Acorna's Triumph

by Anne McCaffrey

  (Try to pull free and walk through it as quickly as possible. It hardens fairly rapidly. The fact that it is still liquid means one of them has passed this way quite recently.)

  (They don’t always leave this goo behind them though, do they?) Vaanye asked, thinking of the vids he’d seen and the reports he’d heard from those still attempting to escape the planet after the invasion began.

  (Only when they’re feeding,) she replied. (I do hope this isn’t Grimalkin we’re wading through.)

  (They don’t eat sentients, Khornya,) Aari reminded her. (Not at first, anyway…)

  A tense silence fell after that remark.

  Except for the sparks and the distant glow of the volcanoes that had once been Vhiliinyar’s sacred peaceful mountains, the night was very dark as they moved through the blasted landscape.

  It was not still, however. Though she had scarcely been aware of it beneath the groaning and grumbling of the planet in its death throes, Acorna suddenly heard the klikings and klakings of the Khleevi sending staccato messages to each other. She heard something else, too, among all the Khleevi chatter. She heard the yowling and howling, hissing and snarling of a cat in great fear or pain. She had only known Grimalkin in his disguise as Aari. Hearing the feline cries of terror twisted her heart.

  (If he’s in cat form, they will destroy him quickly,) Aari said. (Though that would be a good thing, of course, if we were not here to save him.)

  Acorna saw the movement before she saw the mound; Khleevi were gathered round to watch and listen. They were peering in, kliking their mandibles appreciatively as the yowling increased. They were having so much fun that they appeared unaware of the approach of the three Linyaari.

  (I believe our target is now within range,) Vaanye said. (While I bow to the previous experience that I’m told you two have in anointing the Khleevi with sap, may I suggest that we aim low? If their feet are affected, they will not be able to give chase easily, and laying down a good coat of sap on the ground should make sure they are all affected, as anyone within range will be. After the initial volley, perhaps we should reserve some sap so there is enough remaining to cover our retreat, however far that may need to be until we can use the timer again.)

  Acorna had learned something of her father from Grandam Naadiina and Neeva, but until that moment she had not realized that he really was the closest thing the Linyaari had to a military strategist. What he was not mentioning was that once the Khleevi’s feet were damaged, the rest of their bodies would follow as they wallowed in the sap. Acorna began to feel a bit better about the entire mission.

  Aari lifted a hand from his gun to scratch at his neck, face, other hand, and a bit of his leg where his shipsuit had been torn during his journey.

  (What’s the matter, Yaazi?) she asked.

  (I am not a Khleevi, but I do get something of an allergic reaction to the sap. Are you not feeling it?)

  (Now I am,) she said. She wondered if she dared to lean over and touch his itchy spots with her horn.

  At that moment, a Khleevi turned around from the entertainment happening inside the mound and saw them.

  (Spray!) Vaanye said.

  Acorna opened the nozzle on her sprayer and pulled the trigger on the pump sprayer. It squirted a glob of sap onto the middle of a Khleevi at the end of the spray nozzle. The Khleevi clutched itself and bent over in agony. Acorna adjusted her nozzle so it pointed down and laid a cover of sap between them and the Khleevi.

  Aari forged his way toward the entry to the mound, pointing his nozzle at the feet of first one Khleevi, then another. The Khleevi parted around him and tried to scale the walls of the mound to escape the sap. He could clearly see the torture machine in the center of the room now. He ignored the rush of memories of his own time in such a chamber and ran inside. (We’re too late,) he told Vaanye and Acorna. (He’s gone. They must have killed him off in his cat form. There’s no one here but Khleevi now.)

  Seventeen

  As soon as the Khleevi clamped his wrists, legs, and head to the torture machine, Grimalkin resumed cat form, shrinking himself out of the restraints. He felt the first nauseating wave of energy rise from the machine as he shot straight into the air and onto one of the many ledgelike protrusions pocking the inside of the mound.

  The Khleevi surprised him by swarming up the wall after him. As they climbed up, he dropped down and dashed for the opening. Pincers snapped at his tail and he screamed and resumed biped form, thus removing himself from the Khleevi’s grasp.

  If only he hadn’t lost the timer! If only Acorna hadn’t found it and taken herself and Aari away without him. He would have been far, far away from here and now.

  A Khleevi caught his arm and he shrank to cat form once more, but he knew he couldn’t keep this up forever. There were other forms in which he could hide if only he could elude the Khleevi long enough to change unseen, but his two principal forms were the ones that required no concentration to shift from one to the other. He needed time to concentrate if he was going to try for something fancy.

  A Khleevi caught him again, this time with its pincer encircling his head. There was no escape from that. The Khleevi tenderly put just enough pressure on his catty cranium to carry him, not enough to injure him seriously or kill him. His paws were once more strapped tightly to the chair by something that was at first sticky and foul-smelling, then rapidly hardened. Even his tail was immobilized by it. Finally, something slid under the pincers to circle his neck. As the pincers pulled apart so he could see once more, he yowled over and over again, until the hardening Khleevi slime cut his wind short. What he saw now was a solid wall of Khleevi vastly entertained by his struggles and protests. Some of them crawled on the ground, and some stood. Some even hung overhead. His rapid changes had conditioned them to be alert for his shape-shifting.

  The one nearest him kliked its mandibles and lifted its pincers so they were about an inch from his face. They snipped, and the tip of his longest whisker fell away. He yowled with indignity and they kliked and klaked appreciatively. They probably thought it hurt him. He was sure that before very long, as they snipped away at him, they would be right.

  His superb sense of smell in this form was totally bombarded by Khleevi stench and the fire and brimstone atmosphere of the planet, but suddenly it seemed to him that the ill wind was blowing a current of comparatively fresh, sweet air to his sensitive nostrils.

  His second whisker tip fell, and he lost himself in loud, piercing caterwauling. If they thought this really hurt, they might linger over it. He just hoped his voice would hold out.

  Suddenly, the wall of Khleevi surrounding him thinned. Those kneeling stood and turned away from him. Those who were tormenting him swiveled their heads to look toward the entrance.

  The plant stink grew stronger, and the stench of Khleevi slime increased as several of those who had been facing him extruded it behind them and tried to climb the walls, using only their pincers. They emitted high-pitched squeals along with chatters of mandible kliks and klaks.

  Grimalkin couldn’t see what his captors were looking at, but he could see that the ceiling was crawling with Khleevi, clumsily swarming over each other as more and more of the beasts avoided contact with the floor.

  The inevitable happened. The new ceiling crawlers bumped off the old ones and they started dropping like the dead bugs they were. Which was all very well until two of them crashed down on him.

  Fortunately, the weight of the first one landed on the top of the torture machine and tipped over the chair, breaking the hardened Khleevi slime holding him. He darted to the side, avoiding catching the second Khleevi in his tender feline midsection. Then he had time to change into the only safe form he could think of.

  When he had transformed so successfully that he hardly knew himself, he scuttled forward to see what the fuss was about.

  (Where is he?) Aari’s thought images were increasingly, sickeningly violent. He imagined what had happened to Grimalkin was much the same as what had hap
pened to him. (I heard him screaming a moment ago.)

  (Yes, I did, too,) Acorna said. (You don’t see him? Perhaps one of the Khleevi snatched him up.)

  But as she was trying to see past the squirming, squealing Khleevi, she heard another sort of noise behind her. She had heard that noise all too recently.

  (There’s no time. Reinforcements are coming. You hear?) she said.

  A new horde of insectoid invaders marched into the light cast from the interior of the mound. The light was greenish and vaguely glittering. Acorna thought it must be some sort of bioluminescence. She had not noted it before in connection with the Khleevi, but then, she had never been among them in a habitat of their own manufacture until now.

  She stepped forward to take a position between Aari and the oncoming force, standing with her back to his so that the containers strapped behind them were shielded. By now the interior of the mound was a mass of flailing, writhing, slipping, sliding Khleevi. They screeched so shrilly and klaked so constantly that it was a good thing the Linyaari were telepathic or they wouldn’t have been able to hear each other. The ceiling of the mound was covered with climbing bodies but as the sap took effect on the injured, they dropped from their high perches like overripe fruit, often taking others of their kind with them.

  Aari said, (Vaanye, we have to leave! You come and watch Khornya’s back. I’m going in to search for Grimalkin.)

  (You can’t do that. What if they’re armed?)

  Acorna examined the oncoming Khleevi even as she began laying down a barrier of sap between their feet and hers. (They’re not,) she told her father.

  Aari added, (They didn’t expect us, and I think they’re too dangerous to each other to carry weapons when they’re not engaged in battle. I don’t remember my captors ever being armed with anything but their pincers and jaws.)

  (In that case, you and Khornya cover me. I’ll go in.)

  (No! Father! I cannot stand to lose you when I’ve only just found you.)

  (I have no intention of being lost again—especially when Aari—I suppose I mean Grimalkin—isn’t available to prevent my death a second time. But I have not seen one of their mounds before or seen them vulnerable like this. I want a closer look.)

  The vanguard of the reinforcements paused to sniff at the sap before stepping into it. Acorna wondered if the others had communicated with them about their previous encounter with the sap? They would have had to do so while they were dying. As far as she had been able to tell, Khleevi didn’t appear to form emotional attachments, friendships, or kinships of any personal significance to them. Given that, she wondered who the dying Khleevi would warn first? As the squeals of the reinforcements joined those of the Khleevi in the mound, she found her horn itched to heal them, even despite all she knew about them. She decided it was simply her sap allergy, shook off the feeling, and shot a large gob of the sap onto the three Khleevi now dancing backward to escape her weapon. Meanwhile, others were edging around them. She shot a semicircle of the stuff around the bugs closing in on them, but her bursts were getting weaker and weaker. She was running out of ammunition.

  She turned to see how Aari and her father were doing, and if their sap containers were as depleted as hers. Aari stepped forward, but she saw her father wave him back. (Stay, I tell you. Take care of her.)

  Vaanye waded forward, picking up his feet and setting them down again ponderously as if he were walking on a heavy-gravity planet. Streamers of sap clung to his hooves no matter how high he lifted each foot.

  (I begin to understand where you get your courage, Yaazi,) Aari told Acorna.

  She turned and fired as a particularly hardy Khleevi crossed the narrow sap line to her right. But her weapon was sapped in more ways than one. The emerging substance extruded from the nozzle and hung there. In desperation Acorna scooped it up on her fingers and flung it at the intruder, hitting it squarely between the eyes.

  It retreated.

  She turned again. (Please, we have to leave. Have you received any message from Grimalkin, anything at all to show he’s alive?) she asked Aari.

  (He could be alive but so crazed with pain and fear that he doesn’t realize we’re here and that he could reach us,) Aari told her, his thought bleak with his own memories.

  From the inside of the mound, a Khleevi waddled toward them, its progress through the sap even more labored than Vaanye’s.

  (Watch out, Father!) Acorna cried. The Khleevi seemed unaffected by the sap and ignored it. The alien homed in on Vaanye, simply ducking out of the way of its fellows as they fell from the ceiling, Vaanye fired sap at his attacker but the Khleevi wiped it off and kept coming.

  (Could one of them have built up an immunity to this substance already?) Aari wondered.

  Before either of them could rush to Vaanye’s aid, the Khleevi snagged him with a pincer and dragged him with it, trampling its fallen fellows to get at Aari and Acorna.

  Acorna fired at it point-blank, but nothing emerged from the nozzle. She backed away, toward the onslaught of Khleevi. One of the newcomers backed away, then ran forward, and she realized it would attempt—and probably succeed—to jump over the narrow channel of sap separating it from her and her companions.

  Not realizing the danger from that quarter, Aari dashed forward to try to extricate Vaanye. The creature dodged him quite adeptly for one so large.

  (Khornya! Watch out!) Aari warned. Failing to reach Vaanye, he now tried to block the creature from reaching Acorna. Its free limb brushed him aside and grabbed Acorna’s arm, shaking the fertilizer gun out of her hand.

  Three of the relief Khleevi patrol hopped across the sap barrier and bore down on them.

  Aari shot a slug of sap at them, then dropped his own nozzle and shoved at the Khleevi. It focused its big bug eyes on him but did not release Acorna.

  (What are you waiting for?) it demanded. (That is no mere bauble on her wrist, but I can’t program it with pincers. Punch this sequence. 1800-46-788-minus 56389 and get us out of here!)

  Eighteen

  Acorna tore the timer from her wrist and thrust it at Aari, who was more experienced with the device. He made several quick jabs at the cool blue light of the faceplate.

  All of the Khleevi except one disappeared, as did the devastated darkness of Khleevi-occupied Vhiliinyar. The remaining Khleevi turned into a cat, jumped onto Vaanye’s shoulder, and disappeared. So did Vaanye. So did the timer. Acorna and Aari exchanged glances, rolled their eyes, and shrugged. There was no telling what Grimalkin was up to now.

  But the acrid air was also gone, replaced by the moist perfume of sweet grass after a light rain. The rush and tinkle of a fast-running stream filled their ears, and they saw its gleam through a stand of trees a short distance from the opening of the pavilion in which they stood. Instead of darkness, they were bathed in a soft lavender-to-violet rose-to-purple twilight as the star set over the sacred mountains.

  (Amazing!) Aari said, turning to her. (I had no idea so much had been accomplished with the terraforming.)

  (Nor did I. But I’ve spent most of my time either off-world or underground with the time device. Maati told me there’s been remarkable progress, but I had no idea!)

  (Good of Grimalkin to bring us to such a lovely spot and discreetly vanish with your father so we can be alone—at last,) Aari remarked.

  (Yes. Though I must say that I have learned to be wary of Grimalkin’s goodness.)

  (You have a point. But he’s not really so bad. I thought so when I believed he’d abandoned me to the Khleevi, but now I realize he was just curious about you. I must be more careful about singing your praises to other males, no matter what species they are.)

  (What praises are those?) she teased. (I haven’t heard them sung in quite some time—at least not by you.)

  (Oh, you know. How beautiful you are…Grimalkin can hardly tell the difference between one Linyaari and another—can you imagine? How brave you are, how clever…) He broke off to give himself a vigorous scratch in several places. (
Do you suppose you could get my back? The sap itches so much I feel like leaving my body to get away from it.)

  (I have a better idea,) Acorna said. (Let’s go bathe in the stream. We’ll find some soapweed on the way and do a good job.)

  The soapweed grew conveniently near the stream banks. They stripped off the awkward containers that had held the sap, then their shipsuits and boots. Even in the moonlight, she saw that Aari’s skin and her own were red and bumpy where they had been exposed to the sap.

  “Me first!” Aari said, and jumped into the stream feetfirst, splashing droplets that glittered like amethysts and rubies in the dying light.

  Acorna waded in after him. To her surprise and pleasure, the water was not cold, just pleasantly cool. It felt soothing on her irritated skin. She pulled soapweed from the banks and handed Aari some. Then she helped him find all of the hidden places the sap had invaded, and all of the hurts and bruises, and she soothed and healed them.

  He did the same for her, lingering where her skin was the most tender or sore, following each cleansing with a touch of horn and a light kiss. She needed no birth disk to tell her that this was truly Aari, her Aari. The smell and feel of him were just right, the tension of muscle beneath his skin, the cording of the veins in his forearms and neck, the beloved stunted knot of horn that was in its very imperfection all the more beautiful to her.

  When he finished his exploration, she felt every cell of her being vibrating with the longing for closer touch and guessed he felt the same.

  But, to her disappointment, Aari dragged himself up on the bank and lay down in the grass, where he fell asleep.

  Sighing, she plucked their shipsuits from the bank and scrubbed them, laying them and herself on the bank beside Aari to dry. Then she joined him in slumber.

  Soon she was dreaming that she was being lifted and carried in strong, familiar arms, her head resting against a well-loved shoulder. She didn’t need to open her eyes all the way to know that it was true. He carried her back to the pavilion and laid her upon the feather-soft sleeping mat. He started to rise and roll over to sleep again, but she kept her arms around his neck and pulled him down into her embrace again. (Yaazi, I am so glad you are finally home. Now I need you to come all the way home to me. All the way home.)