Acorna’s People

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Of course not,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t yet have enough of a grasp on how your—our—society works to understand the importance of the order you mention, but I’m sure it’s very fair.”

  “Actually,” Naarye said with a twinkle, “it’s entirely arbitrary and meant to sound as complicated as possible so that if anyone takes offense because their pennant has not yet been represented, we can make a baffling enough excuse that they will get off our backs, grateful not to have to hear the explanation of how a geographical and astrological position can be plotted according to moons we can no longer observe and translated to some sort of time order sequence. This lets us do whichever design strikes us as prettiest and most appropriate for the ship at hand.”

  She chuckled.

  Naarye, pleased at the reaction to his wit, gave Acorna a frankly curious glance. “So you are still learning our ways, then, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I saw you at the reception last night but didn’t get a chance to say hello,” he told her. “Before the evacuation I worked with your father on the development of some defensive weapons against the Khleevi. Unfortunately, your family disappeared and the invasion struck before we could test them. He and your mother were fine people, though.”

  “Thank you,” Acorna said.

  “Did you know that your great-grandmother was responsible for the design of our ships?”

  “She was?” Acorna asked, and found she was eager for more information about her family. “What was her name? Did she travel off-planet to study, too? Did she have many children? And what would her pennant have been like?”

  The artisan smiled. Like her, and the majority of people in this pavilion, he was white-skinned and silver-maned. His features were not quite so regular as Thariinye’s, however, and the skin of his face had a rather rough, dry appearance, with ridges where his goggles lay against his cheeks and brow, just beneath the horn. His hands were blackened, too, and his clothing speckled with pigment—purple and fuschia on the top layer, along with bits of glittery stuff.

  He answered, “Her name was Niikaavri of Clan Geeyiinah. She didn’t find a lifemate till late in life, I understand, after she had been traveling in space, learning of alien technology and studying for many ghaanyi. She designed the first egg ship with the outer hull in the pennant of her lifemate, as a bonding gift. Her own pennant—ta da!—you see before you.”

  “Odd that it wouldn’t have been one of the first,” Acorna said.

  He wagged a finger at her. “Don’t you start on me, too. The truth is, she never knew what it looked like. Distinguished historical persons are often awarded a special pennant posthumously. This one is a fairly recent design actually not conceived until we left Vhiliinyar and came to this world. You do understand, don’t you, that besides beautification, outer hull embellishment has a very serious function as heat and friction shielding material?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  That information and other new ideas she gathered as she talked to the techno-artisans intrigued Acorna throughout her tour of the fascinating if baffling processes and techniques performed by the artisans. The most entertaining artisans were those who stamped the large casings and decorative moldings—they performed this function with both hands, equipped with a special glove that joined the fingers in a single block on the end, and feet, and their work resembled a kind of wild stomp dance that they did with great concentration and precision, but also with a touch of amusement at their own antics. Acorna clapped appreciatively and they bowed toward her before returning to their work.

  In the next building, the artisans were busy designing flitters. “Oh, so you are going to get them?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” the designer told her. “We have the prototype nearly complete. It’s non-polluting, and very beautiful to behold. Once it’s finished and we have customized the model, we will return it to Kaalin where it will be manufactured, then shipped back to us fully assembled.”

  Acorna admired the design, which made a Linyaari riding in one of the airborne vehicles look as if he were a winged creature, the wings spreading out just behind the rider’s shoulders, at the joining of the clear overhead canopy with the body of the flitter. The wings were purely decorative of course, but decoration was no small part of technology to the Linyaari, Acorna was learning. Everything the Linyaari artisans made was stunningly beautiful.

  Speaking of beauty, Thariinye was quite a favorite with the younger females who worked in the compound. Acorna almost feared she and Thariinye would be asked to leave because of the disruption he caused among them. But the techno-artisans seemed glad of the distraction. She spoke with many of them about their relatives or friends who were studying or trading on other planets, and their worries were almost palpable.

  When at last she returned to Grandam’s, leaving Thariinye to stroll away with a pretty techno-artisan on each arm, it was dark already.

  Grandam was not inside and Maati was already asleep. It took Acorna a long time to settle into sleep, and during that time Grandam returned and touched horns with her, acknowledging Acorna’s concern. “I was called out to another general council meeting, pet,” she said wearily. “We’re still receiving signals from the ships dispatched this morning, but so far none have identified the reason why we are not receiving the more distant signals.”

  The following morning Acorna tried to visit the homes of the people who had left their gifts at Grandam’s door the previous day.

  She carefully gathered the nicest grasses she could find as a peace offering, then set out for the home of the young male she had grinned at. At the flap of his pavilion, she inquired if she might come to visit.

  After a few moments the flap was opened by an older female, who announced that her son had gone off visiting his former schoolmate. She projected a picture of a lovely black haired, black skinned Linyaari with a white blaze from her horn down the center of her mane/hair to the middle of her back. Also in the thought was that the girl’s full coloring, her long face, very down-turned, slightly flared nose, and curveless arms and legs were far more beautiful than Acorna’s pallid coloring and somewhat shorter jaw line and nose.

  “I’m happy to hear that, ma’am,” Acorna replied. “I simply wanted to apologize for my social error at the reception. Where I was raised, baring one’s teeth is often a sign of friendliness and welcome rather than hostility, as it is here.”

  “You must have been raised by rather strange people,” the woman said with a lift of her brow.

  “Very good people, actually but, well, I’m glad your son is enjoying time with his friend and not—”

  “Not in space?” she asked dryly. “He serves a vital plantside function as a communications officer. Our people do not do space given a choice. It is good of you to apologize, but quite unnecessary. We were all very fond of your parents, of course, and Neeva is a fine lady, so when we heard you were returning, we were anxious that our son meet a girl from such distinguished stock. We hoped he would find in you some of those qualities that make the rest of your family so admirable. But with your, shall we say, unusual, background, I fear you just aren’t really suitable for our son. So you needn’t bother to call again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have much to do. Good day.”

  Acorna was glad tent flaps could not be slammed.

  Other than that, no one was actually rude to her but, as the pavilions all had both a front and back flap, and the people Acorna was going to visit could undoutedly hear her coming long before she arrived, it simply appeared that everyone she wanted to see was extremely busy that day, each going about his or her typical Linyaari day, whatever that was like. From what Acorna could tell, it seemed to consist of grazing. Far away. She sighed and nibbled on the handful of grasses she had. Making friends was going to take a while.

  Somehow, she decided, as irrational as it was, because her arrival coincided with the crisis, she was being held responsible for it.

  Gran
dam Naadiina was busy with the council and often came home late. She briefed Acorna on what developments there were, but actually, there weren’t that many. The main thing that took time was the Linyaari desire to reach consensus in decisions, which required a great many discussions and much trying out (at least hypothetically) of different tacks until one they all agreed on worked. Of course, in this case, without more input from the persons off planet, not much could be decided. Grandam Naadiina was a bit disgusted. “It’s a wonder we ever got off planet before the Khleevi arrived,” she said. “I’ll bet it took them less time to invade our world and turn it to rubble than it did for the council to decide what we would call this world.”

  Maati was exhausted when she came home at night, after running errands and carrying messages all day long.

  Acorna spent much of her time visiting with the techno-artisans, who didn’t seem to mind if she watched them work or asked questions. Daytimes not spent with them were difficult for Acorna, who nevertheless tried very hard to learn all she could of the rest of her people.

  Linyaari always seemed to be walking in pairs or larger social groups, and when she approached, they were always heavily engaged in intense conversations about matters she had too little knowledge of to even ask an intelligent question. On the rare, desperate occasions when she tried to interrupt, people would politely but pointedly excuse themselves and turn their backs to continue their conversations. Even the business establishments seemed to be closing just as she approached.

  “Is there no school I could attend, no class to take, no tutor on Linyaari culture to teach me what I need to know?” Acorna asked Grandam Naadiina.

  The old lady looked rueful. “We learn our own culture from our parents, from growing up in it. There has never before been an outsider—so there has never been any need to teach how to be Linyaari to one of our own. And truthfully, you seem fine to me. Except for that smile at the reception, I cannot tell you any particular thing you are doing wrong. If you had grown up among us, no one would criticize or complain of any of your words or actions. But you did not grow up here, you see, so even though you are Linyaari the others still see you, if not as a barbarian, at least as someone not Linyaari. And neither I nor the Ancestors can tell them differently. Ours are a very stubborn people about some things.”

  “I see,” Acorna said. She did, too, and she didn’t like it. As different as she had been among the people who raised her, still, many had been willing to give her a chance, to at least find out who she was. They had not just fed and clothed and educated her, they had loved her, even when they must have found her appearance and her behavior extremely strange. They had simply worked around her differences and helped her adapt to their world. Here, where she looked so much the same, she felt different as she had never before felt in her life. Remembering Gill, Calum, Rafik, kind Mr. Li, the clever Kendoros, and wily Uncle Hafiz, she could have wept with longing for them.

  She shook her head slowly. She would never have imagined that her own people, the people Neeva and the others had said could read feelings and heal wounds, as she could, would be so hard for her to reach. “It is almost as if they are afraid of me,” she told Grandam.

  “Perhaps they are,” Grandam Naadiina said. “Your arrival has shown me that our people have become very skittish since our exodus from Vhiliinyar. I don’t really know what to tell you, dear, except to be patient with them.”

  Acorna nodded and did her best.

  When she returned for the fifth time to try to pay the dressmakers, they were closed, as they had been every time she approached. She noticed that the pavilion beside theirs was quite busy, however. Two lines of Linyaari went in and out.

  One line consisted of pale-skinned, silver-maned Linyaari such as herself. They were going in.

  The other line was comprised of the more colorful, and presumably younger Linyaari, spotted, brown, black, red, gray, golden, so many different colors of hair and skin colors.

  Acorna decided that since she had nothing better to do and these people did not appear to be engaged in private conversation, she would, very quietly and trying hard not to think any alien thoughts, join the line.

  She told herself simply to be receptive, to learn what the line was about. What she heard were remarks such as, (Brilliant! I don’t know why no one has thought of this before!) (It’s the very latest. Everyone is doing it. Except those who—you know—go out there all the time.) (And to think, remember when we were children, and everyone wanted to look like that? All colorless and bleached out? This look is so much healthier!) (I think it’s only because it is so much younger looking—perhaps because we’ve become conditioned to think of Linyaari of color as the young ones who did not endure the journey and who do not remember the home world.)

  When she reached the pavilion, she began to notice that some of the multicolored Linyaari emerging were wearing the same clothing as the strictly white Linyaari who went in. So. Acorna couldn’t help smiling. Gill might say they were now horned horse people of a different color. When her turn came, she was offered a smock by an attendant wearing a horn-hat. This was interesting. Acorna had thought the horn-hats were only for formal wear but perhaps those working with the public sometimes wore them to partially shield themselves from the multitude of thoughts, feelings, and attitudes coming at them from several directions at once.

  “Please enter the minipavilion, remove your clothing, don the smock if you wish, and ring for your personal colorist,” the attendant told her. Acorna was moving away as she heard the attendant repeat herself four different times. That would be a good job for a robot instead of a sentient being! Or a shelf full of smocks and a recording!

  But Acorna went inside, took off the dress and the beautiful belt, put on the smock, and rang for her “personal colorist.”

  The colorist was of a reddish brown color, with her mane golden streaked with white. “What do you recall as being the skin of your birthright?” the colorist asked.

  From the friendly way she spoke, the colorist no doubt had failed to recognize Acorna as the pariah of the planet. Acorna said, “I was born in space and so I have always been this color.”

  “A shipborn and you want to try color?”

  “Yes. Is—is that forbidden or somehow against custom?” she asked, fearing she was making another social faux pas.

  “Oh, no, my dear. Simply very daring. The star-clad and the space-going caste have always been, shall we say—vain—of their lack of coloring up until the great transference. Now, with most of us having been bleached out by the journey—” The colorist’s golden eyes were rueful as she spread her arms and shrugged.

  “You, too—you used to be the same color as me?”

  “Still am, darling, under the cosmetics and dye. Tomorrow I could be black if I liked, or roan. But today, this is the real me. Now then, what, do you suppose, is the real you?”

  “I hardly know. Are there—rules about color?”

  “Not really. Of course, your paints tend to breed paints and that sort of thing, but we Linyaari have been very open about that for generations. You can be anything you like at all. I myself am not exactly au naturel.” She tossed her head so that the fringe above her golden horn flipped in a saucy way. “I call this look aural sorrel. None of us were ever born this way but so what? It is my art to improve upon nature. So, sweetie, how about you? What’ll it be?”

  Acorna was tired of trying to blend. “Stripes,” she said. “Zebra stripes.”

  “Zebra?”

  Acorna projected a mind picture of the beast she had viewed vids of while still a child aboard the mining ship. The colorist giggled and began working on her.

  “You’ll stand out for sure in these,” she said. “I must say, it’s rather an attractive look.”

  “I seem to stand out whether or not I wish to,” Acorna said.

  She had made herself conspicuous, to some extent out of rebellion against being isolated from her fellows, but her unusual appearance had the oppo
site effect, at least on some of the younger Linyaari. They commented favorably on the stripes and asked about them, then invited her to a ring-toss tournament.

  Watching the boys and girls catching circlets of flowers on their horns and tossing them back and forth, keeping them away from the opposite teams, made her feel unusually young and giddy again, a feeling that continued until a loud crack of thunder heralded sheets and spears of red and green lightning splitting the sky as an earthquake might split the ground, and torrents of rain poured down on everyone, washing all of the colorful paint jobs down into the grass, beating the flowers into the mud and making footing so slippery that many people stumbled and fell running for shelter.

  A great wind came up, so forceful that Acorna fully expected to see the pavilions tumbling along the ground like wheels, but of course, the structures only gave the appearance of being fabric and poles. They were actually quite sturdy. In fact, the storm gave her an opportunity to observe another feature of the buildings. As the ground flooded, the floors of the pavilions rose, extruding ramps leading up from the ground to the raised floor. The central poles pulled in, too, so as not to attract the lightning. In fact, other poles suddenly appeared on the outskirts of the compound, specifically raised to attract the lightning.

  “Power collectors,” a very wet Grandam Naadiina told her. She came in shortly after Acorna and laughed to see the running black dye on her skin and hair. Grandam herself was thoroughly drenched but after a brisk toweling for all three of them—Maati had been closest to the pavilion when the storm broke—and hot herbal teas all around, Acorna was back to her original color of hair and skin and all of them were a great deal drier.

  It was a very noisy night, but the miraculous pores of the pavilion fabric kept out the damp and most of the wind, leaving only a heady feeling due to the ions charging the air.

  “Tell us a story, Grandam,” Maati begged. “Tell the one about how the Ancestors left their old home to come to Vhiliinyar.”

  “Very well,” Grandam said. “Long ago, very long ago, before the first Linyaari was born, the Ancestors lived among other species on a distant planet. As they do even now, and as they have passed down to the Linyaari as their legacy to us, the Ancestors possessed horns with the power to heal and to purify air and water.