Treaty at Doona Read online

  “But we’ve been working for months to make our bids on the construction of a spaceport,” she protested indignantly. “We can’t just call a halt and continue as before simply because of . . . hairy monsters. They aren’t interfering with the spaceport project. Why can’t we go ahead with it?”

  “Now, my dear Ms. Kaldon,” Sumitral said, stepping forward, “that wouldn’t be wise. And indeed, the hold may be for a very short time. But look at the arrival of the Gringg from a different angle: you are witnessing an incident of immense international significance. It isn’t given to many to be the first to see, and meet, an entirely new species of star traveller. And I put this to you, as well: once we have established communications, why we may even have to construct a larger spaceport. For, frankly, I suspect that their main objective in seeking other civilized or inhabited planets is to initiate trade.” He pointedly ignored a growl of protest from Barnstable’s direction. “Were I you, I would believe myself lucky to be in on the ground floor for those you represent. I’m sure they’ll be delighted to learn of the possibility of even more customers at the space facility.”

  Kaldon regarded Sumitral with no little amazement, and obviously considered his advice.

  “Admirral,” Second Speaker said, stepping forward, “are you not prezuming too much? How can you speak of trade when zeir objectives are not known. Nor can zey be until we can speak to zem! And even zen, such matters must be carefully prrsented to our respective goverrrments for sober, mature reflection . . . not decided out of hand herre on Rraladoona.”

  “I speak as Alreldep’s representative, who is always ready and willing to speak to inhabitants of our galaxy no matter what form they appear in or from what quarter of the Milky Way,” Sumitral replied with great dignity and a gentle smile for the Second Speaker’s querulous attitude.

  “Msss Kaldon, zere is also ze unassailable fact,” Hrrestan added, “that my co-leader, Rrev, has had to absent himself from our prrroceedings, so zey could not, in any case, continue without him.”

  Barnstable now beckoned imperiously to Hrrestan, Sumitral, and Ken Reeve to move to one side, away from Kaldon’s group.

  “See here, now, my friends,” he said, scowling deeply and glaring from one face to another, “I can’t approve of all this good-folks-at-home routine. These Gringg are an unknown quantity . . . and don’t give me that they-came-in-friendship-unarmed guff, Reeve. How can you be absolutely positive these creatures are so pacific?”

  “Suffer little children, Barnstable,” Ken replied, more amused than irritated by the Admiral’s attitude. “But then you didn’t see, as everyone here did, how the Gringg . . .”

  Barnstable cut him off abruptly. “It’s just not good tactics to be open with an unknown quantity.”

  “Do I have to remind you that it worked before, Admiral? Didn’t it, Hrrestan!” And now Ken included his oldest Hrruban friend.

  The Hrruban co-leader, whose tail had begun to lash in short hard twitches, relaxed and dropped his lower jaw slowly.

  “We were not quite as formidable in appearance as these. Is zat what alarmss you, Amirral?”

  “What alarms me is a basic disregard for caution. I don’t want these good folk unnecessarily alarmed.”

  “They don’t look so alarmed,” laughed Kate Moody, joining them. “And how’d they all get in here? Place is crowded with strangers.”

  “She’s right about that,” Ken murmured to Hrrestan, who also began looking at the curious faces of those backed against the wall.

  “Now, that is not the issue,” said Barnstable darkly, not liking Kate’s interruption at all. “You really are most unwise to allow such broad contact between the Gringg and the rest of the Doonarralan population. As the official head of the organization charged with the protection of this sector, I want all data kept secure and the Gringg out of public contact until we know more about them. We have nothing but their physical presence to go on as yet, and that bothers me.”

  “Oh, but we got plenty of physical data on them,” Kate said jovially. “I’ve got enough test results to satisfy anyone—” She gave Barnstable a jaundiced glare. “And even more reassuring empirical stuff. Gringg like snake stew. And beans give them gas.”

  There were a few chuckles from the back of the crowd. Barnstable turned around to glare at the group. “And what about the safety of these aliens? They could come to harm in this environment,” he protested, trying another angle.

  “They’re pretty sturdy,” Kate replied. “Not much could hurt them. I haven’t found a single allergen or toxin that their tissues react to, not even rroamal. They’ve got functioning immune systems, ticking away beautifully right now, and they don’t react to anything we do. I also can’t find anything in their systems that bugs us, except for the odd irritant, and that can be inoculated against. They’re strong, the air is good for them, and our gravity is at least twenty percent less than they’re used to fighting. They’d be almost super strong here.”

  That appeared to upset Barnstable further. “In that case, you are exposing an entire population to danger from accidents incurred during casual contact. I can’t allow it. Remove them at once.”

  “You do not have jurisdiction here,” Hrrestan said, his eyes flashing.

  Sumitral was calm, almost apologetic. “This is an Alreldep matter, Ev, and you know that.”

  Barnstable could not refute it, but he hated to relinquish command to another authority.

  “You will keep me in the loop, of course,” he said, not without a measure of sarcasm.

  “But, of course, Ev.”

  “Dad?” Robin Reeve poked his nose around the door and peered into the room. “Ah, there you are, Dad!” Reeve’s son seemed to have an energy level befitting a man younger than his early twenties, and the poise of one much older. “Have I interrupted anything critical? Mom sent me to ask you when you’re coming home and if you’re bringing guests. Them?” he asked. Robin’s eyes gleamed in keen anticipation of such a happening. “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 the Hunt takes place.”

  “Why?” Robin regarded Barnstable equably. “Everyone else wants to join in! 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, belonging to a woman who 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 set in 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 Momma 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 snakes grow as long as twenty meters.” She regarded the Gringg, who were not twenty meters 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 Center 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’m beginning to smell a conspiracy.”

  “I zink you arrre right, my old frrnd,” Hrrestan said. “Both Spacedep and Second Speaker. I do so dislike inzerference from outside.”

  “And you can put it 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 defense 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 center 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.

  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.

  But 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—forever—all that nonsense about the spaceport on the Hrrunatan. But he couldn’t, could he? Well, he could for the duration of the task at hand.

  Then Grizz touched his arm and indicated that Todd and Hrriss should follow him into the long, high-ceilinged, semi-oval corridor from the landing bay toward 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 bole” 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 gray glass doors. Grizz 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 pinpoint. 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 they understood the principle involved.

  “Reh,” Todd said.

  Grizz roared approvingly and stepped onto an ascending platform. Together, Todd and Hrriss stepped onto the next one, which could 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 gray 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 meters.” He let the pressure drag him backward, 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 centimeters 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 merriment, experimenting with the increased gravity. Hrriss found that he could squat perpendicularly 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 center 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 mold, 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 medic 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 the one that the Gringg were probably being put through by Kate Moody, with the medic, who
m 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 un-self-consciously pulled aside the decorative loincloth he wore.

  “I don’t have a furry hide, cat man,” Todd replied in an undertone. “Stark naked suits you, but I’m getting goose bumps 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? EEG’s?” 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.”