Doona Trilogy Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  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 did not 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 repeated themselves.

  The bear-like Gringg walked towards the herd, which split up and ran away from him. The Rraladoonas 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,’ Errrne 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 horses 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 in 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 towards 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 Errrne 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 waiting for the outcome of the postponed conference, had spent a lot of time in the pub of the Space Centre. It wasn’t a large one, though additions had been made as trade to Doonarrala increased.

  In fact, there was more pub’ than space port facility. The ambience of this small cramped complex was a thousand light years different from the mild village it bordered, and the pub was a further remove yet.

  Ali Kiachif made it a point to drop 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 to ship 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 from 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 space lanes.

  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 towards the landing bays.

  Thank the stars I outrank him, Kiachif thought. I dislike him more than I hate stale bread and water. And I thought he was sweeties with Grace Castleton, though you’d think a lass of her rank would have better taste. Hate to warn her off when she’s been looking so happy.

  Greene was sure set on roiling up ill-feeling and Kiachif knew, from his special sources, that the commander’d come an aIm’s ace to making an intergalactic incident happen. Which would have been bad for new trade possibilities and that was not on in Kiachifs lexicon.

  It’s time he had a piece of my mind handed him, Kiachif thought.

  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 his stomach as he made his way through the chilly concrete corridors. Kiachif 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 him 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 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 door-post.

  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. The woman shook 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. Kiachifs 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 data prints of heavy weaponry.

  Heet 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 Kiachifs 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 me? 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 said, unhappily. She watched Greene leave, then turned to Kiachif, beads of sweat visible on her forehead. “How may I help you, Captain?” she asked, placing her hands ready 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.

  “Oh, no, sir,’ she said quickly.

  “Now, now, you know, I don’t believe you at all, if you follow me,’ Kiachif said, his voice soothing. “That one has no manners. I’m sure that asking nicely would have gotten him the self-same smiling service from a nice lass like you.

  He glanced up at the digital. “Ah, you’re nearly off shift, aren’t you?” With a grateful look of near-fainting relief, she glanced the same way. “Fifteen minutes,’ she said with a sigh and a sagging of her shoulders.

  “Well, now, you wouldn’t think of joining an al’ space captain for a tot or so of miada, would you? A sort of thank you for checking up on my ship? You look like you could do with a jolt, if you know what I mean.” She shot him a tentative smile. “I don’t know as I should “Why not?

  Your shift will be over, duty done, and a little relaxation’s in order. You’ve been under quite a strain, with all the shipping in and out, and many’s the glass I’ve had that’s taken the weariness out of me in such a situation. So I recommend it highly to you, if you know what I mean.” After Greene’s manner, the kindly old captain whom she’d known for years soothed her rattled nerves. A drink or two in pleasant company was just what she needed right now. She swiped back her hair with a shaking hand. “Oh, captain,’ she said, in a low voice suffused with desperation.

  “I’d like that very, very much.”

  Chapter 9

  Sic EVERYONE ON BOARD THE WANDER DEN was so busy that there wasn’t even company for swimming, Weddeerogh asked his mother if he could visit the young people at the Double Bar Gemini Ranch. Grzzeearoghh thought that an excellent idea and immediately inquired of the Hayuman Zodd if this could be arranged. Todd asked Kelly, adroitly in the presence of Alison and Alec, but fortunately his wife was amenable to the notion without the need to use the pressure of the kids’ pleas.

  “I told you Teddy could come any time,’ she said. “Pop over and tell Nrrna, will you, kids? Is Grizz coming, too?” she added, immediately cataloguing what she had already prepared in the freezer.

  “No, just Teddy,’ and Todd grinned. “With all the adults out and about trading, or kibbutzing, the little feller’s likely to be lonely.” “Little feller?” Kelly mocked, grinning, and raised her hand to her ear level.

  “Comparatively,’ Todd said with a grin. “Buddy’ll drop Teddy off right here. Save you a trip into town.”

  “Fine by me, as I thought the air cushions on the flitter would burst the day we collected t little feller and his sweet mommy from the grid.” Kelly favoured her husband with a sardonic look for the surprise she’d had when all of Grizz and her not-so-small cub had emerged from the mist.

  “I’ll clear up as much as I can in my office tomorrow, Todd said, “so I can join in the fun.”

  “Ha! Where were you when I needed you!’ she said, rolling her eyes but grinning. “Teddy’s no problem but what should I fix for him to eat this time?”

  “Ask the gang,’ Todd suggested as he left.

  News of Teddy’s imminent visit sifted through other items of interest so that when Buddy skilfully landed the big Gringg shuttle, there were unofficial observers, too, as the eager five young bounded to greet Weddeerogh. He had put on his best fish-scale collar and, on his dam’s urging, had brushed his fur until it gleamed. He had also shortened the cord of his voder so that it no longer prodded his ear or the back of his head.

  Not that the voder could handle the shrieks and shouts of delight from the two Hayumans and three Hrrubans.

  He didn’t even try to say the phrases of gratitude his dam had had him prepare.

  “C’mon,’ and the Alec one grabbed his hand and started pulling him away from the house. “The (garble) just hatched and you’ve never seen baby (garble) before, Teddy.” Alison, Hrrana and Hrrunival either pushing or pulling him started him on the way to the barn while the smallest Hrruban followed, wide-eyed.

  “I must give your parent . . .” Teddy began, the voder stuttering at first until the Hrruban came out.

  “Mom said you’d want to see the (garble)!” Alec said, tugging harder.

  Teddy could see Kelly on the porch, waving for him to go with the children so he felt completely excused from the courtesies his dam had insisted he perform in acceptance of family hospitality.

  He found the newly hatched “chickens’ (and he dutifully added that noun and “bantie’ as “mother of chicks’ to the vocabulary), delightful creatures although he couldn’t hear them peeping, as the others could, no matter how he fiddled with the voder.

  Then he was taken on the tour of the horses in the barn and he pleased everyone by remembering the names he had been given on his previous visit. He wondered how long it would be before he could mention swimming in the lake again but no, there were other newborn creatures for him to meet. . . katzz and kitthhhhens. He did know the word “katz’ . . . small furry being. Well, he must uphold the honour of his father, who was one of the most renowned scribes on their home world, so Teddy girded himself to remember the personal names of these new species. It wasn’t easy to pick up new words: the Hayuman children talked so fast and the Hrruban brothers and sister interrupted them constantly, making it difficult for the voder to keep up.

  “Here they are, Teddy,’ Hrrana said, beating the others to show the place where the katz had kitthhhens.

  Four tiny four-legged animals swarmed over Teddy, the
ir mouths opening and closing though the voder didn’t pick up the sounds. Hrrana lifted one up to him and instructed him on how to handle the soft, squirmy things.

  It sniffed at him as was proper so he sniffed, very carefully, at it.

  “(garble) behind the ears,’ Hrrana said and demonstrated. He asked her to repeat the first word and then added it to the rapidly increasing line of new vocabulary.

  He gently extruded one claw, because his digits were much larger than Hrrana’s, and applied the appropriate pleasure. He could feel a rumbling through the palm of his hand.

  “She’s prrrring,’ Hrrana told him proudly and he took this to mean the small creature accepted him.

  “What is this kitthhhen? How big does it grow?” Teddy asked just as a larger, black-and-white creature of the same species came bounding over the hay-strewn place to investigate him. It sniffed at his feet and courteously he squatted and got his head down to its level to get its scent.

  “That’s how big it grows,’ Hrrunival said. “Cats are from Earzz and are not intelligent.”

  “They are so,’ Alec replied with some heat.

  “Kasha’s very intelligent.”

  “For a cat,’ Hrrana agreed, shooting a quelling glance at her brother.

  “At least as intelligent as you, Hrrunival,’ Alec went on, tauntingly.

  As he evidently expected, Hrrunival charged at Alec who lithely twisted Out of the way and streaked for the wide open barn door, Hrrunival in close pursuit. Clucking (rather like the chicken had), Alison removed the kitten from Teddy’s hand.

  “We’d better make sure the fight’s fair, she said and, with Hrrana and Ourrh who hadn’t yet addressed the Gringg cub, followed the boys.

  The little Gringg had no choice but to follow as fast as he could waddle. At the door Alison looked back.

  “Wait, Hrrana! We’re leaving Teddy behind!”

  “Ooops! He can’t run verry fast, can he?” Hrrana observed, slowing down.