Anne McCaffrey - Decision at Doona

"Yechk!" Kiachif said derisively. "Pure luck. Wouldn't have happened on any other planet!" His stained finger pointed accusingly at the metropologist, who regarded it with hypnotic fascination. "And it wouldn't have resulted in such stupidity as that fool Principle if Terra hadn't just recovered from that nasty Amalgamation. The stabbing finger swung 180 degrees and shook out the window at the busy scene on the Common. "D'ye think those cats would have curried their fur and placidly lain down to die? No! Far better for our poor over-packed planet if we'd met them first." Kiachif's eyes widened to incredible circles of white, emphasized by the regular half-circle of black eyebrows. "Have any of you," he asked softly in a sudden switch of mood, his eyes narrowed again, "ever read the transcript of the Siwannach? What? Ssshuuu," Kiachif whistled in disgust. Up went his hands in a gesture of exasperation, one descending with a loud clap to his knee, the other to resuming its remorseless probing.

«So! You must know you were being drugged into automatons on Earth. You certainly risked the indignities that they always heap on Inactives, in order to get away. But,» the finger jabbed toward Reeve, then McKee and finally to the metropologist, «you don't rouse yourselves enough to question what you've been taught. You hate a cramped, machine-made existence but don't question why you have to endure it. You question the emptiness of life but not why you have to wait so long for an opportunity to leave it. And you never question why this doesn't change. There have to be changes in a world if it's to grow – and I don't mean spread out – I mean grow up – you see what I mean?» The captain's voice was cajoling. «Haven't you ever really looked at the beginnings of those idiotic restrictions?»

"I have read the original Siwannach transcripts, Captain," Hu Shih said, gently firm." And I know to what you refer; that one little phrase that some believe was innocently mispronounced. That one little phrase that caused a whole race of profoundly gentle, devout people to commit suicide. It is a case in point of what I have always said: no adult ever really learns the nuance and rhythm of another language perfectly." He sighed deeply. "At least the Amalgamation provided one common language in which all express themselves, even as the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tze suggested 6500 years ago. However," and Hu Shih held up one slender hand, a contrast to the large blunt-fingered fist of Kiachif, "it was not only regret at such an occurrence and a desire to avoid a repetition which prompted the Non-Cohabitation Principle. It was the feeling that the greedy acquisition of more planets on which to spread the products of our then uncontrolled breeding was not the real answer to our problem. It was the knowledge that we have no right to take away from another species their own peculiar road toward self-fulfillment. What role might the Amerinds have played in history if the white man had not weakened them with measles and small-pox and whisky? What tragedies might have been avoided if the black man had not been wrenched from his own continent by gold-hungry exploiters? Oh, the list of intentional atrocities is so long. No, and the gentle voice was as inexorable as Kiachifs histrionics, "the Non-Cohabitation Principle is a sound one, a just one and, to my great shame, we have broken it. That is why we must perpetrate no lasting harm on these pleasant friendly people."

“The captain is also right, Shih,” McKee put in quietly. “He has to follow his schedule. That means we stay until Codep recalls us, if you get what we mean.”

Hu Shih drew himself up and looked so disapproving that McKee blanched and dropped his eyes.

«I get what you mean, Macy. And I repeat – we leave when we are ordered to. And if that homing capsule arrives before tomorrow's blast-off, we leave tomorrow.»

The metropologist did not see the not-if-I-can-avoid-it expression of Kiachifs face.

“Super,” the Captain boomed out to break the awkward pause, “all your papers in order? I'm getting mighty hungry for what smells like honest-injun food. By the Great Horned Toad, that aroma's killing me,” and he drew in a massive breath from the open window. “If you get what I mean!”

THE HUGE BONFIRE burned with a bluish-purple, orange-tipped flame, lighting the Common spectacularly. Trestle tables had been set up and hastily improvised benches had been extruded from plastic scrounged from the ship's supplies. To men long celibate there was the wonderful presence of women, coming and going between the mess hall and the barbecue pit. There Ramasan presided over the spit with the huge prong-horned urf buck slain by the joint efforts of Hrruban and Terran hunters for the occasion. Torches moved down the long slope from Saddle Ridge, across the river, as still more Hrrubans came to the feast. As the firelight threw shadows of grotesque parodies, Ken wondered that there were so many Hrrubans in the one village.

The women had pitched into the preparations with a determination that proved they were avoiding all thought of the future and its problems. Ken was not the only man grateful for feminine reticence, and thankful to whatever instinct prompted them to make this night one to remember.

Aurie Gaynor, as if to make up for her husband's allergy, stood at the bridge to welcome the Hrruban guests.

Julie O'Grady and the Colonel's Lady, whoever they were," she had flung at Lee Lawrence when she volunteered herself. "And if I can't purr, I can radiate charm, wit and personality."

Phyllis Hu, a delicate-appearing woman with luminous beauty, had taken a rapturous inventory of the available supplies of local produce. She told Ramasan he had been chef long enough and to please go turn that buck so it wouldn't char. She'd handle the rest. Imagine, letting a man fool with real food.

Akosua Adjei and Ann Eckerd (known as Anneck to distinguish her from Anne Solinari) took charge of setting up dining facilities. Sally Lawrence unpacked her treasured guitar and Ezra Moody proved how successfully he had been able to use local animal gut to restring his violin. Dot McKee and her twin teenage daughters volunteered as scullery crew.

Aurie Gaynor sent a message to Ken Reeve that the Hrruban women were coming laden with food and what did one do?

“Just show them where to set the stuff down,” Reeve told young Bill Moody. “With the exception of two tubers and some local fungi, we tolerate the same foods. And, Bill, those round purplish nuts are the best eating on this world or the next.”

Reeve had settled himself with Dautrish and Hu Shih and they were shortly joined by the captain and the supercargo.

“Like the old-timey pioneer days in the nineteenth century, if you get what I mean,” the captain was saying as the men watched the well-organized chaos around them “How much of this local smokable you got on hand, Mr. Botanist?” he asked Dautrish, relishing the taste in his pipe.

«Well, not a great deal. The Hrrubans don't smoke,» Dautrish began. «I gather it has medicinal properties for them rather than – whatever you call smoking.»

“I feel,” Hu Shih remarked, “the evening supplies its own pleasant intoxicants of good food taken in the presence of loved ones long missed, and of new-found friends.”

“I get what you mean,” Kiachif agreed with patient resignation.

Out of a pool of darkness cast by a small shrub, Hrrestan and Hrral stepped toward them. Reeve rose immediately and introduced the two Hrrubans to Kiachif and the supercargo. As he stepped aside to allow the two elders to seat themselves, Reeve caught sight of Hrral's tail carefully curling under the bench, and remembered his son.

“Good Lord, that child's still locked in his room,” he exclaimed with guilty remorse.