Acorna's Quest

by Anne McCaffrey

  Later he thought that he might never forgive himself for that omission.

  A dream of flashing lights, laser pulses calling lightning from the clouds, cities going up in silent waves of flame, resolved into the steady three-pulsed flash of the cabin lights that signaled an emergency alert. Markel half fell out of his sleep tube, rubbing his eyes, and turned to Illart for an explanation of this emergency.

  Only Illart wasn’t there. He must already have gone to deal with the problem…but what sort of emergency could call the First Speaker out in the middle of his sleep shift? For engineering problems, Sengrat would have been called; for computer systems, Johnny Greene or one of the other hotshots who carried the CaN. Much as Markel respected his father, he knew that Illart’s high position on the Haven was due not to technical expertise but to his reputation for probity and plain speaking. Illart wasn’t even that much of a diplomat; when they needed somebody to weasel-word around some system’s regulations, Gerezan was the Speaker they called upon to phrase the careful sentences.

  Well, it was dumb to stand there trying to guess what had happened instead of using the ship’s information channels. Markel turned toward the main data console built into the wall of the sitting area, but before he touched it, the screen came to life of its own, casting an eerie pale glow over the darkened chamber. “FREE CITIZENS OF THE HAVEN!” blared the speakers. For once, the sounds came through clear as a bell, with no ominous cracklings in the background. “Please assemble before your screens for an important announcement!” The emergency lights flashed three more times, a siren went off, and the lights pulsed again before the gray background of the screen dissolved to show…not the Council chambers, as Markel had expected, but one of the cargo bays where technical equipment and supplies were stowed. Confused-looking people, disheveled from sleep, stood to one side of the bay; among them Markel saw his father and Andrezhuria, the Second Speaker. On the other side of the bay stood those who must have been on shift when the emergency, whatever it was, had occurred; their faces were bright and alert, and they were wearing crisply pressed black fatigues. The majority of them seemed to be Palomellese, although Markel recognized Gerezan, Third Speaker, and Sengrat standing with them. With mounting disbelief Markel saw that two of the Palomellese had drawn phasers and were aiming them at the other side of the bay. He had no time to see more before Nueva Fallona’s sharply chiseled features filled the screen.

  “Free citizens of the Haven,” she began crisply, “you have been betrayed, not once, but over and over again through the years, by those who pretended to care for your welfare above their own. This ship, our only home, is in grave disrepair, and the Haven has no funds for refitting and repair. Yet the Speakers of Council who are supposed to guard your fate have paid no attention to your desperate situation; they care more about acting the part of noble and disinterested statesmen than they do about protecting those who depend on them! Furthermore, though they pretend to have a system of democratic elections, the fact is that the power of Council is controlled by the three Speakers, and they have not changed since the first charter of the Starfarers.”

  Markel frowned. That was true, now he came to think of it. Andrezhuria, Gerezan, and his father had shifted the burden of being First Speaker from one to another over the years, but he could not remember any other Speakers ever being elected. In fact, nobody ever ran for the office; it was the lesser Council posts that were disputed in the lengthy political debates the older people loved so well. But Nueva didn’t understand. Who’d want to be a Speaker? It was a heavy responsibility, one that had lined Illart’s face before his time, one that had broken up Andrezhuria’s marriage to Ezkerra when he complained that she cared more about the Starfarers en masse than about her husband.

  “As a loyal Starfarer, I can no longer stand aside and see this travesty of a government go on until our tanks are empty of water and our atmosphere is poisoned by failing recyclers,” Nueva went on. An abstract part of Markel’s mind was impressed by the way she harped on the issues that would immediately excite any space-faring group, while the rest of him was beginning to panic. Something terrible was going to happen. He knew about Nueva and the rest of the Palomellese now; he had to tell Illart immediately, before whatever this was went any further.

  The cabin door would not move under his hand. He tugged at the latch to no avail; it wasn’t stuck, it was electronically locked. Probably by a command from Central Systems.

  “At the eleventh hour we have found a way to salvage ourselves through the work of a new Starfarer, Dr. Ngaen Xong Hoa,” Nueva said from the screen. “Proper application of his research can give us the power to control the weather and communications of any planet we visit. Rushima and many others will pay well for the use of this technology, but the fainthearts who control the Council will not permit it. They would rather see you suffocate in a dying ship than take the risk of using new technology!”

  Illart started forward. “No!” he shouted. “That’s a lie, Nueva, and you know it! Tell them what Hoa’s system will actually do to a planet! Tell them that you don’t know the effects of using it, that nobody can predict—”

  A Palomellese swung his phaser up into Illart’s face. “No interrup’ La Fallona!”

  Markel held his breath until Illart subsided. For a moment he’d thought he was about to see his father murdered before his eyes.

  “We, the loyal Starfarers, have been forced to take over from the Council in this emergency,” said Nueva. “Those who are with us stand here. Those who are not with us may now leave the Haven.”

  Markel exhaled a long sigh of relief. The Palomellese might be criminals, but they weren’t homicidal maniacs. They meant to exile the Speakers to Rushima. It was a crazy plan, but it wouldn’t—it couldn’t—last long. The Starfarers would never stand for this…would they? For the first time he felt uneasy about the sight of Gerezan and Sengrat, fully dressed and alert, standing comfortably among all these armed Palomellese.

  Andrezhuria spoke into the silence left by Nueva’s last words. “I will happily take a lifeboat to any system you name,” she announced, “rather than lend my countenance to your extortion schemes. But we’ll be back when the Starfarers realize what you’re up to!”

  Nueva’s smile did not reach her eyes. “Back? Oh, no, I don’t think so,” she said softly. “Whatever gave you the idea we meant to waste precious resources like lifeboats and oxygen tanks on the fools who have already wasted so much of the Haven’s substance? If you won’t earn the air you breathe, then you can find your own—out there.” She gestured with her phaser toward the door to air locks at the end of the cargo bay.

  “Now, just a minute, Nueva,” Gerezan protested uneasily. “I never meant—”

  “No? Then you, too, are a fool,” Nueva said. “Perhaps in sentimental vids people leave their enemies alive, to recover and strike at them again. On Palomella we learned better.” She nodded at one of the other armed Palomellese. “Esposito, the prisoners here are those who cannot be rehabilitated. You may escort them to the air locks.” She turned back to the screen. “Citizens, you have been confined to quarters for your own security during this changeover. As soon as the prisoners have been disposed of, members of the new Council will come among you to release you from your quarters and take your oaths of loyalty.”

  Markel stood like an idiot, staring at the screen as he saw the men and women in their sleeping clothes shuffle forward under the phasers of the Palomellese guards. He recognized nearly all the faces in the group: Council members, First-Generation Starfarers from Esperantza, the sort of people who would have agreed with Illart that it was unthinkable to use Hoa’s weather control as a weapon against peaceful planets. How much of this had been planned? An extended Council meeting, to make sure that all the dissenting members would be sleeping on the next shift; easy then to surprise the CaN and Engineering departments, and to round up unsuspecting, sleeping people for…

  “NO!” Markel hammered at the door, weeping tears of
rage and fury. On the screen, the image of his father said, “Esposito, quit waving that thing around, somebody’s going to get hurt. If you’re going to run this ship, you’d better learn to think ahead.”

  Illart sounded so calm that Markel thought for a minute he had secret control of the situation, that in a moment he would snap his fingers and the Palomellese would discover themselves outmanned by a large force of armed Starfarers.

  But instead, Illart strolled toward the air lock as casually as if he were going for a walk in the Garden. “Aiora, my love,” he said to the slowly opening door, “it has been too long.” He looked directly toward the screen for just a moment. “And we leave those behind who will remember and avenge this treachery.”

  That was his farewell to Markel. Later Markel realized that Illart had not mentioned his name because he did not wish to remind Nueva Fallona that he left a son who would never forgive his execution. At the time he only watched, eyes blinded by tears, as his father passed beyond the inner doors of the air lock and out of his life forever.

  Behind Illart, Andrezhuria shook off the Palomellese who had a hand on her arm. “I go with the First Speaker,” she said coldly. Her eyes glanced at the group of Palomellese. “Gerezan, your honor goes with us. Will you not accompany it?”

  “I did try to get you to see reason, ’Zhuria,” Gerezan mumbled.

  Andrezhuria lifted her chin and tossed the tumble of blond ringlets back over her shoulders. Without another word she stepped forward through the inner doors of the air lock, hand in hand with her former husband Ezkerra. The other prisoners followed her, one by one, some protesting, others accepting their fate in benumbed silence.

  When the inner doors closed behind them, Markel went temporarily mad, beating on the unyielding door and twisting at the walls until his hands were raw and bruised. This could not be happening—it was some sort of nightmare!

  “No nightmare,” said a raw voice he hardly recognized as his own. “You knew what Nueva Fallona was. You knew, and you did not tell Illart.” He had a debt to pay for that failure, a task Illart had laid on him in those last words: to remember and avenge.

  And he could accomplish nothing by crying like a baby or wrestling with the doors as if they could hear his desperation. Markel put his grief aside, and with it the last of his childhood, because he did not have very long to decide what to do before the new guards came for him. They must know that he would never swear loyalty to the regime that had killed his father. Even if they were blind enough to believe in any oath he took, wouldn’t the words choke him?

  There was only one alternative: he must not be there when they came. It was a good thing he knew the secret insides of the Haven so well. In the icy calm that he had imposed on himself, Markel mentally went over at least three separate ways to exit the cabin without using the locked doors, any one of which would leave no trace. But just to confuse the issue, he would hack into the central computer and see what trouble he could make before leaving. No telling when he’d next get a chance at a data console.

  Three

  Laboue, Unified Federation Date 334.05.12

  House Harakamian received an emergency call from the soi-disant senior members of the secluded and elusive planet of Laboue, where Hafiz Harakamian made his home when he was not scouring the galaxy in search of rarities for his collection and profits for his businesses.

  “Surprised by your call? Why, no, my dear Qulabriel,” Hafiz said urbanely. “I assume you wish to enlist my help in communicating with the strange ship that has been in orbit about our world for the past six hours.”

  An irritated crackle came from the speaker, ending on a note of inquiry.

  “But of course I am aware of it. House Harakamian’s defenses are, as I am sure you are aware, planetwide; and information, my dear Qulabriel, is the first requisite for proper self-defense.”

  But Hafiz had not been aware of the reason why Qulabriel was enlisting his aid. When he learned of it, his eyebrows rose in surprise—not so much at the news that beings similar to the horned girl Hafiz had once sheltered were apparent in vids transmitted from the strange ship, as at the discovery that Qulabriel knew all about his unicorn visitor of four years previously. Something was very wrong with the Harakamian security arrangements, to allow Qulabriel access to such information!

  But concerns about his private security system vanished when the broadcasts coming from the ship were transmitted forward to the Harakamian house screens.

  What it was broadcasting was not a known language but files of the most awful atrocities he’d ever seen committed, inflicted by vicious-looking members of an alien race on what Hafiz instantly identified as members of Acorna’s species. Some, and these must be the males writhing within their torture structures, had larger horns, were obviously taller than Acorna, but helpless. Then the awful visions altered to a spatial map, showing the planet Laboue where House Harakamian was sited. Clearly displayed were the bridge of a ship occupied by members of Acorna’s species, and then a second view of the galactic area in which this solar system was located as well as a five-ship vanguard of what had to be the vicious torturers aiming straight at this retreat. Then images of the unicorn people, this time standing upright and free, appeared, their arms outspread in what appeared to be a gesture of greeting—or a cry for help.

  “So?” asked Misra Affrendi, a trusted family retainer who had recently celebrated his 110th year of life, “what do we do?”

  Misra didn’t sound desperate, but there was an edge to his voice.

  “Is there a channel from our satellite open to the horned ones’ ship?”

  “Of course, and everyone with any linguistic ability is trying to analyze their language.”

  Hafiz grimaced. He did have a cube of Acorna opening the Maganos Mining, but he didn’t have Rafik, who might or might not remember the few words Acorna had initially used before she had sopped up Basic Universal Interlingua like a sponge. And, as far as Hafiz knew, the escape pod was at Maganos Moon Base, too, and he’d no cube of THAT to display.

  Qulabriel had wondered if the vids were some form of threat, but to Hafiz it was obvious that the horned folk felt some warning was required to another sapient race standing in the path of such a viciously predatory race as those videoed. Hafiz shuddered at the thought of Acorna’s lovely slender body encased in any of the instruments of torture displayed. And then at the thought of his own in a similar condition.

  “What else is being done?” Hafiz huffed. “As the Third Prophet said, ‘Before thine own life and thine own honor, redeem and protect the house from whence thou camest.’ First we must protect House Harakamian—then we can analyze this message at length and attempt to establish communication.”

  “That has already been taken care of. We’ve activated the Shield, of course,” Misra said, his elderly voice croaking with impatience.

  “Have we warned all our shipping and affiliates?”

  “Those in immediate peril, yes.”

  “But once the Shield goes up, no one can get in or out.”

  “Exactly,” Misra said with great satisfaction.

  “I must contact my heir immediately….”

  “You have six minutes before the Shield goes up.”

  For the first time in his life, Hafiz wondered if the Shield, which had cost so much and had been kept so secret, would prove sufficient to the need. As soon as he sent a message to Rafik, he would initiate his own special invasion procedures. They would have been sufficient against any known hazard, but he didn’t like the look of these new predators. Especially if the little Horn ship had felt obliged to warn any other sapient species it encountered.

  Why could he not remember the few words that Acorna had said to him in her own language?

  “Ah!” Now they came floating back to him. “Avvi,” she had cried in her sleep once. “Avvi, Lalli…”

  “Misra, I must speak to these Horned Ones!”

  “Why? Have you suddenly a method of learning their language
unknown to us?”

  “For once, Methusalitic relic of a thousand of an era no longer even understood, stop asking questions! PATCH ME THROUGH!”

  If the beauty of the four obviously mature specimens of Acorna’s species startled Hafiz, they were dumbfounded to hear him use the two words of their language that he knew.

  “Aavi,” one of them repeated, giving the word a slightly different emphasis that made her sound exactly like Acorna. “Laali?” Then, blast it, she started chattering their gibberish at high speed.

  “What is she saying, what is she saying?” demanded Misra.

  “I have no idea,” said Hafiz, although in fact he was pretty sure she was saying the Horned Ones’ equivalent of “Praise to Allah, at last someone who speaks a civilized language!”

  That attempt at communication had backfired, but at least he had a vid of Acorna to show, taken secretly two years ago when she had visited him, and kept by Hafiz for his private enjoyment. When he displayed the pictures of young Acorna romping on the grass and dancing to her own music on the Singing Stones of Skarness, he saw the amazement of the envoys increase. They fell silent, but their moving eyes and animated gestures indicated that a lively discussion was going on. Why could he not hear it? Oh, well, what difference would it make if he could? He wouldn’t have understood what they were saying anyway.

  When he also produced the graphic of the inscription on her escape pod, they became so agitated that he wondered if he had turned the information about Acorna over to the wrong sort of Horned Ones.

  Hafiz had never been good with charades as a method of communication, but he had the sense to record the movements: the blunt two-jointed hands mimicked a small member of their species, then outspread and uplifted arms and a universally understood expression of query.

  In response he nodded, smiled, and gestured to the latest height of Acorna to indicate her maturity.