Acorna’s People

by Anne McCaffrey

  Acorna was surprised. She was not used to talking as much as she had talked the night before. It was easy to talk to Grandam though. The funny thing was, sometimes Acorna knew that Grandam didn’t merely hear her words—that she saw Acorna’s own memories as well, felt what Acorna was feeling as she remembered, felt as she had felt while experiencing the events the memories recorded. But with Grandam Naadiina, Acorna didn’t worry about what was thought-talk and what was verbal. She knew without needing to question that Grandam understood what she was trying to communicate, however she communicated it. And that, Grandam’s willingness and ability to really know her, was what had drawn her out. It had been that way somewhat with Neeva and the others, but there had always been their own thoughts, their considerations of what was and was not Linyaari, that got in the way.

  Grandam smiled at Acorna in the brief pause the girl took before speaking and nodded. “I see that you have shared enough with me already. It has been my pleasure hearing your tales. They are so different from anything else one hears on this planet, among our people. Never fear, granddaughter, that you are unworthy. Our people don’t yet know you or understand you but they will.”

  Acorna took a deep breath and straightened her spine. “Not if I don’t make the attempt to get to know them, Grandam. Apparently I cannot help out with the crisis in space, but perhaps I can at least offer comfort to those left behind here on the planet. The gifts have given me an opening. First, I must try to learn who sent each bundle and thank them, and visit with them, and not bare my teeth.” Her mouth curled in a smile but she determinedly kept her lips closed. “I must also speak with the people who designed the dresses they so kindly sent—and pay for the two I altered to suit myself.”

  “That is not necessary, you know. It’s all been put on Neeva’s account at her instruction.”

  “Nevertheless, I fear I insulted them and after I saw how everyone was dressed last night, I better understood the intent of the designers. I would like to tell them so.”

  “That would be most gracious, my dear. They are very silly though, these fashions.”

  Acorna could not truthfully debate that point, but continued. “Be that as it may, I was told that there was a possibility that some day I would return to Kezdet and Maganos and my human friends as an ambassador of the Linyaari. I don’t seem to be making a good start of it yet. So perhaps, since I don’t yet know exactly what it is to be a Linyaari, I should begin to explore that and in the process, practice ambassadorship by trying to represent the culture from which I’ve come in a more positive manner than I seem to have done so far.”

  “Bravo!” said Grandam Naadiina. “You have a splendid attitude with which to begin your work, I must say. And perhaps with your broad experience of other worlds, you will be able to ease some of the fears people have for their loved ones in space.”

  Acorna’s mind was already so busy planning her day she simply nodded to acknowledge Grandam’s approval. “And also, I would like to meet some of these techno-artisans Maati was telling me about, the ones who design, alter, and adapt the technological trade items to Linyaari tastes.”

  “They have their own community, actually, but it’s not too far from here to walk, though the path is a bit overgrazed. And you must realize that many of them spend considerable time on other host planets, learning the basics and keeping up with the new developments. A few of them will be on the crews shipping out but by no means all.”

  “So they spend a lot of time in space?” Acorna asked. “That’s very interesting. No one in any place I have ever been has ever seen a being like me before the Balakiire came looking for me.”

  “Is that so? In some parts of the universe we’re quite a routine sight, you know. But those are peaceful parts, and if they cease to be peaceful, we cease to be seen there.” Her tone had a wry twist to it that made Acorna realize—with some surprise—that the words had been thought and not spoken, for she saw an image of Linyaari techno-artisans in training hastily vacating a planet where hostilities were erupting.

  “Is this all right to wear to go calling?” Acorna asked, indicating the gown she had worn the night before.

  “My dear, it wouldn’t bother a soul if you went out unclothed altogether. We aren’t fussy about those things around here, not for modesty’s sake, anyway. But the weather does turn suddenly. Allow me to loan you something. You’ll be pleased to know extreme fashion is only utilized in formal clothing. For daytime wear we are rather more practical.”

  Grandam raised the lid of one of the low tables, and inside were folded a variety of garments. From among these, she selected a simple knee-length tunic with long full sleeves and a neckline cut low in back to accommodate the hair that grew down Acorna’s spine and that of every other Linyaari. Acorna slipped it over her head.

  “Very comfortable,” she said.

  “Yes, but it does need a touch. It’s a bit too floppy on you. Here, this will do nicely.” Grandam handed her the most gorgeous belt Acorna had ever seen. The edges were intricately braided and interwoven of some strong but supple material, while the body of the belt was patterned with faceted gemstone beads woven into the design of birds and water, flowers and distant mountains with a stream flowing the length of the belt. Acorna had to stroke and admire it a moment before buckling it around her waist. The buckle continued the pattern of the belt in a slightly wider motif of a very tall mountain with one sun setting and another rising on the other side of it.

  Grandam smiled. “It suits you. Niciirye made it for me to wear for our ceremony of union when we were still courting. Unfortunately, it lacks a few diich’se’ of meeting around my waist these days. The scenes, as you may have guessed, are from our original home world. It was the only home Niciirye knew.”

  “What became of him?” Acorna asked. “If it isn’t too painful for you to tell me?”

  “Not at all. He was even older than I and died peacefully in his sleep. He was well enough, and an excellent healer, but his parts were simply worn out. I begin to understand that problem myself. I do miss him though—his foolishness as much as his guidance. Ah well. I hope you can find someone you care for and who cares for you as much.”

  Acorna sighed. “Right now I’ll settle for not making an outcast of myself.”

  “I’m sure when people get to know you, they’ll be sincerely glad you’ve come. I think you will have much better luck talking to one or two people at a time. You are not a shallow person, and small talk is essentially a shallow form of communication. It will not be necessary when you are alone with other individuals. Just be yourself and be willing to take each person as you find him or her and you’ll do well.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Acorna said. “Now, how do I find these places?”

  “I’ll send for Maati.” Grandam poked her head out of the tent, ready to call.

  “Oh, no, surely with the crisis, the viizaar will need her more than ever today. Really, if you’ll just tell me, I’ll find my own way. I don’t want Liriili to have another excuse to resent me.”

  It was Grandam Naadiina’s turn to sigh. She moved back into the tent. “I suppose you’re right. Very well then, I’ll draw you a map. When you’re ready to visit the techno-artisans, come back here and I’ll take you myself. I’ve left a heating unit with Kaakiri for repair and it should be ready by now.”

  Nine

  Hafiz Harakamian regarded his second wife, his most lusciously beautiful bride, with alarm bordering on panic. “Karina, my little pomegranate, you grow thin and pale!”

  Indeed, half of her second chin had disappeared, and the lovely little roll of belly below her amethyst-encrusted lavender bra and bolero and above the amethyst-studded band of the diaphanous lilac harem pants she wore was eclipsed from its usual full moon to little more than a quarter.

  “Tell me, oh my garden of delights, why do you wither away to nothing? Is there some wish I have not fulfilled? Some food you crave I have not had fetched from the corners of the universe
to delight your delicate palate? Some garment you would desire to swathe your so lovely figure”—and he almost drooled as he said it, for his new bride was all that he had hoped she would be—“that I have not had made for you from the finest materials by the most talented and skillful seamstresses available? Some redecorating, maybe, you’d like to do to our homes?” he asked in desperation, as the first two questions were meeting with no response but a slight trembling of her lower lip and flutter of her eyelashes.

  “Oh, Haffy, my darling figgy pudding hubby,” Karina said, for she was not to be outdone in hyperbolic compliments to her wealthy husband who, if he was not exactly handsome, still had a wonderfully compelling personality, tremendous vitality, enormous charisma, quite startling capabilities in the bedroom, and marvelous taste in women—not to mention oodles and oodles of lovely money, “you have done everything to satisfy my body but my spirit remains unfulfilled.”

  “Why is that, o beloved whose face is like unto a blossoming white rose, whose eyes are brighter than the twinkling stars, whose…”

  She cut off the flow by burying her face in her heavily beringed hands. “I fear I allowed myself to be distracted from my own spiritual journey by the suddenness of our passion. So overcome was I with the newness of our love that I grew complacent about what I knew was my true calling, my greatest spiritual quest—to aid Acorna and her people and teach them to channel their energies and use their gifts in a proper”—and profitable, for Karina thought wealth was very proper—“manner.”

  “But, my little oasis of carnal conviviality, Acorna went with her people to learn their ways and will soon return to us. Surely you need not pine?”

  She sighed deeply. They were sitting beside the fountain in the courtyard, where they had just partaken of a fabulous meal. She had only picked at the third course and had barely touched her sherbet. She popped another of those little chocolate egg truffles into her mouth though. Hafiz was right. She had to keep her strength up. “Oh, Hafiz, my wise and wily warrior in the world of wealth, you are such a debonair fellow, so learned in the ways of commerce and the battle of the marketplace, that in your munificence of spirit you no doubt saw the beautiful Linyaari beings as like yourself, as sophisticated as they were soignée.

  “But I, who communed with them on both a deeper level and a higher plane than any among our own kind, recall their childlike innocence, their need to be nurtured and tutored along the great spiritual pathway that it has been my privilege to travel lo these many years. Their incredible healing and purifying powers which really need sharp management so they don’t go exhausting themselves by giving all that valuable stuff away.

  “I was to have been Acorna’s mentor in just such a way, but now our lovely Lady of the Light has gone with them to this secluded home world of theirs, a place where no one can find them, a place where our beloved Acorna and all of her potential are lost—not to mention the potential of a whole planetful just like her!—to me and all who love her.”

  Hafiz scratched his bearded chin, pondering the words of his wife, words which he had come to learn had many levels of wisdom.

  Then he shrugged as if it were all a small matter. “Acorna said she would return, and her people were of the opinion that she would be given honors and rank among them and sent to us as an envoy. I’m sure she and they will be with us again soon, O my heart of butter. And this home where they live is only in space, beloved, not in that land where our esteemed friend and colleague Li now resides. And if these people can locate it in space, so can the finest engineers and navigators in my employ—that is to say, the finest engineers and navigators available. And this planet, if need be, could be visited. Especially by a friend.”

  “Friend? Why, you are practically the only family she has! Apart from your nephew and his friends, she had only Mr. Li. And while I am in constant contact with him, his guidance is lost to her. In fact,” she added shrewdly, “it is his guidance in this matter, his insistence that Acorna and her people should still have access to our advice and assistance, that has caused me to dwell on this matter while neglecting my diet.”

  Hafiz was momentarily incensed. “You have been having clandestine visits with Delszaki Li, my old rival, and neglecting to feed the body upon which I have lavished so much love?”

  “He is dead, Haffy,” she said reasonably.

  “But you entertain his counsel!”

  “My darling, it is my calling to succor such spirits, to keep open the channels of communication between the planes. I cannot reject the spirits any more than you can reject a profit!”

  “But Li himself organized her departure, outfitted her ship…”

  “Yes, but he says he always intended that one or more of her guardians should go with her. Had she not left prematurely, I would have intercepted her and been aboard the vessel that carried her away the first time. Of course, it didn’t occur to her aunt to invite me along. What with us being newlyweds and all.” She blushed, a flush that cast a roseate dawn upon the exposed globes above her overflowing bodice.

  Hafiz, never one to be outdone at the bargaining table, even of love, reached for her. “Perhaps I am at this moment too distracted with concern for your health to consider these matters, my little couscous. Come, I cannot speak of this further until I have once more personally inspected the possible damage your dietary deprivation has wreaked upon your beauteous body.”

  Karina, who was not yet over the novelty of having a man so besotted with her that, while he insisted she wear her flowing robes in public, it was only so that she could wear, if anything, skimpy little outfits like this one for him and him alone to drool over in private. His hands were very skillful and the look in his eyes made her feel, as always, quite faint with desire.

  Besides, he was always more reasonable after-ward.

  As for Hafiz, he was even more aroused than usual, recalling the words of his voluptuous vixen, the ones where she pointed out that there was a profit to be made in the talents of Acorna and her kind. His Karina was not only lusciously lovely but also had a head for business—a true helpmeet at last!

  Before he had time to explore this side of her along with the others, a discreet cough from behind him made him turn toward the lacey latticework of the door leading into the garden. “Your pardon, Lord and Master and gracious lady, but a matter of great urgency has arisen that requires your presence, Master, something you and you alone must attend to.”

  “And so I will when it pleases me,” Hafiz said with a glower at the servant, who had been in his employ since boyhood and certainly knew better than to interrupt him when he was engaged in the pursuit of marital bliss. “It should be obvious to you that it does not please me now.”

  “Yes, Great Lord. But I swear to you upon the Three Books and by the Three Prophets that though you reward my impertinence with a thousand lashes for this interruption, you would redouble that punishment if I neglected my duty in informing you of this matter.”

  “This is so?” Hafiz asked. He had not risen to his present position by ignoring urgent business when it was brought to his attention, even when it was so wretchedly inconvenient as it was now.

  “Even so, Great Lord and Master,” the servant said with a bow.

  “Ah, very well then.” He kissed Karina tenderly on the cheek for he dared not kiss her lips or he would never leave, gave her belly a longing stroke, shoved the gold enameled dish wrought with nightingales and piled with chocolate truffle eggs into her hands and said, “Eat, my dainty doe of deliciousness. You will need all of your strength when I return.”

  “As will you, my love,” she said in a sultry voice that all but drove him mad.

  Didi Yasmin, currently unemployed since the combined forces of Delszaki Li and the peculiar horned girl had put all of the pleasure houses of Kezdet out of business, was still in mourning. This fact distressed her, as black was not one of her better colors. But a son was a son and hers was dead and her husband and supposed widower no doubt had something to do wi
th it. Therefore, he should pay. Would pay.

  He would never miss it, she thought, looking around at the thick red-patterned carpets, the crimson and emerald silk-covered cushions of the divan, the endless cabinets of lustrous and exotic woods filled with equally lustrous and exotic treasures, the masses of fresh blooms plucked from his gardens, which were cooled by no fewer than a thousand flowing fountains.

  And he owed her. She had given him the son and heir he demanded of a wife and he had wasted the boy and given away his empire to that asteroid-hopping nephew of his. But the worst of all was that he had had the gall to remarry without even bothering to make absolutely certain she, his real wife, was dead.

  True, she had gone to elaborate lengths to fake her death so that she might return to her own profitable career in the sex industry, but it had always galled her how easily and with what apparent relief he accepted the exaggerated reports of her demise. He had been glad, back then, to have the boy to himself. She had been glad to leave her son as well, then. She had found motherhood extremely taxing, despite a whole platoon of nannies, and even then had hated to have anyone thinking she was old enough to be someone’s mother!

  But it had suited her purposes and those of her employers that she keep track of both her husband and her son. Her son had frequented the houses of her colleagues and even, on a couple of occasions, had graced her own establishment, though of course he didn’t recognize her.

  A fine boy, a strapping boy. Too bad he had caused such damage to the women he had used that they had to be replaced, at great expense, of course. After that, she reluctantly banned him. As for her dear husband, she was kept well informed of his movements and interests through those enemies she had happily supplied with detailed maps of his compound, an inventory of his most treasured possessions, the names of all of his personal guards she could recall, and other readily marketed information.