Crisis On Doona (39 page)

“None zaken, Captain. I have sent more messages to our friends on Earth,” Hrriss said. “My father was there when they left to Zreaty Island. We have so little time left, but I believe they are on Earth.”

“Earth’s a damned big place to find two Humans, laddie,” Kiachif said grimly. “I’d have more luck searching space.”

The radio buzzed and Pat grabbed up the handset, her face wild with her desperate hope for good news.

“Yes, Vic? ... They are? But where? You don’t know? Then how can you be sure ... Oh, Hrrula ... Well, yes, I do trust him as you do. Yes, yes, I understand. Oh, I think I do understand!” There was a glow on her worn face when she turned to the rest of the room. “Vic Solinari has had a message from Hrrula. Kelly is safe, and Nrrna.” Pat reached out to grip Hrriss’s arm reassuringly.

“Where did they get to, then?” Kiachif asked.

“Hrrula would only say that they are in the safest place they could possibly be. We’re not to worry about them.”

Hrriss threw his head up, his shoulders back, and his eyes began to gleam. “Zzoo! Zat Kelly,” and his laughter was a loud purr of mixed satisfaction and surprise.

“Where are they, Hrriss?” Pat asked, giving his arm a shake as she peered up into his face.

“With the best friend we could have right now.”

“I think I get what you mean, m’lad,” Kiachif said, and winked.

* * *

Dalkey Petersham straightened his narrow collar before answering his comlink line’s signal. Six hundred hours was an odd time for a call, but fortunately he was already up and dressed. Kelly again? She was always turning up at odd times. Dalkey switched on the unit. The screen displayed the face of a man he’d never seen before, but he certainly recognized the uniform: Poldep. Dalkey gulped. He knew he was being watched in the office now, but pretended he didn’t. Partly because he really didn’t want to be under observation. That only resulted in unpleasantness sooner or later. Fortunately he’d sent all he could to Kelly without breaking into the current data banks, so perhaps they’d stop watching him if he went strictly about his proper business. He still didn’t know how Kelly had talked him into stripping those old files, but Kelly had a way with her. And it had been fun, delving into files, showing how cleverly he could penetrate massive files and extract just the information he needed. If only someone else would realize that Dalkey Petersham had untapped potential. But why was a Poldep inspector calling him at this hour? Spacedep had their own—and Dalkey gulped again—disciplinary branch. Then he remembered that Kelly had gone to Poldep, so this call might have more to do with Kelly Solinari than Dalkey Petersham.

“This is Sampson DeVeer,” the moustachioed man said. “This is the communications number left by a young woman who has been assisting me in one of my inquiries. A Miss Green.”

Kelly! Then he had lulled suspicion in his office. Relieved, Dalkey wondered if he should try to look dashing and piratical, suitable for the acquaintance of a police informant, or as harmless as possible. Harmless seemed more sensible. You lived longer if no one felt threatened by you. He let his shoulders hunch forward a little bit and tried to look clerkish. “Yes, sir?”

“I have received a request from another quarter to locate one of the subjects concerned in that investigation,” DeVeer said obscurely. He waited, and Dalkey realized that he wanted Dalkey to prove he knew what the officer was talking about.

“That wouldn’t be a member of the Reeve family, would it?” Dalkey asked, and DeVeer nodded. “Has that party been found?”

“Ahem, how did you know the party was missing?” DeVeer asked.

“Mrs. Reeve inquired by way of comp-line if by any chance one of her relatives had been in touch with me,” Dalkey replied, thinking there was no harm in that. “She doesn’t think they got as far as here.”

The man sighed gently and smoothed his moustache with a fingertip. “That is a possibility which this office has been investigating. We thought you might help.”

“If I should hear from either of them, I will contact you immediately.” Dalkey felt that was safe to say.

“Please be sure to.”

There was something ominous about that phrasing but the call was disconnected.

* * *

Hrringa didn’t often leave the Hrruban Center. Hayumans should be accustomed to Hrrubans by now, but he was always conscious of stares, discreet, indirect observations. Nor could he tell if this was mere curiosity, bad manners, or outright hostility. The last seemed unlikely, judging by what he had observed of
Them.
Their lack of expression bothered him most, for he could not tell, as he could of any Hrruban countenance, what they felt: their eyes black dots in the center of oblong white orbs. Without another of his kind to keep him company, he often felt himself a hostage on Earth. Should something go very wrong with the Treaty, he might be eliminated by a tribe of these expressionless white-eyed folk, even if physically he was larger than most, and certainly stronger. That he might be faced with death on this posting had been subtly suggested to him in his original briefing. He had been chosen from the young applicants of many distinguished stripes because of his calm nature, excellent bearing, and diplomatic training.

‘The Zreaty is at a crucial stage, as I am certain you are awarrre,” Hrringa said to Rogitel when he was finally admitted to the Spacedep subchief’s office. With Terran officials, he spoke Terran. “I have juzt been approached by an official of yrrr Poldep. He asks is it possible zat I wass given the wrrong date and hourr for the arrival of the Rrevs? I was zold to expect zem. Zey have not come. I waited all that night for zeir appearrance, and set the alarrrms so that I would be awakened zereafter by the activation of the grrid.”

“Alarms?” Rogitel asked. His face remained still, but he felt agitated. He had been waiting for a report from the men he had hired to wait for the Reeves outside Alreldep block, and was concerned at the delay. This was a snag he had not anticipated, that the Reeves had failed to appear inside the Hrruban Center.

The Hrruban’s tail lashed once in dismay. “Yes, motion alarrms. I do not usually set zem because no otherrs of my species are perrmitted on Arrth, and the only Hayuman outpost with a grid is Rrala, so I do not see much traffic. There is no need to arrise in the off-shifts to rrceive a nonsentient shipment, the most frrquent use of the grrid.”

“True.” Rogitel wasted few words, especially ones that might be misconstrued.

“The alarrms are very sensizive. Nothing set zem off, not yesterday, and not zoday. I tessted zem mysself just beforre I came to be certain that they were in worrking orrder and zey are. Zo I must ask you, honorred sir, has something happened to delay the Rrevs? Surely if they were summoned by the court, zey would have come? Zey are known to be honorrrable men. Am I in error?”

“You are not,” the commander said. “The Amalgamated Worlds court was waiting for them.” Rogitel stood up and nodded curtly to the Hrruban. “Thank you for coming to see me, honored sir. I will look into the matter, and bring it to the attention of my superior.”

Hrringa bowed and left.

* * *

Within the hour, Admiral Landreau appeared in the Hrruban Center and demanded instantaneous transport to Doona. He was upset. He had been expecting to hear in bloody detail how Rogitel’s hired toughs disposed of the Reeves and found out that the damned nuisances had not even reached Earth! Rogitel was in trouble, for not verifying that the prisoners had not been taken into custody by his hirelings and disposed of as arranged. There was only the one fast way back to Earth—by the Hrruban Center’s grid. Had someone tipped off the Reeves as to the reception awaiting them?

Landreau had thoroughly enjoyed listening to the furor among the Doonan colonists, caused by the midnight summons of the Reeves to appear before the Amalgamated Worlds panel. What had happened? Rogitel had seen them safely to the Treaty Island grid. They had been transferred by that abominable mechanism, but the men waiting outside the Hrruban Center swore blind that neither Reeve had left the block. None of the corner monitors at each angle of the building recorded anyone passing, in either direction. Could the rumormongers on Doona be correct? The cowards had done a flit? Unless, and Landreau considered this possibility, they had been in cahoots with the grid operator on Doona and got themselves transported to some village where they were no doubt lying low until after the Treaty was ratified.

Landreau swore under his breath. Damned cats couldn’t be trusted to do even the simplest things: like key in a proper grid destination. The wretched felines had been a thorn in his side all along. If those Reeves were hidden somewhere on Doona, he’d find them if it was the last thing that he ever did in his life.

He continued muttering to himself while Hrringa hastened to set the controls for transmission to Treaty Island. The engulfing smoke rose around him and blotted out the Hrruban’s expressionless cat face.

Landreau grunted in relief as he recognized the Treaty Island facility and strode off the platform. Yes, that was what had happened. The bedamned grid operator had redirected the Reeves somewhere on Doona. Why hadn’t Rogitel checked the settings? Or had the Treaty Controller do so? Slack discipline, that! You had to do everything yourself to see it done properly. Landreau wheeled, confronting the grid operator directly.

“What is your name?” he demanded of the astonished Hrruban. All grid operators understood Standard. Had to.

“Hrrenya,” the Hrruban replied, surprised.

“Who is your superior?”

“Zreaty Contrrollerr,” the cat man answered, backing away from Landreau and blinking his eyes. “He is seniorr diplomaz on Rrala.”

“You were on duty three nights back? When the Treaty Controller and Commander Rogitel brought the Reeves here? D’you know the Reeves?” The Hrruban nodded quickly. “Where did you send them?”

“To Arrth as I was inzructed, honorred sir.”

“You didn’t!” Landreau shouted. “You didn’t! They never arrived on Earth. Where
did
you send them? Someplace right here on Doona. Isn’t that right?”

Landreau’s rising voice had attracted attention. Out of a nearby corridor, three of the Treaty Councillors hurried toward the grid, the Controller among them. The grid operator tried to keep his dignity, tried to remain calm, but the Hayuman’s face was growing very red and, without fur to cover it, it was a terrifying sight. Grid operators were not trained in diplomatic matters, so Hrrenya was intensely relieved to see assistance near at hand.

“Admiral Landreau,” the Treaty Controller snapped out in Hrruban. “Why are you berating our operator? You should report any insubordination or impudence to me.”

“Where are Ken and Todd Reeve?” Landreau turned on the Controller as perhaps the genuinely guilty party in this absurd miscarriage. He stubbornly kept to his own language, too enraged to exercise any courtesy until he had the answers he had come to find.

“What?” the Controller demanded, as stubbornly replying in Hrruban. “Are they not on Terra? You demanded their presence there three days ago. I myself witnessed their departure.”

“What do you mean, they’re not here? Your drone there,” and Landreau swung an arm toward the grid operator, whose tail was between his legs in fear, “sent them somewhere here on Doona instead of back to Earth so they could answer for their crimes. They are my prisoners. I demand that the Reeves be produced and sent immediately to stand trial.”

“You demand?” the Hrruban snarled, the points of his teeth exposed. Treaty Controller flew into a rage. “You have dishonored our people who live on Rrala, by using these Humans, whom you have yourself misplaced, to commit foul crimes against the Treaty which you pretend to support. If you cannot find them on your planet, then that is no fault of ours. Seek to set your own tribe in order without falsely accusing those of another.”

Landreau’s momentum came to a dead halt. The Treaty Controller’s anger was too genuine to have been faked. Landreau was a fair judge of knowing truth from lie and the Treaty Controller obviously told the truth—or what he thought was the truth. If the Reeves had transported, why hadn’t Rogitel’s men detained them? Or did that fur-faced Hrringa assist them and send them out of the Hrruban Center a secret way? He’d never been too happy with the secrecy shielding the Hrruban Center from outside interference.

“Naturally you would defend your employee,” Landreau began, trying another tack. “How do you know that he was not got at? Bribed? Those men should have been sent to Earth to answer for their offenses. They did not arrive. They are still on Doona!”

Treaty Controller drew himself up indignantly, looking down with great condescension on the stocky smaller Human. “We have more important matters to debate than the whereabouts of two troublesome Hayumans. If the young Reeve does not appear at his trial, he is by default guilty and so is his partner in crime. We are constrained to continue for the next two days to work out details which may, indeed, be irrelevant. But we are by honor bound to continue.”

He swept magnificently away, though the other Councillors did not immediately follow. The small woman who had met the Admiral on his last visit, Madam Dupuis, gazed at him steadily, as if she was trying to read his mind. Did she know something of his secret plans?

“You have no jurisdiction to search Doona, Admiral,” she said in a cold expressionless voice. “Go back to Earth. Where you belong.” She signalled to the grid operator, repeating her order in her fluent Hrruban and waited, arms folded, to see that her order was obeyed.

Uncomfortable on many counts, Landreau had to step back on the grid and hope that the presence of Madam Dupuis meant that the grid operator would explicitly follow his orders.

* * *

When Ken tried to move, his head hurt, and his wrists were pressed against the small of his back. His hands were numb. He tried to turn over and pull them apart to restore circulation, but he couldn’t move. He opened his eyes to the unencouraging sight of a dull gray wall. Squirming, he tried to free his hands, but they were tied by a taut binding that allowed no slack he could use to free them. He turned his head in a quick survey. There wasn’t much light, but sufficient to see Todd’s limp body on a flat plank of wood similar to the one under him.