THE NIGHT OF HOGGY DARN
BY R. M. McKENNA
The talented author of "The Fishdollar Affair"
returns with another compelling story of a frontier
world—grim New Cornwall of the Black Learning.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Red-haired Flinter Cole sipped his black coffee and looked around thechrome and white tile galley of Space Freighter Gorbals, in which hewas riding down the last joint of a dogleg journey to the hermit planetof New Cornwall.
"Nothing's been published about the planet for the last five hundredyears," he said in a nervous, jerky voice. "You people on Gorbalsat least see the place, and I understand you're the only ship thatdoes."
"That's right, twice every standard year," said the cook. He was aplacid, squinting man, pink in his crisp whites. "But like I said, nogirls, no drinks, nothing down there but hard looks and a punch in thenose for being curious. We mostly stay aboard, up in orbit. Them NewCornish are the biggest, meanest men I ever did see, Doc."
"I'm not a real doctor yet," Cole said, glancing down at the scholargrays he was wearing. "If I don't do a good job on New Cornwall Imay never be. This is my Ph. D. trial field assignment. I should bestuffing myself with data on the ecosystem so I can ask the rightquestions when I get there. But there's nothing!"
"What's a pee aitch dee?"
"That's being a doctor. I'm an ecologist—that means I deal witheverything alive, and the way it all works in with climate andgeography. I can use any kind of data. I have only six months untilGorbals comes again to make my survey and report. If I fumble away mydoctorate, and I'm twenty-three already...." Cole knitted shaggy redeyebrows in worry.
"Well hell, Doc, I can tell you things like, it's got four moons andonly one whopper of a continent and it's low grav, and the forest thereyou won't believe even when you see it—"
"I need to know about stompers. Bidgrass Company wants Belconti U. tosave them from extinction, but they didn't say what the threat is. Theysent travel directions, a visa and passage scrip for just one man. AndI only had two days for packing and library research, before I had tojump to Tristan in order to catch this ship. I've been running in thedark ever since. You'd think the Bidgrass people didn't really care."
"Price of stomper egg what it is, I doubt that," the cook said,scratching his fat jaw. "But for a fact, they're shipping less thesedays. Must be some kind of trouble. I never saw a stomper, but they saythey're big birds that live in the forest."
"You see? The few old journal articles I did find, said they wereflightless bird-homologs that lived on the plains and preyed on thegreat herds of something called darv cattle."
"Nothing but forest and sea for thousands of miles around BidgrassStation, Doc. Stompers are pure hell on big long legs, they say."
"There again! I read they were harmless to man."
"Tell you what, you talk to Daley. He's cargo officer and has to godown with each tender trip. He'll maybe know something can help you."
The cook turned away to inspect his ovens. Cole put down his cup andclamped a freckled hand over his chin, thinking. He thought aboutstomper eggs, New Cornwall's sole export and apparently, for fivehundred years, its one link with the o