Part 6 (1/2)
”Hrriss, is your leg all right?” Kelly asked, wondering if that was why the pair were so indolent in the busy Hall. She saw no bandage, though she caught the astringent odor of vrrela.
”Oh, zat!” Hrriss dismissed it with a negligent click of lightly extended claws. ”It was nozzing as I told zOdd. I am only bruised.
We are sorry to have missed you on the rest of the ride,' he added regretfully.
”Me, too,' Kelly sighed. Despite the rain barrel, Jilamey had exuded a pong that she was afraid might cling to her and spoil this evening. I dropped my nerd off at the medical center for a full checkover, and took a double-long shower to get the pig smell off. Did I miss anything good?”
”You left just before the best part,' Todd said, grinning broadly at the memory. ”We were afraid that once the ma.s.s of snakes caught up to us. they'd make short work of all Wayne's stock, but we didn't count on the sows. When the tiddlers started coming through the slats into their pens, they turned as aggressive as you could have wished.
Wayne was delighted.”
”Really?” Kelly wondered if Todd was teasing her, but a quick look at Hrriss confirmed that this master dissembler was telling the truth.
”They stomped the snakes flat. h.e.l.l hath no fury like a sow whose piglets are in danger,' Todd chortled. ”Those sharp hooves chopped lengths off the tiddlers that got through. The others turned around and fled.”
”So we concentrated on the Mommy Sssnakess, Hrriss added.
”By the time the Beaters arrived, we were able to get the swarm back into line. The boars were snorting war cries by the time we started zo clear out of there.” Kelly applauded, laughing. ”Let's have a Pig Brigade next year.”
”That's what I suggested to Wayne,' Todd said, grinning with malice. ”Since he won't move them out of the way, we might as well get some help from them. They're as good as ocelots for chopping up tiddlers.”
”Nearly as good,' Hrriss corrected him mildly.
Todd favored his friend with an openmouthed stare of feigned astonishment.
”Don't compare chickens and brrnas,' Kelly said, playfully putting a hand between them. ”I'm glad I got you two alone before everything got started,' she continued in an undertone, turning so her back s.h.i.+elded her words. ”I tried to find your father, Todd, but he's out showing some diplomats around the model stock ranches. Young Jilamey got talkative when he got mlada'd up in the snake blind. I don't think he realized what he was implying, in his chummy confidences about Uncle Landreau's opinion of the Reeve family.” So she repeated Jilamey's exact words.
”Dad and me out of our element here?” Todd demanded, more indignant than insulted. He let out a harsh bark of laughter. ”Earth never was my element!” Kelly grinned, a sparkle in her eyes. ”Well, you've won one staunch adherent in Jilamey today.
Jilamey admires you tremendously for saving him from the very jaws of death. And he's going to tell his uncle how quick and clever you were.
Todd snorted. ”Much weight that'll carry with Al Landreau.
Candidly I was thinking that maybe the Admiral sent the kid into the Snake Hunt to get him killed and make the Reeves look worse.
”It failed, didn't it?” Hrriss said, but the tips of his claws were showing as he rattled them on his knee.
”As the Mayday failed?” Todd said softly.
”What Mayday?” Kelly asked, wondering if she'd missed something.
Todd's brows drew down over his nose. He stared off across the room, blank-faced. His hands twitched, showing the tension that he wouldn't allow his face to reveal. Kelly knew the signs. Todd was revving up to full anger even if he never let it go public.
”Landreau has absolutely no grounds to pull any of us out of the colony, no matter what his personal opinion-and grievance against us-might be. Hrriss scowled, pulling his eyebrow whiskers together.
”There were ominous undertones at the Hrrethan celebration we attended,' he said. ”We are all aware that pressure of some kind would increase now that the Treaty Renewal talks are so close. Two of the Hayuman speakers who were on Hrretha are here now, too, Varnorian and Rogitel.
Rrev has seen them, but I think he has not spoken with them.”
”At least you're aware of undercurrents,' Kelly said, deciding that now was the time to reveal her own budget of suspicion and anxieties. ”1 caught more than that on Earth,' and to give herself time to organize her thoughts, she filched nuts from one of the appetizer bowls next to her on the long table.
”Jilamey's comments today merely support the innuendos. I was going to talk to Ken and Hrrestan in private, but, with the shuttle's delay, I barely arrived home in time to ride out on Hunt.
”As you two should know. Alreldep is completely pro-Doona, but I wish i could say the same for the other two s.p.a.ce services. I feel almost endangered when I have to carry a message to s.p.a.cedep offices.
Now that there are plenty of thriving colonies, there is a feeling that Doona is no longer needed.
The experiment was ”interesting,” that's all. The Treaty may just as well be voided, and we can all go our separate ways.
”Has public sentiment gone that far against us?” Todd asked sadly.
”The public? No!” Kelly hurried to a.s.sure him.
”They voted on allowing Doona to be colonized, and from what I can tell, none of them have changed their minds. The government agencies are what we have to worry about. To the average man or woman in, say, Air Recycling or Food Services, Doona is still the s.h.i.+ning star, the pastoral world that opened up s.p.a.ce travel and revitalized Earth's economy.” Kelly plastered. an imaginary banner on the sky with a sweep of her hand. ”Even if those people're unsuited to colonizaton, they're making sure that their sons and daughters are taking specialized training so they'll be qualified one day.
n And every child who visits Alreldep on a school tour wants to be the one to find the next Doona.
It's the old flatheads in s.p.a.cedep who want us to go back to square one and pretend that a cohabited colony never happened.
Especially not one independent from the government of Earth and on which the Earth language is subordinated in favor of the co-inhabitor's. Having to speak Middle Hrruban when they come here is one of the things that really rankle with them.” She smiled and shook her head, taken aback at her own frankness. ”Listen to me go on! Do you know how long it's been since I've been able to talk like that?
It's not approved for diplomats to be heard spouting judgmental statements. Unfortunately I've got no proof of opposition except gossip and the unwelcoming mien of s.p.a.cedep menials. You'd just have to trust my powers of observation, such as they are.
”How long have we been friends?” Hrriss said, speaking in the Low Hrruban of a familial group.
”We have trusted you since you were able to ride a Hunt.”
”Before that,' Todd replied in the same vein.
Two Human women pa.s.sed them, carrying a huge basket of bread between them. Hrriss looked about cautiously before replying, and glanced at Todd for permission. He and Todd had discussed the matter and decided that Kelly had to be told what had happened. With her connections in Alreldep, she'd have access to offices and ranking officials that they did not.
”Unfortunately we have perhaps precipitated an event which would ssserve s.p.a.cedep's purpose well, though we do not yet know who is responsible for engineering it.” Kelly's eyes went wide. ”What happened?”
”This is confidential, you understand,' Todd said, still in Low Hrruban, which would make what he said unintelligible to many.
Kelly grinned at his tactic and nodded for him to continue. ”On the way back from Hrretha, we received a Mayday signal, coming from an uninhabited, interdicted world,' Todd went on, twisting his shoulders at their naivete. ”We responded to the call, only to discover that it was coming from a beacon drone. We found no trace of radiation or ion drive to tell where the s.h.i.+p that dropped it came from. Anyone pa.s.sing that way could have heard the Mayday, but unluckily it was us.”
”The fact remains that we crossed into a forbidden zone for no purpose,' Hrriss finished, his purring voice low.
”But you'd have the log record of the Mayday . . .” Kelly began.
”We nearly didn't,' Todd replied sourly. A slight malfunction .
”Corrected by a kick,' Hrriss said, grinning.
”In the holographic recorder,' Todd finished.
”Loose circuit?” Kelly asked, even as she wondered why she was trying to find logical explanations of the malfunction.