Acorna’s People

by Anne McCaffrey

  To her surprise, the huge tent was used not for dancing, but for the reception line and dining. Her graze of the afternoon had worn off, and terraces and tiers of all sorts of vegetation growing right from the soil inside the pavilion looked delectable. The pavilion had a large central panel which opened to capture sunlight. It was now raised, to admit the fresh breezes and an excellent view of the heavens that so recently had been Acorna’s home.

  “Ah, Khornya, Thariinye,” the viizaar said. “Please stand next to me to greet your guests. My aide will introduce you to each.”

  Thariinye saved them both by saying, “Certainly, Viizaar Liriili, but if we may have a moment to dine beforehand? I haven’t—that is, neither Khornya nor I have eaten since landing and the journey was quite long.”

  The viizaar beamed up at him again. “Of course, dear boy. But I’m afraid the line to meet Khornya is already quite long. Why don’t you harvest some of the most succulent foods and bring them to her to sample?”

  Thariinye demurred charmingly. “I’d be happy to, ma’am, except that Khornya’s peculiar upbringing makes it impossible for me to guess what her tastes might be.”

  The viizaar glanced pointedly at Acorna’s gown. “I do see what you mean. Very well then, but return to us quickly. The line is getting longer.”

  Following the viizaar’s hand, which waved at a line that stretched out beyond the pavilion and across the dance floor, Acorna saw that the viizaar was not overstating her case.

  “Just a little snack then,” Acorna said placatingly. But the viizaar didn’t acknowledge her remark.

  The pavilion was arranged more beautifully than one of Hafiz’s gardens, she saw as she followed Thariinye through the crowd, which was partaking only lightly of the gorgeous flowers and leafy greenery sprouting and blooming from floor to ceiling on cleverly designed terraced platforms, with little walkways between levels like paths up a hillside. A fountain in the center of the structure splashed and sparkled and watered some particularly succulent-looking reeds and grasses. Thariinye need not have worried about Acorna’s tastes. She loved everything. Her native food at least was very much to her liking.

  After sampling a few of the plants on the lower level, however, and gathering a few to munch on while greeting the long line, she said to Thariinye, “I suppose we’d better return now, then.”

  “No hurry,” he said casually. “It’s just a formality anyway. The viizaar realizes that you and I are meant to be lifemates and the others are only here to make the process appear to be fair.”

  Acorna looked up at him, blinked several times, and said the first thing that came to mind, the sort of thing Delszaki Li used to say when faced with something preposterous. “Really? How very interesting.” Suddenly, returning to the line seemed very attractive indeed.

  “The other guests…?” she said, with a lifted eyebrow, and a wave back to the reception line. “We wouldn’t want them to think us inconsiderate.”

  “Yes, of course—oh, wait! Is that rampion? I wonder where they got that! I don’t think it was native to the old planet. Want to try something really wonderful?”

  “Perhaps later,” she said, moving toward the line.

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “You go on ahead. Everyone knows me already. It’s you they want to meet.”

  Acorna was amused and annoyed at the same time. How quickly the young male’s priorities could change! She slipped back into the receiving line, between the viizaar, who was reluctantly deep in conversation with the oldest Linyaari Acorna had seen so far. The woman’s face was actually lined and her neck and jowls sagged slightly. Acorna found that sign of mortality oddly comforting among so many smooth and flawless faces. The aide—a white and silver veteran of space like herself, the viizaar, and Grandam—acknowledged her return with relief.

  “Grandam Naadiina has been holding up the line while you were gone. The rest of the people are starving,” the aide whispered. The male before her was as young or younger than she was, she could see, as his skin was golden and his hair a pale cream. “Now then, Khornya, this is the scion of Clan Rortuffle,” he said, from memory, not from reading a list. “Hiirye, meet Khornya.”

  Acorna tried her best to be gracious to Hiirye and gave him a big smile. He stepped back, flustered, and did not accept her hand. Instead, he pulled the aide aside and whispered urgently to him, then retreated. Several other males dropped from the line as well, following him.

  Acorna wished again she could read minds better. “What was the matter with him?” she asked the aide, but the aide had turned to the viizaar and begun a frantic whispered consultation with her. Meanwhile, the Grandam Naadiina turned back to fill the place in line vacated by young Hiirye. Acorna saw the youth, rather than continuing on to eat, had been going down the line, talking excitedly to other people. Each person he spoke to abruptly left the party.

  “Really, child,” Grandam said. “These affairs Liriili insists upon foisting on us are tiresome, but did you really need to become so hostile?”

  “Hostile?” Acorna asked.

  “You bared your teeth at that boy in an extremely aggressive fashion. I’m sure he mistook you for one of those…” Grandam looked around to make sure no one else was eavesdropping, then put her lips close to Acorna’s ear and said, “Khleevi. You scared the living daylights out of the lad.”

  “Oh, dear!” Acorna remembered now the thought patterns she had heard from her aunt and shipmates about the peculiar custom humans had of baring their teeth. They understood, because of their contact with her people, that an open smile was a gesture of good will. But this was not yet known to the rest of the Linyaari. If only Thariinye’s appetite had not gotten the best of him, he could have explained. His smile and social lie earlier about her dress showed, or so she had thought at the time, his willingness to try to adapt customs familiar to her in order to put her at ease. Now she wondered. Perhaps he had been actually baring his teeth in the Linyaari sense of the gesture after all?

  Whatever could she do to correct the appalling impression she seemed to be making?

  “Calm yourself, girl, you look as if you’re about to fly apart,” the grandam advised.

  “But what will they think of me?”

  Grandam snorted. “No less than you should think of them, particularly Liriili, dragging you out to this thing before you’ve had time to rest from your journey and have a bite to eat. And before you’ve been properly introduced to your new home and had a chance to meet people in the normal way. It was unforgivable, her sending Neeva and the others away and leaving you alone among strangers except for that uppity young stud, Thariinye.” She snorted. “These young ones are making such a fuss over culture, but culture begins with kindness. I was just saying so to Liriili when you bared your teeth at that young ass. Not his fault, of course, but I daresay in your position I would have done the same.”

  “Oh, but you see, I wasn’t trying to bare my teeth at all—I mean, I did bare my teeth, but where I come from, among the people I grew up with, one shows one’s teeth to be friendly, happy—it’s an expression of greeting and cordiality, not at all one of hostility. I have been told, actually, that it isn’t viewed the same way among your—our—people, but I got a bit flustered and…”

  “There, there, child. You needn’t explain to me.”

  She firmly took Acorna by the elbow and led her to the highest of the tiers where the delicious foods grew. In a long and rather shrill Linyaari utterance that sounded eerily like “Hiiire me!” Grandam Naadiina stopped the music, the dancers, the talking, and drew all stares to herself and Acorna.

  Acorna noticed, meanwhile, that both viizaar and her aide had left the pavilion hurriedly, looking worried. She suddenly had the feeling that the crowd’s reaction had more to do with Liriili’s exit than her social grace.

  “My children, you have all gathered here to meet our long lost kinswoman, Khornya, daughter of the late lamented Feriila and Vaanye. She only just this afternoon, as many of you kno
w because you were there, arrived on the planet from a journey of many months. Her closest relative and only acquaintances among us had to ship out immediately on another mission, leaving the child here among us. Yes, her accent is strange and her dress is a bit of the old fashion instead of the new, and because she was not properly instructed, she greeted a prospective lifemate with an expression interpreted differently by the culture from which she comes than it is in our own, but she is a good girl, I can tell, a nice girl, and she’ll be glad to meet any of you later on when she’s had a proper chance to rest, collect her thoughts, find her way around, and get a decent meal or two under her belt.”

  As Grandam spoke those words, many people stopped dancing. Rather than paying attention to their elder, they were looking toward the flap of the pavilion where Liriili had exited, as if they were waiting for something to happen. Something far more important to them than Grandam’s slap on their collective wrists. They were waiting, Acorna thought, for Liriili to return and explain what business had compelled her to leave.

  Six

  Kisla, precious, you look fatigued,” Uncle Edacki said.

  “I confess that horrible junk man and his nasty beast upset me, Uncle. He cheated me—told me he was selling everything but kept the cat and more of the horns he lied about having. You just can’t trust anyone these days.”

  “No, indeed, pet. It’s a hard cruel world and it distresses me that you’ve had to learn that so young in life. But fortunately, I am here to protect you and see to it that you don’t wear yourself out. Now then, if you want the junk man, it’s a simple matter of sending your droids over to collect him and the cat and checking his computer banks for information about how he acquired the horns. No need for you to go yourself.”

  “I can be there when he’s questioned though, can’t I, Uncle? And have the nasty cat to play with?”

  “Whatever you wish, dearest. But you’ll want to be at your best so run along now and let Uncle Edacki handle it.”

  “I’m sure you know best.”

  “I’ll need the horns, dear one.”

  She got that sly, calculating look that reminded him so of her late, unlamented father. “I can let you have one, I suppose. I’ll keep the other.” She handed him the more broken of the two. “Here, you take this one. I think this one I have is probably hers.”

  He sighed and smiled as if it didn’t matter that he indulged her this time. “One will do nicely, thank you, Kisla. Now off you go. Leave it to me.”

  When she had gone he sprang into action, after his own fashion. The first thing he did was call her droids away from the hangar where they had been unloading her cargo.

  “KEN637, your mistress tells me you were instructed to check on the whereabouts of a craft belonging to a certain dealer in salvaged goods?”

  “It is docked at outer bay four niner eight, sir,” the droid replied.

  “Very well. I would like for you and your friends to call upon the gentleman at his ship and invite him to my warehouse, the one on Todo Street, number nineteen?”

  “I know the one, sir.”

  “Yes, and the animal, too. But first, have him show you around his computer banks. And if he is not there when you arrive, access them yourself. Your mistress wishes to know where he obtained the horn he gave her.”

  “Certainly, sir. Suggested force level, sir?” Unlike the androids in early science fiction epics, those employed by Edacki Ganoosh’s various corporate enterprises had no programming prohibiting them from harming human beings.

  “Maximum without damaging any of the components.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With the tip of his finger, Ganoosh then accessed the considerable data banks on the unicorn girl and her associates. Many of these files had been compiled by Kisla’s late father, the baron.

  He found a number of useful connections. The first name he noticed was that of General Ikwaskwan, the leader of the Kilumbemba mercenaries, a group he himself had employed from time to time. The reason that name particularly caught his attention was that he had been intending to contact the general for some time on another matter.

  It would be late in the day in the Kilumbemba Empire, but the general was a man of business and if he was presently unemployed, the man would no doubt be thrilled to hear from Ganoosh. The comscreen showed nothing but static for a few moments and then, in a very distracted tone, from off screen, Ganoosh heard Ikwaskwan’s voice saying, “Nadhari, by the Gods, woman, this is business. Untie me before you accept incoming calls.”

  “Certainly, Ikky,” a woman’s deep and sultry voice purred. “And if I do, I assume I have your promise?”

  “Yes, mistress. Never again shall I sleep when you have rubbed my back with oils before I do likewise unto you.”

  “Very good then.” There was the sound of a kiss. “I know it’s difficult, Ikky, after all these years of rape and pillage, for you to remember that we women have our needs, too, and in an alliance such as ours, it is imperative that you meet them graciously. There, now, I return your dignity.”

  “Yes, my ferocious flower.” The sound of another, more prolonged kiss. Very prolonged. Ganoosh cleared his throat.

  “Ah! Nadhari, it is Count Edacki Ganoosh. Count, you have met my second in command, Colonel Nadhari Kando?”

  “I have,” Ganoosh said. “Though we were not formally introduced.” The woman had been glowering menacingly by the side of Delszaki Li when they had met, looking as if she would cheerfully bite off the head of anyone who so much as frowned pensively in the direction of her employer. Now, she stood naked, obviously female but extremely well muscled, behind Ikwaskwan. Ganoosh was as unmoved sexually by the sight of her as he would have been looking at any other dangerous predator. She regarded him with a long stare that made him feel as if he were the one who was undressed, or perhaps dressed in the hunting or culinary sense, then slowly she shrugged her lithe muscles into a dressing gown patterned with glittering fireworks.

  “Hmm,” she said, in his direction, then muttered to Ikwaskwan, “The officers will be waiting for their briefing,” and turned and left.

  Ikwaskwan gave Ganoosh a rather silly grin and winked and shrugged as if to say, “Women.”

  Ganoosh chuckled far more indulgently than he felt. Even hardened mercenary killers weren’t of the same caliber these days.

  “General, I’ll come right to the point. As you know, our government here on Maganos has undergone a great purge of corruption and through the good works of Delszaki Li and his ward, we are finally free of the tragedy of child slavery.”

  “I’ve been meaning to send my congratulations for some time, Count,” the general said dryly, “but I haven’t found just the right card to express my joy.”

  “Now, now, no need to be bitter just because your people are now deprived of the income they received for delivering war orphans to our facilities from time to time. You surely must realize that while this dreadful injustice has cleansed us of moral turpitude, it has also created a great hole in the labor force of the planet’s economy.”

  “I had understood you were going to mechanize?”

  “Hideously expensive, as you know. It occurred to some of us—me, for instance—that rather than giving machines skilled jobs that can be done less expensively by human beings, we should perhaps find another labor pool. Now, you have occasion from time to time to fight in wars where one side or the other is totally devastated.”

  “When my troops are involved, that is inevitably the case,” the general said.

  “Rather than execute the wounded or allow the survivors, if any, to either be butchered or starved, why not bring them to us? We could reeducate them into useful professions. We’d be saving lives, really, and making the universe a better place. No one could object to that.”

  “Humph,” the general said, stroking his whiskers with the backs of his knuckles. “The only problem with that is it would require a certain amount of restraint and gentleness on behalf of my troops. Usually
by the time we finish with the losing side, they are not in any shape to work for themselves or anyone else.”

  “This brings me to another issue. A question really. I have heard rumors—perhaps myths—of the healing power demonstrated by the unicorn girl who was the ward of the late Mr. Li.”

  “She was also the ward, remember, of Hafiz Harakamian,” the general said. “The Lady Acorna is not a being to be trifled with, as I know from recent experience.”

  “Really? Tell me about it, do.”

  “She is not just any girl, for one thing. She’s a member of a race of unicorn people. A very sophisticated people no one in this side of the universe had heard of before, but who apparently have been making contact with other worlds for some time. My troops formed an alliance with Li and Harakamian against an old enemy of these Linyaari, as they were called, and liberated a planet called Rushima. Afterward—I could hardly believe it myself—Lady Acorna and the others of her species healed all of the wounds as if they had never occurred. I heard that a time or two she has revived the dead, though I didn’t personally witness those events. Not only that, but some young renegades aboard a Starfarer’s ship were heard to say that she had purified poisoned air aboard their ship, and the people of Rushima claim she gave them a magical device to purify tainted water that had covered their world. Purified the whole world’s water supply. I hear it’s the horn that does it.”

  Ganoosh was fairly purring to himself. “How wonderful! How marvelous! Why, just think, if you had a Linyaari medic among you, or someone who possessed the power of their horns, you could instantly heal your wounded and send the same people back into battle after battle. Your troops would be practically immortal.”

  “Hmmmm, yes…”

  “And so would these poor souls you would bring to me for reeducation. Frankly, some of the jobs that used to employ children will be a bit riskier for adults. There could be increased on-the-job injuries. How wonderful again, if we were to have such healing power to keep our workers whole and productive.”