Crisis On Doona

by Anne McCaffrey

  “And which nailhead would that be, lassie?” Kiachif asked. “Though Tylanio agrees privately with me that the work on the tape is exactly the sort of thing Klonski would do so well.”

  “You also said he was a genius at fixing security systems.” Kiachif nodded, his eyes glinting in the dark. “And Dalkey’s records show he got paid several huge hunks of credit. I think some of it went to pay for him hobbling Doona’s security satellites.”

  “Oh-ho-ho! I’ve been away too long.”

  “You have. Todd and Hrriss found payments to a Doonan account ... and it belongs to Lincoln Newry.”

  “Martinson’s assistant?” The whites of Kiachif’s eyes, for once, Kelly noted, without bloodshot cobwebs, were visible in the shadow. “No wonder you wouldn’t speak out in his presence. Does Patricia know?”

  Kelly shook her head. “She’s got enough to fret over right now. ‘Sides, I didn’t think it would cheer her up.”

  “Not a mite nor a moment, if her men are missing. Go on.”

  “Hrriss said Todd broke Newry down into admitting that he’d been letting the rustlers in and out of Doona, only when he was on duty. The ship Todd saw the other night was probably registering on Linc’s screens while he was denying an atmospheric insertion.”

  “But the beacons ...”

  “Klonski’s fixed them. Hrriss said there’s an unprogrammed function key on the launch board that interferes with satellite recording. Furthermore, Linc Newry can authorize export documentation ... like for Reeve freeze-marked livestock going off-planet to unknown destinations. And the rustler is Mark Aden.”

  “That young lad? Hmmm, isn’t often someone fools Ali Kiachif.” The captain frowned. “The nerve of him, making me transport rustled animals! And all that scud about making a new life.”

  “Apparently he’s made a very profitable one,” Kelly said drolly. “At the Reeves’ expense.”

  “But they always treated him well. He even said so.”

  “Inessa didn’t,” Kelly said. “She had a flirt with him but she gave up on him because he always wanted her to get her father to help him get a ranch of his own. He was a funny guy, never forgave a hasty word or a silly joke on him. Hrriss thinks he’s the one seeded the ssersa. Todd found a half-empty sack of it by the corral he found. It’d be just the sort of rotten trick Mark Aden would do, to make Inessa sorry she ditched him.”

  “Fascinating, lassie, fascinating. I think Dr. Tylanio has one more job before I return him to the quiet rectangles of his hall of learning.”

  And between one breath and another, Captain Ali Kiachif disappeared. That night Kelly slept well for the first time since Todd and Ken had been hauled off to Earth.

  * * *

  The very next morning, Kelly had a call from a frantic Nrrna.

  “Kelly, they are hunting Hrriss.” The girl was sputtering so badly that Kelly at first didn’t understand the import of her words.

  “Hunting? Hrriss?”

  “The Treaty Controller has demanded his presence immediately on the Island. He sent four of the Third Speaker’s special force for Hrriss.”

  “So where’s Hrriss?”

  “He has made himself scarce. Hrrestan told him that is what he must do. Oh, Kelly, I am so frightened.”

  “Don’t be,” Kelly said as firmly as she could. “I’ve got official confirmation that the Albie log tape was a fraud. Tampered with, fixed, altered. And that means that neither Todd nor Hrriss was where they’re charged with being, so they couldn’t have stolen those things. And illegal possession of those artifacts is really the last charge against them. And we’ll soon have proof, too, of what Todd and Hrriss discovered talking to Linc Newry.”

  “But what good does all this proof do when Zodd is missing and Hrriss is, too?”

  “A good point that, Nrrna,” Kelly said. “You just keep your cool, friend. It’s up to us now.”

  She stopped by the Reeves’, just in the crazy hope that Todd and his father had returned home. They hadn’t and the gloom that hung over the ranch house was depressing. Kelly did ask to have a copy of Dr. Tylanio’s document.

  “To keep with all the rest of the evidence, Mrs. Reeve,” she said in an offhanded manner.

  “You’ve got all these mysterious sources, Kelly,” Inessa accused Kelly, her face and eyes showing the strain that affected the entire family. “Why can’t you find out about Dad and Todd?”

  Kelly suppressed her annoyance with the girl whose flirtation with Mark Aden was having such a long-range effect. Then, generously, Kelly reminded herself that Inessa had been just a kid at the time. Perhaps this would all sort itself out and Inessa would never realize that her childish infatuation was part of this dreadful affair.

  Kelly left for Nrrna’s house in First Village. She had all the proof they had so painstakingly gathered, including Hrriss’s summary of Newry’s disclosures. Surely that was enough! Surely Nrrna would see how terribly urgent it was that they stop messing with underlings and go to the top!

  “Go to Hrruba? To First Speaker?” Nrrna’s voice broke into a startled squeak and Kelly shushed her.

  On her way into First Village, Kelly’d noticed some strangely accoutred Hrrubans milling around the clearing in the center: the biggest specimens of their species she’d ever seen. Deciding they were not in First Village for census taking, she ducked around, taking a narrow little track to the fenced-in pasture where the village horses grazed. Unsaddling Calypso, Kelly turned her out and lugging saddle and the bulging pouches, finally reached Nrrna’s house, entering by the back flap.

  “We should have gone to First Speaker in the beginning, as Todd wanted to,” she said, a trifle annoyed with Nrrna’s timidity.

  “Oh, Kelly, no! I dare not!” Nrrna said. “It is absolutely forbidden to convey Hayumans to Hrruba.”

  “Now! But Todd’s been there and he thought seeing Hrruna was his best chance.”

  “Todd went to Hrruba before the Treaty was written and the Treaty has a clause utterly prohibiting visits from Hayumans. Todd was held in high honor by the Council of Speakers ...”

  Kelly flicked her eyebrows up in disgust. “Was held.”

  “He is honorable. He would say that he must obey that prohibition.”

  “Yes, but no one has specifically prohibited me and, where Todd is concerned, honor can go out the window for all the good it’s done him lately!” Kelly scowled fiercely. “Look, both Todd and his father are missing. Some nasty minds say they’ve done a flit because there’s too much evidence against them.”

  Nrrna was shaking her head now in staunch disagreement.

  “Right. So something’s happened to them. And it’s up to you and me to get them released. Before the Treaty gets signed. So we go to Hrruba and sort things out.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “Why not? You know how to work the grid controls. You sent me to Earth.”

  “But that was different,” Nrrna replied, aghast at Kelly’s daring plan. “You are of Terran stock. It is not forbidden under the Treaty for you to travel to your homeworld. It would be as impossible for me to send you to Hrruba as it would be for me to go to Earth.”

  “You’d be with me. I’d be your guest, as Todd was the guest of Hrrestan and Mrrva twenty-odd years ago. And it’s for the same important reason. To save both our planets.” She paused, watching Nrrna shake her head, her eyes mournfully big as she struggled with her principles—her honor. “This is the time to dare all. All for one and one for all.”

  Nrrna smiled wanly at Kelly’s joke, but it took two hours of solid persuasion to get the Hrruban to see that Kelly’s daring plan was the only option open. Kelly ruefully insisted that this scheme also went against everything she had been brought up to believe sacred and binding. But sometimes one had to make exceptions. As Hrrestan and Mrrva, and Hrrula, had made an exception of the six-year-old Tod
d.

  Nrrna still experienced pangs of deep guilt over telling Dalkey when the medical shipment was being sent out.

  “This is the time for stouthearted females to save their menfolk, Nrrna. Or didn’t you see those Hrruban heavies prowling around the village center?”

  “What?”

  “Go have a look,” Kelly said. “They’re Third Speaker’s or I don’t know my Hrruban insignias. And they’re armed.”

  As a terrified Nrrna sidled cautiously out the back flap, Kelly decided that if this wouldn’t persuade the female, she’d have to think of some other plan. Only nothing, absolutely nothing, would come to mind.

  When Nrrna returned, she was shivering and the fur along her entire stripe stood up.

  “They are very powerful males. They are dangerous. They look for Hrriss.” She took Kelly by the hand. “We must go to First Speaker. Such males should not be on Rrala. They should not be in our village.”

  * * *

  There wasn’t time to wait until dark, for the males might take to searching the houses and Kelly didn’t think they’d like finding a Hayuman in a Hrruban village right then. She covered her bright hair with an edge of a sleeping fur and wrapped herself in Nrrna’s big winter cloak, the all-important dossier clutched to her chest with one arm.

  “We don’t have to go to the Treaty Island grid to get to Hrruba, do we?” Kelly asked, suddenly realizing that her mad scheme had a few large holes in it.

  “No, we can reach Hrruba from here,” Nrrna reassured her. For once the little female had made up her mind, she was capable of as much cool resolution as Kelly. “Until the Island grid was established, all shipping and travel were done through the village grids. It is only to satisfy the Controller of what is being sent in and out of Rrala that all goods now go first to the Island.”

  “Where are we likely to find the First Speaker?”

  “First we will go to the Executive Cube which houses the Speakers’ chambers. Someone there will direct us to First Speaker Hrruna.” Nrrna was pressing the appropriate codes into the transport controls. She gestured for Kelly to step up onto the grid. “If they do not arrest us first.”

  * * *

  Their first bit of good luck was that they arrived late in the Hrruban night. No one was immediately visible, although they heard the rumble of several voices issuing from a side corridor. Together they raced down the nearest aisle until they spotted a curtained alcove. They dove behind this and sank to the floor, their knees cocked so that they would not disturb the fall of the draperies.

  When light began to filter through the soot-covered window, Nrrna carefully crept out to find out where she might find the First Speaker’s quarters. She returned to Kelly, who had been fearful of discovery, that at any moment, a functionary would arrive to pull back the curtains.

  “The Council is not in session today,” Nrrna whispered to Kelly. “The First Speaker has expressed a wish to be alone in his retreat.” Kelly’s hopes crashed about her. Nrrna gave her hand a little pat, her eyes gleaming. “The chief of the Council chamber told me how beautiful was the First Speaker’s retreat and I do not think he realized that he also told me exactly where it is. We must go swiftly while there are not too many using the slidewalks.” Then she wrinkled her nose. “Even in that cloak, Kelly, you do not stand or walk or even smell like a Hrruban.”

  “It’s too late to worry about a minor detail like that,” Kelly said, nervousness making her snappish. “What about me limping and crouching over like I’m ancient or hurt?”

  “That is a very good idea, Kelly,” and Nrrna nodded approvingly. “I am your dutiful daughter, taking you to see the beauties of the countryside. It is fortuitous that the fur you took is a white pelt. Here.”

  Nrrna made some rapid adjustments with her delicate hands, and, although Kelly felt she was more in danger of suffocation than discovery, she let Nrrna’s strong hands guide her as she settled into a limping gait which she felt suggested advanced age and decrepitude.

  With corridors and aisles separating block like buildings many levels deep, Hrruba was not unlike Earth, which surprised Kelly, though she managed only a few glimpses behind the folds of the pelt. They rode a slow-moving beltway to a remote section of the capital city of Hrruba. Around them, Hrruban workers, clad in tool belts or robes to denote profession and status, passed them on every side. The only differences between the Human workers of Earth and the Hrrubans were the preponderance of bright colors in the latter’s dress, the inborn grace with which they moved, and the scent. Scent, not smell, for although it was just as strong as the odors of Earth’s passages, it was different.

  “Do not speak if anyone bumps you,” Nrrna whispered. “Your Hrruban is good, but your accent would inform anyone that you are from a colony.”

  “I couldn’t talk if I wanted to. Is it much farther?” Kelly murmured. Her right hip was protesting the unnatural gait, and she ached to stretch her back up.

  Nrrna peered at the lettering on the block they were passing, and her pupils contracted to slits in the strong light. “Not very far. We are nearing the passageway. We must get off as soon as we see a lift. First Speaker lives on the top floor.”

  Hrruna’s retreat was in a well-soundproofed block of the Hrruban residential complex. To the surprise of both Kelly and Nrrna, no one guarded the entrance or any of the lifts. Though only one, Nrrna discovered, went as far as the twenty-second story. When the lift stopped, the door slid back and, to their utter consternation, the First Speaker faced them. Later Kelly would remember that a green light blinked above the lift, informing the First Speaker that someone was coming to his retreat.

  “By the first mother, what brings such a lovely young one to the door of such an old man? Is this your mother who comes to entreat me? Or to protect her cub?” He beckoned them to leave the protection of the lift.

  Once they had moved on into the first of the boxlike rooms that comprised the retreat, Kelly opened her hood. Hrruna’s eyes widened with surprise and the barest trace of amusement.

  “Not an aged and grieving mother, but a red-headed Hayuman. I have heard that such hair color is possible but never have I seen it.” His wise eyes twinkled at her.

  What surprised her most was his voice, clear and musical, and young! She could not believe that the greatest Hrruban of all would sound so young. She had met some of the other Speakers who came to New Home Weeks or other celebrations of importance on Rrala, but First rarely left Hrruba. He had been old when the Treaty was first signed, but, in the intervening years, he seemed to have changed little from his image in the old tapes. His mane was as white as snow, and the fur on his face and chest was faded, too, making a striking setting for the characteristic bright green eyes of his kind. First’s eyes, under fluffy frontal crests which served the catlike race for eyebrows, were kindly and wise. Kelly felt quite shy under his scrutiny, but she knew immediately that she could trust him. So she fell to her knees, threw back her cloak, and deposited the precious pouch of documents on the floor before him.

  As Nrrna appeared to be speechless, Kelly began in her best High Hrruban. “My name is Kelly Solinari. This is Nrrna, daughter of Urrda. We came from Rrala seeking an audience with you. We apologize most profoundly for disturbing you in the privacy of your retreat but we had no option save an appeal directly at your feet.”

  The old Hrruban’s jaw dropped with pleasure. “That sort of posture is all very well for formal occasions, young Kelly Solinari,” he said, responding in Middle Hrruban, “but this is not an official visit or I should have been informed of it by the appropriate underling. Please, raise yourself and walk as a Hayuman should, tall and proud. And be welcome in my home.”

  This was evidently the dayroom, furnished in a fashion similar to that of the Treaty Controller’s apartments on Doona. A translucent panel gave onto a terrace, open to the sky and surrounded on all sides by high walls. The rarefied air had the
chill of the mountains, though none could be distinguished because of the walls. If Hrruba was anything like Earth, many of its original heights had been terraformed into plateaus, to provide solid building bases for residences and factories. All the view Hrruna had was an unending plain of buildings. No wonder the Hrrubans were as desperate as the Terrans to find suitable colony worlds on which to expand.

  Someone (and quite likely, Kelly thought, Hrruna) had filled this little space with colorful flowering plants from the hydroponics laboratories deep inside his planet, and from the wild plains of Rrala. The effect was the equivalent of a miniature Square Mile park. Overhead, though neither heard nor seen, a forcescreen kept out the choking pollution that stained the air above a sickly gray. The atmosphere inside the conservatory was sweet with the scent of the plants.

  Hrruna beckoned to the girls to sit down in the garden. Kelly hadn’t been born yet when he accompanied Todd back to Doona to save the Human colonists from deportation, and to negotiate the Treaty of Doona. She had no idea how he would receive the information she had for him now.

  “So what is it that makes two lovely young ladies risk safety and freedom to visit an old man?” Hrruna asked. He glanced warmly at Nrrna, who was made somewhat uncomfortable by his openly ardent expression.

  With a deep breath, Kelly began. She had rehearsed what she would say to Hrruna, if they got to him. “It is of the greatest importance to us, sir, that the Treaty of Rrala is renewed in two days. To cohabit and cooperate with your people on that world a joy to all us Hayumans is,” Kelly said. Despite Hrruna’s use of Middle Hrruban, she couldn’t switch from what she had so carefully memorized. And she was certain she had the right rhythm, the pitch and inflection to say what was needed in High Hrruban, which was as difficult as singing opera. “There may be a difficulty to the Renewal of the Treaty. We come to you to prevent that difficulty. The First Speaker Hrruna is the only personage to prevent rapidly approaching disaster.”