Free Paws and Planets by Candy Rae Page B

placed it beside the baby in the carry-cot.
    “Keep it safe,”
he implored, “I’ll not be playing it again. Keep it safe for my
grandson,” and Elspeth McCallum had understood the meaning behind
her father’s words. The elder Duguld would not long outlive his
wife and he knew it.
    “Remember how
you used to listen to me playing it when you were a little girl?”
he asked
    “Yes I do,”
Elspeth’s voice wobbled with the emotion of parting.
    “Perhaps when
wee Duguld is older, you’ll be listening to him play. That’s a
grand thought for me to be returning to your mother with. Don’t let
that husband of yours stop you from reaching for your dreams girl.
Why you married him Elspeth, I just don’t know. If the situation
wasn’t so dire here on Earth I’d have said let him go to Riga on
his own and good riddance.”
    “Alastair is a
good man underneath all the bravado.”
    Her father did
not look convinced but contented himself with saying, “keep up with
your singing. There’s bound to be someone on board who can take on
Duguld when he’s old enough to blow a tune.”
    He planted a
last farewell kiss on his daughter’s forehead then bent down to
gaze at his sleeping grandson. One knurled finger stroked his cheek
but the baby didn’t stir.
    “Time for you
to go,” he murmured.
    When he raised
himself from gazing at Duguld his eyes were bright with unshed
tears.
    The old man
watched as his daughter lifted up the carry-cot in which his
beloved grandson slept and followed her husband up the gangplank
and on to the shuttle that would take them to the orbiting
space-station where the World Coalition Colony Ship Argyll lay at berth, ready to leave for her twenty year journey to
Riga.
    The elder
Duguld never learnt about the true fate of his family, nor of how
his grandson would survive the disaster that would overtake the
convoy.
    The silver
trumpet and the young man who would play it would become
famous.
    The baby boy
who slept in his cot as planet Earth disappeared from view would
learn how to play his grandfather’s trumpet and would carry it to a
war the like of which was beyond his grandfather’s wildest
imaginings.
    For the war
would be fought not on planet Riga but on an as yet un-named planet
light years away at the other side of the galaxy where on a
beleaguered hilltop the trumpet would call out to all who could
listen of both joy and deliverance when all hope was dying.
     
     
    * * * * *
     
     
    POEM 1
-TRUMPET’S CALL
     
    Written by Tara
Sullivan-Crawford (AL -12 to circa AL 55) after the deaths of
Duguld McCallum and his Lind, Ganya. Duguld and Ganya were friends
of Tara and Kolyei. He married Tara’s adopted sister Violet, the
eldest daughter of Janice and Winston Randall.
     
    I was silver
once, pristine, new, my tone so sweet, no matter who blew. Now my
gilding is tarnished, my valves all worn, I sit on a shelf,
forgotten, forlorn. I came from a world light-years away, where for
time uncounted my owners did play. In orchestras, bands, groups and
quintets, in these times I played marches and minuets.
     
    My tone was
true, my descant sound, my low notes reverberated, my highs truly
round. On Rybak I belonged to a boy, Duguld was his name, and
diligently he practised, my voice to tame. Even when he became one
of the vadeln-pairs, he managed to play some quite credible airs. I
became dented in places as we travelled to and fro, I sounded in
the mountains, amongst lands high and low.
     
    It came to
pass that war came to the north, the call went out that the Vada go
forth.
    We rode fast
to where the Larg would invade, ashore through the sandy wallows
they would wade. The ryzcks were encircled at a hill called David’s
Keep, where against the walls Larg kohorts did leap. All hope was
dying and death seemed near, when Duguld placed me to his lips to
help overcome fear.
     
    The Lindars
heard me as they ran south and west, as he blew me loud with both
vim and zest. That night before battle, he