair?”

  “I dyed it! And if you’ll all drop out of panic mode, I’ll tell you why I dyed it and where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing,” Kelly yelled back, glaring at all of them. Then she turned less aggressively to Pat. “That is, if I can have a drink to soothe my throat after all the shouting I have to do in this house to get listened to.”

  It was Todd who provided the juice and then sat down at the table, where she began the recital of her inquiries.

  “Nrrna helped?” Todd interrupted as she began. Then, “How well did you know this Dalkey? Can you trust him?”

  “I probably shouldn’t have mentioned his name,” Kelly said tartly, “but I trust you not to repeat it. And not to get stupid about me approaching the only one I felt could help us. And he’s still helping us, or rather Inspector DeVeer is.”

  “Cool it, Todd,” Ken said in an aside. “Continue, Kelly.”

  She did but was aware that Todd was uncharacteristically morose until she got to the part about DeVeer taking her with him to interrogate Klonski.

  “You see, we were all working on the wrong assumption,” she said, looking at Ken, “that the brands had been altered somehow. Even Kiachif thought Klonski might be able to do that but he didn’t. In fact, he burst out laughing at the very notion that he was being accused of rustling.” The others didn’t quite seem to see the humor in that, so she continued. “He did much worse ... all to incriminate you,” and now she turned her gaze to Todd to see the dawning of hope in his eyes. “Klonski altered the log tapes ... By the way, which of you handed them over to Rogitel?”

  “Neither of us did. He removed them from the unit himself,” Todd said.

  “Well, then, that’s when he switched them.”

  Todd opened his mouth to protest. “You know, you’re right. He bundled the log box into a plastic sack and carried it off in a proprietary fashion. I didn’t think about it till now and I was certainly too shocked at all he was flinging at Hrriss and me to think his manner odd.”

  Kelly nodded. “It had to be Rogitel substituting the altered tapes and at that moment, since the ship had been properly sealed. I wonder where your real log went.”

  “Into the nearest vat of acid,” Todd said with a deep sigh.

  “Possibly not,” Ken suggested thoughtfully. “Go on, Kelly. What else did Klonski do?”

  Her eyes glowed. “This is sort of the best part. He altered satellite security modes.”

  “He what?” Ken lifted off his chair and Todd stared at her as if she had suddenly changed shape.

  “Don’t know how, do know why,” she went on.

  “To let the rustlers in and out,” Ken continued, throwing both arms in the air at such an obvious explanation.

  “Klonski was rather proud of that. And DeVeer has it all on tape!” Kelly said, grinning broadly.

  “Is DeVeer really on our side, Kelly?” Ken asked, his expression grim.

  “I think so, sir,” Kelly replied. “He admitted he doesn’t really like the Doona Experiment. He was alive when the Siwanna Tragedy occurred but he also admitted that colored his opinions. But,” and she waggled her finger at all three Reeves, “he’s out to crush the rustling because too many uninoculated animals are being transported illegally. And he said the incidents of rustling had increased all out of proportion. He couldn’t figure out why.”

  “I brought the illegal hides to him ...”

  “And I’ve been squaring my eyeballs trying to match missing horses to those hides with duplicate Reeve marks.”

  Ken brought his fist down on the table so smartly that it startled everyone else. “Okay, we’ve had the wrong end of the stick. Kiachif gave me a clue in reporting Mark Aden helping to load that leopard Appie for export. He was also about the height you are now, Todd, dark-haired and blue eyes, and to Zapatans that description also fits you. Let’s assume that Mark rustled while he worked for me. So he probably stashed unmarked foals, born in the pastures, in some blind canyon. He had the run of our ranch as well as our neighbors’. He could have picked up unbranded foals from all over. Every breeder expects a few mares to abort in a year or lose their foals to mdas before we round ’em up for branding. But just one or two from fifty or so ranches, and that’d make a nice shipment offworld. Especially if someone is turning off the satellite tape—or however your Klonski rigged the system, and your rustler’s away with no one the wiser.”

  “Spacedep is involved up to its armpits,” Kelly said, “and I think Inspector DeVeer is going to prove it. Which reminds me, I promised my friend Dalkey that I’d sponso
r him to Doona.”

  “You did?” Todd gave her the queerest look she’d ever seen on his face.

  “How else can we repay him for the help he’s given?”

  “If there is a Doona for him to come to,” Todd said in a bleak tone. “Neither Hrriss nor I is cleared ...”

  “You will be!” Kelly said emphatically.

  “Kelly, this family can never properly repay you,” Pat said, tears of relief in her eyes. She dabbed at them with the edge of the dish towel she had had in her hand when she heard Kelly arrive.

  “We’re neighbors, aren’t we?” Kelly replied, struggling not to get too sentimental. Wanting very much to hear Todd commend her. “And it’s Hrriss and Todd who’ve been jeopardized. I don’t let my friends get done over. How much more time do we have before the trial?” She looked at Ken Reeve because she couldn’t look at Todd, who still faced that ordeal unless lots of things fell into place in the next few days.

  “We’ve not yet been informed,” Ken said in a taut voice. Then his face broke into a relieved smile and he leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “Look, we can’t do much about the satellite ...”

  “Kiachif?” Todd asked, also leaning forward, his expression alert even if he wouldn’t look at Kelly next to him.

  “Possibly,” Ken said, “and I don’t know how we’d locate the genuine log tape ...”

  “Emma Sumitral?” Pat suggested, her eyes brighter with hope than with tears.

  “I can ask, but now we concentrate our efforts on finding where stolen livestock could have been hidden.”

  “Tadpole in a tangle of tiddlers,” Todd said, “but there’d have to be water, good grass, some sort of shelter ...”

  “Well off all known trails, especially snake ones,” Kelly added. “But every rancher’ll help now.”

  “They’ve all been helping ...” And Todd inadvertently turned his head toward her. Kelly held her breath, not wanting to turn away from the look in his eyes, keen again and as intense as they got when he was thinking rapidly, as he did on a Snake Hunt, examining and rejecting alternatives. He was her buoyant, marvelous, alive Todd again. He lifted his body from the chair in a lithe movement. “I’ll send out a revised message, for mares that ought to have foaled and didn’t come in with foal at foot. Let’s see how many come up missing on that data!”