Acorna's Triumph

by Anne McCaffrey

  The helix vanished as a geyser of water shot up then splashed over onto the floor, flooding the room and spilling out into the hallway. The remaining Khleevi, its carapace vanishing in a stream of green ichor, took one step toward them and fell forward, narrowly missing Aari, and lay motionless.

  Leaving the Khleevi carcasses to wash back and forth in the water spilling from the ruined pool, Acorna, Aari, and Mac quickly fled to the trapdoor leading to the Ancestral caves. Mac sealed the door with his laser attachment to prevent the tunnel from flooding, too, but water still seeped through and first dripped, then dribbled, then spurted down after them.

  With a collective sigh of relief, they reached the portion of the caves that led upward to the restored surface of the planet.

  “Captain, this is Maak, Captain Becker, please respond. Mr. Nadezda? We must relay an emergency situation to the Linyaari High Council. The time device has been damaged by some Khleevi who came forward in time with Khornya and Aari. The Khleevi are now dead. However, the chamber and possibly the entire building, maybe the caves, perhaps even the city, will be flooded by an underground spring flowing beneath the DNA helix in the time chamber. Repair and containment must be immediately initiated. Is that an accurate assessment of the situation, Aari? Acorna? Perhaps we should return…”

  Acorna, dizzy with relief to have lived through her worst nightmare without damage to her loved ones or herself, sagged against Aari.

  He met her halfway, and the two collapsed, panting, into each other’s arms.

  Maak continued sending his Mayday along with instructions and coordinates, but Khornya and Aari didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, each of them gazed at the other as Mr. Harakamian had looked at the catseye chrysoberyls, as if they each had discovered, or rediscovered, a treasure beyond price. Neither seemed to notice that the other was, despite the floodwater dripping from them, still covered in sticky sap and the stinky slime they had inherited from the now deceased Khleevi.

  They were horn to horn, nose to nose, their eyes wide, as each of Mac’s very untidy Linyaari friends drank in the sight of the other. Aari’s hands cradled Acorna’s head and back, and hers did the same to his. It seemed to Mac that deafness was a side effect of the interesting mental condition they both shared.

  Mac continued trying to reach Becker. He was somewhat distracted by the verbal murmuring sounds coming from Aari and Acorna, subvocalizations that were almost purrs. They didn’t seem to care about the disaster or the ruin of the underground city, an ancient relic full of amazing artifacts that no doubt would hold much valuable knowledge for, not only the Linyaari, but many other races who might learn through them.

  “Maak, this is Melireenya aboard the Balakiire. We received your transmission to Captain Becker and are relaying it to the Council. A team is on its way.”

  Immediately Melireenya was replaced by Neeva. “Maak? Is Acorna with you? Did she find Aari?”

  “Yes, visedhaanye ferilii Neeva, they are both here. They appear to be uninjured, though they are extremely messy. And they are behaving in a peculiar way that I believe may be attributed to Linyaari preliminary mating rituals. Or…at least…is that what it means when they lie on the ground together, heedless of their surroundings, horns touching and…?”

  “Oh, yes!” Feriila, Acorna’s mother, now appeared on Maak’s chest screen. Vaanye, his face partially obscured by Maak’s left nipple, nonetheless seemed to be smiling indulgently as his hands rested on his wife’s shoulder. “The dear children!” Acorna’s mother seemed almost to weep with joy.

  Khaari’s voice said, “Everyone prepare for landing. We’ll be joining them soon!”

  “I am very relieved that you are coming,” Mac told Acorna’s relatives. “I had received no response to my prior communications.”

  “That’s because Becker and Rafik had to make a detour to rendezvous with Aziza and her crew. As they were entering orbit on their way to join your crew, they picked up the homing signal from the stolen catseye chrysoberyls and located them in the ruin of a ship heretofore undiscovered outside Aari’s cave.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Mac said, using a literary quotation from a classic children’s book he had discovered in Becker’s library of salvaged hard-copy volumes.

  “We have all been trying to reach Khornya by thought-talk,” Neeva told him. “But she didn’t respond. I understand now that she has been too preoccupied…”

  “I apologize, Mother, Father, Neeva,” Acorna said, taking Aari’s hand to rise to her feet and giving herself a little shake, which was meant to settle her clothing about her but instead only redistributed the sap and slime. Aari stood with his arm protectively around her shoulders. “We were in another time zone, being attacked by Khleevi, and then the Khleevi followed us to the time chamber with the results I believe Maak has mentioned, and then—well, this is the real Aari.”

  “Indeed,” Vaanye said.

  “Perhaps you’ll want to tidy up a little before any of the other teams arrive, Khornya,” Neeva suggested with a not-quite-suppressed smile.

  “Oh!” for the first time, Khornya seemed to notice that she and Aari were looking less than their best. No doubt she only noticed that she and Aari had seemed beautiful to each other. “Oh, yes! Perhaps we could use the Balakiire’s sonic cleaner when you land?”

  As she finished speaking, the Balakiire set down in the clearing reserved for ships bringing equipment and provisions to this sector of Vhiliinyar.

  (You go clean up, Yaazi,) Aari told Acorna. (I have one more thing to do before I do the same.)

  Acorna sighed. (I suppose this something will require the use of Grimalkin’s timer?)

  (I fear that is so.)

  (Then my shower will have to wait, too. I haven’t gone to all this trouble to find you just to lose you again. It is very good of you to put his fate above your shower, under the circumstances. After all, he left you to the Khleevi.)

  (Not really,) Aari said, and explained the time shift to her.

  By that time the Balakiire’s crew, including Neeva and Acorna’s parents, had joined them.

  Acorna looked at them a little helplessly. She longed to embrace her parents, but knew she would soil them with the sap. Besides, she needed all of the sap still clinging to her as protection from the Khleevi. (I’m sorry, Mother, Father, Neeva. But Aari and I need to return for Grimalkin. We can’t just leave him to the Khleevi.)

  (How do you intend to get him away from them?) Vaanye asked. (It seems to me you will most likely arrive to find him beyond help and yourselves captives again.)

  (And for goodness sake, you can’t go against a Khleevi invasion force armed with only a few patches of sap on your bodies. You’ve got a time control device. Use it! At least take the time to go back to PU-#10 and get more sap.)

  (There’s more aboard the Condor,) Acorna said. (And you’re right, of course.)

  (In that case, I think you should take more people with you.)

  (More Linyaari would probably just get killed. Our people hesitate to use a deadly weapon, even against Khleevi,) Aari told her. (Thanks to our past experiences, Acorna and I don’t have that problem. Besides, I don’t know exactly what the limit is on how many people can use the timer at once. We did bring back two Khleevi with us so apparently four can travel with it so we could probably take Becker and Maak. But I see no reason for them to endanger themselves. For that matter, I wish you would keep Khornya here. Instead of directly confronting the Khleevi, I thought I might time it so that perhaps I meet Grimalkin just before he loses his device, warn him, and both of us return here. I am assuming he went looking for me. If he finds me, there is no reason for him to remain.)

  (He would want to take you back to the ship where the catseyes are,) Acorna said. (And you’d both be captured, as would the timer. With the underground time device disabled, you would never be able to come back, and no one would be able to save you. You’re right that we mustn’t let the captain endanger himself or Maak—if anyone can put
the machine back together again, it will be Maak.)

  Vaanye harrumphed. (Really, my dear, I do have a bit of experience in that line myself—not with time machines, but other devices of a similarly complex nature.)

  “So I’ve heard, Father,” she said.

  The Condor landed beside the Balakiire. The robolift descended, bearing Becker.

  “Aari!” Becker cried. “Well, looks like Acorna made a sap out of you, too!”

  Aari looked puzzled.

  Acorna said, (It’s a joke employing an idiomatic expression. In Basic speech, the word “sap” refers to the blood of plants, such as the material we currently wear, as well as to a person who is a fool. It is a comradely insult in this case, made for the sake of wordplay. It indicates that Captain Becker is happy to see us together again.)

  (Ah! I thought so. Joh is not that hard to read.)

  “I would greet you properly, old friend, but then I would make a sap of you also,” Aari told him. “We would like to clean up aboard the Condor.”

  Becker glanced at the Balakiire and raised his right eyebrow inquisitively, but said only, “Sure. Maybe you kids want to share a shower. I know it’s been a long time. I guess I can wait until you and Acorna have—uh—debriefed each other before I get any answers from you.” To Acorna he said, “When we got the Balakiire’s relay that you were okay, Rafik stayed at the cave to help Aziza’s crew load the catseyes.”

  Acorna and Aari tried to hide their impatience and act as if they were going to do exactly what he expected. At last he stepped off the robolift, and they stepped on and were carried up into the Condor, and the remaining supply of the precious Khleevi-killing sap.

  (Khornya,) Aari said, turning to her and taking her shoulders in his large slightly trembling hands. (Please do not come. You have no idea what they could do to you if we are captured. If they get their claws on you, that would be worse for me than anything they did to me, even the second time.)

  (And how do you think it would be for me, love, waiting and waiting again, not knowing if you were coming back until you did?)

  He quirked one side of his mouth up and gave her a shrewd look. (Actually, the waiting wouldn’t be a problem. If we are not back at approximately the same moment I leave, you’ll know we aren’t returning. Ever. In which case you’d better prepare everyone for a second invasion because the Khleevi may just extract the secrets of the timer from one of us and come forward themselves.)

  (Now I know I’m coming with you,) she said. (If we are captured, I will find a way to destroy the timer before I let that happen.)

  (Easier said than done, Yaazi.)

  RK mewed a greeting and hopped down from his perch atop the command chair of the bridge. Both of them gave him lingering strokes for a few precious moments, then turned their backs on the ship’s cat. His paws clattered on the grid behind them.

  As they reached the cargo hold they heard the robolift descend once more.

  (The captain is returning,) Acorna said. (Or Maak.)

  (We’d better hurry,) Aari said.

  (I suppose—but in a way there is no hurry. With the timer, as you pointed out, we can retrieve Grimalkin before he is captured and bring him back so he won’t have known suffering at all. On the other hand…)

  He caught her very ka-Linyaari thought of what she half wished would happen to the manipulative Ancestral “Friend.” He shook his head, smiling very slightly. (Khornya, annoying as he is, he has done neither of us real harm. He certainly doesn’t deserve what the Khleevi have in store for any prisoner.)

  (I suppose not,) she said. (But if he had had his way, I might be having kittens by now.)

  (No, because he would have made sure the Linyaari race sprang from your loins, so you would have only been your own multigreat-grandmother.)

  (And that’s better?)

  They pulled forth the plas skins of sap and stared at them, wondering how they would fight a planetful of Khleevi.

  (We could open them up, throw them to the ground, and jump on them, squooshing the sap on anyone who comes near.)

  (I hate to say it, but that’s as good a plan as any. I am changing my mind. We must wait until we can acquire a better means of distributing the sap.)

  Footsteps approached, and Acorna felt the unfamiliar but wonderfully welcome presence of her father.

  (Daughter? Aari?) Vaanye said, when he stood beside them surveying the sap in and out of the cargo hold. (I have been pondering our problem. You two are just beginning your life together, as I understand it, and after a very long interruption. Aari has already endured a long and painful ordeal with the Khleevi. And, Khornya, your mother and I could not bear losing you again after finding you, so beautiful and strong and ready to begin a new life and another generation of our clan. I owe Grimalkin my life and your mother’s. It is fitting that I should attempt his rescue.)

  (No one will be able to rescue him the way things stand now, Father,) Acorna told him. (The plas rifles we used to shoot the sap at the Khleevi were all lost when the quake took the shuttle. We will have to wait until Hafiz can send more from MOO. Besides, even though you made defensive weapons for our people before, you have not actually used offensive ones before. Both Aari and I have learned that we are capable of doing so when necessary. It is not a common trait among our people.)

  (I wasn’t thinking of using an actual weapon,) Vaanye replied. (Actually, the tool I have in mind is better suited for distributing the sap over a wide area than a plas rifle. We brought several fertilizer sprayers aboard the Balakiire. I could load more than a single charge with one of those, carrying a container that will feed into the sprayer.)

  (We thank you for the information, Vaanye,) Aari said. (But I will go. Khornya should stay here with you.)

  (Aaaarrri!) Acorna’s thoughts were not kind.

  (She will not, of course, but she should,) Aari said. (I would have her do so.)

  (You two don’t be so male,) Acorna told them. (After all, Aari, when we faced the Khleevi, neither of us would have escaped except for the other one.)

  (All the more reason for me to go. Also, if I cannot persuade you two to stay here…) Vaanye said.

  (…You cannot,) Aari and Acorna assured him.

  (Very well then. I can carry three of those containers.)

  They returned to the robolift, followed by RK who was bawling his protest at being left out of the excitement. When they stepped onto the robolift, each burdened with as much of the sap as it was possible to carry, the cat jumped onto the lift with them.

  All of them were trying to think what to tell the others—especially Acorna’s mother—but they need not have worried. Ships and shuttles from all over Vhiliinyar were landing, and the Ancestors had also made an appearance. The reverse of a bucket brigade seemed to be taking place, with a line of people from the tunnel entrance to the river bearing a number of hoses from a series of pumps working to clear the passages.

  Acorna, who still possessed the timer, stayed below with the sap while Aari and Vaanye boarded the Balakiire to fetch the fertilizer sprayers.

  RK ran to the river, no doubt to examine the stuff coming out of the hoses to see if there were any fish for him in it.

  When the men returned with the fertilizer sprayers, they each transferred three of the easily expanded sap skins into one and strapped it on, attaching a feeder hose to the sprayer. At Acorna’s insistence, Aari gave her and Vaanye a quick lesson on how to program the timer. If only one of them survived, at least that one would not be stranded among the planet’s past and the swarming Khleevi for lack of knowledge.

  Once they were ready, they all joined hands. Aari programmed the timer with his free hand, as one of Acorna’s hands rested in his and her other hand rested in Vaanye’s. Acorna took in a last deep breath of clean, fresh air…

  …And exhaled it amid the hot, acrid fumes of Khleevi-occupied Vhiliinyar.

  Vaanye gasped. (Feriila is fond of saying that I go looking for trouble, but I never imagined anything like this!
It’s horrible! Horrible! Are you certain we are still on Vhiliinyar?)

  (Yes.) Aari’s thoughts were full of even darker images than the one before them.

  The ground shook, and all of them stumbled.

  Acorna pointed to the fissure that had swallowed the shuttle.

  (I do not see any Khleevi here now,) Vaanye said, clearly trying to look on the bright side of things.

  (True,) Acorna said. (But we must go looking for them if we’re to find Grimalkin. I suppose it’s possible that he escaped them…)

  (No,) Aari said. (Not without the timer. If he was able to escape at all, he would have returned for that. I know what that is like, to be stranded here with the Khleevi, hiding from them and in fear every moment for my life.)

  Acorna felt Aari’s hand growing stiff and icy with cold sweat despite the heat. (I saw mounds from the air with Khleevi coming and going from them. Is that the sort of place where you were when they had you, Yaazi?)

  (I think so, yes. I don’t remember seeing the outside. I was unconscious when I was captured, and the torture chamber was destroyed when the Khleevi evacuated and I escaped. But it had a domed ceiling I looked up at a lot when I was able to see, and trying to focus on something other than pain.)

  (I saw one from the air as I flew to your cave and back,) she said. Her mineral sense was overloaded with foul smells, poisonous tastes, and the sinister rumbling from the tormented planet beneath their feet. But she let herself blend with the hellish landscape, felt the fissures and mountains of gravel, and finally found the right shape—the mound of slime she had noticed a mile or so from their position. (It’s this way,) she said.

  Sparks and ash rained down on them. Acorna’s right foot sank to her knee in something sticky. She was able to pull it out only when she mired her left foot as deeply.

  (Horn it all, what is this stuff?) her father asked.

  (Khleevi slime trail,) Aari answered. It was hard to see, but he and Acorna were both well informed of its substance by the stench.