Crisis On Doona Read Online Free Page B

friendly to get their claws into the best star systems?” Todd asked with patent distaste.
    “Or perrrhaps,” and Hrriss let his fangs show, “it is those who sense we are arming ourselves for the conquest of your home planet.”
    “No one takes that foolishness seriously,” Ken said quickly. “You don’t even know where Terra is.”
    “Nor you Hrruba,” and Hrriss winked.
    Ken and Todd both laughed with their friend, whose full-throated chuckle would have sounded to many like an ominous growl. Laughter eased the tension lines from Ken Reeve’s face.
    “Go on, the pair of you. We’ll deal with the matter after the Snake Hunt. Which is going to be brilliant this year, isn’t it?” He pinned the two friends with a mock-stern glare.
    “Absolutely!” The friends chorused that assurance and left Ken’s office.
    In only a fortnight’s time, Doona would be inundated by foreign dignitaries and guests eager to witness, and participate in, the famed Doonan Snake Hunt. Hundreds of people would converge on the First Villages for the semiannual migration of the giant reptiles, and Todd and Hrriss were in charge of coordinating the Hunt. Which was not so much of a hunt as a controlled traffic along the snakes’ traditional path.
    While there had been intense arguments both for and against annihilation of this dangerous species, the conservationists — many of them colonists — had won. The immense snakes were unique to the planet, but their depredations, which affected only one area of the main continent, could be controlled. The reptiles ranged in size from two- and three-year-old tiddlers of three to five meters in length to immense females, nicknamed Great Big Mommas, growing to twelve to fifteen meters. They had incredible speed and strength and, although they ate infrequently, they had been known to ingest an adult horse or cow in one mouthful. Their vision was so poor that they could not see a man standing motionless a few feet from their blunt snouts, but they would strike at any movement: particularly one that gave off an enticing odor.
    Their traditional route from the sea to the plains just happened to lie by the river farms of the settlers where quantities of livestock grazed, too numerous to be shut up during the migration. So the settlers had devised a method of herding the snakes, making certain by a variety of means that few escaped to wreak havoc among the herds and flocks.
    At first the settlers resorted to crude methods of keeping the snakes in line, destroying far too many for the conservationists’ peace of mind. Then hunters from other planets learned about the drives, as they were originally called, and begged to join in for the thrill and excitement of adding such a deadly specimen to their trophies. These men also had some excellent suggestions to give the Doona/Rralans, gained from similar drives of dangerous species to which Ken Reeve, Ben Adjei, the colonists’ veterinarian, and Hrrestan listened with interest.
    “Make it into a real Hunt,” they were advised. “Attract the thrillseekers and you’ll not only make some money out of it, but you’ll have enough help to keep the snakes on the right track.”
    So the Hunt became an organized sporting feature; one which put considerable credit into the colony’s treasury and one which became safe enough to advertise as a spectator sport for those who wanted titillation without danger.
    At first, Ken and Hrrestan, with Ben’s advice, organized the Hunt, but gradually, as Todd and Hrriss showed genuine aptitudes as Hunters and leaders, the management had been turned over to them. Much had to be arranged to ensure that injuries were reduced to a minimum; that visitors were always teamed up with experienced Hunters or in safely prepared blinds; that the horses hired out were steady, well-blooded animals, accustomed to snake-stench and less likely to plunge out of control and drop their riders into the maw of waiting Big Mommas. There were