The Unicorn Girl

by Anne McCaffrey

  But by then the representative of Aaaxterminators, Inc. had called at the back door of Ghopal’s kitchen and had gone away with the note Ghopal handed him, promising to take care of the rat problem.

  On his way back to the office, the Aaaxterminators man stopped at a kiosk and bought a cluster of happy-sticks, paying in real paper credits from an impressive wad he kept in his inner coverall pocket. He flirted outrageously with the girl who sold him the happy-sticks, which might have explained why she seemed a bit flustered and took longer than usual to give him his change.

  That evening, as always, Delszaki Li’s personal assistant went out to the same kiosk to buy a flimsy of the racing form sheets for the next day. He and the kiosk girl laughed over the old man’s refusal to subscribe to the racing news via personal data terminal and agreed, as they always did, that if a nice old man was embarrassed by his fascination with this form of gambling and thought that buying flimsies with hard credits would preserve his anonymity, there was no need to disturb his illusions. The folded flimsy sheet Pal Kendoro took back to the Li mansion was thicker than usual. After he had unfolded it and read the contents of the inner page, he dissolved that page in water, poured the water down the drain, and requested an immediate interview with his employer.

  “Sauvignon’s ship has been reported in transit, sir,” he said, standing as straight as a military attaché before the old man in the specially equipped hover-chair. A wasting neuromuscular disease had rendered Delszaki Li’s legs and right arm all but useless, but the intelligence in those piercing black eyes was as keen as ever, and with one hand and voice commands he had remained in charge of the Li financial empire for fifteen years after enemies had predicted his speedy demise. Pal Kendoro was proud to serve as Li’s arms, legs, and eyes outside the mansion.

  “And Sauvignon?”

  “I don’t know. There is still a party of three aboard the ship, but the names are not those of our people. It is now registered to Baird, Giloglie, and Nadezda,” Pal recited from memory.

  “Would have been most unwise for Sauvignon and party to retain same names,” Li pointed out. “Do you think they attempt to make contact with us again?”

  “Unlikely. This information came from a Guardians’ office.”

  Delszaki Li’s black eyes snapped fire. “Then is most urgent to find them before Guardians do. Must be you who goes, Pal. Wish I could keep you here, but who else would be believed as doing errand for me and at same time reestablish contact with Sauvignon?”

  Pal nodded agreement. Most of the members of the league were from the underclass, with no visible means of going off-planet, no obvious reason to go, and no off-planet passes. The few, such as Pal, who had risen through the tech schools, were the only ones who could travel freely without inconvenient questions being asked. But he didn’t like leaving Delszaki Li with only his regular servants, at least half of whom were secretly in the pay of Kezdet Guardians of the Peace—and secure in the belief that their second source of income was a secret.

  “If I might make a suggestion, sir, you will need a personal assistant while I’m gone. My sister might be able to oblige.”

  “Mercy?”

  “No! She’s too useful where she is. My older sister, Judit; I don’t think you’ve ever met her. She’s brilliant. Finished Kezdet tech schools at sixteen and scored highly enough on the final exams to win a scholarship to study off-planet. She’s working in the psych section at Amalgamated’s space base.”

  “Would be willing to leave this fine job?”

  “Like a shot, sir. She hates the place, was only working there for the money to put Mercy and me through school so we, too, could escape the barrios. It should be safe enough for her to return to Kezdet. Due to leaving so early, she’s never been…active,” Pal said delicately.

  “And therefore is unknown to the Guardians’ offices, except as sister to girl who works as their assistant.” Li nodded his satisfaction. “Could hardly have a better guarantor.” Li chuckled quietly. “Is good, Kendoro. Send word to sister, but do not wait for her arrival. I shall manage well enough for few days, and Sauvignon may need help.”

  “If it is Sauvignon,” Pal said under his breath, but the old man heard.

  “And if is not Sauvignon, then maybe ship in hands of those who kill our friends. In which case…”

  “Terrorism is against the principles of the league, sir. Despite what they say about us in the newscasts.”

  “Is extermination of rats,” Li snapped. “Is not terrorism.”

  So the chain of information from the Guardians’ office to the Li mansion ended as it had begun, with a discussion of dead rats.

  “I want that boy,” Hafiz told his trusted lieutenant, Samaddin.

  “With respect, patron, I thought it was a girl.”

  “What? Oh—the curiosity. Yes, well, of course I want her, too. But I want young Rafik more. The son of a camel and a whore outsmarted me!”

  “With all respect, patron!” Samaddin bowed even lower. “Forgive me, but the patron would not wish, later, to recall that he had spoken of his sister in such terms.”

  “Family!” Hafiz said in disgust. “When they double-cross you, you can’t even curse them properly. Get me that sheep-buggering boy, Samaddin.”

  “Consider it done,” Samaddin promised. “Er—you want him with his balls or without them?”

  “You idiot! You misbegotten son of a jinn’s meeting with a jackass, may the grave of your maternal grandmother be defiled by the dung of ten thousand syphilitic she-camels!” Hafiz indulged the bad temper resulting from a major drug hangover and the loss of his prized unicorn by abusing Samaddin for several minutes, while his lieutenant’s expressionless face grew steadily closer to purple than its normal creamy tan. Finally Hafiz calmed down enough to explain that he wanted Rafik back alive and unharmed, and especially with his generative capacities intact.

  “He’ll pay for what he did to me, never fear. But after he works off his debt, I’ve got plans for the boy. Do you know how long it’s been since anybody double-crossed me, rather than the other way round, Samaddin? He’s got the brains and the guts to take over after me, and I want him to have the balls to sire more sons, too. I’m going to adopt him and name him my heir. Well? What are you staring at? Perfectly normal practice—good families, no son to carry on, bring in a young relative.”

  “The patron has a son,” Samaddin murmured.

  “Not,” said Hafiz grimly, “for long. Not after the way he screwed up the southern operation. Soon as his new ears are fixed, I’m sending him back to do the job right this time.”

  “Patron! This time Yukata Batsu will kill him!”

  “Sink or swim,” Hafiz said with a benign smile, “sink or swim.” He considered for a moment. “Better not send him until you’ve got Rafik safely back here, though. The family is short of young males at the moment. Tapha is, I suppose, better than nothing.”

  “Waste not, want not,” Samaddin said helpfully.

  In the curtained room where Tapha lay with his head wrapped in bandages, old Aminah whispered with the servant girl she’d sent to dust the lattice-work outside Hafiz’s office. She raised her hands and eyes to heaven in horror when she heard Hafiz’s plans for his own son.

  “What shall we do?” she wailed. “If he goes back to the south, that fiend Yukata Batsu will surely kill him. And if he stays here, that other fiend, his father, will kill him. We must smuggle him away as soon as he has healed from surgery. There must be some place where he can hide.”

  Aminah’s wailing awakened Tapha, and he struggled to sit up in his bed. “No, Aminah. I will not hide.”

  “Tapha, nursling! You heard me?” Aminah fluttered to his side.

  “Yukata Batsu took my outer ears, not the brain which hears and understands,” Tapha said sourly, “and a deaf beggar would have been awakened by thy wailing, old woman. Now tell me all that you know.”

  When Aminah had poured out her story, Tapha lay back on his pillows and co
nsidered. His face was somewhat paler than it had been, but that might have been from the exhaustion of sitting up.

  “I will not hide,” he declared again. “It is unbefitting a man of my lineage. Besides, there is no place where my beloved father, may dogs defile his name and grave, could not find me if he wished. There is only one thing to do.” He smiled sweetly at Aminah. “You will tell my beloved father that I am not recovering from the restorative surgery, that it is feared I will lose my life to an infectious fever brought back from the southern marshes.”

  “But, my little love, you grow stronger with every hour! You have no fever; I, who have always nursed you, should know.”

  “Try not to be more stupid than you were made, Aminah,” Tapha said. “Since when is it necessary to declare to my father the exact truth of what passes in these rooms? Or will you no longer protect me as you did when I was your nursling in truth, and you lied to deflect the wrath of my father over minor escapades?”

  Aminah sighed. She had lied for Tapha too many times to stop now.

  “But the deception must soon be discovered, my darling,” she pointed out. “You cannot pretend to lie abed with the marsh fever forever.”

  “No. But while my father is staying well away from these rooms for fear of the infection, I can get off-planet. I do not think he will kill you when he discovers the deception,” Tapha added after a moment’s thought. “He may not even beat you very badly, for you are old and weak, and it is shame to harm one’s servants.”

  “Dear Tapha,” Aminah said, “don’t worry about me. My life is as nothing compared to a single hair of your head.”

  Tapha had no quarrel with this assessment.

  “And so you will hide after all?”

  “By no means.” Tapha smiled. “By no means. Running away and hiding offers only a temporary safety. There is only one way to make sure that my position as my father’s heir remains unchallenged, and that he treasures my life as a loving father ought. I shall simply have to find my cousin Rafik,” he said, “before Samaddin does.”

  The Uhuru was unloading a collection of miscellaneous minerals on Theloi when Calum was approached by a courteous stranger.

  “I could not help overhearing your discussions with Kyrie Pasantonopolous,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself—Ioannis Georghios, local representative for…a number of businesses. I had the impression that your dealings with the Pasantonopolous family had been less than satisfactory? Perhaps you would allow me to inspect your cargo. I might be able to make you a better offer.”

  “I doubt it,” Calum said sourly. “It’s the mineral resources around Theloi that were unsatisfactory. We had to go all the way out to the fourth asteroid belt to find anything worth mining, and then all we recovered from the ferrous regolith was gold and platinum. Hardly worth the cost of the journey—”

  He stopped abruptly as Rafik stepped on his foot and interrupted him. “But, of course, the value of anything depends on how much the buyer desires it and how little the seller cares for it,” he continued smoothly. “Perhaps one of the businesses you represent, Kyrie Georghios, would find some slight use for our trivial and insignificant cargo. Don’t run down our payload in front of a purchaser,” he added to Calum out of the corner of his mouth as Georghios followed Gill to inspect the samples they had shown the Pasantonopolous concern.

  “And just what were you doing?” Calum demanded indignantly.

  “Being polite,” Rafik said. “It’s a different thing altogether. I think your bargaining instincts have been dulled by too many safe years under contract to MME. You’d better let me do the talking from now on.”

  “He wants to take samples for his own office to test, and we’re invited to dine with him tonight to discuss an asteroid he wants us to explore,” Gill said, joining them. “He hinted it might be a good source of rhenium. I suppose you think my bargaining instincts are atrophied, too, Rafik?”

  “My dear Gill,” Rafik said amiably, “you never had any talent for bargaining in the first place. We would do better to hand over the dealing to Acorna, who, at least, has a flair for numbers.”

  “Better if she’s not seen too much,” Calum said. “She’ll have to stay on board the Uhuru tonight.”

  The other two agreed. Acorna had grown so fast that she could now pass for a short man, and in miners’ coveralls and with a bulky cap concealing her silver hair and nascent horn, she could just get away with passing through the bazaars of Theloi without attracting too much attention. But they doubted her ability to pass for human through a prolonged evening of bargaining and formal dining.

  “Better,” Rafik said, “if all three of you stay on board. Then you can’t put your foot in your mouth again, Calum.”

  “Calum stays with Acorna, I go with you,” Gill decided after a moment’s consideration. “We don’t know this Georghios, and I don’t think any of us should be going off alone with strangers at present. We’ve annoyed too many people recently.”

  “He may not be willing to tell a loudmouth like you about the rhenium asteroid,” Rafik warned.

  “No,” said Gill cheerfully, “but he won’t bop me over the head in a dark alley, either.”

  “You’re paranoid,” said Rafik, but in the end it was he who recognized the trap Georghios had laid for them.

  “He wants all four of us to dine with him,” he reported after a telecom conversation with Georghios. “Says he prefers to know that all partners are in agreement before committing to a possibly hazardous venture like this…it seems the rhenium asteroid is closer to Theloi’s sun than we usually work, and we’ll need extra radiation shielding as well as protection from solar flares.”

  “Partners? Well, that lets Acorna out, anyway.”

  “He specifically requested all of us,” Rafik said, frowning. “Hinted that if we didn’t all show up, there’d be no deal. Now who does that remind you of?”

  “Sounds like Hafiz,” Gill said, nodding. “In which case we’d better take Acorna along to check for poison.”

  “No,” Rafik said slowly, “in which case we’d better leave now. I’ll accept his invitation—that will give us the afternoon to unload our payload, get what we can out of the Pasantonopolous family, and take off for Kezdet.”

  “We don’t dare go to Kezdet,” Calum pointed out.

  Rafik smiled. “All your survival instincts have atrophied. I knew it. Kezdet makes as good an official flight plan as any, don’t you think? We haven’t decided where to go next, and I wouldn’t want to accidentally file a plan for someplace near where we’re actually going.”

  What they were able to get from the Pasantonopolous concern for their gold and platinum barely paid their expenses. They had to stop at the first system with any mineral resources at all. That was Greifen, where the planetary government was building a series of orbiting space stations for zero-g manufacturing and could use all the pure iron the Uhuru could refine and send back into low planetary orbit by drone. The profit per load was not much, since Greifen was only willing to buy space-mined iron as long as the cost was less than that of lifting their own planetary iron into orbit. But it was steady work, and while the mag drive shipped buckets of iron back, they slowly accumulated a payload of more valuable metals. They were almost ready to look for a buyer on Greifen when Calum, who had been amusing himself during long refining processes by breaking the security codes on bureaucratic messages from Greifen, raised the alarm.

  “I don’t think we’d better try to sell this stuff on Greifen,” he told Rafik when the other two miners checked the status of the latest processes. “In fact, I think we’d better leave—now—and sell it someplace far, far away.”

  “Why? Getting bored? Another hundred tons of iron and we should have accumulated enough rhodium and titanium to make the trip seriously profitable.”

  “Listen to this.” Calum flicked a switch and the com unit replayed the results of his last few hours’ eavesdropping on official Greifen business. “Somebody has landed with
a claim against the Uhuru for debts and damages incurred on Theloi.”

  “We didn’t do any damage on Theloi,” Gill said indignantly. “We didn’t have time!”

  “Would you like to explain that to a court that’s been thoroughly bribed by Rafik’s Uncle Hafiz?” Calum asked. “He must be really mad at us. I didn’t think he’d follow us out of Theloi.”

  “He didn’t,” said Rafik, examining the flimsy of the transmissions Calum had decoded. “At least…this does not have the flavor of my uncle’s work. He prefers to avoid the courts. And look at the name of the supposed creditor. That’s not a Theloian name.”

  “Farkas Hamisen,” Gill read over Rafik’s shoulder.

  “Farkas,” Rafik said, “means ‘wolf’ in the Kezdet dialect…. I think maybe it was not such a bright idea after all, to file a flight plan for Kezdet. That must be how they caught on to us.”

  “They’d have no reason to go after this ship,” Gill protested. “Officially we’re not the Khedive anymore. We’re the Uhuru. We’ve even got the beacon to prove it.”

  Rafik shrugged. “Do you really want to stick around and find out what they’ve got against us?”

  “No way,” Calum and Gill said in unison.

  They agreed to forget about their credits from Greifen for the last drone loads of iron. As for the payload, as Rafik pointed out, any number of systems would be happy to get supplies of titanium. Nered, for instance, was a high-tech and highly militarized planet suffering from a severe shortage of mineral resources….

  “The trouble with selling to Nered,” Gill pointed out gloomily after they had reached that planet and concluded their transaction, “is that there’s nothing in this system for us to mine. We’ve got an empty ship…”

  “And a great many Federation credits,” Rafik said. “They really wanted that titanium.”

  “Yeah, but these people are military mad. I bet there’s nothing to buy here except paramilitary gear and espionage gadgets.”