[Acorna 08] - First Warning: Acorna's Children (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough)

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Hmm,” the captain said, with a glance at Khorii, who had finished sulking and returned to the bridge to see Kezdet. “Sounds to me like this is not a good time for the ambassadors to be taking their little girl to visit her human grandparents and great aunts and uncles and cousins, is that right?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Well, then, maybe we ought to just head back for MOO. We can’t take Khorii onto a plague planet,” Uncle Joh said.

  Mother stepped forward and said, “What is the status of Maganos Moonbase? Has there been any report of infection there?”

  “Not as far as we know. I’m sorry to interfere with your family plans, but this is an emergency.”

  “Aari and I are perfectly willing to do all we can to help halt the plague, and if we are not enough, we will send for other Linyaari to bring more of our technology to help, too, but Captain Becker is correct in saying that we have our child to think of. Linyaari children are not strong enough to deal with this sort of crisis—the healing devices require adult mind control to operate at their highest efficiency. A child would die trying to cope with such a huge demand on her energy. So we must take her somewhere safe. If we can just deliver her to Maganos Moonbase first…”

  “And Khiindi, Avvi,” Khorii said. “If I go, Khiindi must come with me.” She wanted familiar company. Badly. She did not like the idea of being abandoned among strangers. She didn’t agree with it, but she knew she had no choice in the matter. The being abandoned part was nothing new, but she barely knew most of the people they had been going to see. Other than that they were pretty, as she had seen pictures of them, she had no idea what the grandmothers would be like. They sounded very kind, since Grandsire Calum’s and Grandsire Gill’s wives, the Kendoro sisters, had helped save Mother from all the troubles she was always getting into as a youngling, to hear Grandsire Rafik tell it.

  Khorii knew Grandsire Rafik a bit better than the other two. Since he was the nephew and heir of Great-uncle Hafiz, the founder of House Harakamian and the Moon of Opportunity, Rafik visited MOO about once every Standard year to consult with Hafiz on business and to bring Khorii presents and tell her stories.

  Once he had brought her a piece of scarlet cloth embroidered with gold and little mirrors. She had put it around herself and carried it behind her in both hands like a sail when she ran but it caught on the bushes and tore one day, so after that she draped it over her sleeping mat. This delighted Khiindi, who had chased the rainbows cast by the reflections on the mirrors and kneaded the cloth full of holes.

  “Yes,” Elviiz said, in that annoying know-it-all way he had. “The child and her kaat must be kept safe. Although I am a Linyaari child, too, I am a Linyaari android child and thus…”

  “Thus you will accompany your sister-friend where she goes,” Maak said firmly.

  “But, Father, I should stay and help you and Captain Becker and my Linyaari parents.” Khorii stuck her tongue out at Elviiz where only he could see. He couldn’t stick his out at her in return because he was trying to be so grown-up and was standing in front of the viewscreen where the Federation dispatcher could see him.

  “You will help us all best by fulfilling your primary function and keeping Khorii safe,” Maak told him. “We will have more father-and-son bonding sessions on future occasions. I will be too busy assisting Captain Becker and the first mate to provide you with proper instruction.”

  While they were arguing, the commodore, no doubt assuming that her wishes were their command, had signed off, and Kmal the dispatcher was back again.

  “I can see we have a problem,” Kmal said. As serious as his voice had been before, he seemed to be trying not to laugh now. Khorii thought maybe he thought it was funny, too, to see Elviiz put in his place. “Let me check with my superiors and get back to you. Have you spoken with Maganos Moonbase recently?”

  “Not yet,” the captain said. “We haven’t been able to get any of Lady Acorna’s dads on their private channels. Busy men, I guess.”

  “Yes, sir. In that case I’ll make contact for you and explain the situation to them, let them know you’ve gone through channels and everything,” Kmal said. “Over and out for now.”

  He soon reappeared, and said, “Okay, Lady Acorna, the Condor is cleared to orbit Maganos Moonbase and dispatch your daughter and her pet and her droid to the surface. Following that, please proceed to Paloduro with all possible speed.”

  When the transmission ended Khorii asked, “Where’s Paloduro?”

  “Here,” the captain said, acting like they were still friends, as if nothing had happened. “I can show you on the charts.” He punched a few buttons, and a star chart appeared on the console screen. “We’re about here,” he told her.

  “Where’s Vhiliinyar?”

  “Way off the chart over there somewhere near where the cats are fighting,” he told her, flipping a thumb back over his shoulder. Khiindi and RK were rolling over and over in a cat pinwheel, growling and hissing at each other. If Khiindi had ever felt any gratitude to his sire for hauling him out of the death-ridden corridor of the Blanca, or if RK had ever felt any tenderness for his offspring that had prompted him to save him in the first place, both cats had apparently forgotten about it. “Now over here is Kezdet, and here is Maganos Moonbase, where you’re going. And over here…” His hand described a wide arc until his finger stabbed on a dot far to the right of the moonbase. “This is Paloduro.”

  “That’s a long way away,” she said, studying the chart. “Where a plague is concerned, that’s a good thing.”

  Mother and Father had been talking quietly to each other, but now they came and stood, each of them with a hand on Khorii’s shoulder. “I wish now we had brought the Linyaari ship instead of riding with you, Captain,” Mother said. “Had we done so, you could take Khorii back to MOO and recruit some of our people to join us.”

  “Too late for that now,” the captain told her. “Besides, the kid doesn’t want to go home after coming all this way, do you, Khorii?”

  Well, yes she did, actually. She was going to be left alone again.

  “You will not be alone, little one,” Father said, reading her thoughts. “Remember, your human family will be there to meet you. Your mother’s foster fathers love to tell stories of her adventures when she was your age. And there will be other younglings there for you to befriend.”

  “Think of it as early training for your own ambassadorship when you’re a little older, yaazi,” Mother said, giving her a hug.

  In another two hours the Condor was within hailing distance of Maganos Moonbase.

  Mother greeted them herself. “This is Acorna Harakamian-Li aboard the Condor, Maganos Moonbase. Please alert Calum and Gill that we will be entering your orbit in approximately four hours.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Lady Acorna,” said the young man whose face appeared on the com screen. “Judit’s baby tried to come early, so Calum, Mercy, and Gill all went to the hospital Kezdet-side to be with her. They didn’t expect they would all be off base so long, but I’m sure they’ll be returning soon. There’s been talk in the last few minutes of quarantining Kezdet though.”

  “Is Kezdet infected, too, then?”

  “Not so far and neither are we, but the Federation has proposed a ban prohibiting interstellar travel in this sector until they’ve been able to identify the source of the infection and any vessels that might have been exposed.”

  “It is unfortunate, but it makes sense to quarantine the healthy until you know where the threat is,” Father said. “From all that’s been said, Kezdet is much larger and has a diverse population. It would be more difficult to control a disease there.”

  “I still wish Calum and Gill and the Kendoros were going to be there,” Mother said, as if Khorii could not take care of herself, as she had often done before.

  “Khorii will probably be better off with the other children even though your fathers will not be there right away. If we cure the plague elsewhere and help conta
in it, then the quarantine is unnecessary and your fathers and their mates can return to the moon.”

  Mother cast a concerned look down at her daughter. Khorii knew she did not wish to leave her alone among strangers. “The moon is a more controlled environment. It is one big school, really, the way we set it up. Even without Cal and Gill here I will feel easier about sending Khorii to the surface alone on Maganos Moonbase than I would sending her down to Kezdet alone to look for Cal and Gill.”

  Elviiz spoke up. “She will not be alone, Mother. I will be with her.”

  Mother smiled at Elviiz. “Yes, you will. I forgot that for a moment. I know you will look after each other.”

  “And Khiindi, of course,” Khorii said. Her cat had chosen that moment to disengage from hostilities with his sire and jump to her shoulder for a bout of purring reassurance.

  “And Khiindi,” Mother agreed.

  Becker chuckled. “When you were her age, from what I’ve heard, you were already saving the universe as we know it from all sorts of stuff and scaring the pee-waddin’ out of your dads in the process.”

  Mother smiled, though she still looked worried. “I suppose I simply do not want history to repeat itself. My parents were frightened of that when we told them we were taking this trip.”

  It was nice that everyone was worried about her, and Khorii almost felt warmly toward the captain again. She hated to bring up another complication, but if they were all too blind to see it, she felt she had to. “There is a world in the Solojo system? Dinero Grande? I saw it when you showed me the map, Captain. The Blanca’s registration said Dinero Grande. I do not think I should go to the Moonbase. I think the people on the Blanca maybe had the plague.”

  “Your theory is logical, Khorii, but it is not supported by the evidence,” Elviiz butted in. “The corridor where Captain Becker and the cats succumbed, as did the organic components of Father and I, still held the remnants of a toxic gas. We analyzed it. The crewmen on the bridge were shot. Judging from the input I saw, the captain for reasons known only to herself, or more likely because she lost her reason altogether, frightened the passengers so badly they tried to flee, whereupon she filled her ship’s corridors with poison gas. She murdered her subordinates when they attempted mutiny in order to assist the passengers.”

  “Besides, youngling, we are Linyaari,” Acorna said, bending down to look into her daughter’s face. “With three of us aboard the Condor, no one here would remain contaminated if ever they had been, which, as Elviiz told you, they were not. Please try to stop worrying about that ship. If this plague spreads, I fear you may see far worse things to come. Your feeling for the deceased passengers and crew does you credit, but”—and Mother bent her horn to touch Khorii’s, flooding her with feelings of love and security, warmth and understanding, a cradle to support her when her family was gone—“try to enjoy the school. We hope to return soon.”

  “I hope so, too, Avvi,” she said, throwing her arms around her mother, then her father, Maak, and finally, because it was expected, Uncle Joh, who gave her a quick bear hug and let her go.

  Finally, she gave RK a farewell pat, jerking Khiindi out of the way of the older cat’s paw at the last minute, and climbed aboard the shuttle. Elviiz squeezed in between her and the controls programmed to land them safely on the surface and guide them into their assigned docking bay. To Khorii’s disgust, Elviiz was also programmed to fly the shuttle manually in case the autopilot failed. Nobody had taught her to fly a shuttle yet. Androids get to do everything first, she thought.

  Chapter 5

  Elviiz didn’t get to fly the shuttle manually because nothing went wrong with the autopilot. Uncle Joh had made it of “the best components culled from the finest scrap heaps in the multiverse, where castoffs of the very latest obsolete designs” were abandoned by their owners or manufacturers in favor of more cutting-edge but, as uncle never failed to add, not necessarily superior, equipment. At any rate, the shuttle landed and docked itself perfectly, then self-activated its com screen so Khorii, Khiindi, and Elviiz could assure their family members on the Condor that their arrival had been safe and uneventful.

  “In that case, sweetheart, we’d better head for Paloduro so your folks can heal the stricken and we can return and all of us have the vacation this was supposed to be. You mind”—She was going to scream if Uncle Joh told her to mind Elviiz but instead he said—“that your pussycat doesn’t get into too much trouble. He’s a chip off the old cat.”

  “I will send messages of our progress through Elviiz’s com screen,” Uncle Maak said. “You must do the same.”

  Father’s eyes glistened with tears. He had not wanted to let go of her during the good-bye hug. Mother patted his shoulder, and said, “Khorii, I have every confidence in your good sense and flexibility. The school on Maganos Moonbase is a great place to brush up on your interplanetary social skills. The young people there are from every human and humanoid species in the sector. By the time we return, you will probably have so many friends you won’t want to leave.”

  Khorii nodded as if she agreed, but she didn’t, and she hoped her parents weren’t reading her just then because they had enough on their own minds already, without the burden of what she had on hers. What if these human and humanoid younglings didn’t like her?

  A new face appeared on the com screen. The boy had a roundish fair-skinned face and hair almost as white as Khorii’s mane. “You’re Lady Acorna’s kid? Cool! I’m Hap Hellstrom. Come on out and I’ll show you around. Is that a real Makahomian Temple Cat you have with you? I’ve never seen one of those before. I had a dog at home before—well, you know, before the place blew up. His name was Boomer and he was a pretty amazing dog. Everyone said so. People I didn’t even know asked me about him after he died. I don’t mind too much though. I know it’s all the balance of nature—well, funny in a way. Not ha-ha funny but strange funny. Boomer died, and our planet went boom! But hey, that’s how it goes sometimes, and you just have to roll with it, you know what I mean? How do you say your name again? And who’s the other kid?”

  “Khorii,” she said. “My mother, whom you know as Acorna, is called Khornya among our people so my name is between hers and my father’s, which is Aari. This is my foster brother, Elviiz.”

  “Cool sideburns, little brother,” Hap said. “And I like the white suit with the studs on it.”

  “Thank you. My father made me so I resemble a Linyaari version of my namesake, the king of olden times.”

  But Hap was plunging along. Khorii had unsealed the hatch and opened it, and the boy came right inside, although there wasn’t much room. He was as tall as an adult Linyaari and with his white hair and fair skin lacked only a horn in the middle of his head to make the resemblance at least superficially complete.

  “Can I pet your cat? Would that be all right? I like cats. Boomer liked cats, too. Cats all liked him most of the time. Except when he tried to herd them. He was a Lothland herd dog. Hi, kitty. I brought you something. I heard there was going to be a cat coming down, so I made this just for you. Don’t rat on me to Tab, though. She runs the ’ponics garden, and she’s very strict, but I figured, hey, cats are entitled to catmint, so I sewed it up in this little packet. Ow! Wow! I guess he likes it. I almost lost a finger.”

  “Makahomian Temple Cats are like that,” Khorii said. She leaned over to touch her horn to the welts Khiindi had slashed across Hap’s knuckles but Elviiz pulled her back in time. This was going to be hard to get used to. When her cat hurt someone who was just being nice to them, it was only natural to want to heal his wound; but the humans weren’t supposed to know exactly how Linyaari did it. Though from what she had been told about her mother’s exploits in freeing the slave children who were the alumni of Maganos Moonbase, it didn’t sound like she had concealed her powers very well, so surely some of these people knew what she could do already?

  Elviiz put himself between her and Hap and extruded his bio-wash attachment to cleanse the wound, afterward sealing
it with a cello-patch. “Removing the fingers of human benefactors is a traditional ritual with Makahomian Temple Cats,” he informed Hap. “Khiindi’s sire, the first mate of the Condor, Roadkill, or RK as we call him, removed two fingers from Captain Becker when they first became acquainted. The fingers grew back along with other appendages on both the cat and the captain, and now, of course, they are the best of friends.”

  “Hey, you are a droid, aren’t you? Panko said you were—he was the one on com duty when your ship was in orbit—but you sure didn’t look it to me. What’s with the screw in the middle of your forehead?”

  “I am a Linyaari, like my father, so of course I have a horn,” Elviiz said, with wounded dignity.

  “Oh, golly, I’m sorry, fella, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I think it’s cool. And Khorii introduced you as her brother, too. That’s really great that you two are bonded like that. Good pals and all that.”

  “We are not merely friends or foster sibs,” Elviiz said. “I am her tutor and her guardian as well to make sure the child does not blunder into harm’s way.”

  “That’s great. Really. I have seven brothers and three sisters…somewhere. We got split up during the rescue operation. I don’t know where they were taken, but I’m trying to find out. Come on, and I’ll show you where you’re bunking.”

  Khorii started to protest that she had to get Khiindi, but the cat jumped up onto Hap’s shoulders and marched back and forth as he led them forward. He didn’t seem to notice. Aside from a friendly tug at Khiindi’s tail, he ignored the cat’s preference as if it happened to him all the time. Well, at least someone was making friends.

  Like MOO, the moonbase was a series of bubbles encompassing an environment that would sustain the lives of the people enclosed within it. Unlike MOO, the environment was not especially luxurious or fancy.