Anne McCaffrey - Decision at Doona

“Pat!” exclaimed Ken, astonished at her vehemence.

Pat stopped and turned to her husband, her fists on her hips.

"I kept hoping that he'd improve once he understood we were leaving Earth. And for a while at the Codep Block, he was almost human. But the minute we got on board – " she paused, her eyes round with distressed tears. "That child has been the bane of the whole journey. There isn't a person who hasn't had trouble with him. They had to double the watch on the drive room, control room, and hydroponics section. The engineer finally put a special time lock on our cabin. We couldn't leave it from seven at night til eight the next morning. During the day, either an adult or one of the older children was assigned to watch him every single blessed minute – in four-hour shifts. There isn't one of us that isn't bruised by his kicking and pinching. Kate has tried tranquilizers, sleep training, everything. He is – he's – he's incorrigible!" and Pat whirled to lean against the nearest tree trunk in tears.

“Kate's a psychologist, why didn't she . . .”

“Kate had to give up!” Pat gulped. “We all have, from the captain to the swabber, from the eldest child on down. He simply doesn't think like any normal child.”

In the process of trying to comfort his wife, Ken put Toddy down. The moment she felt Ken's arms around her, she whirled in terror.

“Don't let him go,” she screamed in panic, pointing over his shoulder. Ken looked; the sturdy boy was making tracks right back to Hrral and Hrrula.

“Gotcha,” cried a passing crewman as he snagged Todd. “Not like the morning you got into the communications spares, huh” and he grinned sardonically as he handed Todd back to his father.

After much debate with Pat and still not quite sure why such precautions were necessary, Ken carefully locked Todd in his room and went back to work.

“Are you sure he can't break that window?” she asked anxiously.

“Hon, it's the toughest plastic extruded. Besides, I smacked him hard enough so I doubt he'll risk more of the same.”

Pat, only partially reassured, was then pressed into service by Kate Moody to check medical supplies. Ken watched her slim body for a few moments before he resumed his own task.

He would play a very active father role, he told himself, for the boy had obviously missed the masculine father figure. Ilsa had always been socially well oriented and conformable. Then Ken had to attend to checking the bills of lading.

Damn Kiachif for putting them to this wasted effort. He could have had all these hours with Pat.

When he had finally located the elusive crates on his manifests, he took the papers up to the mess hall where the captain and his supercargo had set up a temporary office. Kiachif, the super, Ben Adjei, Gaynor and McKee were grouped around the table. Only the super appeared concerned with the problems of unloading.

“Don't know why I bother. Ridiculous waste,” the supercargo mumbled as he scrawled his initials on the sheets, “It'll all have to be burned when you leave but I'd never hear the last of it if I didn't get 'em all checked. Though how they'd know if it hadn't been checked is utterly beyond me.”

Ken stared at him in annoyance and dislike.

«Yes, I agree,» Captain Kiachif was saying, «that it might be more sensible for me to wait for the homing capsule. But, my friends, I have a schedule. Nasty things, schedules. Particularly a closely figured one like mine. It's so close there's not so much as a sneeze computed in between hops. So I've got no choice. I've got to keep it, discovery of natives – which I agree is no sneeze – notwithstanding. And frankly,» Kiachif jerked his chin down onto his chest and peered around at the listening circle, «if you get what I mean, it's to your advantage to let me depart on the sneezeless schedule.»

“You mean, it'd take you that much longer to figure on touching down here again,” McKee said hopefully.

“Ah, you get what I mean,” grinned the captain.

“But, Captain, certainly you see the unusual circumstances . . .” Hu Shih began persuasively.

"Shih," McKee interrupted, clearing his throat, "what the good captain means is, if he waits and we get a clear-out, we have to clear out. If he's already gone, they have to send us another ship and that'll give us more time here, and Macy smiled brightly at everyone.

“Exactly what worries me, gentlemen,” Hu Shih said with uncharacteristic sternness. “We may do untold prejudicial harm to a delicate situation. None of us is trained in establishing the proper contact with an indigenous population.”

“I'd say you'd done all right, if you get what I mean,” Kiachif commented, waving at the scene outside where Hrrubans and Terrans worked easily together, covering stacked crates with plastic cocoons

“We have, it is true, established an outwardly harmonious relationship,” Hu Shih agreed cautiously, “but we are also forced by circumstance to expose a less advanced race prematurely to certain aspects of our culture which may well jeopardize their proper evolution.”

“They've exposed us to a few aspects of their culture that make ours look sicker than it is,” McKee reminded the colony chief drily.

"Look, Hu Shih," Kiachif said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "you guys work like trolls for three hundred days, with nothing worse to deal with than the local carnivores, because Codep has said this planet's uninhabited. Okay, Codep goofed. You didn't. You're here, you've got your families – if you see what I mean." He cocked his head, his eyes glinting as a knowing smile parted his thin lips. It faded abruptly as the captain sighed in patient exasperation. "I see you don't see what I mean,'' and he pointed significantly at the distant hills.

“Oh, no. Absolutely no,” Hu Shih declared as he suddenly grasped the Captain's meaning. “We must leave when Codep's orders arrive, for that is the honorable thing to do.”

The captain's hooded eyes narrowed slightly and one stained index finger speculatively scratched a hairy cheek.

“Why?” Kiachif drawled.

“Why, because of the Principle of Non-Cohabitation.”

“Why?” Kiachif repeated stubbornly.

“Because of the Siwannese, man,” McKee snapped impatiently. The captain was pointing out an alternative that was all too tempting.

“Why, because of the Siwannese?” Kiachif pursued ruthlessly. “That Siwannah affair happened over two hundred years ago. And they were dolts, those Siwannese, anyway.”

A shocked silence filled the room at such irreverence.

“Aaah, by the walloping widow, you've all been taken in,” the captain scoffed. Hitching his jacket up on his shoulders, he planted both forearms on the table and leaned earnestly forward.

“So one paranoid race commits mass suicide and the tender conscience of our planet backs away forever from the challenge of contact with any intelligent species.” His scathing look called them all cowards. “Have ye never wondered what'll happen when we meet our equals? Oh, none such as those domesticated cat creatures. But our real equals. What'll the tender-minded do then? Humph. I suppose it'll be our turn to commit ritual suicide. Not that that's not what all the land-siders are doing right now, crowding everyone into lifetime coffin-sized rooms,” he snorted contemptuously. “If you get what I mean.”

"You forget, Captain," Hu Shih said gently, pressing his fingertips together, ''that the Tragedy at Siwannah must be the last outrage our race perpetrates against a helpless minority. It must be the last one. We have so many to regret starting with the Egyptian treatment of the wandering Semitic tribes, the decimation of the Caribs, the annihilation of the Amerinds, the German massacre of the Jews, the Chinese Attempt in 1974, the Black Riots of 1980. One goes on indefinitely until the Amalgamation of 2010 which was probably bloodier than any previous pogrom. We are all products of that decision from which we retain only ethnic surnames," and Hu Shih's graceful wave included everyone. "It isn't reassuring to wonder what further terrible incidents man would have on his conscience with such a background were he not restrained by the Principle."