Anne McCaffrey Doona 1 Descision At Doona

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Raw, raging wildlife in flight was more than they could take. Not only was Ken
suddenly unable to carry out Ben's simple strategy, he was barely able to
cling to the saddle of his terrified mount whose sole aim was to get herself
as far away from these charging beasts as possible. Had Ken been a more
experienced rider like Ben or a natural horseman like Hrrula, he might have
anticipated the mare's attempt to seize the initiative. He had one fleeting
glimpse of Ben, Hrrula and McKee, mastering their mounts and running with the
urfa leaders, before his mare headed ignominiously into the dust cloud.
Swearing with indignation and frustration, Ken had the presence of mind to
release the reins and yank back, repeating the process until he caught the
mare unexpectedly and got the bit from between her teeth. Yanking furiously,
he managed to turn her only halfway around. She backed obstinately away from
the direction he wished to go.
Heaving and trembling, bloody froth foaming at her mouth, she sidled
nervously. Ken belted her smartly with his rope. She bucked with a startled
neigh. He nearly lost the rope, grabbing for his saddle horn. Furious at his
own ineptness, Ken kept swatting and kicking her, barely managing to keep his
seat but gradually getting her to move forward. With a resigned sigh, the mare
walked, stiffly at first, then broke into her five-legged trot until finally
Ken got her into a rough canter.
Squinting against the sun and into the haze of the dust ahead, Ken saw that
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the three men had managed to alter the direction of the urfa herd.
Resolved that Socks must return to the scene of her cowardice, he kept
whacking her forward, ignoring the raw patches of flesh at his knees and
ankles, the ache across his shoulders and the abused muscles in his buttocks.
A smaller cloud of dust, rising at the far end of the valley, near the upper
woods, caught his eye. He hauled the mare to a stop. Straining to see what
caused this second cloud, it flashed through Ken's mind that he was not the
only novice horseman. He had not seen Solinari with the other three. He turned
the mare to investigate and, as she decided she was being taken away from the
things which had frightened her, she accelerated willingly.
When Reeve got close enough to pick up the second trail, he was glad he had
followed his hunch. A single horse had passed here at a frantic pace. The
trail led east, at a tangent from the urfas' course, down to the end of the
valley. The mare cantered easily now, her sweat soaked neck drying, her gait
smoothing out to a mile-eating lope. Each collect jarred the raw patches on
his knees, however, and as the trail led farther and farther away from the
settlement, it occurred to Ken that meant just that much more distance on the
return journey. He was sure he would have no flesh left on buttock or thigh.
Apprehensive for Solinari's safety, he kept on. The trail he followed changed
its pattern and he guessed that the other mare had dropped to a trot.
Solinari must have finally got her under control. Up the slope the trail led
and down into the drier plain beyond.
Faintly on the wind was borne the sound of a scream, the like of which struck
answering terror in both Ken and his mare. She came to a stiff-legged stop and
began to tremble. Whinnying, she brought her head up in a painful collision
with Ken's nose. Trying to control the mare and the nosebleed took all Reeve's
attention for a moment. The mare danced as the scream sounded again and again
and, as suddenly, died away. The mare snorted nervously and began her backward
prancing again. With a determined whack on her rump, Ken urged her forward and
to his surprise she complied.
She loped forward, snorting occasionally, as Reeve tried to convince himself
that the scream had been animal, not human. The runaway mare had probably been
attacked by a mda, or maybe slipped in a hole and hurt herself.
To lose a brood mare in foal was bad enough, but it didn't necessarily follow
that Solinari had come to grief at the same time. Reeve tried to ignore the
growing physical discomfort of saddle galls.
As he rounded a rise, the plain beyond came into full view. With a scream very
like the one they had heard, his mare reared pawing the air. When her front
hooves touched ground, she spun around. Reeve made no effort to stop her
second mad flight. He had no desire to stay in the vicinity. Only the fact
that there was no sign of Solinari near the apparition that seemed to be
ingesting the mare whole consoled Reeve. If Solinari had been still atop the
horse when the gigantic reptile had attacked, he was already dead.
In the interests of getting back to the settlement in one piece, Reeve
gradually brought the mare down to a lope. He alternated reassurances to Socks
with incriminations against the unprintable meat-heads who were supposed to
have surveyed this planet. There had not been so much as a subheading or comma
on reptiles possessing jaws wide enough to accommodate a full-grown mare.
His horse, weary from more hard riding than she had endured in all her short
pampered life, gradually slowed her lope to a jolting trot. Ken kept trying to
prod her back into the easier lope but finally gave up and let her walk. He
followed his own outgoing tracks on the way back. Looking ahead, he saw that
the now placid urfa were grazing far down the valley by the river, safely
beyond the fields. Sentinel-like, he saw the silhouette of one lone horseman
against the bright morning sky, the horse's neck drooping forward,
the rider's body in a stoop-shouldered slant. The scene reminded him of a
picture he had seen as a child in a museum. Once again the feeling of terrible
loss assailed him as the unreceptive center of his soul struggled with the
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remorseful knowledge that he must leave this grandeur, this spaciousness, this
thrilling recurrence of danger.
He pulled up sharply by Macy McKee, the lone guard.
"Solinari?" he asked, not able to add more to the question
"Broke his leg. The mare tossed him. Did you find her?
"More or less," Reeve admitted, heartily relieved that Vic had parted company
with his mount long before her end.
"What d'you mean? More or less?"
" 'Natives' we got, and reptiles too," and Reeve could not control the
embittered emphasis on the initial word. "I wonder what other unmentioned
surprises the Scouts didn't discover are going to ooze out of this world to
confound us."
"Reptiles?"
"Big enough to ingest a mare -- in one piece."
He left McKee to mull over this comforting information at his leisure and
turned the mare toward the stable.
The sun was at its zenith when he eased himself painfully out of the saddle at
the corral. The mare farruped at him in weary recognition of home and rest.
Ben and Hrrula came striding out of the barn, both relieved at his appearance.
"Where did you disappear to?" Ben asked, automatically feeling the mare's
chest as she greedily slurped in the water trough. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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