Crisis On Doona Read online

  There was, however, another covert reason for subverting the Doona Experiment: Hrrubans and Humans, dissimilar in form, needed similar worlds to colonize, and for the same pressures. If Doona failed, all terms of the Treaty were null and void. The forbidden sections of space would be open once again to Admiral Landreau’s mighty vessels and well-armed fleets, and if the rich world was already inhabited by a Hrruban colony, tough on them! A few well-placed germbombs and the Cohabitation Principle was invalid. Unless, of course, other factions of Earth’s government could be persuaded how archaic the principle was and rescind it. How much easier would life be on Earth if one could ship out the unwashed masses to fend for themselves on new worlds with viceroys to skim the riches off the top.

  The Doonan settlers were certainly aware of Admiral Landreau’s hatred, and his machinations, and there were many adherents on both home worlds that did their best to neutralize some of the worst of Landreau’s subtle campaign in various government offices. Though Ken and Todd had never vocalized it, they knew that they were Landreau’s particular target. Landreau regarded Todd as an incorrigibly wild brat who went native with distressing speed after landing on Doona. Todd’s assimilation of the formalities of High Hrruban diplomacy at the age of six, Landreau dismissed as a fluke.

  Hrriss, now nearly thirty-five, always had a cooler way of interpreting a situation than his tall friend. Hrrubans were unassailable by any power from Earth. By Treaty agreement, the arm of the galaxy which the Hrrubans chose to explore was off limits to Terrans. Hrruba’s home system was protected by the same Treaty. Any incursion into either sphere would be an act of war. Even Landreau in his obsessive hatred for the Reeves would hardly start a war between the species to get at a single family. Though Hrruba was run by a bureaucracy of great antiquity fully as cumbersome as that of Earth, it was directed gently by one mind whose interests allowed expansion and alliance to proceed. Hrriss and his family were unlikely to be removed from their home for any reason less serious than war. It brought Hrriss’s need to defend to two foci: Zodd and the Rrev family.

  “I know Landreau’s working every angle to spoil our chances if he can,” Todd said. “But the Doona Experiment is doing incredibly well, and everyone on Earth knows it. There would have to be an awful stink raised to bring the Experiment to an end at this point.”

  “A diplomatic insult, perhaps?” Hrriss suggested delicately. “A wedge need not be a large one to drive two elements apart. On Rrala, Terra, or Hrruba, it makes little difference.”

  “Well, if Landreau thought he could start one on this latest diplomatic mission of ours, he failed.” Todd grinned. “Rogitel of Spacedep sounded like he wanted to start an argument with me at the banquet on Hrretha, but I pretended to be bogged down in protocol—fardles, I know all the moves better than he does,” Todd said with a snort, his eyes on the screen. Their quarry had reappeared on their side of the planet, and its orbit remained unchanged. “So I got him talking about exploration in the Eighth Sector—safe enough topic.”

  “I told you it would be useful to know those details,” and Hrriss dropped his lower jaw in the Hrruban grin. “He tried me later. I refused to be insulted when he called me a would-be Hayuman. If he wishes to create an incident, he will have to try harder.” Hrriss’s wide pink tongue now licked his upper lip, a further sign of amusement. “Varnorian of Codep asked me if it was true that you were applying to join a Hrruban colony to escape penalties from Earth. As if that would not be a Zreaty violation.”

  “Glad you batted that rumor out of court. I heard a smitch of it, too, and disavowed it with all the innocence at my command.” Then Todd snorted. “Anyone who knows me knows better than to try something that simple on me.”

  The Albatross had closed to within thousands of kilometers of its goal. It was easy to swing into orbit from planetary north. The scout had been designed to pass through atmosphere as easily as it did through the frozen void of space. It swept low, across the top of the envelope of atmosphere, above the mass of clouds enveloping the small planet, angling toward the signal.

  “If you keep a sharp watch portside, Hrriss,” Todd said, his own eyes on the starboard, “maybe we can catch it first time round and not waste too much time in-system.”

  It was Hrriss who first set eyes on the source of the distress signal.

  “Zzhere!” he hissed, pointing with one of his extended claws. Todd marked the trajectory of the floating craft, perched just on the edge of orbit. It was too far away for the cameras to discern much detail about the ship itself, but one thing was clear: any passengers would soon become cinders. The orbit had decayed so much that in only a short time. their ship would be inexorably caught by the planet’s gravitation and fall, burning, into the atmosphere.

  “Hey, what if we dip below them and drop a tractor cable?” Todd suggested. “You know, that’s awfully small for a ship, even a scout.”

  “And bigger than the average escape pod,” Hrriss said, his tone thoughtful.

  The size didn’t seem unnatural. Hrruban and Hayuman exploration teams flew variously sized scout vessels. The difference was that the Human teams were larger, or doubled up in specialties. Hrrubans sent out the minimum crew needed to make a primary judgment on a planet. When they found one that warranted a full-team investigation, they dropped a one-way transportation grid to the surface and then ’ported in the appropriate personnel. “It must be Hayumans, then, or they would not still be here calling for help. Standard procedure for Hrrubans is to drop a temporary grid and ’port home safely.”

  The Albatross used the gravity well of the Hrrilnorr IV to brake its speed. The next time it passed within visual range, Todd was able to plot a course to follow their quarry.

  “I have initial telemetry readings. No atmosphere leak from the surface of the craft,” Hrriss said with relief, reading from his scopes for traces of gas.

  Though the craft had been able to retain its structural integrity, it was in grave difficulties. Rather than describing a smooth orbit, the speeding vessel jerked and stuttered its way around the fourth planet, as if pulled this way and that by divergent gravity fields. It passed over the day side again. Hrriss and Todd were blinded by the glare of planetary sunrise.

  “Attention, the ship,” Hrriss spoke urgently into the comunit, using Terran, broadcasting on all frequencies. “We are the scoutcraft Albatross. We are here in answer to your Mayday. Can you read us?” He repeated the hail several times, and then in Hrruban. There was no answer.

  He pushed up the gain on the receiver. Nothing came from the speaker but atmospheric noise and the repeated Mayday message.

  “They could have lost all communications but the beacon,” he said, plainly worried. “If their life support is already gone ...” Hrriss trailed off and pointedly did not look at Todd.

  Todd blanched at that possibility and bent over his controls, trying to keep his face expressionless. “We can spring the tractor line on the craft and haul it in. Passengers could use life suits to access the Albatross’s lock.” Hrriss nodded approval of the strategy. “Hope it’s not too late.”

  As if taking the pilot’s words as a challenge, the small dot on the horizon appeared to fall out of orbit, heading like a meteor for the brilliant white layer of clouds below.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” said Todd, seizing the manual controls.

  Todd drove the scout hard after it, hoping the damaged vessel would not pick up too much speed from the gravitational pull until the Albatross could swoop in on it. He toggled the magnetic tractor net into alert status. They were dragging through the top of the atmosphere now as the Albatross pursued its quarry, still kilometers ahead. His hands were a blur on the keyboard. Hrriss kept calling out to the ship in both languages, hoping for a reply from the craft ahead. With the sun reflecting off its surface, it was impossible to see more than a vague shape. Hrriss kept requesting on all frequencies for details of the damage the lone s
hip had suffered.

  In the midst of the dense clouds thousands of meters below, Todd at last urged the Albatross ahead of the speeding hulk. There was a powerful jerk that bucked them around in their seats when the net of magnetic lines engaged the metal hull of the other.

  “Gotcha,” Hrriss said, his teeth snapping in triumph.

  “Great. Now let’s just tell those guys to drag ass over here.”

  Once Todd headed the Albatross back into space, the two men turned the external camera onto their prize, and irised down the lens to counteract the glare. There was a silence and an air of angry disbelief as they stared at the object the tractors had brought in. It was cylindrical in shape, the length of their own scout, and not unlike the escape shuttle they had mistaken it for. What their efforts had acquired was a full-sized orbital beacon, an unmanned buoy similar to the ones hanging above and below the proscribed system, still screaming out its Mayday message on the Albatross’s receiver as they stood staring at it. The needles on the VU meters leaped back and forth in their glass settings.

  “So we’ve been suckered into an interdicted system by a recorded Mayday,” Todd said, unbelievingly. “I’ll report this illicit use all the way to ...” He paused, since the top of Spacedep was Al Landreau and he knew what short shrift that report would get. “We have fallen into deep kimchee, my friend. I should have listened to you.”

  “No, friend Zodd, you listened to a distress call and acted conscientiously,” Hrriss said with a heavy sigh. Neither needed to discuss the ramifications of this.

  “Let’s get this sucker hauled in and see if we can salvage that Mayday beacon. That’ll add credibility to this incident.”

  “Good thinking, Zodd,” and Hrriss programmed the winch for a slow wind while Todd monitored the progress from the external camera.

  “Hold it!” Todd held up one hand. “There’s something attached to it. Oh-ho! Double trouble. Did we record the capture? Good. Unless I’m vastly mistaken there’s a device riding along a very suspicious-looking thickening of the longitudinal spar. That thing is rigged to blow on contact!”

  “Rrrreelease,” Hrriss said, almost spitting in disgust at the stratagem. “Can you get a close recording of that section?”

  “I have so done.” Todd was immensely satisfied by that much of this episode, but as Hrriss plotted their course out of the area, his elation drained from him. “Someone’s been getting awful clever, Hrriss. Our course was known from the time we left Doona, so there was plenty of time to set this up where we’d stumble into the trap on our way back from Hrretha.”

  “All too trrrue.” Hrriss nodded, his expression as bleak as his friend’s. Even the markings on his intelligent felinoid face seemed to have faded in his concern.

  “I could wish boils on the hide of whoever perpetrated this. We could have been killed!”

  “Waz that the object? To kill us? Or to lure us into interdicted space?”

  The eyes of the two friends met—the yellow-green and the clear blue.

  “I know someone who wouldn’t shed a tear at my demise,” Todd said grimly.

  “I have similar well-wishers,” Hrriss replied, tapping the console with the tips of his claws in a rhythmic fashion.

  “Our deaths wouldn’t mean as much as our broaching interdicted space,” Todd began, rubbing his chin. Stubble was developing, and there were moments, like this, when he wondered what he’d look like with a full beard, or at least sufficient face hair to make him more Hrruban.

  “But not only is there prrroof of our samarrritanism, but also I, Hrriss, made all the vocal contacts.”

  Todd dismissed that notion. “Everyone knows we’re together, so I’ve certainly been wherever you were, legal or not. What I don’t understand is exactly why the tactic was planned in this fashion. Was killing the real end? Or discrediting us?”

  The two exchanged few words on the rest of the journey back to Doona. Both of them were deep in thought as how best to mitigate their situation. Violating one of the main stipulations of the very agreement they were hoping to see renewed this year was not good, however inadvertent.

  “Have you convinced yourself that the recording is enough, Hrriss?” Todd asked after they had identified themselves to the Doona/Rrala buoy.

  “Our people will believe us.”

  “Let’s devoutly hope that’s enough. Too bad that false beacon didn’t blow up. We could at least have brought a section of it home as additional proof.”

  “We do warn everyone that there are bogus Maydays out there!”

  “That is obligatory. Bogus or not, we were in the right to investigate,” Hrriss said one more time. “A cry for help from other space travelers is not ignored with impunity.”

  As soon as they landed the Albatross back on Doona, they contacted the tower. Linc Newry was on duty.

  “Can you rustle your stumps, Linc?” Todd asked. “We got an official report to deliver.”

  “Official? Huh? Nothing to do with the Hunt, is it?”

  “Not really, but it’d be great if we could get through landing procedures and decontam and get the Hunt properly organized,” Todd said with an encouraging grin.

  “I’m coming,” Linc said, and obviously switched to a handset for he continued talking. “As you’re just back from that Hrrethan shindig, I think it’ll be okay if I just seal the lock on the Albie and we can do the decontam and stuff when the Hunt’s over.”

  So Todd and Hrriss gratefully disembarked, watched the seal be affixed to prevent entry, and, thanking Linc for his courtesy, hurried off to find Ken Reeve and detail the Mayday incident.

  “Genuine or not, you have to answer a Mayday signal,” Ken agreed, though the affair obviously troubled him. He smoothed his hair back with a resigned hand. His thick, dark hair had receded above his temples, and lines were beginning to etch the fair, sun-weathered skin near his eyes. He and Todd were of a height now, but often, when he was confused and worried, as he was now, Todd felt himself still the small boy and Ken the adult. Maybe he relied too much on his father’s wisdom where experience and the study of law didn’t provide the answers. Hrriss sat beside him, his yellow-green eyes unwinking as he stared at the floor between his feet. Ken could tell the Hrruban was worried, but he was not as prone to outbursts as his son.

  Todd’s eyes were fixed hopefully on his father’s face. Ken shook his head and sighed. “Wise of you, Hrriss, to handle all the oral transmissions. Let’s hope that the pictures of that device and the possibly explosive ribbing show up.” He gave his head another little shake. “Such contingencies will have to be written into the new Treaty, allowing for legitimate rescue efforts and specifying penalties for abuses. I shall suggest the modification myself to Sumitral at Alreldep. But I cannot be easy that the incident was there, waiting to trap the unwary.” He paused again, holding up his hand when Todd opened his mouth. “Were there any other representatives at the Hrrethan ceremonies likely to have taken the same warp jumps you did?”

  Todd looked abashed. “Dad, I just wanted to leave. My neck was rubbed raw and it was bad enough those Hrrethans insisted on giving the Albatross a clearance ...”

  “They insisted?” Ken asked, his expression alert.

  “Yes, and we told them that Spacedep had already cleared the Albatross ... Oh, I see what you mean. The recorder could have been tampered with there. You think we were to be the victims?”

  “We were not the only ship likely to pass that system,” Hrriss said in a slow thoughtful tone. “I will inquirrre. It is worrth that much. And discreetly.” He dropped his jaw at Ken. “When one is hunted, one generally senses pursuit.”

  “Then I can leave you to mention this to Hrrestan?” Ken asked. Hrriss nodded. “I shall inform Hu Shih. That will satisfy the necessary protocol. Investigations can be initiated ...”

  “Just don’t let that sort of time-wasting stuff interfere with the
Snake Hunt, will you, Dad?” Todd was clearly apprehensive. “It’s only two weeks away and we’ve a lot to do.”

  Ken smiled. “The Snake Hunt is too important to the Doona/Rrala economy to have its leaders absent. I’ll handle all the necessary reportings. And inform Sumitral. He warned me to expect trouble from unlikely areas. Cunning of our detractors, isn’t it, to start a controversy over a samaritan issue! And it has the flavor of something the segregationalists would try.”

  “The group that thinks Hrruba is only being friendly to get their claws into the best star systems?” Todd asked with patent distaste.

  “Or perrrhaps,” and Hrriss let his fangs show, “it is those who sense we are arming ourselves for the conquest of your home planet.”

  “No one takes that foolishness seriously,” Ken said quickly. “You don’t even know where Terra is.”

  “Nor you Hrruba,” and Hrriss winked.

  Ken and Todd both laughed with their friend, whose full-throated chuckle would have sounded to many like an ominous growl. Laughter eased the tension lines from Ken Reeve’s face.

  “Go on, the pair of you. We’ll deal with the matter after the Snake Hunt. Which is going to be brilliant this year, isn’t it?” He pinned the two friends with a mock-stern glare.

  “Absolutely!” The friends chorused that assurance and left Ken’s office.

  In only a fortnight’s time, Doona would be inundated by foreign dignitaries and guests eager to witness, and participate in, the famed Doonan Snake Hunt. Hundreds of people would converge on the First Villages for the semiannual migration of the giant reptiles, and Todd and Hrriss were in charge of coordinating the Hunt. Which was not so much of a hunt as a controlled traffic along the snakes’ traditional path.

  While there had been intense arguments both for and against annihilation of this dangerous species, the conservationists—many of them colonists—had won. The immense snakes were unique to the planet, but their depredations, which affected only one area of the main continent, could be controlled. The reptiles ranged in size from two- and three-year-old tiddlers of three to five meters in length to immense females, nicknamed Great Big Mommas, growing to twelve to fifteen meters. They had incredible speed and strength and, although they ate infrequently, they had been known to ingest an adult horse or cow in one mouthful. Their vision was so poor that they could not see a man standing motionless a few feet from their blunt snouts, but they would strike at any movement: particularly one that gave off an enticing odor.