Anne McCaffrey - Doona 1 - Descision At Doona

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Decision at Doona by: Anne McCaffrey
copyright 1969
VERSION 1.1 (Feb 16 00). If you find and correct errors in the text,
please update the version number by 0.1 and redistribute.
Contents
Characters
I Conference
II Escape
III Surprise
IV Contact
V Return
VI Reaction
VII Bridge
VIII Interference
IX Arrival
X Problem Child
XI The Feast
XII Rescue
XIII Red Letter Day
XIV Third Message
XV Interlude
XVI Barn Raising
XVII Search
XVIII Hereagin, Goneagin, Finnegin
XIX The Wrong Side
XX Turnabout
XXI Returnabout
XXII Delaying Tactics
XXIII Intervention
XXIV Proof Positive
XXV Vigil
XXVI Tumult and Shouting
L'ENVOI
CHARACTERS
Hrruban:
First Speaker Hrruna
Second Speaker for External Affairs Hrrto
Third Speaker for Internal Affairs
Fourth Speaker for Education
Fifth Speaker for Health and Medicine
Sixth Speaker for Production
Seventh Speaker for Management
Eighth Speaker for Computers
Senior Scout Chief Hrral
Hrrestan -- elder of village
Mrrva -- his mate
Hrriss -- their son
Hrrula -- young man of the village
Hrran -- Duty Officer on Hrruba
Mrrim -- Technician
Terran:
Kenneth Reeve, jack of all trades
Patricia Reeve, his wife
Ilsa, 10, Todd, 6
Hu Shih and Phyllis Hu
Sam and Aurie Gaynor
Victor and Anne Solinari
Lee and Sally Lawrence
Macy and Dot McKee
Ezra and Kate Moody
Bill Moody -- their son
Martin and Fawzia Ramasan
Alfred Ramasan -- their son
Ben and Akosua Adjei
Abe and Becky Dautrish
Buzz and Anneck Eckerd
Captain Ali Kiachif of the ship Astrid
Commander Al Landreau, Spacedep
Mr. E. K. Chaminade, Codep (Colonial Department)
Admiral Afroza Sumitral, Alreldep (Alien Relations Department)
Chapter I
CONFERENCE
THE PLANET RECEDED to a small, blue-green sphere, the lesser of its two
satellites beginning to pass across the retreating face of its primary, a
pearly tear in the north-east hemisphere. The film ended with such abruptness
that there was a pause before the viewers reacted with the customary
throat-clearing and chair-shuffling.
The First Speaker motioned for silence and bowed courteously toward the
Senior Scout whose inner apprehension defied his attempts to suppress it.
"Thank you, Senior Scout, for such an effective visual presentation,"
the First Speaker began blandly. "The planet is, as you have reported, a
pastoral jewel."
"Exactly!" And the Third Speaker rose to his feet, turning slightly to
First but not waiting for permission to address the group. "Exactly. A
pastoral jewel and utterly useless since its mineral and metal deposits are
too negligible to warrant the high cost of extraction. We'd do much better
working on that turbulent volcanic planet in Sector -- " he glanced at his
notes, "9A-23. It's far more important for us to increase our stores of the
rare elements so abundant there than to mess around with pastoral jewels."
The Senior Scout and the Chief of Extraterritorial Explorations
exchanged quick, concerned glances, but when the Chief leaned forward to their
sponsor, the Second Speaker, he received a barely perceptible nod of
reassurance.
"I believe Fourth has information relevant to 9A-23 and its
exploitation," First suggested.
The Fourth Speaker rose, shrugging his robe into place over his
shoulder.
"There is, unfortunately, no possibility of opening 9A-23 to an
exploitation venture." He gave a wry grimace. "There have been no applicants
for the courses required to train personnel for the complicated mining
procedures necessary to such a closed unit project."
"I find that hard to believe," Third muttered indignantly.
Fourth swiveled slightly toward Third, his attitude mildly rebuking him
for his aside.
"In fact, there have been very few applications for any training courses
in recent years except..."
"We'll go into your report in detail in a few minutes, Fourth," the
First Speaker broke in smoothly. "However, Fourth merely underscores one of
the many reasons why we are here to consider the opening of that lovely
pastoral planet to colonization."
"Colonization?" Third exploded.
"Exactly. And immediately."
"I fail to see how opening that useless planet to colonization can help
us get trained personnel to man a mining operation on 9A-23."
"With your kind permission?" said First, his irony so uncharacteristic
that Third subsided instantly, looking chagrined. "This lovely place,
graciously endowed with clean, fresh air, land, water, lakes, streams, fields,
mountains, deserts, abounding with all manner of wild life, yet none sentient
enough to violate our Prime Rule, vast stretches of uninhabited space -- " and
he caught the involuntary shudder that seized the Third Speaker. "A planet so
close to what our home world once was as to be its twin is perfect as a
retraining ground."
Undaunted, the Third Speaker rose to his feet, his eyes round, his
visage reflecting distaste and concern.
"Good sir, a hundred years ago the Ruar System proposal was
overwhelmingly rejected by 87% of the voting adults. You cannot be proposing
to revive that old wheeze about a return to the simple, pure, primitive life.
Why, who'd put up with such deprivations?"
The Senior Scout wondered if he could control himself.
"A hundred years ago," the First Speaker answered gently, "our suicide
rate among young adults was not what it is today, nor had the last major
continental mass of our fourth planet been dormitized, destroying the
remaining natural land; the sea harvests were still adequate for our
population's basic subsistence diet. Today we are faced with so grave a crisis
that I fear for the future of the race itself. In our search for freedom from
want and to remedy the inequalities of opportunity by the suppression of
physical competition on all levels, we have literally destroyed initiative,
ambition and vitality. The once vigorous hunter has become the enervated
observer.
"Fourth Speaker will shortly give us his report but let me repeat the
most distressing statistic: in the generation now approaching maturity, only
one half of one percent have indicated interest -- oh, nothing as decisive or
binding as actually applying; just an interest -- in training for technical or
administrative careers. I need not tell you that this falls disastrously below
even the minimum requirements for the replacement of essential personnel.
"We have become a people so passive, so pacifist, so detached and
unemotionally involved that even the effort to propagate our species has
become too great."
The Fifth Speaker for Public Health and Medicine nodded gravely, his
fingernails unconsciously tapping on his own distressing report.
"The Computers predict that, unless we immediately -- " and First paused
to impress on each of the Seven Speakers the gravity of his pronouncement,
"immediately begin to reverse this effect, our civilization will collapse of
its own dead weight within three generations. "Therefore," and the First
Speaker rose to his feet, "I, as First Speaker, have already chosen family
units to settle on this lovely new world, to begin an intensive re-education,
stressing those racial characteristics which allowed our ancestors to conquer
space and..."
"To hunt and kill?" breathed the Third Speaker in a horrified whisper.
"To hunt, yes. And to kill, yes, for food," the First Speaker agreed in
a gentle, reasonable tone, "with as primitive a weapon as is effective. There
are no sentients on this planet, Third Speaker, no creatures of any great
intelligence or sensitivity. It is, as you saw from the films, ecologically
balanced on the kill-or-be-killed natural order. Yet, even if we were forced
now -- on some other planet -- to consider the destiny of another rising
species, I trust that we have come far enough along evolution's scale by now
to remember the terrible lessons of past errors and to profit by them.
Indeed," and his smile was grim, "we have almost come too far along that scale
for the perpetuation of our own race. Therefore, as the truly rational
intelligent beings we profess to be, let us discuss this necessity from all
angles. I cannot, of course, presume to override anyone's honest beliefs and
principles. Fifth Speaker, you have comments relevant to this crisis do you
not?" With a haste inconsonant with the dignity of his office and his years,
the Fifth Speaker rose and, in a voice hoarse with distress, gave his
devastating report. He did not try to gloss over the frightening rise of
suicide deaths, including the irrational waves of mass, masochistic
self-destruction; a crushing apathy in some strata balanced by insensate
violence in others, the decreasing birth rate in the higher intelligence
percentiles; a disproportionate increase of mental retardation in the lower
brackets; an overall picture of racial decay and indifference.
The Fourth Speaker was asked to report more fully on Education. The good
gentleman glanced down at his thick report for a moment, then let it fall from
his hands to the table.
"The statistics are here. First Speaker has already acquainted you with
the essential one: one half of one percent of the maturing generation
indicates -- not applied for, has indicated only -- interest in further
training. When there is no incentive to learn anything, why bother? With the
performance records presently in hand in elementary levels, there is really no
point in my speaking at all. Soon there will be no teachers left to teach
those who do not wish to learn anyhow."
He shrugged and sat down, his chin sinking to his chest in an attitude
of disconsolate defeat.
The Sixth Speaker stood, clearing his throat, trying to dispel the gloom
cast by the Fourth.
Halfway through his own report on production and manufacturing he, too,
stopped and his report slapped quietly back to the table.
"There's no point in my going on either. Perhaps I'm fortunate in that
most of my department's operations are automatic, so personnel training is not
presently a problem. It will be. And soon."
The Third Speaker glared around at his peers, unable to catch anyone's
eye, until he reached the Second Speaker.
"And I suppose that you, too, are going to hang your head with still
more disgraceful mouthings of inefficiency and indifference."
"On the contrary," Second replied, looking first to his left for the
Prime Speaker's permission. "My Department attracts trainees constantly. Of
course, we have to reject many of them due to physical unfitness. Others are
disappointed because, unfortunately, the appropriation for Exploration and
Defense falls woefully behind its needs. Consequently, we get the best of our
vital young men and women. If Sixth is agreeable, I believe I can put it to
the Corps to volunteer to man the mining colony proposed for 9A-23, until such
time as other personnel can be found and trained."
There was something about the way Second made his helpful proposal that
irritated Third far more than First's rejection of the 9A-23 priority over the
pastoral planet. The reports, so devastatingly pessimistic, must be
exaggerations of actual fact. Moreover, the whole thing smacked of collusion.
He intended to check the print-outs in the Computer. However, before he had a
chance to gather his arguments, the First Speaker was taking a vote on
colonizing his pet project. The Third Speaker naturally felt obliged to
abstain from voting and was then forced to suppress his horrified indignation
when the other six Speakers voted in its favor.
The First Speaker wasted no further time but turned the meeting over to
the Chief of Extraterritorial Explorations.
The Chief rose, feeling a respect bordering on admiration for the Prime
Speaker's masterly handling of a tricky meeting. The Chief bowed to him,
catching no hint in the benign eyes that the re-education program which the
Chief was about to outline had, in actual fact, been initiated twenty years
ago.
Chapter II
ESCAPE
IT REQUIRED EVERY ounce of self-control Ken Reeve had developed over the
frustrating years of his adulthood to keep from shouting, singing, jumping or
committing a number of other social solecisms.
As it was, he received stern, remanding looks from the other passengers
in the express lift for the wide smile he couldn't repress.
He did make an effort to compose his face, to moderate his breathing to
the proper shallowness, but the mere knowledge that in the very near future he
would have a whole new world to breathe in made it difficult for him to
conform.
Nevertheless, because he couldn't risk an official summons which might
delay his triumphant return to Patricia, he did hunch his shoulders forward,
tucked his elbows tight to his straining rib cage, sucked in his guts and
pressed his knees together in the proscribed stance socially acceptable in an
elevator.
It was still impossible to limit his exultation, which he was evidently
broadcasting, judging by the constant surreptitious looks he received as the
cage plummeted down to the dormitory levels.
Never before had Ken been so aware of the weight, warmth and aroma of
humanity, or of the crowded life that had seemed inescapable; from which he
was actually going to escape. As never before, he was conscious of the odor of
a confined crowd: a composite of inefficient multiscented perspirant
inhibitors, breath cleansers, digestive neutralizers, the acrid overtones of
body-warmed inorganic fabrics, the hot-metals-old-paint stink, and, over all,
the air-conditioner's deodorizer, which had never been successful.
Stale air breathed by stale people into stale lungs to prolong stale
lives in a stagnant society!
The hydraulics were faulty again, Ken noticed, for the elevator stopped
with a sickening jolt. There had been a newscast recently, urging young adults
to apply for a career in maintenance. Not even the failure of two high-speed
freight elevators had stimulated any response to the call, though there had
been wide muttering about the lack of public spirit in the upcoming
generation. No one in his packed cage appeared to notice the jerking stop, but
then, Ken thought as he felt the pressure of soft flesh against him, we're so
tightly jammed in, no one could get hurt in a free-fall.
The wide doors slid reluctantly open. Ken mastered the incredible urge
to stride recklessly through the socially acceptable shuffle of the
disembarking. Heads shoulders bobbed forward around him. The hair on his shins
stood out in radar-like sensitivity to the constant proximity of other legs.
He gritted his teeth, wanting to race down the walk-belt of the 235th Hall,
but he doggedly matched his step with the other hundreds in that rippling sea
of bodies. The creeping pace was endurable if he thought of the fields and
hills he would soon be able to stride over. Did anyone -- any one of his
presently close fellow travelers -- know what a 'field' was? A 'hill'? He'd
wager they'd never even applied for a day at their local Square Mile.
But the wager he'd made after he had seen a Square Mile had paid off.
He, his wife, Pat, the two kids, Ilsa and Todd, were going to leave the land
warrens of Earth for the naked soil and sky of Doona. Doona! The name had a
talismanic ring: a fresh air ring, a real food ring, a landscape ring -- a
freedom ring!
The 235th Hall had never seemed so long to him, nor the walk-belt so
slow. It crawled past block after block until Ken felt every muscle twitching
at the restraints he had to impose on himself. But Proctors were everywhere in
the Hall, just waiting for a misdemeanor to break the monotony of their
four-hour watch. Ken had heard it rumored that Proctors received extra
calories for every conviction.
Well if that were so, he snorted to himself, innocently returning the
shocked glances cast in his direction as he turned guilt from himself with
practiced ease, their Aisle Proctor ought to be one helluva lot fatter than he
was. Up ahead, he heard a murmuring. He glanced over the barely bobbing
heads, lucky enough to be taller than most of the run of his generation. He
could hear a snuffling, the outraged mumble, the slight flurry of moving
bodies.
A case of flatulence, no doubt, he decided with an inward chuckle. That
offense'd reduce a lot of calories for someone if the criminal could be
identified.
Fortunately, before he reached the scene of the crime, he got to his
Corridor turn.
"Turn, please," he murmured in the properly distressed tone required of
a citizen imposing on his fellows.
With mechanical promptitude, the bodies directly to his right squeezed
either backward or forward and permitted him space enough to slip sideways to
the edge of the moving walk-belt and onto the stationary plastic floor.
"Corridor, please," he repeated endlessly as he sidled, a step at a
time, toward the 84th Corridor.
Christ, but it would be great to walk out without having to consult the
schedule for Pedestrian Traffic in Hall and Corridor Routes. He could have
been home from the Codep Block four hours ago. Of course, it had been great
meeting the rest of the Phase III group. Their leader and the metropologist of
the group, Dr. Hu Shih, was quite a guy; soft-spoken but firm, he seemed to
know every frame of the Spacedep survey and the Alreldep reports. Hu Shih must
have just got in under the age wire, too.
Ken spared a moment of wonder for the courage and tenacity of the many,
many Codep assignees who never had made it off-planet, or who had turned
overage before Spacedep released even a resources planet to Codep. God, to
live a whole lifetime with nothing-nothing but a dream that would never be
realized! To put up with the inferior quarters all inactive Codepers were
given, the subsistence allowance, the disrespect, the sneers and condescension
-- and then never get off-planet? Well, that had been one of the arguments of
his friends and family when he'd applied: Codep men died young -- suicides!
But not Ken Reeve. He and his were going. And the dream that had taken
fire the day he'd stood on the amazing soil of his Regional Square Mile, felt
grass, seen sky above him, blue and limitless, was going to be ful-filled.
Inadvertently Ken had lengthened his stride in the Corridor and trodden
on the heels of a citizen in front of him.
"Your number?" the man rasped out indignantly.
"I'll be off-world before you can bring it to Court," Ken replied in a
loud, carefree voice. Suddenly he no longer cared about earth-bound
conventions-not when he would soon have a whole planet to conquer. I'm going
to Doona!"
Indignation turned to shocked outrage.
"Off-world? He's mad!" "Idiot!" "Social deviant!" "Anarchist!" were some
of the clearly projected whispers around him.
"Your number!" the offended citizen demanded again.
"Sweat it, man," Ken advised him crudely and hopped off the Corridor,
ducking down the Aisle three up from his own. Let that proper citizen search
for him there! And Ken didn't care that it would take him another fifteen
minutes -- even at the acceleration permitted in an Aisle -- to double back to
Aisle 45.
At a heel-thumping walk, he passed two shuffling women, arm-locked,
faces nose-to-nose as they carried on a private mutter.
They squealed thinly as he thudded past them, but he had put too many
other pedestrians between himself and them before they could form a protest.
Fortuitously his own Aisle was sparsely occupied -- Todd had driven away
any resident who could wangle a transfer. He lengthened his stride, passing
others without the customary obsequiousness, ignoring the exclamations of
those who did recognize him. Their complaints, too, would not come up on the
docket before he left. And thank God, Pat and the kids would be transferred to
Co-dep's Cubed Block now that the whole family was on active assignment.
Active assignment! He chanted the alliteration like a prayer. Maybe now
they rated additional acoustical shielding so that Pat wouldn't suffer so much
ostracism because of Todd's asocial traits. Active assignment aids additional
acoustics, he expanded the litany, grinning foolishly.
As he threw open the door to their two rooms, he heard Pat's startled
warning. He managed to prevent the door handle from jamming into the thin back
threatened by his precipitate entrance.
"Mr. Reeve, it is easy to see where your son received his unsocial
tendencies," a whining whisper informed him.
Quickly closing the door behind him, Ken stared down at the socially
correct, emaciated skeleton that housed the petty spirited Proctor of their
Aisle Section.
"A pleasant day to you," Ken replied with such jaunty good humor that
Pat, who had obviously been taking a terrible tongue-lashing, stared at him
with dawning hope.
"How can it be pleasant when a steady stream of tenants report
insupportable noise emanating from these rooms?" Proctor Edgar demanded.
"Oh, but it is the pleasantest of days. Now take your nosy intolerant
bitching elsewhere!"
"Ken!" Pat screamed in a well-trained sotto voce. Then the strain and
pallor of her face were replaced by incredulous joy. "Active assignment?"
"You bet!"
"Mr. Reeve. Moderate your voice this instant. Your family has already
been reported nine times this week for social misdemeanors. I am reluctant to
reduce your calorie allowance any further but I must demand . .."
"Demand away," Ken encouraged him, beaming at Pat. "You have no
jurisdiction over us any more. We're out of it. We're going to Doona!"
"Doona!" Pat stifled her elation but she could not suppress the relief
she felt, even in the presence of non-family observers. "Oh, Ken, is it really
true?""True-true-true, Pat," and Ken, deliberately aggravating the outraged
Proctor, picked up his wife and kissed her lustily.
Reeve!" the Proctor's protest was barely audible over the smack of the
embrace.
"Get out if you can't stand it," Ken advised. "Go invade someone else's
privacy on the excuse of official business." He kept his hold on his wife with
one arm as he opened the door and shoved the Proctor back into the Aisle. At
the door's resounding slam, Pat came to her senses.
"Ken, you're mad. He'll, he'll -- " she floundered helplessly.
"He can't do a damned thing to us, not ever again," Ken assured her,
burying his face in Pat's silky hair and hugging her for the joy bursting
inside him. "We're going. We're going to be free to run and yell and stride
and -- feel!"
Chapter III
SURPRISE
"WELL, GENTLEMEN," Hu Shih announced as they finished breakfast that
morning, "the town is in good order, all winter damage is cleared away, fences
mended, fields plowed and sown, and our houses await our families. I believe
it is therefore safe to inaugurate those secondary projects we planned during
the long months of our winter."
When the cheering died, Ken Reeve pointed across the table at Sam
Gaynor. "C'mon, pal. Our project is the other side of the river."
"Damn walk-about nut," Gaynor growled with an anticipatory grin
spreading across his face. "Remember, you guys, every man jack heard Ken bet
he could walk me, me! off my feet."
"Anyone who wants to walk after the winter we put in," Lee Lawrence
exclaimed, throwing up his hands in disgust, "is queer."
"It's spring, man, you don't need snowshoes," Ken countered, grabbing up
a handful of lunch rations.
"Spring! When a man's fancies should turn to more than long tiring
walks," Lee Lawrence remarked sourly.
"Speaks the sociologist?" Macy McKee taunted, for Lee was famed for his
ingenuity in avoiding exercise.
"Walking won't be so bad now it's spring," Vic Solinari put in. "And
next winter won't be so bad either, now we know what it's like during winter
on Doona," he added, thinking of the exigencies which he, as storemaster, had
had to practice over the incredible ten-month winter season.
"Long and cold," Sam quipped.
"But next winter," and Lee leered significantly, "we'll have our wives
with us."
Ezra Moody, the doctor, groaned. "God, I'll be busy next spring!"
"Who's going to let you wait till next spring?" Lee demanded, bringing
his chair down with a crash
"They'll be here any day now," Ken sighed with a sudden harsh yearning.
"C'mon, Sam, shake a leg!" he urged and started for the door.
Their exit signalized an exodus from the mess hall in which they had
spent so much of their time. In fact, by the time Ken and Sam were depositing
their gear in the small powered skiff at the river's edge, only Solinari was
left in the Common.
An hour later, when Ken and Sam returned at a dead run and in a kind of
incredulous wrath, they had to hang on the air whistle for five minutes before
anyone returned.
"What'n'hell's the matter with you, Reeve?" demanded Lee Lawrence, the
first to arrive.
"We're not alone on Doona, Lee," Ken cried, waving the quick-prints at
the startled sociologist. "We're not alone!"
"You're round the bend, man!"
"No, he's not," growled Sam Gaynor, his face set in hard, bitter lines.
"There's a village across the river in that grove of porous wood trees, where
the river widens below the falls. A big village, full of furred, tailed cats
that walk on their hind legs and carry knives."
Lee sat down slowly on the top step of the mess hall porch, staring at
the photographs Sam thrust in front of his face.
"If I didn't have these, I'd've sworn it was a mirage or something," Sam
went on. "Because, Almighty God, I couldn't believe my eyes."
"And there was no village in that clearing when we were there last fall
or last winter," Ken added, white beneath his tan.
"It stinks!" Lawrence grated out. "Oh God, you didn't talk to 'em? You
weren't seen?" he added, reverting to his professional self.
"Hell, no. I shot the camera and we sloped out of there," Ken assured
him. "Oh God, what do we do now? Phase IV is already started," Lawrence
groaned.
"One thing's sure," Ken reminded him sourly, "they can't reach the ship
in warp drive to turn it back, and it's not scheduled to stop this side of
Doona."
At that moment, Hu Shih, Ramasan and Ben Adjei came running across the
Common and by the time the others had reported in, Sam, Ken and Lee had
some-what adjusted to the unsettling discovery. Hu Shih was already running
through the tapes and films of Phase I and II for any references to the porous
wood forest in which the village so blatantly existed.
"There is absolutely no evidence of any habitation in that area on any
of these reports," he said in a decisive tone, his face inscrutable. "Not a
house, not a roof, not a shingle in sight." Hu Shih picked up one of Ken's
quick-prints, regarded it thoughtfully a moment before placing it carefully
beside the inaccurate films.
"Well, the place is now crawling with cats," Sam Gaynor said into the
silence.
"I thought cats lived in caves," Eckerd, the other jack-of-all-trades,
remarked inanely, looking up from his elaborate doodle in spilled sugar.
"That is not as odd," Dautrish, the botanist, added, "as the fact that
there is no other even faintly felinoid species on this planet. Strange that
only one would evolve and to such a dominant position."
"Hmmm, a very interesting observation, Abe," Lee drawled. "Nevertheless,
it does not bear on the fact that our noble Spacedep has committed a grave
error."
"Error" cried Victor Solinari in mock horror. The storemaster's voice
was edged with bitter sarcasm. "Our noble spacemen fallible?"
"But how could the Phase II scouts have missed a village as big, as well
established as this one?" Gaynor demanded, jutting his chin out with ursine
aggressiveness.
"Tell you what," Lawrence suggested, waggling a finger at Sam, "I'll bet
those Phase II-ers experimented with that local red berry and they thought the
pussycat people were just hallucinations! Last night I went upon a bat, and
saw a tawny six-foot..."
"This is no joke!" Gaynor snapped.
"Son," drawled Lawrence, his mockery gone, his voice rough, "iffen Ah
doan laff, Ah sure as hell stinks am gwanta cry!"
Silence gripped the eleven men as each fought to control his emotions at
this crushing blow; this unexpected denouement to years of training and hope.
The grotesque injustice of it all threatened to over-whelm Ken Reeve. He
thrust back the childish desire to deny what his eyes had seen, to disregard
the evidence of the pictures he himself had taken. He thought of the
incredible effort required of them throughout the past ten months; physical,
mental and emotional. Not merely the hard work of building the colony's
headquarters and family homes, of enduring the unfamiliar discomforts of a
long hard cold winter, but the psychological upheavals of adjusting to
something as fundamental as open sky, broad fields -- everyone had experienced
some agoraphobia -- organic foods which, no sweat, had had to be killed by men
who had never before ended the life of an ant. However, once they'd run out of
their pre-packaged protein supplies, any reluctance had quickly disappeared
with the onslaught of hunger pangs. But such minor things as learning to shout
to bridge distance, to run, even to be able to hike for miles at a time -- all
these new skills had had to be learned in painful adjustments. The idea of
having to return to Earth and its stale, antiseptic sham life was grossly
repellent.
"There must be a mistake," Reeve heard himself say.
"No, we're the mistake," Lawrence replied bitterly. "If the cats are
here, we shouldn't be. Simple as that. And at that, we have already broken the
guiding principle of the Colonial Department."
"Sweat the goddamned stinking principle," Gaynor said obscenely. He
lurched to his feet and faced Hu Shih. "We're here. We've worked, we've bled,
we've -- sweated..."
"Gentlemen," the colony leader cut in sharply, rising to his feet. He
turned to Gaynor, waiting until the engineer had subsided to his seat. "It
would be nice to believe that the evidence of these pictures is a mistake -- a
mirage, as Sam suggested. But such houses are all too solid and cameras do not
lie, despite the Phase I and II inaccuracies. Such houses do not grow
overnight. Although I could wish that they did. We might then establish a
prior claim to our lovely Doona." He surveyed his fingertips contemplatively
before he continued. "How such evidence of habitation can have escaped not
only the robot cameras of the orbiting probe in Phase I but also the trained
eyes of the scouts is beyond my comprehension. But," and he paused to sigh
deeply, "they are there. And we are here! And we have broken the Principle of
Non-Cohabitation, by existing here with another and obviously sentient
species."
"And when our families land, what do we tell them?" Ken demanded softly.
"Do we say, Hello, honey, how are you? Have a good trip? Well, that's nice
because we're going to turn around and go right back home." Home!" And into
that last word Ken crammed all the bitterness, frustration, disappointment and
black anger that boiled inside him.
Home! A planet so overpopulated you married at sixteen to get on the
list to have one of the two children allowed you before you were thirty --
that is, if you could prove that you had no hereditary genetic faults or
handicapping recessive traits. A planet so crowded for space there were only
twelve Square Miles of international backyard remaining. He'd been eighteen
before he had touched dirt, seen grass or smelled a pine tree. A trip to the
local Square Mile had been his cherished award for being top man in Section
Academy. The poignant memory of the experience had motivated and sustained him
during the frustrating years of intensive study necessary to qualify for
immigration under Colonial Department jurisdiction.
Once a man met the basic requirements of Codep, he was put on another
list which permitted him to study specialties, one of which might get him a
place on a Colony list. That is, if he had been lucky enough to choose a
specialty needed on the very few planets turned over by the Spacedep and the
Alien Relations Department to the Colonial Department.
In order for a planet to be relinquished to Codep control, it must meet
two simple requirements: 1) Humans must be able to support themselves on it
without atmospheric or gravitic adjustment. 2) It must be devoid of any
dominant intelligent species.
In a hundred years, only nineteen of the two-thousand-odd worlds
examined had been cleared by both Spacedep and Alreldep to Codep. Small wonder
that this pastoral planet, with its earthlike atmosphere, its
slightly-less-than-Earth gravity presented such a desirable Eden. Even the
fact that its sidereal year was twice that of Earth, with winters and summers
lasting ten months, did not form an insurmountable obstacle to its settlement.
True, Doona was light on metals, but it was larger than Earth by some two
thousand miles in diameter. Doona's two satellites might possibly have some
mineral or light metal deposits that could be developed later on. The first
job of the Initial colony was to farm the land, experimenting with both Terran
and indigenous grains, adapting Terran livestock to Doona and, if possible,
domesticating the herd, animals which roamed Doona's pasturelands. When the
colony had proved itself self-supporting, it would be augmented from Earth's
teeming millions. Considering the relatively few transport ships in Codep
service, this would take decades.
A constant source of bitterness between the three departments were the
miserly appropriations allowed them by the Amalgamation Congress. With
government funds constantly drained for new ways to ease housing and food
shortages, to provide entertainment for the restriction-ridden masses,
Spacedep, Alreldep and Codep got short shrift despite their logical pleas
that, if more money were allocated for shipbuilding, for explorations, for
immigration, the strain on Terran resources would naturally be eased.
True, not a large percentage of the population desired to move from the
tri-D tube and the work-saving mechanisms which provided the bread, beer and
tranquilizers that made their convention-rimmed life supportable.
There were still enough Ken Reeves, Sam Gaynors, Hu Shihs to fill Codep
rosters; men and woman eager and willing to accept hazard and struggle rather
than a life of restriction and boredom. However, pastoral planets were not
high on the preferred list. Worlds with quantities of ore or rare minerals had
preference. Man could always live on hydroponics and synthetics while he mined
rocky planets like NC-A-43 or water worlds like SE-B-95. Fortunately, the
zoological lobby had helped put Doona on the preference list. Livestock such
as horses, cows, buffalo, deer, chickens, dogs, cats and other once common
animals and fowls were dwindling to extinction, despite Preservation's
techniques, so that a pastoral planet would have to be opened to perpetuate
the useful animal species once common on Earth.
A subtle campaign had been waged on Earth through Tri-D, brain-washing a
generation of children with ancient movies of animal heroes, by blackmail, by
subliminal posters. When the bill to colonize pastoral Doona came up before
the voters, it was passed by a landslide.
As Ken Reeve's bitter words echoed through the mess hall, Hu Shih
thought rapidly.
摘要：

DecisionatDoonaby:AnneMcCaffreycopyright1969VERSION1.1(Feb1600).Ifyoufindandcorrecterrorsinthetext,pleaseupdatetheversionnumberby0.1andredistribute.ContentsCharactersIConferenceIIEscapeIIISurpriseIVContactVReturnVIReactionVIIBridgeVIIIInterferenceIXArrivalXProblemChildXITheFeastXIIRescueXIIIRedLette...

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