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entertainments and unofficial meetings at his hilltop home, well out of the
way of Todd and those working on the language project.
Superficially, Jilamey seemed to be to be working both ends against the
middle, soothing the disappointed members of the interrupted conference while
he made no bones about his Gringgophilia.
He evidently made much of his being included in the first contact group.
The austere Barrington copted daily down to bring private and encouraging
reports to Todd. Todd took these with a grain of salt, knowing Jilamey's
enthusiasms, but Barrington's manner of reportage allowed him to hope that
much of what Jilamey said was true.
Especially when Barrington relayed Jilamey's firm opinion, one
Barrington seemed to support, that the Gringg's only objective was to
establish trade relations.
It was on this point that Jilamey urged patience until the translation problem
could be solved and how he managed to keep the frustrated delegates from
leaving Doonarrala. Ironically, Tanarey Smith became one of Jilamey's
converts, especially after Landreau persuaded Eonneh to escort the shipbuilder
around the Wander Den, the rough translation of the Gringg vessel's name.
There were those who read a more ominous interpretation of slightly ambiguous
Gringg words, but they were few.
Todd could not ignore the undercurrents of dissatisfaction, even among
Gringg supporters, that the talks of the space facility had been put on hold.
When he had time, he gave some thought to that. As a child, he had absorbed
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his father's views about co-habitation: as an adult, he shared his father's
opinion about any intrusive invasions of Hrruban lands on the planet. All
right, it was Hayuman greed that his father feared and it was the Hrrubans who
had initiated the space port project.
But did it matter which species encroached? If the rule applied on
Doonarrala, it applied for both!
Had the arrival of the Gringg now altered the equation?
No, the Gringg had not been invited to take up holdings on Doonarrala.
Although he was optimistic of the outcome, the Gringg hadn't been officially
allowed to open trade on Doonarrala. Todd, well conditioned by Captain Ali
Kiachif over the years, considered trading a different matter entirely to
occupation or habitation. The crunch came when
"where' the space port could be sited was discussed.
Todd knew how cramped and inadequate the old Hall at the space port was for
the volume of commerce that flowed in and out of it.
Something had to be done to expand the facilities. No one wanted a larger
complex at the original landing site, oozing towards the First
Villages, ruining the peaceful valley. So a new location was imperative.
Each time Todd mulled over the problem, he still found himself opposed to
Siting a larger port anywhere on the lovely subcontinent that was now called
Hrrunat. That should be left as the naturat memorial park to the old First
Speaker that he, and all
Doonarralans, had intended for it to be.
He'd leave the sore subject for another time, when he was thinking clearly and
logically, not so emotionally nor - he admitted to himselfclose-minded. His
brain was working overtime trying to cope with a difficult new language.
Gradually the daily sight of the large, shaggy strangers moving about with
their Hayuman or Hrruban escorts took the edge off the "fearsome hairy
monsters' appellation. The Gringg became the "big bears' or
Bruins to most Doonarralans. But xe;iophobic pessimists somehow began
arriving in from Terra and Hrruba and familiarity was not going to
appease them. They visited every village, Hayuman and Hrruban, whispering
against the "fiendish Gringg." They muttered about "murders most vile' and
"devastated worlds' but would slip away before they could be closely
questioned.
Todd worked all the harder to get the one tool that would throttle doubters
and doomsayers both, and allow the Gringg to speak for themselves. Couldn't
people wait for that? Instead of riling up unnecessary fears and forecasts?
The voder that Cardiff had designed with Koala was a brilliant piece of audio
engineering. It made use of the tiny Gringg resonator, memory chips and other
components from both Terra and Hrruba in common use on
Doonarrala, all fitted into a compact case seven centimetres by two by five.
Worn about the neck on a cord, it "heard' what the wearer said and repeated it
in Gringg. "Growl' box, or simply, the growler, its creators nicknamed it.
Cardiff, with the help of two of the university engineers, worked long hours
to turn out six of the voders so that Ken, Todd and Hrriss could discuss
Gringg objectives with Grizz, Honey and Panda. The session was filmed and,
although Barnstable had a fit at being excluded and the secrecy in which the
interview was conducted, Sumitral remarked that not even he, as Alreldep head,
had been included, in an attempt to provide as relaxed an atmosphere as
possible. Once again, he reinforced the position of Reeve and Hrrestan to
conduct their own planetary affairs.
There had been some heated reminders that the Gringg vessel was the concern of
Spacedep.
"I could agree with you if it carried armament,' Sumitral had replied suavely.
"It carries only peaceful visitors!" For Todd and Ken particularly, the
conference was a golden moment for they established contact and exchanged
meaningful data.
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First: that, for many spans of time (which Todd and Ken thought meant
generations since the Gringg travelled in family groups), the Gringg had been
actively searching space for other sentient species as well as suitable
resource planets. It was a particular joy for the Doonarralans to learn that
the Gringg had eschewed planets which probes reported showing habitations
suggesting the basic intelligence of indigenous species. The Gringg also
required the availability of certain minerals and earths on a colonial world
for, despite being omnivorous and able to digest more substances than Hayuman
or Hrrubans could, they had to have a certain range of additives.
Two, they were quite open about the direction of their home world,
galactically speaking, north by north-east, though the speed at which their
ships moved was still not translating accurately. They provided
"strips' which, fed through a device, enlarged the data into star maps.
The difference in eye structure made these difficult for Hayumans or
Hrrubans to decipher and Koala was working on an apparatus that would
compensate for the different optics.
Three, they would be happy to establish trade with both Hayuman and
Hrruban. Which put Todd right back on the hot seat of that unresolved dilemma
of an adequate space port now there would be three species using it.
Four, they had found their way to this sector of space by following ion
trails, detected by their own equipment.
When they had come upon the Doonarralan warning devices, they realized they
had finally discovered a sophisticated culture which they approached
cautiously, but openly. They were overwhelmingly relieved to discover they
were not the only sentient species in the galaxy.
Even greater jubilation to realize that they had encountered two!
"We are joyous to not be alone,' Grizz had said during the conference, bowing
her head almost to her knees to signify deep emotion.
Hayuman and Hrruban were hard put not to burst out in cheers.
Instead, they gripped hands with the Gringg, allowing their broad grins to
demonstrate how happy they were. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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