Acorna's Quest

by Anne McCaffrey

  His pacing had brought him back once again to that portion of the garden where the Skarness Stones were located. Although his establishment was completely underground, and shielded by formidable appliances, he could actually stand just beneath the position of the Stones.

  He clapped his hands to summon a human servant. “Bring me a thin rod, of metal, not silver nor gold, but base metal, of two arm-spans’ length. No, misbegotten whelp of a djinni’s basest lusts, how should I know where such a thing is to be found? Inquire of the steward, and do not trouble me with such matters.” Once the rod had been located, he demanded a ladder. “Now position it…no, never mind. Guard the door to this corridor, and let no one enter until I give permission. I shall be…at my devotions.” No need for any to observe the procedure which he had invented for communicating with the Stones from this underground refuge; and if they wondered what sort of devotions required this equipment, why, let them wonder!

  The manual labor of placing a stepladder was beneath his dignity, but by great good fortune he hit the D Stone with his first try. Then, placing his forehead and both hands on the rod, he tapped out his urgent query.

  “Has Laboue been invaded?”

  There was no immediate answer. He hadn’t expected a prompt reply—but he expected some reaction. Besides, it was undignified for a man of his eminence and prestige to remain in this semisubservient posture, even if he had taken care not to be observed. Also, the metal rod was beginning to wear a groove into his forehead. He daren’t relax either his grip or the contact with the rod because he had to catch the rhythm of whatever message the Skarness Stones had for him.

  “Clear sky.”

  Hafiz thanked them and stood upright, dropping the rod with a clang as he alternately rubbed the ridges on his hands and forehead. Then he wondered just what that cryptic message did mean. “Clear skies” because the weather was fair; “clear skies” because these monsters had landed; or “clear skies” because whatever had been headed toward Laboue had gone around the planet?

  He convinced himself the last interpretation was the most likely, since no detection equipment known to mankind could have pierced the shell currently protecting the inmates—and there was no truer definition of those who resided on, or under, Laboue right now. So it had to be safe. The Stones would not have lied to him. They didn’t know how.

  Hafiz did get in touch with Qulabriel as protocol required.

  “I’m going above, Qulabriel. I must be in touch with my people, to reassure them. I will report on the condition of the surface once I have ascertained if any damage has been done. But I must surface.”

  “If you must, you must,” Qulabriel replied in a grudging tone. “However, do not respond if there is any change in the surface at all. And a thorough scan, please.”

  “Has not the Second Prophet admonished us, ‘Do what thou shalt do, but do all in order and as fitting My children’?” Hafiz replied genially, while vowing that some day Qulabriel would pay for the tone of voice he had just used to the Head of House Harakamian.

  The process of unshielding and rising took time. Hafiz had the ladder placed in one of the upper rooms, at the tallest window near the ceiling so that he could countermand the action if he found reason to do so.

  He saw no danger, as his dwelling made a stately ascent into the fresh, clear air of Laboue. All around, of course, where other gardens should be, and other dwellings hidden within them, there was blank and featureless space. For the Shielding provided Laboue with a sterile desert surface in some places or rampant, impenetrable jungle vistas which clearly said to any observer that this planet wasn’t worth further inspection.

  Clambering down the ladder while his extensive household was still climbing up out of its basement retreat, Hafiz made his way to his office and reactivated his contact with the receivers implanted in one of Laboue’s little moons.

  Messages came flooding in to his receiver. Those from Rafik went from queries to near-hysterical demands for reply. Some of the later ones from his associates also ranged from moderate concern to the hysteria that characterized Rafik’s.

  “It’s nice to know that I’ve been missed,” Hafiz said, until he realized that he had also missed out on a fine coup and a large profit. He got more and more upset as he began to tote up just how much money the isolation had cost him in terms of deals unanswered and missed opportunities. When he got his hands around the necks of those…those…what had they called themselves?…Linyaari, he would show them not to deceive the Head of House Harakamian with such dramatic hoaxes.

  Yelling for his servants to ready his spacecraft and telling his chief steward to report to Qulabriel, Hafiz almost ran to the hangar in his anxiety to be airborne and back in the midst of the world from which he had temporarily excluded himself. He must show himself in person at the trading centers of his personal empire, and at once. Who knew how long it would take him to repair the damage done? Who knew what negotiating it would take to prove that the Head of House Harakamian was not a coward, diving underground at the first sign of danger? What had made him panic so badly at those obviously manufactured scenes shown by the Linyaari?

  He was already demanding a nav plan for Twi Osiam when he calmed down enough to wonder, again, whether the scenes broadcast to Laboue might not have been real and not a hoax. After all, the people who had broadcast their warning were Acorna’s folk. He’d never known her to lie…but of course, his beloved nephew had raised the girl so she would value truth. A pity, that…with better training, she might have been most useful to him in the business dealings of House Harakamian. But she was so incurably candid that he suspected her species could not be other than straightforward. And why would they have shown their own species being tortured if there were not some substance to their outrageous claim that this part of the galaxy was in danger? That those…those…barbaric savages were on the loose in the immediate vicinity?

  He sent a lucid message to Rafik on the Uhuru, mentioning that he was again in circulation and asking what Rafik had been able to save of their current deals without his authorization, which, in some cases, Rafik still must present to seal a contract.

  He got back the signal, which meant the Uhuru was recording the message. Now where was Rafik? If not on board his ship, he had better be doing business for House Harakamian. He received back the somewhat reassuring report that the Uhuru was currently docked at Maganos.

  What but a threat to Acorna could have taken Rafik from his assigned business deals to Maganos? And should she not be apprised of the arrival of others like her? Worry and concern and a kindly desire to give Acorna this news in person inspired Hafiz to do something he had not considered in all his adult life: he put aside his business plans for a purely personal trip to Maganos Moon Base.

  “At least the time of travel need not be a total loss,” Hafiz told himself. Some at least of his complex business dealings could be rescued by long-distance communication, and he spent the time of the journey doing just that. He was requesting landing permission from Maganos Moon Base when a final message in the long line he had been receiving was from Rafik.

  “Uncle, having no way of communicating with you, I have asked Delszaki Li to make arrangements on Acorna’s behalf. I trust they will meet with your approval. I will report as soon as we reach Rushima.”

  “Rushima? Grushima?” Hafiz was totally outraged. He’d never heard of the place and tapped in a request for information, trying to control his temper. After all, he had authorized Rafik to operate on his own, finely tuned instincts…. “An agri planet?” he bellowed when the information came up. “Sponsored by the Shenjemi?”

  Hafiz’s dealings with the Shenjemi Federation had not been all that remunerative, and Hafiz made his value judgments on profits made. He’d had few enough from the Federation.

  “Why has Rafik gone off to Rushima anyway? It almost sounds as if he is following Acorna. What possessed the girl to take off just when her people appear in our space? Provola had better know exact
ly what’s happening, or I may have to wait until Rafik’s firstborn son shows what promise he might have,” Hafiz said to the ship in general and no one, certainly not his crew, in particular.

  When his ship docked at Maganos Moon Base Hafiz went straight to Delszaki Li’s private offices, only to find them deserted. Not even the secretary who usually guarded the inner sanctum was at his post. As a consequence, Hafiz had no way of finding out that Mr. Li had briefly collapsed after the strain of the past few days and had been ordered to bed in Maganos’s small hospital facility. The secretary who should have been receiving visitors and directing inquiries was instead hovering outside the closed doors of the hospital unit, waiting to hear of the recovery of an old man he had come to love like…well, not a father…more like a great-grandfather.

  To be fair, Li had no reason to expect any need for his services; since the triumph of the Child Liberation League had obviated the need for secrecy, Mr. Li had more and more left the day-to-day management of his financial and business affairs in the hands of trusted subordinates. Furthermore, when he visited Maganos he considered himself “on holiday” and expected—and received—no visitors except those in his immediate circle of beloved friends—the three miners, the Kendoro siblings, and, of course, Acorna—all of whom were gone now. Not expecting Hafiz to lower the shield, let alone journey to Maganos, none of them had thought to leave him any explanations for their sudden departure. And the secretary, who, like most of the rest of Maganos, was not privy to the tale brought by the Linyaari envoys, had little to offer when Hafiz finally located him.

  “Acorna and Calum left first, in the Acadecki—” Hafiz began.

  “You know about that?” The secretary was stunned.

  “I should,” Hafiz said, “she’s my ship. Continue, please.”

  “Well. Everybody was worried about that. The ship wasn’t fitted up properly, you see….” The secretary started off in some detail about the remodeling and improved defense plans for the Acadecki, which he did know something about, until Hafiz interrupted and very politely suggested that the man go on with his story about what had happened to cause a mass desertion of Maganos and Delszaki Li’s collapse.

  “Well, um, they arrested this…person,” the secretary went on doubtfully, and wondered why his own tongue seemed to be fighting him. Of course it had been a person, a young man, he’d seen him, what else would you call him? But something else was diverting his attention from the story….

  “It’s hard to talk with my collar twisted so tightly,” the secretary said, “if you could…”

  “A thousand apologies.” Hafiz released his grip on the man’s tunic, but not the steely-eyed glare that somehow brought to mind much worse things than simple assault…archaic words like bastinado and strappado floated through the secretary’s jangling brain. Once released, he told Hafiz everything he could; unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to allow any reconstruction of what had been going on in Li’s private rooms. Other…“people”…had come…. For some reason, he had a hard time describing them or even remembering their appearance; all he knew for sure was that they were good people who meant no harm, and there was nothing unusual about them.

  “And how,” Hafiz inquired silkily, “do you ‘know’ all that?”

  The secretary shook his head. “I just know….”

  Judit, Gill, and Pal had all gathered with Mr. Li to speak with them, and so had Rafik when he arrived. They kept the door closed, and the secretary couldn’t hear anything except when somebody went in or out. Once he heard the new visitors speaking in a language that he couldn’t identify.

  “I didn’t get it,” the man said. “They had their own ship; they looked rich; doesn’t everybody speak Galactic by now? I can’t imagine where they could have come from.”

  “Who cares?” Hafiz snapped. “Go on.”

  There wasn’t much left to tell. The strangers had left in their splendid ship; Judit, Gill, Pal, and Rafik had all left in the Uhuru; Delszaki Li had been so fatigued that despite frequent short naps while the talking went on, he had collapsed immediately after their departure and had been resting in the high-security medical unit ever since.

  “They won’t let anyone in to see him,” the secretary said. “They just keep saying he’s resting comfortably and doing as well as can be expected and all the usual blather.” He looked at Hafiz with some hope. “The doctor might let you in.”

  But the Harakamian will met its match in a youngish, tired doctor whose first medical experience had been as a volunteer to patch up bruised and broken children on the day of the Liberation, and who revered Delszaki Li as a near saint.

  “He’s been heavily medicated and will remain so until I am satisfied that his physical condition has stabilized,” the doctor snapped, “and until then, nobody disturbs him!”

  “If you’ve got him doped to the eyeballs,” Hafiz tactlessly translated the medicalese, “I don’t suppose it would do me much good to look at his sleeping body.”

  Consumed with curiosity, he decided to pass the time until Li awoke or a message came from the Uhuru by finding out what had been done since his last visit to complete the mining facilities. A sudden thought struck him as he turned to make his way to the engineering offices. “Ah—Provola didn’t take off for the back end of beyond also, did she?”

  Reassured that Provola Quero was in her office as usual, Hafiz made his way there after leaving instructions that any news was to be forwarded at once to Provola’s office, the suite which was kept for him in Maganos’s living quarters, and any other place he might conceivably be found.

  The door to Provola’s office was open, and from some distance Hafiz could hear a tearful voice pleading with Provola Quero and that woman’s calm, cool, responses, obviously unmoved by the petition. As he entered, his eyes were taken by the unexpected sight of a generous womanly figure in lavender, nicely set off by white trim, and enhanced by a number of glittering crystals of various colors which quivered enticingly from the fine silver chains which draped the woman’s voluptuous body. She would have made two of wiry little Provola Quero, with her ascetically cropped head and single tight braid—and in Hafiz’s estimation, a true woman like this was worth ten of an engineer-female like Provola.

  “My dear Mr. Harakamian,” Provola said with more warmth than Hafiz had ever heard in the woman’s voice before. She was not his type, and not even feminine in her appearance, but she was an excellent manager. She turned to the female. “I must ask you to leave now.”

  “But where can I leave TO?” was the tearful reply, plump white hands with beringed fingers wide open in appeal. “I only had enough credit to get here to help darling Acorna….”

  “And why, my dear…” Hafiz paused to allow for an introduction.

  “Karina…” both women said at once.

  Hafiz could not resist seizing the delightfully plump white hand now extended in supplication to him. And he kissed and stroked it while with his other hand he gestured to Provola that he would handle this.

  As he guided Karina out of Provola’s inner office, he could hear her sigh of relief.

  “My dear Karina, why did you think that Acorna needed help?” Hafiz said, gesturing around at the well-appointed waiting room and the busy corridor outside.

  “But she does,” Karina insisted, and then his name dropped into the proper slot in her retentive memory, “dear Mr. Harakamian.”

  “Let us discuss this matter in the privacy of my quarters,” Hafiz said at his most persuasive and in his silkiest tone. He hadn’t seen a woman of these delicious proportions in so long. Nowadays the emphasis was on trim, slim, svelte, bony feminine figures, and he’d about given up the hope of finding one that would be so enticing to him. It was an added attraction that she seemed to know something about Acorna’s present situation.

  Karina’s eyes widened. “You have rooms here…on Maganos?”

  “I have many personal and business connections with the House of Li,” Hafiz explained, leading
her toward Living Quarters A. “A suite of rooms is kept constantly maintained and at my disposal…or is supposed to be.” He finished with a scowl as he placed his palm on the reader beside the door to his suite and the door slowly irised open to reveal rooms that had clearly quite recently suffered from the recent invasion of a careless bachelor. Datacubes and vids littered the floor, never having been put back in their individual cases; a natty suit in lime green and fuchsia lay crumpled at the entrance to the shower cube; and a half-empty glass making rings on the polished Tanqque purpleheart wood of the nearest table testified by its smell that the recent occupant of these rooms had taken to heart the Second Prophet’s relaxation of the restrictions on spirituous liquors.

  “My heir,” Hafiz growled. “Soon to be my ex-heir if he does not mend his ways!” He activated the wall console and requested a thorough cleaning for the suite, then suggested to Karina that they should repair to one of the small dining rooms off the main cafeteria instead. “And when Rafik comes back,” he said, “if he comes back, I shall enroll him in the Personal Hygiene and Cleanliness classes taught to the children of Maganos, for clearly he is in sore need of basic instruction!” The thought of tall, dignified Rafik cramped into a child’s desk and lectured on the need to clean his teeth properly tickled Hafiz’s fancy and dispelled most of his anger.

  Karina dispelled the rest of it by asking how he could possibly be annoyed with such a fine, brave, handsome man as Rafik, and vowing that she had recognized him instantly from his resemblance to Rafik. If she had in fact done so, it would have been a remarkable feat of imagination, since Hafiz was six inches shorter and thirty pounds heavier than Rafik, and his creased face, now consciously amiable, bore a strong resemblance to that of a crocodile hoping that some day another fat, brown child would tumble down the bank. However, to Karina, hungry and stranded for days on a strange planet without credit, Hafiz looked truly beautiful as he led her to a small dining room where he requested a tray of cream pastries and his special blend of kava.