Decision at Doona

Chapter VII. BRIDGE

FOR THE HUNDREDTH time, Ken wondered just how it had come about that they were learning the Hrruban language instead of the other way round.

«It must have been my fault,» he said out loud. «I made the initial contact. How did I goof? Or did I? Hell, all I did was learn some plant and tree names,» he defended himself. «And I did get a language tape. Somehow we've lost the first round. Or maybe – maybe we've won it.»

It was now four days since he had trod into the Hrruban village. No homing capsule had arrived from Amalgamated Worlds with instructions. Nor had the colony ship arrived with their families. This caused a good deal of unrest among the men. Ken forced his mind away from that insidious thought.

He wondered what kind of a flap their report of natives on Doona had created in the ultra-conservative Executive Block. It would be like them to reply that indeed there had been a mistake; there couldn't be natives on Doona. None had been reported by Spacedep, Alreldep or Codep. He thought of the films and tapes which closely followed the first message: films made by concealed camera of every step of the second day, starting from the instant Hrrula rose, and indicated that he wished to return to his village, and that he wanted Ken and Hu Shih to accompany him. Ken had pointed to Vic Solinari and Hrrula had not hesitated a moment to include the storemaster.

There had been a little pantomime on Hrrula's part when they were preparing to embark in the little raft. Ken, thinking Hrrula was concerned over the capacity of the skiff, tried to reassure him. Hrrula watched the pantomime, lowered his jaw in what was evidently his approximation of a smile, and got in.

No sooner had Hu Shih and Vic been presented to the village chief, Hrrestan, and four of the other older natives, than Hrrula began to speak in quick syllables. He hunkered down on the ground and with one claw delicately drew the outline of a bridge, spanning water. Grinning widely, Hrrula looked up at Reeve.

“God, he wasn't scared of the river or the skiff sinking,” Vic cried in astonishment. “He was planning a bridge!”

Ken and Hu Shih immediately protested but their arguments, embellished with violent gestures and charades, had run into the language barrier. The vocabulary which Ken had struggled to learn was all too insufficient to express such intangibles as aggression or isolation, much less the fact that the colonists must leave as soon as they could obtain transport.

The Hrrubens met every attempt to dissuade them with bland insistence on the bridge.

“Do you realize what this means, Ken?” the slight colony leader had finally whispered to him. “They do not resent us.”

“Now, wait a minute, sir. Don't you realize what a bridge . . .”

“No hostility at all. Really I am most heartened. And their grasp of architectural concepts is quite sophisticated. Have you noticed the dovetailed joints on the window frame of that house?”

“Shih,” Ken gripped the man's shoulder and gave him a little shake. “We mustn't build that bridge!”

“Why ever not?”

“In the first place, that bridge is the first step toward possible aggression of our race against theirs.”

“You refine too much . . .”

“For another,” Ken went right on, “why waste time building a bridge we'll never get to use?”

The animation left Hu Shih's face; his dark eyes were thoughtful.

“You're right, of course, but it is difficult not to take a hand offered in such open friendship. They do seem to want to get to know us.”

“And how often has our race turned the hand of friendship into a martial fist?”

Hu Shih nodded solemnly and they turned to renew their opposition to the bridge, trying to get the Hrrubans to understand that the colony would not remain long enough for the effort required.

Hrrula, his eyes half-lidded, tapped the diagram of the bridge. He held up two fingers and spoke the Hrruban word for day.

“Impossible,” Ken protested and stretched out his hand to erase the dusty sketch in conclusive denial.

A furred hand, talons politely sheathed, slipped adroitly under his, preventing the erasure.

“Yesssss,” and the Hrruban hissed the Terran word softly.

Ken regarded Hrrula solemnly, determined to his course. Two other fur-backed hands joined Hrrula's to keep Ken from reaching the drawing. Ken looked at Hrrestan who nodded slowly, to the other Hrruban who dropped his jaw and smiled.

“If you knew how silly you looked, Ken,” Vic remarked ironically. “They want a bridge. Okay. We've tried to explain it's a waste of effort. But what harm will a bridge do, Reeve? As you pointed out, we know we're not going to be here long enough to mush it. And if it means that much to them, let's be polite. They obviously know how to build one, so we're not giving them a premature cultural shock.”

“Vic, don't you see the principle that's involved? Every single instance of territorial aggression began . . .”

“Don't sweat history now, Ken,” the storemaster suggested rudely. “I don't want to think about it. I just want to take each day on Doona as it comes, enjoy the planet as much as I can . . .”

“And find out where the Hrrubans mine those stones?” Ken asked cynically.

“That, too,” Vic admitted. “Besides, I'd like to see what they intend to use to span that river. Can you find out?”

“Victor's argument is valid,” Hu Shih said.

Thus dies noble principle, Ken thought as he glared from colony leader to storemaster. And yet – we won't be here long; it does not use a cultural concept they don't already grasp – and what the hell!

“Hrrula,” Ken said aloud, pausing in fascination at the way the native's ears twitched. He pointed to the suspension beams which Hrrula had scratched in the dust. “Rla?” and he enunciated carefully, wondering if he'd swallow his tongue one day getting out that rolled 'r'.

Hrrula nodded gravely, gesturing toward the rla-wood tree behind him.

“They use that porous wood?” asked Vic eagerly.

“Rla,” Ken corrected him.

"Errla," Vic growled out. Hrrula shook his head patiently and repeated the sound which Victor dutifully tried to mimic. "I can't get that 'r' sound, Ken," he groaned under his breath. "But that wood wouldn't bear enough weight. It's too damned porous.''

Ken rubbed his temples, trying to drag appropriate words from his small Hrruban vocabulary. Shaking his head at his limitations, he knelt down again at the drawing. Carefully he drew a wide band to indicate the river. He then sketched the footings on both sides of the river, well back from the verge. He tapped the vertical elevation, showing the suspension, pantomiming the height of the trees with the length required to span the gap. Hrrula nodded solemn understanding.

“Hrrubans,” Hrrula said softly, indicating the adults present, “hayumans,” he said carefully, tapping Ken and Vic, jerking his head over his shoulder in the direction of the colony, “rla i zamat; rrigam.”

“Rrigam means build?” asked Vic.

“Guess so,” Ken answered. “Verb falls at the end of the sentence near as I can figure. I still don't think we should agree,” he muttered under his breath and looked around to see Hrrestan pointing vigorously to the bridge sketch, nodding his head emphatically.

“Um zamat rrigam. La!”

After one last attempt to explain that the Terrans would not be staying, Ken gave in.

The bridge was planned. And planned, according to Sam Gaynor's truculent opinion, with a sound knowledge of engineering principles, until he found out that rla wood was to be used.

“That damned porous wood . . .”

“Rla,” Ken corrected automatically.

“Erla, then,” snapped Gayor, “are too pulpy to hold any weight at all, not to mention a span. Damn fool notion.”

“They treat the wood, Sam,” Vic Solinari explained. “Don't know with what, although Harrula tried to explain. But he showed me the coating on the house timber and I couldn't crack it with a ball-peen hammer.”

“And the house's owner politely requested him not to chisel it,” Ken added with a grin at Vic's embarrassment.

“I hope they know what we're doing,” Gaynor said, for he could not remain long in Hrruban company without titanic sneezing. Moody had treated Gaynor empirically with massive antihistamines but could not isolate the specific factor without examining an Hrruban. Such an occasion had not yet presented itself.

It worked out by the end of that day that the Terrans would cut timber for the footings on their side of the river, the Hrrubans on theirs; the Hrrubans indicated they already had sufficient timber cut for the span.

The foundations had been dug on both sides when two Hrrubans arrived with a large wooden tub full of a hot gray viscose liquid.

Taking paddle-like brushes, Hrrula and Hrrestan began to coat the footing logs, working quickly and taking care not to splash the hot liquid on their bodies. The logs for the footings were lifted into position by Hrrubans wearing protective hide gloves. More liquid was sloshed on the now upright pilings. After an arbitrary pause, the Hrrubans filled in the dirt around the footings and turned to the first of the span logs. Again they worked swiftly, coating the log and then easing it out across the rapid flow of the river until it was in its assigned place. It was rapidly anchored with tough vines which were also painted. The Terrans watched as, after a second pause, Hrrula tested the log with a judicious claw. Apparently satisfied with the hardening of the paint, Hrrula astonished everyone by leaping up and racing down the length of the log to prove its firmness. He then indicated that the Terrans should examine the Hrruban workmanship and duplicate it on their side of the river.

“It's the same transparent stuff,” Vic assured Gaynor after he had poked and scraped, and made no mark. “Tough as a plastic.”

“Seals the wood and strengthens it, huh?” Gaynor murmured, sniffling constantly as he examined the span and the coated footings. “By God, we could use that wood for pretty nearly all our building needs and not have to wait for a plastics extruder. Find out how they make that, will you, Ken? And the rest of you guys, c'mon. Let's build our end just the way they did.”

“Good? Hmmm?” asked Hrrula, grinning at Reeve as the skiff took the first load of men back to their side.

“Very good,” Ken agreed. “What is it by you called?” he asked carefully in Hrruban.

''Rlba,'' Hrrula replied and Reeve groaned.

The 'l' became liquid but the 'r' took a savage roll and the upward accent fell on the final vowel.

Hrrunka, another of the Hrrubans whom Ken could now recognize on sight, was stirring the rlba, which had been placed over a small fire to keep it at boiling point. The smell was pungent, reminiscent of the scent exuded by rla bark when sun-warmed. Hrrunka gestured Ken over, pointed to the rlabans behind him, pantomimed boring a hole, the sap running out, heating the sap to boiling point, brushing it on, waiting an arbitrary time; then, Hrrunka indicated, the sap hardened completely.

By the end of that day, the bridge was completed, twenty-six feet long, seven feet wide, sturdy enough for the colonists' power sled, constructed of native materials and with native ingenuity.