Decision at Doona

Chapter XVIII. HEREAGIN, GONEAGIN, FINNEGIN

REEVE WALKED PAST the half-finished barn, its bare studs pointing skyward like accusing fingers. He was going to report to the implacable Landreau the results of another day of fruitless searching. He had lost track of the number of drones he had launched and retrieved. As soon as one returned, a new trajectory was inserted, its film capsule was reloaded, and it was sent up again. He was now weighed down with exposed film which he hoped would keep Landreau up all night.

Only one burn had so far shown up. With a triumphant gleam in his eye, Landreau had taken off in the copter, to return-silent. Eckerd had reported sardonically that there had been nothing more suspicious on the scene than a natural forest fire, caused by the lightning storm the morning of the barn raising. Some of the larger stumps were still smoldering but the charred earth was cool and devoid of chemical traces.

When Landreau overheard someone mention the mountain caves, he had mounted a search party. To him they could easily harbor every variety of alien. All he found was dust, until Ben was attacked by a spider, the size of a dinner plate and extremely poisonous. But the spider was indigenous. And the necessity of getting the veterinary back to the camp cut short the expedition. The fact that Moody attributed Ben's continued life to Mrrva's yellow paste did not register with Landreau at all after a chemical analysis proved the paste to be composed of Doonan herbs.

Reeve was forced to admire the dogged determination of the spaceman. How the Hrrubans could have escaped the notice of such Vigorous, intensive searching defeated Ken.

He mounted the steps of the mess hall clumped wearily up to Landreau's neatly organized desk and tossed his load of reels down in front of the impassive spaceman.

“Care to try submarine probes?” Ken taunted. “This finishes the aerial series. And, incidentally, the fuel for those probes.”

The clear quick eyes locked with his briefly and then Landreau snorted. His self-assured passivity reminded Reeve, oddly enough, of Hrrula.

«Switched sides?» Landreau asked. «Make up your mind, Reeve. Do you want indigenous personnel or don't you? Who do you want in the role? Yourselves or your – mass hallucination?»

Ken said nothing and withdrew, trudging up the path to his cabin. Suddenly he wondered who he did want in the starring role. The colonists or the Hrrubans? If the colonists were indigenous, they had not abrogated the Principle and could remain. But, and Ken shook his head sadly, the colonists knew the Hrrubans were indigenous and that they must leave.

Nevertheless, it was personally satisfying to see the haunted doubt flare occasionally in Landreau's eyes. And it was curiously gratifying, too, to find that the Hrrubans had been able to disappear so tracelessly. He knew the location of two of the other villages, and Dautrish and Gaynor had been at three others. No speck, spot or scorch could be found of any Hrruban habitation. A respect for them was mingled with a depressing sense of loss and frustration.

There had been quiet talk among the colonists, half-verbalized wishes to justify their initial reports by at least one trace of the vanished natives. Then oblique relief when the most careful search elicited nothing. But the colonists could not avoid the moral issue. They knew the Hrrubans existed and no matter how keenly they wished to remain on Doona, their conditioning on Co-Habitation was too strong.

“I'd like to know how Landreau can explain away those films we sent in of the first contact,” Lawrence had remarked in a hurried meeting Hu Shih had called after the first day's fruitless searching. “And those artifacts we sent in after the bridge was built. We can't repudiate them. I admit it makes us look a little foolish right now but . . .”

“Landreau's looking for aliens, not natives,” McKee had said.

“Yes, but goddammit man, where did our natives go?” Ken had demanded.

That question sang in his ears as he stopped to look down the sweep of the Common to the bridge. The wind from the mountains cooled his face and he sniffed it for any trace of smoke. Only the cinnamony odor of the porous wood trees filled his nostrils, nothing more. He trudged wearily on toward his house.

Under the needle tree that drooped over their roof stood what had lately been renamed the 'mourner's bench.' The central figure was the pathetically passive Todd, his hands for once limp on his thighs, his face immovably turned toward the bridge. He scarcely seemed to breathe. Beside him and on the ground at his feet sat several children, playing their endless quiet games, bearing him company in his sorrow in the curious way of the young.

“No change?” Ken asked Pat, indicating his apathetic son.

Pat hurriedly dried her hands to embrace him, her eyes sliding from his toward the child.

“Maria finally got him to eat something,” and she gave a wry smile. “Some form of blackmail was used, I think. Oh, Ken,” and once inside the privacy of the house, her chin trembled and she dissolved against him, weeping.

Ken held her close, wishing that he were permitted to indulge in the therapy of tears.

«Ken, when I think how mean I've been to him – how mean we've all been – telling him to shut up, to sit still, to be quiet – and then to see him sitting there, hour after hour. Oh, Ken, I know he doesn't sleep. He just lies there, staring at the ceiling . . .»

“Honey, honey, it won't be long now. Landreau's about given up,” and Ken tried to inject honest encouragement into his reassurance.

“Do you really think so?” Pat asked, looking up at him with watery eyes, sniffling back her tears.

“Looks that way. You know, in a sense, Todd brought this all on himself.”

“Ken, how can you possibly . . .”

“Well, Pat, one thing that has kept Landreau here is the look in Todd's face when he charged into the clearing. We might have some motive for deceiving Spacedep, but not that six-year-old kid. Although why Landreau thinks we invented natives, or aliens, I don't honestly know. But it's Todd who's kept Landreau looking. God knows, there's not a stitch of evidence to support our story.”

«Ken – will they come back?» and Pat's face began to crumple again. «I mean, after Landreau's gone, will they come back?»

“That's not as big a question as how and why did they disappear in the first place.”

Toddy was still sitting on his mourner's bench when the rest of his family had finished dinner. Resolutely Pat had taken food out to him. Ken turned his chair to watch. Every evening that week Pat had advanced on her fasting son with the grim determination that food would pass his lips that night or else. An hour later, 'else' had been reached and Pat would trudge back to the cabin to seek solace in Ken's arms. Tonight Pat's pilgrimage was interrupted by the arrival of Landreau and Kate Moody. The trio stood looking down at Todd and something in Kate's face prompted Ken to join them.

“I don't care what your authority is, Spaceman,” Kate said in a harsh, almost defiant voice. “I will not permit a minor in my charge to undergo such an ordeal. The lasting effects of such a treatment are too brutal to be considered.”

“So you intend to be a party to treason?” Landreau demanded. He jutted out his chin until his head appeared neckless, drawn down between his shoulders, giving him a vaguely Cro-Magnon look.

Kate snorted derisively. “Don't be ridiculous and don't play the heavy militant with me. I will not risk warping a mind to ease your conscience or save your reputation; not on the grounds you supply.”

Pat seated herself beside Todd, her arm thrown protectively around his shoulders. Todd paid no heed to their presence. He kept his eyes unblinkingly on the bridge. Reeve moved himself obtrusively into the spaceman's way. Landreau watched Todd through narrowed eyes. With a darting glance, he glared first at Ken, then at Kate, before turning again to Todd. Then he snorted, shrugged and, turning smartly on his heel, strode back to the office.

Deep night was broken by the roar of his ship's departure. The noise roused Ken and Pat, and Ken, a sheet clutched around him, rushed out to witness the bright lance of fire arrowing skyward.

“Just like him to take off in the middle of the night,” he grunted when he was satisfied that the ship was achieving an escape velocity instead of veering off for an atmosphere flight. “But I wouldn't put it past him to double back and hide out somewhere,” he added under his breath.

As he padded back to bed, he passed Toddy's room and heard a long-drawn-out sigh. Peering around the doorpost, he saw Todd turn over in bed. Slowly the child curled up into the tight little ball in which he always slept. Pat called it 'winding the spring for the next day.' Quietly Ken leaned over Todd and saw that the eyes were closed for the first time that week. A happy smile curved the childish lips. Infinitely relieved, Ken watched a moment longer to be positive. Satisfied, he tiptoed back to bed.

“Landreau's good and gone. And Toddy's asleep,” he told Pat.

“Asleep?” Pat sat bolt upright, clutching at the sheet Ken was spreading back over the bed.

“Yes, my dear girl, asleep. Bet you anything the Hrrubans are back in their village tomorrow.”

“How can you sound so sure?” Pat demanded.

Ken pounded his pillow into submission, dug his head into the depression and drew the sheet around his shoulders.

“I'm not sure of anything on this crazy, mixed-up world, but just wait until tomorrow.”