by neetha Napew
“They’re just as big as advertised. I was out on the range when they arrived.”
“You zee?” Mllaba hissed. “It has alrready ze aspect of a vreakshow!”
“Not at all,’ Robin said cheerfully. “We always turn out for visitors. Whew! Wouldn’t they be something on Snake Hunt? Can they hang around that long? Hunt’s only six weeks away!” Barnstable frowned. “They must certainly be off planet when that Hunt occurs.” “Why?” Robin regarded Barustable with equable poise.
“Everyone else wants to join in and at least these Gringg wouldn’t need to be protected! For that matter, maybe we ought to protect our snakes from them! Let’s ask Todd and Hrriss to invite them officially.”
“What I should like to know,’ said a new voice, and a woman stepped out of the crowd that had been politely, but avidly, listening to what they could hear of the discussions. She had a pinched mouth in the midst of a plump pink face and wore rather dowdy clothing, neither travel nor leisure wear. “Is how you dare continue to hunt those poor snakes? Much less show such brutality to.
to individuals who could only misconstrue the barbarism you exhibit.”
“Barbarism?” Robin exclaimed as other Doonarralans started to protest. “Hell, lady, you’ve never seen what those snakes do to our domestic animals. A blow from a Big Mamma Snake’s tail can break the back of a cow or horse. . . then the snake eats the poor critter whole and sits there digesting it for weeks. Who’s being brutal?” The woman had turned quite pale but she wasn’t one to give up easily. “Then it is imperative that you not expose outsiders to such dangers. Why, I believe that some of the larger ones grow -as long as twenty metres.” She regarded the Gringg who were not twenty metres in any dimension.
“Those big ones are usually too canny to cause trouble,’ Ken said, striving to remain polite. “Have we met, ma’am?
I haven’t seen you at any of the village socials, and I make it a point to get acquainted with all our visitors from Earth.”
“I - I’ve just arrived,’ the woman said, clearly flustered.
Barnstable felt that it was a good time to retreat. “We intend to remain on hand throughout your investigation, of course.”
“Of course,’ Sumitral agreed, and Hrrestan nodded.
As soon as Barnstable and his cronies withdrew, Ken made for the communications console at the side of the room. In a few moments, he returned to the group.
“I’ve just spoken to Martinson at the Space Centre and to Hammer at Treaty Island. No one fitting her description has arrived on the last couple of ships from Earth.”
“Then how’d she get here?” Kelly demanded.
“The grid?” Ken said, a light dawning. “I think I am beginning to smell a conspiracy.”
“I zink you arrre right, my old friend,’ Hrrestan said.
“Both Spacedep and Second Speaker. I do so dislike interference from outside.
“And you can put it right down to Spacedep’s distrust of the Gringg,’ Ken said, aggrieved. “Present company excepted,’ he said to Frill, who gave a sheepish shrug.
“Second Speaker has also shown discomfort wherrrre our new friends are concerned,’ Hrrestan said, thoughtfully. “It would be well to be preparrred against such azzacks in days to come.
“The best defence is progress,’ Sumitral said. “We’re having a fine time chatting with these fellows,’ he smiled at the Gringg, who had remained silent throughout the confrontation, “but it’s too slow.
We require some kind of device to speed our understanding of one another. I’d also like to know how they found us.
“I can ask the communications centre to help me get to work on a .
a voder,’ Frill volunteered. He turned to Hrrestan. “That is, sir, if you’ll give me the necessary authority?” Hrrestan was openly pleased that a Spacedep officer deferred to the local authorities without argument. Ken was glad, because he was getting to like the burly commander.
“Grrranted, gladly,’ the Hrruban replied. “In ze meantime, it seems we must continue with drrawing of pictures to obtain informazhon.”
“How will you describe light years in pictographs?” Sumitral asked blandly as he settled down with an artist’s block between Ghotyakh and Eonneh at Kate’s laboratory table.
Chapter 6
ToDD HAD FELT A PANG WATCHING HIS FATHER AND the others enter the shuttle. He hoped that Barnstable wouldn’t try to hold the Gringg on board the navy vessel.
He wanted them safely on the surface of Doonarrala where folk were sympathetic to aliens. He particularly wanted the Gringg out of the vicinity of Greene and Barnstable. But his father would take charge.
After all, the matter was clearly an Alreldep problem.
Would his father wait for Admiral Sumitral to back him up? Of course he would! Todd derided his lack of faith in his father’s common good sense. He also wished he could be in two places at once - to see the reactions of Doonarralans to the Gringg. Best of all, he and Hrriss were in this venture together and he wished they could just forget - for ever - all that nonsense about the space port on the Hrrunatan. But he couldn’t, could he? Well, he could for the duration of the task at hand.
Then Grizzly touched his arm and indicated that he and Hrriss should follow him into the long, high-ceilinged, semi-oval corridor from the landing bay towards the central core of the ship.
Immediately, Todd applied himself to the task at hand - perception and observation, absorbing what he saw and felt as if all his pores had eyes and ears and noses. So, the bay itself was situated in one of those “knots in the tree-hole’ he had observed from space. The walls were smooth, a silver metal - steel? equipped with rows of hand-and toe-holds at two points in the parabolic arc of the ceiling, no doubt to cope in zero-grav.
“For no grrrav?” Hrriss asked, pointing.
“They’d have to turn off the artificial gravity from time to time,’ Todd said. “If they turned gravity off, we’d be in a right difficult case trying to get our feet from one of those holds to another. Look at the size of “em and the distance between!
“I am glad zese are peaceable creazures,’ Hrriss said, fervently.
They stopped in a corridor that was split around a central pillar in which were set more grey glass doors.
Grizi: hulked between them and the pillar, indicating that they should wait. The captain poked a claw into a hole in the door plate, and it slid open. Grizz took one Doonan by each hand and directed them to look carefully up and down inside.
Against the far wall, narrow, white platforms with transparent back panels slid endlessly upward until the perspective shrank the shaft down to a pin-point. The bottom of the lift shaft was much closer. Todd could see the platforms were an endless loop: up on one side, down on the other. He and Hrriss grinned at Grizz to show that he understood the principle involved.
“Reh,’ he said.
Grizz roared approvingly and stepped on to an ascending platform.
Together, Todd and Hrriss stepped on to the next one which would easily accommodate two Humans.
But the baby bear, Weddeerogh also leaped aboard, landing in a heap of fur at their feet. They laughed and helped him up.
“Do you feel a strong grrrvitic pull behind us?” Hrriss asked, swaying back and forth to test it.
“Yes,’ Todd replied, watching columns of grey glass doors sink into sight and out again past his feet. “I’d say there’s a spiralling core inside this central pillar. It’s compelling me to lean back against the wall. I guess that’s how they keep from having accidents in this shaft. It must go up for three hundred metres.” He let the pressure drag him backwards, and he put a heel against the upper flat of the panel. “Look at this!” He inched upward until it appeared that he was standing several centimetres above the floor.
Weddeerogh snorted his baritone laugh and threw himself at the wall back first. He adhered at eye level with Todd, then deliberately inched himself around until his toes were in the air. The Doonans joined in the mer
riment, experimenting with the increased gravity.
Hrriss found that he could squat perpendicular to the wall.
“But it causes trrrible pressure in my head and neck,’ he said.
A roar from above caused Weddeerogh to wiggle right side up once more and urge his two friends to do so as well.
The next set of doors they were approaching were open, and Grizz was waiting for them. Weddeerogh made a flying leap and landed in a shoulder roll on the floor. Todd and Hrriss circumspectly hopped from platform to floor.
This corridor was not as lofty as the lower level, and had only one set of handholds, running up the exact centre of the ceiling. The Doonans followed the captain along, taking in as much new input as they could with quick looks inside the various rooms that opened off the broad hallway.
The Gringg medic was black and white with a kind expression in her light-red eyes. Todd still couldn’t easily distinguish between the sexes, but for the sake of argument decided to call this one female.
There were beautifully rendered anatomy charts on the wall, showing skeletal, muscular, and circulatory systems for two genders.
The black and white bear seemed to fit the female mould, as, to the Doonarralans’ surprise, did Grizz.
“Wait until the scientists at home get a look at these,’ Todd said.
While he was studying the charts and trying to remember significant details, the medic prompted him to sit up on a raised platform, produced a device with a small drum at the end, and put it to Todd’s belly.
“My heart’s up here,’ he said, tapping himself on the chest. The bear grunted, and moved the diaphragm upward. She let out a pleased noise when the heartbeat registered in her device. That seemed to be what she was looking for. Todd counted his own pulse as she listened.
It was faster than normal, probably due to the increased gravity of the ship.
The medical examination went very much like one which the Gringg were probably being put through by Kate Moody, with the medic, whom Todd and Hrriss decided to call Panda, signing when and where she was about to take yet another tissue sample.
Panda seemed a little puzzled when Todd automatically pulled off his shirt but left his trousers in place. She plucked at the heavy denim with a claw and crooned a question.
“I always say you Hayumans put too much emphassiss on clothes,’ Hrriss said with a grin, as he unself-consciously pulled aside the decorative loin cloth he wore.
“I don’t have a furry hide, catman,’ Toad replied in an undertone.
“Stark naked suits you but I’m getting goosebumps and how’ll I explain them?” Actually, the room was warm enough for comfort, but Todd still felt chilly. He pretended total indifference when Grizz and Weddeerogh as well as Panda leaned in to have a good stare at all his parts. The Gringg stepped back to have a conference, during which they looked from one to the other of their visitors with increasing agitation.
The argument ended seemingly without resolution.
Panda resumed her examination, and Grizz sat back on the floor to watch. The medic handled them both very gently as she went carefully over their entire bodies, then guided them to a host of strange, Gringg-sized machines.
“X-ray? CAT scans? EEGs?” Todd asked.
“You must ask zem when we can understand one anozzer,’ Hrriss said.
“Zere is somezing very wrong zat happens to me when zey speak.
Do you feel uncomfortable, too?”
“Without clothes, of course I do,’ Todd said.
Hrriss gave his head a little shake. “I don’t mean physical: I mean in the nerves of the ear and the mind.”
“That’s a relief, Hrriss.
I was putting the agitation down to nerves, but if you’re getting the same sort of unsettling nudge, it must be more than that.
When Todd emerged from the last machine, Panda drew him back to the table and handed him a cup.
“Oh, no,’ he said. The Gringg looked at him expectantly. Panda indicated the cup, and made a gentle arc with one claw, pointing to the interior. “No. I don’t think I could.”
“Go ahead. I have done it.
Why do you have so much zrouble producing waste wazzer?” asked Hrriss, amused.
“Doing it under these circumstances - with them watching the whole process, is slightly inhibiting,’ Todd said, annoyed with himself, Hrriss and the whole affair. He turned his back and shortly was able to provide a sample.
Panda and Grizzly spoke in a crisp dialogue, their base voices sounding excited. He hoped that they weren’t amused by his behaviour.
When he passed the specimen to Panda, he noticed that Hrriss was now holding his ears.
Are you all right?” The Hrruban’s forehead was drawn in long furrows of gold plush. “It is somezing about ze way zey talk. It is loud, but I am used to loud speech. We who live on Doonarrala have always used louder voices zan on Hrruba. Ze Gringg are not just loud but grating.” “Subsonics,’ Todd said, snapping his fingers. “That could very well mean that they’re not hearing everything WE say, either. I’d sure like to see an analysis of their hearing range.” He gestured towards his ears, and made faces so that the Gringg could understand that sound was causing him discomfort. Panda took a small scope from one of her pouches and looked in his ears. She grunted, puzzled.
“That didn’t work, Hrriss. Aha!” he exclaimed, pointing at his friend.
“Your voice is higher than mine.”
“So?” Hrriss asked.
“Talk in the highest register you can. Go up through falsetto.
If their range is too low for us, chances are ours is too high for them.” Obediently, Hrriss began to hum in his own tenor range, then climbed gradually, a breath at a time, into a piercing shriek. Long before he topped the highest note he could reach, the Gringg were holding their ears. At the top of the range, they were looking at him closely. Grizz folded her thumb and forefinger together in imitation of a mouth and opened it to show she didn’t hear anything.
“That’s it,’ Todd said. “Up at that end they’re only seeing your mouth move.” Enlightened at last, Panda put the two Doonarralans on to a frequency generator and tested their ranges of hearing. Hrriss was capable of hearing a few cycles lower than Todd, but the lowest tones to which the machine was set were inaudible to both. They could only feel the cycles that Grizz indicated she was still hearing.
“Zat one could shake my bones apart,’ Hrriss cried, much agitated, waggling his hands for them to stop it.
Grizz called for another scribe. When Grrala arrived, slow of movement but bright of eye, they were gestured to a table.
“We’d better call this one Koala, so we don’t mistake her with Grizz,’ Todd suggested in a low voIce.
Panda motioned the two of them to sit while the Gringg were able to lounge about the table as Koala set up some kind of aural transponder and demonstrated how it worked.
Using the settings on what Todd identified as a frequency generator, he demonstrated which tones he and Hrriss could hear, and which ones were painful. The Gringg did the same, and the scribe noted them down busily. The engineer, with a device like a round-screened pocket computer in her great paws, was clearly busy drafting a design.
“Now I think we’re getting somewhere,’ Todd said, happily. “This thing should translate the tones they speak in to the ones we can hear, and vice versa.”
“Zat will help mightily,’ Hrriss agreed. “I do not zink we should miss any of zeir tonal qualities. We need to hear all to understand.
After a while, the engineer signalled that she had enough to work on.
Koala and the scribe excused themselves and went off.
“Now, the question is, how long will it take them to whip up a frequency voder?” Todd said, grinning at Hrriss. As he moved on the table, his bare skin slid and he gave an exclamation. “Great snakes!
I don’t need to stay in the buff any longer!” The Gringg watched him dress no less closely than they’d watched him disrobe.
He winked at Weddeerogh, who squealed. Then Grizz stood up and stretched, allowing the visitors a splendid look at her fine strong frame.
Refreshed, she addressed the two Doonarralans.
“Dodh, Rrss, kwaadchhs?”
“Quadicks?” Todd asked, struggling to match her pronunciation.
“Kwaadchhs,’ Gri:zz repeated and, obviously demonstrating, moved her great arms in broad arcs, starting at her breastbone and pushing outward.
“Could she mean “swimming”?” Hrriss asked, turning to Todd in surprise.
Todd shrugged, grinning for Hrriss to answer. “Yess, we swim.” “Rehmeh,’ Grizz replied, and ushered them back to the elevator platforms.
“Swimming?” Todd muttered to Hrriss as they ascended another level.
When they followed her lead and stepped off in what must be the centre of the ship, they could even smell the water. Even knowing that the probe had showed a mysteriously large quantity of water in the centre of the Gringg ship, neither Todd nor Hrriss were prepared to see it used as a swimming facility.
“Swimming,’ muttered Hrriss in mild shock as they passed the transparent doors that led into the most astonishing room.
Instead of weaponry or generators of any kind, the water-filled centre of the ship turned out to contain a swimming pool, vast and deep. The central pillar containing the elevator system pierced straight through the heart of it but also supported several levels above the water on which a few Gringg lounged while dozens of others swam and sported in the water.
“This is absolutely spectacular!” Todd exclaimed, astounded, letting his face reflect his opinion. He bowed and grinned broadly at Grizz who seemed pleased by his reaction. “That is some pool.”
“More a lake,’ Hrriss said, staring about him at the sheer size and shaking his head at the quantity of water put to such use.
“Greene’ll never believe this is what the water was for.
Though what sort of a weapon requires water . .” Todd trailed off, shaking his head.