Aari’s family smiled across at Feriila, as Aari ducked down to receive her gift.
(We will, of course, arrange for the birthing assistants and physicians, if needed,) Kaarlye told him. The Linyaari were all using thought-talk now because it was very difficult to make themselves heard over the noise of the party.
(And we have employed the best artisan among our people to create your daughter’s birth disk,) Miiri said. All of the Linyaari relatives smiled.
When they finally caught up with him, Grimalkin was batting at a shiny silver disk and watching it spin.
“Give us the specimen, Grimalkin,” the eagle said as it landed in the tree where he had been hiding and changed into a beautiful woman. “You know you can’t escape us. We got your timer.”
“Yes, I know, and I’d like to make a formal objection about that…”
“I’m sure you would. Return the specimen, and we’ll discuss this rationally. That is, if you are still capable of rational thought, words, or deeds.”
Grimalkin sulked and palmed the disk. “I am. More than you are. Why should you censure me when I exceeded all of you in obtaining what we need?”
A man who was still folding his long tail into his rather simian body answered. “It’s your attitude, and you know it. Exceeded all of us indeed! Without authorization, you released a valuable subject of study.”
“You were scaring him to death. Besides, there was an easier way. I thought.”
“This led you off-planet with him for how many time twists? And the rest of your story, about the brother and that cultural half-breed mate of his.”
“Khornya. Acorna. And it wasn’t a story, it was true.”
“True or not, it was quite a story. You cannot simply go chasing your tail through time because the potential donor of some useful genetic material believes himself to be frightened of us. Look what you led him into when it suited you to become better acquainted with his mate! You are not fit to carry a timer, Grimalkin. You lost it, and it could easily have fallen into the hands…no, pincers…of those monsters. As it was, they ruined this time facility for all future generations. Besides which, three unauthorized subjects used your timer without supervision. It could very well have been lost to you then. You are too irresponsible to continue carrying it. You are certainly not reliable enough to retain possession of the specimen.”
“It is not a specimen, it—she—is a child in progress. The child of your subject and the cultural half-breed. They are friends of mine—”
“Which is why you took it?”
“They have another one.”
“Why did you not bring it as well, then?” the woman demanded. “Their sort enjoy making more.”
“I saw no reason to be greedy. Starting the Linyaari race from one individual from the future race is truly chasing our own tails, if you consider it, as you say, rationally. Taking a second female with the same DNA and genetic structure would be pointless.”
“Not at all. We may need a backup. Zygotes are fragile. Something might happen to it.”
“Exactly,” Grimalkin hissed, his eyes narrowing. “Which is why I decided not to give her to you after all. That and—she is lonely. She misses her sister. I had no idea she’d feel that way. I couldn’t wait to get away from my littermates, myself.”
“Be that as it may, you cannot care for the specimen—for the incipient infant—and it will soon outgrow the collection womb. You will need our facilities to preserve its—her—viability.”
“I plan to return her to Aari and Acorna.”
“I see. And Acorna can simply put it back where it came from until it is born?”
“No—no, I believe it is too old at this stage. But something could be done.”
“Something has been done, Grimalkin. We have taken your timer so you cannot return the specimen. It will die unless you give it to us to preserve. In doing so, as you well know, you will have provided the missing link between ourselves, the unicorns, and the Linyaari.”
He could not argue. The beings surrounding him, known to the Linyaari as the Ancestral Hosts or Friends, were shape-shifters as powerful, maybe even more powerful, than he. They were excellent at political intrigue, whereas he considered himself merely tricky. He brought forth the collection womb and stroked it with the pad of his hand that was rapidly turning into a paw. (Don’t be frightened, little one. No one will hurt you. And the unicorns are rather nice.)
(?) The thought was small and indistinct—probably inaudible to the telepathy of those around them, but it twisted something inside him with unexpected pain.
The woman reached for it.
He pulled it back. “I’ll just carry it as far as the laboratory, then I will relinquish it.”
“You’ll relinquish it now or risk its destruction,” she told him.
“Oh, very well. Don’t fret, little one. Daa will come and visit you often.”
The woman took the womb and handed it to a swan-woman, who flew away with it.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Grimalkin. You see, we’ve decided to banish you.”
“Banish me? You can’t do that!”
“Oh, but we can. We have your timer, but we can send you whenever we wish. Since you are so concerned about this family, we suggest you return to them if they’ll have you. You’ll have a lot of explaining to do. I’m afraid you’ll have a difficult time doing it.”
He was shrinking into his smallest cat form as she spoke, literally shrinking away from her.
She held out her hand, and the simian man slapped an instrument into it. Grimalkin tried to change again. She pointed it at him, and he felt something tight and cold, so cold, enter him.
“Just as you froze the forms of the acid creatures you mentioned, we can freeze your form. Perhaps this will be beneficial to your fickle nature. Good-bye. Good riddance.”
Grimalkin could only mew and vanish.
Twenty-one
As Feriila predicted, the baby began communicating before she was born. She knew the thought-form for mother—“Lalli” and the one for father, “Avvi.” It delighted Aari when he picked up on it, though at times Acorna felt a bit foolish talking to her own abdomen. But often the baby seemed restless, more than just the restlessness of the child longing to escape the womb for the wide worlds beyond. She lacked something, called for something with a word her parents didn’t understand. When one of those incidents happened, it took a long time to comfort her. Acorna had the oddest feeling that just when she and her baby were the closest, the child was lonely.
The baby became a source of contention. Hafiz felt he could offer Acorna the best medical care on MOO. The Council, on the other hand, felt the ideal solution, considering the redistribution of the Linyaari population according to stargoing or planet-hugging proclivities, was for her to give birth on narhii-Vhiliinyar. There, they pointed out, her human and other alien friends could visit and yet she would still be surrounded by Linyaari who could heal any illness or injury, any slight anomaly she might experience during her pregnancy. The problem with that plan was that narhii-Vhiliinyar was not as rehabilitated from the Khleevi attack it had suffered as Vhiliinyar was. By now, thanks to the catseyes and the funds from their sale, Vhiliinyar was almost entirely reterraformed into the world it once had been.
A compromise was struck. Acorna and Aari would remain on MOO throughout the rest of her pregnancy, as long as she stayed healthy. Six weeks before she was due to deliver, she would be transported to their new quarters on Vhiliinyar.
She was very tired of so much attention, even from the people she dearly loved. (I wish you and I could get into Hafiz’s wedding gift with our three portable kaf replicators and all and just go away somewhere quiet to do this,) she told Aari. (I am tired of trying to act less irritable than I feel, or to stand up straight when my back aches so. I am tired of being asked every few minutes if I am all right. I am tired of having others address my abdomen instead of my face. I wish we could just leave. You could heal me if
I got into trouble.)
(Yes, but could you heal me when our mothers learned I had deprived them of the opportunity to help you at this time?)
(And here I have always considered you the bravest of our kind.)
(Khleevi are one thing. Family is another.)
Shortly afterward her labor began. Fifty ships were available to take her to the surface, but Becker didn’t consult anyone else. He simply bustled them onto the robolift along with both sets of parents. Neeva and the Balakiire crew brought Laarye and Maati.
“I want you in constant touch by com unit!” Hafiz insisted. “Her fathers and I have a right to know!”
Vaanye smiled, and said, “Rest assured that I shall personally see to it that you are kept informed, Uncle Hafiz. We fathers must stick together.”
“And bring them back as soon as they can travel!” Karina said. “We will need to see the baby. There are ritual blessings it must receive.”
Naturally, Acorna gave birth to her daughter halfway between MOO and Vhiliinyar, in the hydroponics garden aboard the Condor. Aari, his mother, and Feriila soothed her with horn touches and calming birth songs the women remembered from their own times.
Khoriilya came out of the womb star-clad, as white and silver as her mother and father, once the reddish mess was cleaned off her. Her nub of a golden horn was the delight of everyone. RK hopped up onto Acorna’s berth to inspect the newcomer and gave her a lick of approval.
“We may as well turn around and go back to MOO,” Becker said. “You’ll be as comfortable there as anywhere and you can get fussed over by House Harakamian, Gill, and Calum, as well as everybody else.”
Acorna groaned. Khoriilya gurgled and reached out for RK’s tail, which he waved and twitched back and forth in front of her.
“She likes cats,” Becker said when he saw what the baby was doing. “That’s good. Miw-Sher and Nadhari particularly want her to have a kitten from one of the new litters. I think she’ll find several that look pretty familiar.” He nodded at RK. Three weeks after they landed, they saw Gill, Calum, and the Kendoro sisters off and waited to greet Johnny Greene and the star-faring crew of young folk from the Haven. Khoriilya toddled around the terminal, determined to deconstruct it, while Aari and Acorna said their good-byes.
Weary as Acorna had become of all the attention, she ached to see them leave.
Maati stepped out of the com room, and said, “Khornya, Aari, Captain Becker wants you and Khoriilya to come to the Condor’s robolift. He says Mac is ready to present his wedding and birthing gift.”
Acorna lifted a protesting Khorii into her arms. The baby could get into entirely too much trouble out in the docking bays.
Becker and RK were on the ground when they reached the Condor. The robolift was ascending. “Mac just went back up to get his present,” he said.
“What is it?” Aari asked. There was no Linyaari etiquette that considered it impolite to inquire about the nature of a gift.
“You’ll see. Picked out her cat yet?”
“No. For the sake of the kitten we thought it best to wait until she’s a bit older. They’re still quite small.”
“Are you sure about that? Nadhari says temple cats do better if they’re bonded young to their people.”
The robolift descended, carrying Mac and another person, a child from the look of him. As the lift lowered even farther, Acorna saw that it was a Linyaari child, a young boy.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“You might say he is my son,” Mac told her. “Your kinspeople said much about tutors for Khoriilya. But knowing you and Aari, she will not be on the planet long enough to go to tutors or meet other children, if there were many other Linyaari children which I have noticed there are not. So I used some of my spare parts and some other—items—Captain Becker had to create this boy. He is, as you see, a Linyaari android and so can accompany Khoriilya to Vhiliinyar. He can be her playmate and guardian as well as her tutor. His horn acts as a medical scanner. I thought it would be especially good if she heals people because she can always say my son is the one programmed to do it.”
The little boy looked coolly from Mac to Acorna and Aari, but his gaze settled on Khorii, who solemnly returned it.
With Khorii in her arms, Acorna knelt to be at eye level with the child droid. “Do you have a name?” she asked.
“I researched that quite thoroughly,” Mac said. “I wanted my son to have a name easy to pronounce by both Linyaari and humans. I wanted it to be a name of noble origin and wide fame. I consulted all of the vids and texts aboard and decided to name him after an Old Terran king. Tell them your name, son.”
“I am Elviiz,” he said.
“Viizzz!” Khoriilya said, and stuck out her arms to him. He gently grasped one of her pudgy baby hands and shook it lightly.
Khorii squirmed to be put down, where she and Elviiz crawled around at first until he stood and encouraged her to do so.
Acorna thought Mac had come up with the perfect solution for her daughter’s odd bouts of loneliness. For the first time ever, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“Does that mean you are pleased, Khornya?”
“Oh, Mac, you’ve given us your son! How could we not be pleased! You will have to come and visit always.”
Mac seemed a bit puzzled. “I always visit with you and Aari when you are near, Khornya. Of course I will.”
“Well, let’s go look at cats,” Becker said. “RK is itching to visit some of his offspring, I know. He can’t wait till they’re weaned. He’s hoping the mamas will go back into heat again before they have to return to Makahomia.”
Miw-Sher and Nadhari had already returned to Makahomia, since it could hardly do without leadership for a prolonged period. But they had left the guardian mothers behind with nine acolytes—one per mother per eight-hour watch. Three of these very young Makahomians sat playing with a calamitous confusion of kittens tumbling and bumbling all over them, the mothers, and the room. At least half of them bore brindled stripes and puffed-out facial ruffs similar to RK’s. Acorna thought Khorii would certainly choose one of them.
But one little golden-striped kitten with large green eyes headed straight for the child and began grooming her. She giggled and petted it awkwardly.
Viiz joined her on the floor. He didn’t touch the kitten but turned his head first one way, then another, and lay down on his back to look up at the kitten’s belly. He gently patted the kitten’s back, then fingered something shining in the fine but very dense fur around its neck. Then he reached out and touched Khorii’s mouth, bringing away a little of her enthusiastic drool and rubbing it against his finger.
“What is it, son?” Mac inquired.
“This kitten is wearing what appears to be Khorii’s birth disk, Father. On cursory examination, the DNA code inscribed upon it appears to match hers.”
“But her birth disk isn’t ready yet,” Acorna said. “Mother said it would take the artisans another week or so.”
Becker laughed. “Nadhari knew how much Aari’s meant to you. I’ll bet she was going to give it to you, then found out your parents wanted to.”
“Yes, but how did it get on the kitten?” Aari asked, looking askance at the small innocent creature.
“You know kittens. Unintentionally probably. Looks like this is the one the kid wants anyway,” Becker said. “Now, if I were you, buddy, I’d let him mate a time or two since this planet is a little low on cats. Then if you’re going to take him into space with you, and you don’t want the whole ship to smell like tomcat”—he lowered his voice as RK looked up—“get him neutered. But don’t do it yourself unless you have some powerful healing horns nearby.”
Becker and Mac returned to the ship after Mac had tweaked Viiz’s programming. Aari carried Khorii, and Acorna held Viiz’s hand. Solemn and erudite he might be, but he looked like a Linyaari youngling. In the crook of his other arm, Viiz gently held the still-nameless kitten.
Karina and Hafiz walked towa
rd them on the garden path. Fluttering and cooing, Karina turned to her husband, “Oh, Haffy, aren’t they just the sweetest things? The picture of Linyaari domestic bliss—the perfect peaceful little family! I just know they’re going to—we all are going to—live happily ever after!”
Acorna and Aari exchanged smiles. (I hope this is one time when Karina’s self-proclaimed gift of prophecy is true,) Aari said.
(Yes, wouldn’t that be a nice change,) Acorna agreed. (But somehow I rather doubt it.)
Acknowledgments
Our thanks go to Rick Reaser, science and salvage consultant and Ambassador to the Sulfur Beings, for his continuing advice and support. Also we wish to thank our editors Denise Little at Tekno Books and Diana Gill at HarperCollins for their suggestions and help, with special thanks to Denise for being the Keeper of Acorna’s Database of names and Linyaari words. Thanks are also due to Margaret Ball, cowriter with Anne McCaffrey on the first two Acorna books, for inventing the Linyaari language, among other things. And we would most particularly like to thank Martin H. Greenberg, without whose trust and support this project would have been impossible to continue.
Glossary of Terms and Proper Names in the Acorna Universe
aagroni—Linyaari name for a vocation that is a combination of ecologist, agriculturalist, botanist, and biologist.
Aagroni are responsible for terraforming new planets for settlement as well as maintaining the well-being of populated planets.
Aari—a Linyaari of the Nyaarya clan, captured by the Khleevi during the invasion of Vhiliinyar, tortured, and left for dead on the abandoned planet. He’s Maati’s older brother. Aari survived and was rescued and restored to his people by Jonas Becker and Roadkill. But Aari’s differences, the physical and psychological scars left behind by his adventures, make it difficult for him to fit in among the Linyaari.
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