Acorna's Triumph

by Anne McCaffrey

  She continued concentrating on the planet’s inhabitants as the Condor came within its orbit. It seemed to her that the Sulfurians had been cheated in some way and were bickering more bitterly with each other than they had before.

  She was startled to see two unfamiliar ships occupying a large portion of the viewport’s screen, obscuring the view of the planet below.

  No, that was wrong. Only one of the ships was truly unfamiliar. The other very much resembled the derelict ships she had glimpsed docked beside the underground lake on Vhiliinyar. Host ships.

  “Who’s that?” Rafik asked.

  “I think it’s a Host ship, which means it probably has something to do with Grimalkin,” Acorna said.

  “Then all that talk of his about returning to MOO to get food was just talk.”

  “Maybe,” Acorna said. “But I suppose he could have consulted history, which seems to be his answer to a lot of problems, and learned that Andina would arrive on Skarness in time to feed everyone.”

  “But that doesn’t explain what he’s doing here,” Becker said.

  “Perhaps if we hail him, he will explain,” Mac suggested reasonably.

  “Or give us some kind of cock-and-bull story,” Becker pointed out. “I can guess which is more likely.”

  Meanwhile, Acorna was sending out a hail of her own to Aari, in case Grimalkin had him aboard the ship. This time her whole heart was in her message. She imagined her own Aari, not changed, not having betrayed her by abandoning their brief life together and all memories of it in exchange for an earlier, more physically complete self. Aari Whole-Horn was a fraud! The thought brought her relief and worry at the same time. Relief that Grimalkin’s interpretation of Aari was not the only version of her beloved she was ever likely to see again, and at the same time the fear that if Aari was still missing, he was in some terrible danger Grimalkin had yet to reveal.

  Or worse.

  “Has either ship identified itself yet, Aziza?” Rafik asked the security chief.

  “No, but neither have I. That is why I am cloaked, is it not?”

  “You have a good point,” he said.

  But Acorna had tuned out of the conversation going on around her. Another conversation on a tight band only her telepathy could penetrate had her full attention.

  Smythe-Wesson said, “The stones are right down there. Under that pile of limbs.”

  “You expect me to take that on faith, do you?” asked Grimalkin’s voice, now not even vaguely like Aari’s. It was higher and more nasal. “I do not buy concealed items. I will need to inspect them to make sure they are of the size and quality you claimed. The syndicate I represent doesn’t need any more stones of the ordinary variety you showed me. I came out here only because you guaranteed you could deliver something remarkable.”

  “Of course. Of course. I will descend low enough to engage my tractor beam. I assure you, you will be not merely satisfied, but astounded.”

  “Yes, yes. Carry on,” Grimalkin said. But meanwhile, Acorna picked up on another communication from him.

  “O ye Liquids that were and ye Mutables that are, We have returned.”

  All of the pent-up fury of the Sulfurians focused on the mental voice.

  Acorna had not, apparently, been the only victim of Grimalkin’s tricks.

  “What? Don’t tell me you are dissatisfied with our bargain. Have I not made you equal with the Mutables?”

  Acorna suddenly had a vision of translucent yellow puslike substances frozen in place as more solid, foamy-looking yellow substances, also frozen, towered above. Ah, so that explained the rather caged feeling she had received in connection with the Sulfurian rage. Grimalkin had frozen in place both Liquids and Mutables as they transformed to Liquids. She had no way of knowing what the original bargain was. She only knew that the Sulfurians felt Grimalkin had violated it.

  In her mind’s eye she saw Grimalkin, that cat-man shape she once saw in a dream and later in a petroglyph, lounging on the broad ledge of his ship’s viewport, his furred head yellowish from the reflected glow of the sulfur world. Casually, he deployed a low-intensity laser beam that thawed the chemical freeze he’d performed on the Liquids and the Mutables in Liquid form. “Satisfied now?”

  They weren’t, of course.

  She took in as much as she could stand, then sighed and told the others, “I hate to say this, but even if he is a thief, I don’t think we can leave Smythe-Wesson to Grimalkin and the Sulfurians.”

  “Why not?” Becker asked indignantly, but he didn’t stop her as she toggled the com unit.

  “Smythe-Wesson,” Acorna said. “This is the Condor. We have been deputized by House Harakamian to arrest you for the theft of the chrysoberyls from the Moon of Opportunity.”

  “What chrysoberyls?” Smythe-Wesson asked. “I am in pursuit of the thieves—those belly dancers the cleaning lady so unwisely brought to the Moon of Opportunity.”

  Aziza shrieked indignantly, “Son of a syphilitic she-camel, do you think Lady Acorna is a fool to be taken in by your lies? For the past few weeks we ‘belly dancers’ have been pursuing you.”

  Both the Condor and the Ali Baba dropped their cloaks.

  “Now that you’ve caught me, what do you propose to do?” Smythe-Wesson demanded. “I did save out a few of the chrysoberyls to modify my armaments and, using them, I assure you I could cut you into pieces too small to interest another salvage ship.”

  “Pah!” Aziza spat. “Do you think Lord Hafiz did not think of that? We also have terrible weapons employing the gems.”

  “Impossible. I have all the ones you stole from the warehouse.”

  “Ah, but we were not so bold as to steal the gems from Lady Karina’s person,” Aziza told him. “And those were of a size and purity that make highly accurate and effective weapons. Shall I demonstrate, Lord Rafik?”

  Acorna appreciated the bravado of her companions but, knowing something they had no way of knowing, interrupted. “Who is your companion, Smythe-Wesson?”

  “An ally. A customer.”

  Grimalkin, who disliked being talked about instead of directing the discussion himself, interjected, “An impatient customer. Deal with these people later, Smythe-Wesson. I am anxious to see the merchandise. I will keep them at bay while you retrieve it.”

  “Don’t do it, Smythe-Wesson,” Acorna felt compelled to warn him. “The stones are no longer there.”

  “Where are they, then? Don’t tell me you’ve retrieved them already? How could you have?”

  “It would have been easy, if we’d been in time,” she told him. “There was a homing beacon embedded in each stone and visible only to ships cued with its code, as we are. That beacon is now coming from your so-called customer’s ship. He poses a much greater danger to you than we do.”

  “An old ploy, my friend,” Grimalkin said. “Divide and conquer. Why would I follow you to acquire the stones if I already have them?”

  Acorna had no wish to bandy words with Grimalkin or argue with him over his manufactured version of events. Hoping Smythe-Wesson had some smidgen of telepathic sensitivity and sense of self-preservation, she sent him images of what had happened to Rafik in the past, and of what Grimalkin had arranged for him below. She also sent him clear images of the pile of chrysoberyls lying in somewhat scattered disarray on the bridge of Grimalkin’s vessel. Some of them were rolling around, and he swatted at them in a rather bored manner.

  Her hunch paid off. She got a response to her imaging.

  (Why?) Smythe-Wesson wondered.

  (Good question. Our current theory is that he’s a sociopath,) Acorna replied. (He enjoys manipulating events and people and he doesn’t care who is injured by his actions. Compared to him, you are almost an honest man. I suggest strongly that you surrender yourself to Aziza’s tender mercies before having any further dealings with Grimalkin.)

  To make certain he understood the peril awaiting him, she concentrated again on what had happened to Rafik. However, she substituted images
of Smythe-Wesson for her foster father before sending the images to him. She also included some of the sentiments the Sulfurians had expressed regarding the man who had massacred their fellows.

  Smythe-Wesson did not scare easily, but the waking nightmare Acorna planted in his head was enough to convince him. Shuddering, he said, “I surrender.” Acorna picked up a brief impression that as soon as the man was out of danger from Grimalkin, he would probably cease to be so cooperative, but she would leave that to Aziza and the others. She had other priorities at the moment.

  “Space your weapons,” Aziza demanded, and when the laser cannon drifted slowly out of an airlock, Aziza locked a tractor beam on the vessel.

  “That was no fun at all,” Becker complained. “I don’t know what you did, Princess, but you somehow averted all the burning, bloodshed, violence, and the many explosions that I was counting on to gladden my heart.”

  “Yes,” Rafik agreed. “Good job, Acorna. The sulfur people will never forgive you if they learn you warned Smythe-Wesson away, but good job nonetheless.”

  She nodded distractedly and hailed Grimalkin’s ship. “I want a word with you,” she said severely.

  “Haven’t you said enough already? I was about to see justice done, and you spoiled it all.”

  “I have no time for that. I want to know where Aari is, and when, and I want to know it now, in the present timeline, immediately. If not sooner.”

  “Keep your horn on,” Grimalkin said irritably. “He’s perfectly safe back on Vhiliinyar.”

  “He’d better be,” Acorna said, sounding positively ka-Linyaari, and certainly not pacifistic in the least.

  The Condor closed the distance to the Host ship. Grimalkin, in his Aari guise, appeared on the screen of the com unit. “Khornya,” he said in what was meant to be a soothing, gentle tone, “be reasonable—”

  “Take off his face,” she said in the closest to a growl Rafik or Becker had ever heard from her. “And don’t call me Khornya. It’s Lady Harakamian-Li to you.”

  Grimalkin morphed before their eyes into the shape of a small and, as he no doubt hoped, adorable kitten with a black spot over one wide green eye. (I’ll give you back the stones. I only wanted to help you get them back.) He was using thought transference with her while her shipmates heard pathetic, plaintive mewing. RK, who had awakened from a nap, stopped in midstretch and hopped up on the console. He hissed and took a swipe at the kitten on the screen.

  (As far as I’m concerned, the matter of the stones is between you and Hafiz. My business with you is more important at this moment. I want Aari back, and I want him back now—or, since you are who you are—sooner. Where is he? What have you done with him?)

  “Maybe I’d better lock the tractor beam onto that guy,” Becker said. “At least until he hands over the stones.”

  But the Host ship had already winked out. Acorna caught only a whisper of a thought. (We’ll meet you on Vhiliinyar.)

  Grimalkin shuddered. Perhaps he had done Aari a favor by leaving him behind. That Khornya! Personally, he would rather have faced the Sulfurians or the Khleevi than that Linyaari female in a snit.

  And she had nothing to be upset about, really. He would just go back and collect Aari at the cave. They would return the stones. Aari would no doubt rush back to the arms of his female, and Grimalkin would simply look elsewhere for his DNA samples. He could use Laarye now, and Acorna’s parents. All of them had sufficient cause to be grateful to him, and they were close enough to his chosen subjects so as to make no difference in his genetic master plan. Though he thought maybe he should tinker with the material from Acorna’s parents and eliminate the factors that produced such unbecoming stubbornness and suspicion in their offspring.

  What had she called him when speaking to that criminal, that thief from whom he, Grimalkin, was trying to protect her property? Oh, yes, a sociopath. Ungrateful kit! Why, any of his other females would have been thrilled to the roots of their tails if he had deigned to do them any of the favors he had done for Acorna. They would have been pleased if he’d so much as stuck around to inspect his spawn once they bore them. But not her! Some people were so heartless, so unfair. He mewed inside to think of her cruelty. Poor, poor Aari really would be better off in that cave, except…well, the fellow didn’t actually have enough food to last much longer.

  Grimalkin had never intended for Aari to remain there for so long. The Linyaari was a likable fellow, and his companionship had been stimulating. Never in his wildest imaginings had Grimalkin thought it would take so long to impersonate him, seduce the female, then, before she knew what had happened, substitute the real Aari with a few implanted suggestions that would make both of them think Aari was the one who had been carnally reunited with Acorna. It was all Acorna’s fault for being so much trouble. Otherwise, Aari would have been free long before this, neither of them the wiser, and no harm done. And, of course, Grimalkin would have what he came for.

  He glimpsed Restoration-era Vhiliinyar briefly from orbit before setting his wrist timer and returning to when he had retrieved Laarye. He’d given Aari a mental suggestion that acted as a light sedative, and left him food and drink. Laarye, of course, had thought that Grimalkin was Aari and indeed, Grimalkin’s version of Aari was more like the Aari Laarye had known when they found the cave together than was the real Aari, sobered as he was by his ordeal with the Khleevi. Even Aari’s parents were fooled.

  Oh, well, he never intended to be Aari indefinitely anyway. That would have been a bore. He set the ship down near the green graveyard, put an expression of extreme worry and concern on his face, disembarked, and entered the cave.

  “Aari? My friend, where are you? It’s me, Grimalkin. I’ve come to rescue you and take you back to your family and your mate.”

  But the cave was empty. The grasses Grimalkin had left behind were gone, the water bottle was empty, and there were fresh scratches on the walls marking off the time. But…no Aari.

  Flashes of lightning illuminated the cave’s dry, dusty interior. Thunder and avalanche rumbled nearby. While he’d orbited the planet, Grimalkin had observed the frequent quakes that split the ground as if the planet were some fragile bit of cloth being crumbled and squashed in the fist of a giant. Rents in its fabric had opened with each cruel dig of the giant’s fingers.

  Not a safe place to be. Personally, Grimalkin wanted to leave as soon as possible. But if he did, he’d have to make sure and avoid the time he’d just left, or Khornya would have his pelt.

  He returned to the ship and hopped into the flitter, after first loading it with the infrared tracking device. Although, with the ground cracking open and magma spilling out of every pore of the planet’s surface, he wasn’t sure that heat-seeking was a good way to find the boy. He lost the trail only a mile or so from the cave. Thoughtfully, he circled the area, keeping his eye on the scanners for any sign of Aari.

  Volcanic eruptions shot fire and smoke all around him, clouds of ash enveloped the little flitter, and the quaking of the world unsettled him. He thought about his options. Really, this was doing things the hard way. He would just slip back a few days to before he left Aari in the cave and this time—not. He already knew that his purpose in depositing the boy there was futile. So they would do as Aari wished, retrieve Laarye, and return to Acorna’s timeline…well, he would have to backtrack a bit, so that when she and Aari’s sister first met him in Kubiilikaan it would be as Grimalkin with Aari instead of Grimalkin as Aari. All would be well.

  Everyone would be the way she liked it, and she’d have no reason to be peeved with poor Grimalkin.

  He started to tap his time device when his small craft was enveloped in brilliant white light.

  For a moment he was startled, but then he realized that it was only lightning. That couldn’t harm the flitter.

  And then there was a second flash, a second boom, and the flitter rocked madly and dived dirtward. Grimalkin was surprised, but he was not alarmed until large pincers peeled back the hatch and a gi
ant buglike bug-eyed alien plucked him from the flitter’s interior as if he was some sort of a prize.

  Grimalkin looked into the thing’s toothy mandibles, then glanced quickly at his wrist, which was waving around wildly as if it had nothing to do with the rest of him. He had gone back a bit farther in time than he meant to. In this time, the Khleevi were still very much present. And he, it seemed, was their latest entertainment. The Khleevi’s pincers seized his wrist. He morphed to cat shape, pulled his forepaw free, and ran. But not before his time device fell to the ground at the feet of the Khleevi.

  Thirteen

  Aari huddled under the riverbank while the ground heaved and caved, rumpling great mounds of soil and rock up, then letting them drop below. He would find no water today, he knew. In spite of the dirt covering his hide, his skin was burned from the light of the sun through the thin atmosphere. His horn, newly grown over the place where it had once spiraled from his forehead, was little more than a stunted knot. But he had used it so often to try to heal his aches and gashes, bruises and sprains, and even fractures that it was depleted. He couldn’t actually see it, since it was situated where it was and he had no mirror, nor, more’s the pity, a clear pool of clean water to view it in. But he knew it would be transparent with fatigue now. He felt transparent with fatigue himself.

  And he still had no idea of how much farther he had to go until he reached the entrance to Kubiilikaan, or how far away the nearest Khleevi patrol was.

  If he could just avoid them a little longer, he knew he would cease to be in danger from them. But hunger made him feel hollow as an empty seedpod. His thirst made him brother to the cracks in the parched and blighted ground of his planet. Each explosion and rumble seemed to go right through him, so that the marrow of his bones quivered with the vibrations. He knew he was nearer to death than he was to Kubiilikaan. Once, stuck in this time and place, he would have welcomed death, but that was before he knew Khornya. Now his greatest regret was that he would not be able to tell her how much he wished they had their long Linyaari life span to live out together, to raise younglings, and explore new galaxies together.