Acorna’s Search

by Anne McCaffrey

  “What?”

  “It’s a book,” Acorna said, as Mac performed the inhumanly flexible maneuver he had outlined and thrust the pick down for them to latch onto. “And I think RK may be borrowing from its pages.” Above them, the cat vanished into the dark, its grin last of all.

  Fourteen

  Getting Liriili into the flitter had been hard enough, but getting her to shut up and allow the pilot to deliver her to the ship was proving to be tedious in the extreme.

  “I demand to be taken back to the Council on narhii-Vhiliinyar immediately,” Liriili declared with as much hauteur as if she were not only still viizaar of that planet, but also High Commanding Queen of the Universe, had there been such a title.

  “Madame, we have explained to you—” Yaniriin began, but to no avail. He was fortunate enough to have escaped previous encounters with Liriili, but he had heard stories, and from what he could hear, they were all true.

  “Again, I demand to return to my old world and be presented to the Council. I have endured an ordeal beyond belief and my story must be told. I alone—”

  “If you are going to say that you alone have experienced what you’ve been through, lady, I doubt that,” Yaniriin interrupted her this time. “You disappeared, sure, but so have a third of the people we sent to scout Vhiliinyar for rehabilitation.”

  “Yes, I noticed that,” she said loftily. “I turned my back for only a moment and when I looked, the laboratory and all of its staff had vanished. I notice, of course, that someone has slyly put the building back now, but where is the aagroni? I thought he had too much pride to stoop to such cheap tricks.”

  Yaniriin said carefully, “The aagroni has vanished along with the others, Lady, and is still missing. But he was there when you vanished, and he was there for days afterwards. Did you not see him where you went when you disappeared?”

  “I would hardly be complaining of his behavior if I had, would I?” she said.

  In between fielding her remarks, Yaniriin was speaking with Lady Khornya and her companions in the search mission. He was almost relieved when Khornya told him she wished for him to keep Liriili on the site so she could interview her. It kept her out of his ship for however long it took for the interview to be concluded.

  If he thought Liriili would be pleased by this decision, he was informed of his mistake at once.

  “I, who have been deprived of food, water, and the company of my peers for lo these many days and nights while I shivered on this desolate Khleevi-ravaged place, fearing who-knows-what horrors to be visited on me, am to wait on the pleasure of that chit of a girl?”

  “Lady Khornya hopes that if she interviews you here, Madame, she will gain clues to where you have been and where the others might be. It is her mission—”

  “It has been her mission from the very beginning to undermine my authority, and now she wishes to endanger my life with her dallying? And you, a man responsible for commanding a starship, permit this?”

  He hadn’t known what to say to this, and had consulted with Nadhari Kando, asking if perhaps Khornya’s wishes should be disregarded. Liriili, who no doubt, was still suffering from exposure—certainly, from what the shuttle crew who treated her initially said, she was dehydrated and rather thinner than before. Should she be taken straight back to MOO.

  Commander Kando was emphatic that Khornya’s instructions be followed, however—a fact which he was about to relay to Liriili when the first of the monsters was spotted by the ship’s scanners.

  He immediately dispatched two other shuttles, but the craft which could reach the team quickest was the one already on the planet’s surface. That, of course, was the same one being monopolized by Liriili’s dramatization of her own experience, and by her general disagreeableness.

  “It seems you will get your wish after all, Madame,” Yaniriin informed her. “The recon and rescue team is in peril and the shuttle must be dispatched to its assistance.”

  “What sort of peril?”

  “A monster, or wait—make that monsters—seem bent on attacking—oh, no, they are under attack now!”

  “Khleevi? That stupid girl said she had destroyed the Khleevi. Oh, I told the council how untrustworthy she was, and here they are back again.”

  “No, ma’am, not Khleevi.”

  “You needn’t think I am going to allow you to put me in the path of those Khleevi again for her convenience,” Liriili said with increasing shrillness. “She’d like that, if they killed me—”

  “Vilii Hazaar Miirl?” Yaniriin addressed the shuttle captain directly.

  “Aye, sir?”

  “You will proceed to these coordinates. If Lady Liriili wishes to leave the planet’s surface, she may accompany you. If not, leave her there and a later shuttle may find time to transport her when the crisis is over.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “You are not leaving me behind?” Liriili cried, aghast.

  “Not if you cease and desist all verbal communication and load yourself aboard immediately, Madame. Otherwise, leaving you behind is exactly what we will do,” the captain said with satisfaction so profound that it was no doubt uncharitable and unbecoming in an officer of the Linyaari space fleet.

  Liriili opened her mouth but Vilii Hazaar Miirl, who had initially entertained kind feelings for the castaway, as well as compassion for her plight, started to shut the shuttle door in her face. Miirl was actually hoping Liriili would utter just one more word, but the former viizaar pulled herself together, haughtily opened the door, boarded, and dumped herself into one of the seats, her mouth clamped into a hard thin line. She didn’t bother to shield her thoughts at all, but with a nod from Miirl, the crew chief shoved a horn helmet over Liriili’s horn, muffling her outraged ruminations. “For your safety, lady,” the chief said with deliberately officious crispness.

  While it did not take the shuttle nearly as long to reach the coordinates Yaniriin dictated as it would have taken a flitter, a great deal happened while they were en route.

  Yaniriin kept Miirl and her crew apprised of what the ship’s sophisticated long-range visual scanners were showing.

  “The beasts are shaggy, covered with what appears to be coarse fur or hair. Their movements indicated bewilderment initially, but that has turned to aggression. One attempted to board the flitter, but when it was unable to do so, it attacked the craft with a weapon of some sort.

  “Oh! Wait! Here comes the second creature, joining the first one. They appear to be allies, and do not attack each other, which is perhaps unfortunate for us. The second one is also attempting to board the flitter. No. Perhaps it was sniffing the craft, for now it is less tall, as if it has hunched over. Now it is slowly proceeding along the route taken by Khornya and her team to the place where they dug the tunnel leading to the cave.”

  Silence interrupted these reports, while Yaniriin communicated with Khornya, Thariinye, and their android and pahaantiyir associates.

  Suddenly Yaniriin said, “Oh, no. The team has emerged from the tunnel. Now it appears that the monsters have seen them, and they are attacking! Have you a sturdy net aboard your craft, Vilii Hazaar Miirl?”

  “Aye, sir,” she answered. “And there’s a very strong tractor beam on this craft, too—it is one of House Harakamian’s, used for construction, and capable of moving heavy ground equipment, I understand.”

  “Excellent. Khornya and her friends will have need of that. If you can increase your speed at all, please do so.”

  “Unfortunately, this sort of craft isn’t actually built for speed, sir, but we will do the best we can,” Miirl promised. “Perhaps if we offloaded extra personnel?”

  “Nice try, Miirl, but I’m afraid I cannot condone abandoning your passenger for that reason.”

  “It was worth a try, sir,” Miirl responded.

  Liriili couldn’t hear her over the craft’s drive and, with the horn helmet on, couldn’t really read her well either.

  After a few moments of breathless silence, Yaniriin
said, “Oh, to be there now! Thariinye and Khornya have taken shelter inside the cave but their companion, Maak, has elected to guard their rear. The scanners can just make him out, standing at the entrance to the tunnel while the hairy monsters charge him, their sticks pointing at him! He counters mightily and one of the monsters pulls from his body what seems to be another weapon. He is attempting to remove Mac’s head. What is this? Some small beast—it must be the pahaantiyir-like khaat they call Riidkii—has flown onto the monster’s head. At any rate, the scanners show Maak has not diminished in height, so he seems to have kept his head. Now Riidkii has fallen and now he is not there—oh, neither is Maak. He has lifted the khaat and is carrying him deeper into the tunnel, but the monsters follow. What is this? Our scanners detect a laser. A great explosion! Oh my, the tunnel is collapsing. But only on the monsters. What a relief. We can still see the sensors on Maak and Riidkii all the way down the tunnel, going very fast and—there are Khornya’s sensors, and Thariinye’s. Now they are all back inside the cave and we can no longer see them. You will be relieved to know that the life force sensor for Riidkii improved in strength once Khornya met them, so whatever wounds the khaat sustained were healed.”

  “We are coming within visual range of the flitter now, Yaniriin,” Miirl told him.

  “Very well then—ahhh! Perhaps there will be no need. There was just another explosion; did you get a visual on it? Can you transmit anything closer than what we are currently receiving?”

  “Yes, Captain, I am sorry to report that it appears that the entire tunnel has just collapsed but—there is movement. There’s our quarry! They have escaped being crushed in the tunnel collapse! Both of them. Oh, by my horn, how ugly they are! Disgusting!”

  The crew chief told her, “I’ve just released the net, Vilii Hazaar.”

  “Excellent, chief, stand by. We’re coming into tractor range now. There they are, clear as the horn on your head, Yaniriin. They are shaking their manes and have begun to toss the rocks from the tunnel’s entrance aside, as if they are desperate to reach Khornya and her team. They are in range…”

  “Deploy tractor beam when ready, Miirl,” Yaniriin said.

  “Got them!” Miirl said as the two huge shaggy figures were jerked off their feet along with the boulders they held in their hands and pulled horizontally through the air until they were pulled into the steel cargo net, which closed around them and their rocks.

  “Excellent! Haul them aboard and return to the ship so that we may properly incarcerate and perhaps interrogate them, should they be sentient. See if you can pick up their speech patterns, if they have any intelligible ones, on your LAANYEs.”

  “But what about Khornya’s team, Yaniriin?” Miirl asked. “They are buried!”

  “Other shuttles are on their way.” After another silence, he resumed speaking. “Nadhari Kando has sent to MOO for earth-moving and digging machinery to be brought by Linyaari crews to the surface of the planet. The Council has given permission for Captain Jonas Becker, the great friend of Lady Khornya, to bring his salvage ship Condor to the surface as well.”

  “Is that not highly irregular?”

  “He has been on our planet before. He was the one who rescued Aari the Survivor. Also, the valiant Riidkii and Maak are crew members aboard his ship.”

  “Ahhh, well, the Council’s decision is understandable then. We are now loading the monsters—oh, oh, quickly, the masks. The smell of them is not to be believed, Yaniriin. Have your crew don masks before opening the air locks when we come aboard. And have sufficient personnel standing by to purify the air as soon as possible”

  “That’s affirmative, Miirl.”

  The shuttle flew back to the mother ship with Liriili and the captives. Meanwhile, the other two shuttles Yaniriin had dispatched earlier landed near the tunnel.

  Before the crew from the first shuttle could disembark, the other shuttle immediately vanished—crew, ship, and all—right in front of their horrified eyes.

  Fifteen

  The miner’s lanterns did not cast enough light to see very far, but Acorna knew at once that although she and her companions were not yet above ground, they were out of the cave. Wherever they were, it was spacious, and the air was, if not especially fragrant or heady, oxygen rich and clean without the need for horn purification. And the floor was smoothly surfaced, laid out by sentient hands.

  Nevertheless, the space smelled slightly musty and felt derelict.

  “Hello-o!” she called, “Aari, Maati, Neeva? Are any of you here?” She found she was expecting not an answer but an echo. She got neither. Her voice sank into the darkness in the same way the sound of her footfalls and those of her companions died on contact with the pavement.

  However, since she had no actual idea where she was, continuing this journey seemed as good a way as any to begin searching for the lost ones, since she also had no idea where they were. She sent out mental feelers, but could not honestly say that there was any response to them.

  The beam of her light and Mac’s stopped a few feet from their faces, where a mound of earth sloped upward, extending past the boundaries of the light. In three places it bore deep, even gouges about four feet long and a half a foot deep.

  “Khornya, look, we are at the base of a mountain!” Thariinye said. “And it is indented just as the wall was down below. Fortunately, the incline is less perpendicular.”

  “I suppose we’d better climb it, then?”

  “Why?” Thariinye asked.

  Mac and Acorna said in unison, “Because it is there!” Mac had uploaded the same books she’d read aboard Becker’s ship, one of which included the famous words spoken by George Leigh Mallory, when asked why he wished to climb a mountain called Everest on Old Terra.

  Acorna remembered the words because they sounded very much like the things Becker had quoted his adoptive father, Theophilus, as saying. The saying also reminded her of her own adoptive fathers, Calum, Gill, and Rafik, and she felt a surge of longing to see them.

  Would she ever again see any of the people she loved, those who had disappeared, or those from whom she had now become separated?

  But then, realistically, a person could ask herself that question every time she took a space voyage anywhere—or any time she stepped away from the people she cared for, even momentarily.

  She sighed and began the climb. As mountains went, it was more of a foothill. In fact, she had been in spaceports with taller gantries. In fact, she realized, as her feet met flat, even flooring once more at the top of the climb—“This isn’t a mountain. It’s another staircase. The cavern must have been the basement level of some great structure—maybe it’s where the Ancestral Hosts and Ancestors lived when they first came here. Though this level doesn’t seem to have access to the outdoors, the upper levels must have. The Ancestors would need that.”

  As she climbed, she realized that the sounds of their breathing were gradually being augmented by another, more subtle sound. She stopped, holding her breath, and motioned for the others to do the same.

  Hisss. Slap slap. A receding susurration as soft as the sound of a silken gown moving across skin.

  “I think that’s the sound of the sea,” she said.

  “What sea?” Thariinye asked, his face tense in the light of her lamp as he strained to hear. “The seas were all destroyed by the Khleevi. No, it’s probably some giant carnivorous mutant cave rat dragging its tail back and forth on the floor as it comes to eat us.”

  “Why, Thariinye!” Acorna said, smiling at his grim joke.

  “What?”

  “How—colorful,” she said.

  “I heard what you were thinking!” he chided. “You were thinking ‘I didn’t know he had that much imagination.’ And you’re right, I don’t have. Never have had. But the way things have been going since we arrived, it doesn’t take much to realize that any strange sound can hardly be something normal and pleasant. It must surely be some new disaster.”

  RK had been flitting mer
rily in and out of the light of their lanterns, chasing his own shadow.

  Suddenly he gave a small “Yow!”

  Light appeared from nowhere, blinding them as it pierced their dark-accustomed eyes, flooding them with a painful brilliance.

  “What?” Thariinye yelled, his nerves well and truly on edge by now.

  Acorna’s eyes readjusted, and she saw the cat sitting by a long white wall, patting it with his paw, blinking at it rapidly with eyes that were all iris, the thin slit of pupil undetectable at this distance. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone here but us, but I believe we’ve found civilization,” she said.

  The light was not actually as bright as it had seemed at first. It would have been called “atmospheric” in certain upscale eating establishments. Because of the wall-wide area it covered, it sufficed to illuminate the corridor, but did not provide enough light that one could see colors clearly.

  Still, it showed that they stood in the corridor of a building at least the size of Uncle Hafiz’s grand ballroom in his principal palace, or the spaceport on Maganos Moonbase, or one of the Amalgamated Mining Corporation office buildings she had visited with Calum, Gill, and Rafik. On the street side of the corridor, the central-most of several portals still stood, supported by two ornate columns. Four other portals, had broken and allowed the wide awnings above the doors to collapse into them.

  “I don’t believe anyone is here,” Thariinye whispered.

  “No, but the illumination system in the walls still works,” Acorna said, struggling for a normal tone herself. “At least that one did. If there are others that also work, we should be able to find our way around here pretty well.” She walked over to the wall opposite the one RK had touched and laid her hand upon it. It brightened the light in the corridor, and revealed more clearly that there were five additional arched doorways on the inner wall. All of these still contained sets of double doors carved with characters similar to those in the glyphs in the cavern.