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

by Anne McCaffrey

  Hap showed them to a small cubicle containing a pair of bunks and a couple of lockers for belongings. She and Elviiz sat on the bed.

  “No, sport, your room is over in the boys’ section with me.”

  “But I must be here to protect her,” Elviiz protested. “If she comes to harm here, my father will be very unhappy with me, as will my foster parents. I prefer that does not happen. So I will stay with Khorii.”

  “Sorry,” Hap said. “She’s already got another bunk mate. If you stayed here, too, it might freak out the other girls.”

  “I am not a freak, Hap. In many ways, I am more useful than a human male of my age.”

  “I wasn’t calling you a freak. I just meant the girls would get silly and maybe be a little inhibited, even when they know you’re a droid.”

  “The way some fully organic beings behave, I am very happy to be a droid,” Elviiz replied. He didn’t sniff disdainfully, but he might as well have. The sniff was implicit in his tone. Still, he followed obediently as Hap led him away, promising to return soon to show them both where the dining room and classrooms were located. As they left, at the last minute Khiindi jumped down from Hap’s shoulders. The little cat’s claws skittered back down the slick-tiled hallway, and he barely caught himself from sliding by the doorway to Khorii’s quarters. She scooped him up and sat on the lower bunk petting him, trying to calm him. “It will be all right, Khiindi. You’ll see. Mother and Father will stop the plague, the grandfathers will come back, and, meanwhile, you and I will make lots of new friends.”

  As if on cue, a beautiful young girl entered the room followed by an adult woman.

  Before Khorii could introduce herself, the girl spoke. “Get that beast off my bed! And what are you doing in my room?”

  The dark-haired girl advanced into the room. Khorii tried to hold Khiindi back. After all, he was a Makahomian Temple Cat, and fierce protectiveness was bred into his bones.

  He wriggled from her hands and leaped toward the girl. Before Khorii could utter a warning, Khiindi twined himself around the girl’s feet and ankles, purring loudly, weaving figure eights in and out between her feet until she stumbled over him and fell. “It attacked me!” she screeched, and started brushing at her ankles, as if trying to divest them of cat fur. “I am very allergic. If I swell up and die, it will be your fault!”

  “Here now, what’s the problem? What’s wrong with you, Shoshisha?” the woman asked. “Who said anything about your dying?”

  “This person is in my room, and she brought a tiger with her. It tried to eat me!”

  “You are mistaken,” Khorii told her. “Khiindi did not attack you. He was expressing how much he liked you and he probably expected you to feed him. He expects everyone to feed him.”

  Khiindi sat over to the side, washing his right front paw unconcernedly. He paused only to look up at her, squeezing his eyes shut and opening them again, his mouth hanging open as if he were laughing. The little wretch had known exactly what he was doing when he tripped Shoshisha.

  “Oh, my goodness!” the lady said. “You’re Lady Acorna Harakamian-Li’s daughter, aren’t you? I was on my way to greet you, but I didn’t realize you were staying here. Naturally I assumed you’d stay at the chancellor’s quarters, where Mr. Giloglie and Mr. Baird and their families live.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m Khorii, and this is Khiindi. My brother Elviiz was taken to the boys’ quarters by that nice boy who met us, Hap.”

  “Him!” Shoshisha said, tossing her glossy black hair so it rippled and settled back down around her shoulders. “That explains it. He put you here so he’d have an excuse to see me. He likes me, and he thinks if he spends enough time around me, I’ll get used to him, I suppose.”

  “He seemed very friendly and kind to me,” Khorii said. “And since my grandfathers Calum and Gill are not at home, he probably thought I would rather stay with students closer to my own stage of development. It was a thoughtful gesture, but since we are not welcome here, perhaps it would be better if we did stay in grandfathers’ quarters until they or my parents return.”

  Shoshisha’s brown eyes, which had been squinched in temper, widened suddenly as she smiled. “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. I didn’t realize you were related to our beloved chancellors, and of course I see now that you have the horn and look just like the holo of Lady Acorna gracing our assembly hall. I am sorry I overreacted. You startled me and, well, I am quite allergic to most animals.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It’s kind of you to say that I may stay, but Khiindi is my friend, and he must be with me,” Khorii said. She turned her attention to the woman who had greeted her before. A teacher, surely, the woman was comfortably built, had feathery fair hair and very shrewd blue eyes. “Actually, it would probably be better at the grandfathers’ because Elviiz could come, too. You know my name. May I ask yours?” she asked the lady.

  “I’m Calla Kaczmarek. I’m the psychologist and psychology/ sociology instructor. I also act as the school’s guidance counselor. Dr. Al y Cassidro, our headmaster and dean of the mining engineering school, has classes all day long and couldn’t make it to greet you himself, so he asked me to do it. Your grandpas are old friends of mine, but I only met your mother after she began working with Mr. Li. I’m really pleased to meet you. Things have been a little strange around here since the plague scare began, which was unfortunately right after Gill and Calum and the Kendoro sisters landed on Kezdet. But we’ll all be fine, and so will you. Come on, I’ll show you where to go.”

  As they were leaving over Shoshisha’s protestations, they were nearly knocked down by Hap and Elviiz. Most people thought droids didn’t get excited or any other strong emotion, but Elviiz was an exception. Maak had programmed him to behave pretty much like a Linyaari boy and now he acted like a very excited one.

  “Where are you going, Khorii?” Elviiz asked. “Are you on your way to our classes? Hap says both he and I are far too advanced for the programming the younglings receive in them, but that we are expected to acquire something called ‘socialization’ by attending them anyway. I wonder why my father did not program socialization into me on our journey, so that I could in turn impart it to you? As a part of this aspect of our programming, we are to compete in contests of physical athletic skill called sports and attend gatherings where some aspects of mating are performed in a vertical position. This is known as dancing.”

  Khorii smiled. “We have dances on Vhiliinyar, too, you know, Elviiz.”

  “We do? But I have never seen one. Is that because I cannot mate with totally organic females?”

  “No. I think it’s because you are with me most of the time, and since we’ve been old enough to attend them, we have been elsewhere when dances occurred.”

  “Who’s this?” Shoshisha asked, coming out into the hall and widening her eyes at Elviiz. Elviiz, always ready to assimilate, had removed the horn attachment from his forehead. Khorii wondered if she would wish to do the same as time went on. Without the horn, Elviiz’s brow was smooth, and he could have passed for Hap’s brother instead of hers. Hap’s hair was straight and Elviiz’s Linyaari-like mane, although as pale as Hap’s, curled over his forehead and down in front of his ears, extending slightly onto his jawline. He was now slightly taller than Khorii, as a Linyaari boy her age would be. Except for his hands and feet, he looked quite human and apparently, from the expression on Shoshisha’s face, at least one human female found his appearance appealing.

  “I am Elviiz,” he said, extending a three-fingered single-knuckled hand made to resemble Khorii’s own.

  “Oh?” Shoshisha touched his hand experimentally. “Are you a mutant of some sort? I thought you were human, but—”

  “I would not advise taking his hand, Shoshisha,” Khorii said. “Uncle Joh and Mother have tried to teach him to shake hands, but he does not realize how strong he is. He would never intentionally crush your fingers but…”

  “That only happened once, Khorii, and I was able to
adjust my pressure gauges immediately to compensate,” Elviiz protested. “Shoshisha is perfectly safe engaging in ritual greeting gestures with me, as you very well know.”

  “Pressure gauges?” Shoshisha asked with a frown.

  “Elviiz is an android, Shoshisha,” Hap said. “You should see all the cool attachments he has.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass this time.” She turned to Khorii and smiled sweetly. “You know, I really am allergic to most animals, but apparently your space cat is different enough that he doesn’t bother me. So I wish you two would stay and room with me. I would be so interested to learn all about your planet and your people and what it’s like to have a mother like Acorna.”

  Khorii did not need to be psychic to know that Shoshisha’s reasons for wishing her to remain as a roommate were not as innocent as the human girl said. However, there seemed to be no diplomatic way to decline, and Khorii had been trained from earliest childhood to be tactful in dealing with other beings. Especially when adults were watching. She looked at Calla Kaczmarek, whose mouth twitched with amusement.

  “Because I was thinking,” Shoshisha said, “that if you want to make friends here, it wouldn’t be good to look as though you think you’re above staying in the dorms with us just because your relatives run this place.”

  Khorii suspected that Shoshisha was also thinking that if Khorii chose to stay in her grandparents’ quarters, Shoshisha would make sure everyone did believe that Khorii thought herself superior to them.

  Calla Kaczmarek coughed. “Staying in the dorms would help with the socialization programming your friend just mentioned.”

  “Very well, then, we accept,” Khorii said. “Only, could you show us now to the hydroponics gardens. I am hungry, and Khiindi will require soil of some sort for his excretory functions.”

  “No litter boxes in the room, puh-leeze!” Shoshisha said. “Can’t he use the lavatory like everybody else?”

  “I don’t know. Aboard the Condor part of the garden was reserved for his use.” She did not mention that Khiindi had not always—or even usually—been scrupulous about sticking to his assigned area.

  “I can show her where it is,” Hap volunteered eagerly.

  “Thank you, Hap. If you’d show Khorii and Elviiz the general layout, where the classrooms are, and the other important stuff, I’d appreciate it,” Calla said, then turned apologetically to Khorii. “I have a class in a few minutes, but I just wanted to say hi and make sure you two—three—were settling in okay. Hap, if you would also show them the curriculum and help them get registered?”

  Khorii started to protest that they wouldn’t be there long enough to take courses like the other students, but thought better of it. Saying so might give rise to Shoshisha accusing her of being elitist again and of failing to exhibit the proper attitude for assimilation.

  The girl needs a few lessons in assimilation herself, Khorii thought, as she followed Hap down the passageway.

  Chapter 6

  Hap led them to a computer terminal and suggested they fill in the forms. She and Elviiz both did so. The curriculum on Maganos Moonbase was essentially directed toward mining engineering, Mr. Delzsaki Li’s enterprise on the moon before he and Uncle Hafiz had joined Mother in establishing the school.

  Other kinds of classes were offered, of course, and several were offered during each time slot, so students had more choices as to what to take when. The psychology and sociology classes taught by Calla Kaczmarek were no doubt designed to help the students deal with the various traumatic events that had brought them here. Steve Reamer, whose daughter Turi had once babysat Khorii, taught gemology and metal-smithing as well as drawing and, oddly enough, symbology. Khorii signed up for those, which were new to her, as well as advanced studies in conversational and written Standard and Calla’s classes.

  The others all seemed a bit redundant. Astrophysics, from the course description, seemed fairly elementary compared to the studies she had done with data provided by Elviiz’s memory. Maak had equipped his son with not only the basic and advanced Federation courses required for those employed in intergalactic navigation, but also with the quirky theories and star charts compiled by Uncle Joh and his adopted father, the late Captain Theophilus “Off” Becker. Great-uncle Off had taught Uncle Joh to use wormholes and pleated space as well as other physical anomalies as aids to navigation and shortcuts. She and Elviiz had already mastered many of the other conventional courses as well, and surpassed the lessons offered in the catalog. But she marked something for all of the required time slots, realizing that for the most part what she would actually be studying was her fellow students.

  “Here’s the ’ponics garden,” Hap said, opening a glass door to a place as moist and green as Khorri imagined the rain forests of Khiindi’s native Makahomia might be, from what Mother and Uncle Joh had told her.

  Indeed, as they entered, Khiindi began purring loudly enough to drown out the noise of the generators and irrigation system. He sprinted forward, tail aloft, back paws flashing, till he was engulfed by the plants, where he sniffed and licked experimentally. One of them made him sneeze, and he turned his back on it and tried to bury it with digs of his back paws. Then he found a bed of something to roll in.

  “Ah, he’s found the herb garden,” Hap said. “Do you know what all the herbs are for, Khorii? Rosemary is for remembrance and is delicious with fish and chicken, thyme is for…”

  “Are there other cats here?” she asked. “Or has catmint a use to humans as well as cats?”

  “Oh, yes, it’s used in tea and is said to be good for stomach upsets and to calm the nerves,” Hap replied.

  “That’s surprising,” Khorii said. “It seems to have the opposite effect on Khiindi.”

  Khiindi gave her a look that seemed to indicate that he had heard and understood her words but didn’t care one bit what her opinion of his behavior was. The cat went right on burrowing into the hydroponics bed.

  But Hap bared his teeth at her! At first Khorii was startled, thinking she had done something wrong to make him react with such hostility, then recalled that with humans, that particular toothy expression was usually friendly.

  “Khiindi’s a cat,” Hap said. “Cats have their own way of doing things.”

  “I’ve noticed,” she agreed. “Often.”

  At that, Khiindi gave a flip of his tail, and vanished into the catnip patch. Hap continued talking and explaining every single plant in the beds, its uses and properties, dangers and lore, as well as any personal experiences he had had with each variety, while she and Khiindi used the ’ponics garden for their needs. On a Linyaari ship, she would have used the garden the same way Khiindi did to relieve herself, since Linyaari excrement was high in nutrients that were good for plants and very clean. But humans, as she had learned on MOO, were repulsed by the practice, and so Linyaari wasted their contributions in lavatories when they inhabited human-occupied spaces.

  Khorii said, “It was good of you to wait for us and delay your own meal. We can accompany you now so you can eat, too.”

  “Not hungry!” Hap said. “This is more fun.”

  “But it would be a good opportunity to meet other students, would it not?” Elviiz asked.

  “I guess so,” Hap agreed, as if reluctant to share them. “Come on. It’s three stories up.”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant until they reached what he called the “hubbub.”

  “There’s one of these at the center of each of our bubbles,” he told her. “They were designed to make maximum use of the vertical space we have.” A broad, moving walkway ascended in a wide, spiraling path to a series of what seemed to be suspended platforms, staggered so that each level branched off in a different direction.

  Khorii counted six levels, including the one they stood on.

  “’Ponics garden, administration offices, most of the recreation areas, laundry, and dorms are on this level of this bubble,” he told them. “Next one up is the ’puter labs, holo cells, an
d communications center. That’s where I was when you came in.”

  “It’s not associated with the docking bays?” Elviiz asked.

  “No. We found it easier to have it all in one place. The idea behind the moonbase, as I’m sure your mom must have told you, is for us to learn to do everything ourselves. We have some supervision from experts and teachers, like Calla, but we’re not just learning schoolkid stuff. This is on-the-job training, apprenticeships, vocational-technical education, and all of the cultural essentials kids who live with their families or go to planetside schools would learn as well. And not all the teachers are adults. We also give classes to each other about our worlds of origin. Some of us are from pretty strange places.”

  “Is it true you were all child slaves before Mother and her friend Mr. Li and Uncle Hafiz rescued you?”

  “Well, that was true when they first established the base, but most of those kids have grown up and gone on—of course, some are still teaching here, some you’ve probably met on MOO. A few of the kids who were little when the Moonbase was established are in the upper levels now. But most of us are orphans, or displaced from our families as the result of a war or some other catastrophe. Shoshisha’s family used to rule one of the provincial kingdoms of Zapore, a country located on the most temperate continent of Zilbek, the second planet from the suns of the Ganesha star system. So she’s like a princess or something, except that her family got deposed and everybody was sent into exile while she was on an off-world shopping trip, then the exile was made permanent by some of those political enemies, who had her family assassinated. One of her mother’s old friends warned her not to return and arranged for her to be smuggled out of the Ganesha system to Maganos Moonbase.”

  Khorii sighed. “She has been through a lot. She must be very unhappy.”

  “Why?” Hap asked. “She’s alive, she has us. Life goes on. Besides, it’s not like her parents really had much to do with her, you know. People like her are raised by nannies and servants. And her brothers and sisters were all kids by other women in her father’s harem. She says they were always plotting to kill each other anyway. No big loss.”