The Unicorn Girl

by Anne McCaffrey

  Pal showed them into a suite of rooms, three bedchambers off a spacious, beautifully furnished lounge, and each bedroom had its own bath facility.

  “Boy! Have we come up in the world!” Calum said, pivoting on one heel with his arms wide open, taking in the luxurious appointments.

  Pal smiled at such an ingenuous remark. “You are very welcome guests. I do hope that you can find it in your hearts and minds to forgive my actions, but perhaps you see why such cautions had to be taken.”

  “If Li’s up against an entire planet, I suppose he’s got to be doubly, triply careful,” Rafik said as he settled himself into a wide chair that immediately conformed itself to him. “Hey, I can get to like this!”

  Pal stepped to the nearest wall, pressed an ornate button, and a panel slid back to reveal not only a well-stocked bar but other supplies.

  “In case you require sustenance or refreshment before the morning. In the meantime, I will wish you a comfortable night’s rest. And if you have any requirements, speak into this grill and the house of Li will supply whatever you lack.”

  “I believe it could,” Rafik said with a grin.

  Pal left and closed the door quietly behind him.

  “I think we ought to…”

  “This is the chance of a lifetime…”

  “Be our own bosses…”

  They had spoken all at once and broke off, laughing. Gill and Calum found chairs, which they pulled closer to Rafik’s semithrone so they could have a good natter about their amazing new prospects.

  “First,” Rafik said, taking charge and ticking off the points he wanted to make, “I think we’d be stupid not to take Li up on the offer because we’re not getting any younger and mining asteroids for huge corporations like Amalgamated is no longer the wide-open, friendly game it used to be.” The others nodded. “Exploiting the riches of a moon…and nonexploiting our employees at the same time…much less not having to worry about what’ll happen at our next port of call…I wonder…” Rafik paused, “…if Li can find out who else is after us and why.”

  “Whaddaya wanna bet that’s already being handled?” Calum said. “But, look, fellas—”

  “Look, there must be hundreds of techies and experienced men who’re as cheesed off with Amalgamated as we are. We take our pick of good men to start this project up: builders, engineers, environmentalists, medics…” Gill’s eyes gleamed with such rosy prospects. “We could hold out for the best there is.”

  “Not to mention the fair Judit.” Rafik shot a sideways look at Gill, who blushed to the beard and beneath.

  “Now…”

  “Ease off, Gill,” Calum said, holding up his hands between them. “Before we get our heads all warped with plans, there’s one other thing we have to do.”

  “Find out where Acorna comes from. We ought to have done something about that a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, when we’ve had so much free time,” Rafik began, and then stopped. “That kind of search could take a lifetime.”

  “Not if Li will let us hire a metallurgic specialist and get us the spectroanalyses of primaries.”

  “All of them?” Even Rafik goggled at that.

  “Naw, we can narrow it down,” Calum said. “She hadn’t been in that pod very long—the oxygen supply wasn’t down by as much as half—”

  “But she could have kept it clean,” Gill put in.

  “It took a few weeks to do ours, remember,” Calum said. “Any way, we go back to the old ’Azelnut group and use the evaluation of primaries in that area, widening the search. She can’t have been from that far away. Besides which, I’ll bet anything that some of her people visited Earth, or that sort of a legend wouldn’t have grown.”

  Gill frowned at him and waved his hand in dismissal of the idea.

  “Now, wait a minute, Gill,” Rafik said, holding up one finger. “A lot of those old legends did have bases in fact when modern science took a look at them. There’s no reason Acorna’s people didn’t start that one. Just remember how beautifully that escape pod…a mere escape pod…was designed. They’ve been in space a lot longer than we have.”

  Gill stroked his beard. “Yeah, I guess it’s possible.”

  “That would be a real coup,” Rafik said. “Furthermore,” and he settled back into his chair, locking his hands behind his head as he stretched out, “I think Li would really go for the research.”

  “At least he’s respectful of Acorna,” Gill said. “Not like others I could name,” and he shot a glance at Rafik.

  “Or that awful surgeon who was going to remove the ‘disfigurement,’” said Calum, who had never forgotten his outrage over that and by what a slim margin they had saved her. If they’d been just a fraction of a moment later…he shook himself.

  “So we broach that tomorrow, too?” Rafik asked.

  “Look, let’s get an idea of what we’re going to need,” Gill said, “draw up a plan of attack—”

  “A visit to the moon?” Rafik put in, grinning.

  “Among other things.” Gill was opening cupboards to find out where the computer terminal was hidden.

  Rafik removed one hand from behind his head and laid it on the edge of the table beside him. It lifted and exposed a state-of-the-art system that made him sit up and whistle. He rolled the chair around the corner of the table, toggled it on, and raised his hands over the keypads.

  “Okay, what’s first?”

  When they had revised their order of the priorities half a dozen times and finally reached one they could all agree (mostly) on, which did include a visit to the moons, which headhunter to contact for the most essential personnel, and what Calum would require for his search, they did “sleep” on it.

  Eight

  Wake up, Jana!” Somebody was shaking her, dragging Jana out of the lovely second sleep she’d fallen into after she woke at dawn and Siri Teku didn’t come. The sleep shed door was locked and nobody brought them food, so Jana went back to sleep so she wouldn’t think about how hungry she was.

  Kheti’s face was gray with fear. Jana’d never seen her like that, not even that real bad time when Siri Teku got so drunk he was seeing demons here Above and started whipping all the kids, screaming that he would drive Old Black and the Piper out of them. Kheti’d kept her head then, helping the little kids to scramble into hiding places, making Buddhe and Faiz throw rocks to distract Siri Teku until they all got out of reach, keeping them safe until the gangmaster threw up and fell down on the ground to sleep it off. She’d taken a lash across the face that would mark her for life, but she hadn’t been frozen by fear the way she was now.

  “I got to get out of sight,” she whispered. “I’m too big now, she’ll take me for sure.” She tugged her ragged kameez up, trying to bunch it up over her chest where she was bumpy now, but there wasn’t enough fabric to cover her top and bottom, too. Buddhe snickered and pinched her on the butt, and Faiz yelled that he could see some hair that wasn’t on her head.

  “Who’ll take you?” Jana demanded.

  “Didn’t you hear the whispers? Didi Badini’s coming.”

  Didi meant big sister. “Your family?” But why wouldn’t Khetala want to go with her sister? Nobody’s family ever came for a kid. Only the real little ones, like Chiura, even thought it would happen.

  Khetala tried to laugh. It came out like a grinding fall of rocks.

  “Oh, Didi Badini’s everybody’s big sister, didn’t you know? Piper sends her at night to take the pretty little kids, boys and girls both, and the girls that’re getting too big to be draggers, like Surya…didn’t you ever wonder what happened to Surya?”

  “She worked out her bond,” Jana said slowly. “She went home. Didn’t she?”

  Khetala laughed again. “Don’t you know anything? Nobody ever works out their bond. Does Siri Teku ever show you how much you owe, how much you’re earning, how much he takes out for your keep?”

  Jana hung her head. “I don’t know my numbers so good.”

  “Well,
I do,” Khetala said, “and the first time I asked to see my records, he knocked me across the shed.” The color was coming back to her face now, her eyes were sparkling; she loved to instruct people. “The second time, he said I’d have to come to his room, he kept the datacubes there. Huh! He didn’t even have a reader. Had somethin’ else he wanted to show me, though. So I know all about what Didi Badini’s coming for.”

  “You said she comes at night. It’s not night.”

  “I can’t help that. Dunno why she’s coming in the daytime this time, but I heard the whispers. Besides, why else would Siri Teku keep us locked in here? Missing a half day’s shift work, we are.”

  Khetala’s fear was infecting Jana, but she didn’t want to show it. She yawned and turned over on her side.

  “So what? Me, I get a chance to sleep, I’ll take it…. Besides, whatever Didi Badini wants kids for, can’t be worse than this place.”

  “Can’t it? She works for the Piper, dummy.”

  “Piper’s a story to scare kids down Below.” Or maybe not. But they were Above now, even if they had been locked in the sleep shed since before dawn. They were in Sita Ram’s realm of sky and sun. Piper couldn’t have power here.

  “Piper’s real, and he takes kids to the bonk-shops in the city. You catch worse things than chest-cough that way, too. You get the burnies, and the scale, and if they don’t kill you by doing it to you too much, then your nose falls off and your crotch rots and they throw you out on the street to beg.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “I know what Siri Teku did to me in his room,” Khetala said, “and I got away from Ram Dal a couple of times when he wanted to do the same. And I been in the city, too, before my mum died and her boyfriend sold me here. You can see the beggars all over the place…and pictures of kids outside the bonk-shops. Why do you think she takes the prettiest kids? And Siri Teku and the other gangmasters, when a girl gets too tall to drag, they practic’ly give her to Didi Badini…and I’m going to be tall. You’ll be okay for a while, Jana, you’ve been living on patts and bean paste since you were a baby, you’ll always be a little shrimp. Me, I had eleven years of good food and standing up straight before I came here. I’ve got big bones. I won’t be able to drag much longer. You know that.”

  Jana nodded slowly. Sometimes Kheti got stuck in the narrowest tunnels, the ones leading to Face Three. That was one reason she usually worked Five now. And if she grew much more, she wouldn’t be able to get through the low pitch on the tunnel from Five.

  “You’re not pretty, though,” she said slowly. “Not since…”

  Kheti rubbed the pink weal that crossed her right cheek.

  “I know. But I’m big. That’s bad enough. If I thought gettin’ my face messed up would keep Didi Badini from takin’ me, I’d go stand by the compressor and let the flying chips cut me to pieces. But that won’t make me small again.”

  A new fear struck Jana. “Chiura!” Her face was burning up, but her hands felt icy cold. “She wouldn’t take…”

  “I reckon that’s why Siri Teku didn’t clip her curls,” Khetala said. “He never figured to train her for a sorter. She’s a little sweetcake of a kid, specially the way you been keeping her washed and her hair combed so good. He figured it was worth feeding her for a few weeks, then sell her to Didi Badini. He’ll make lots of creds off that one. He won’t get much for me though. Maybe if I can keep out of sight…”

  Jana didn’t hear the rest. She darted to where Chiura was playing with a pile of cast-off rocks and snatched her up, ignoring the baby’s wails of protest.

  “Come on, sweetcake. We got to get you fixed up good for the visitors. Faiz, give me your knife.”

  Faiz rolled his eyes. “Who me? Got no knife, got nothing.”

  “I seen you stroppin’ that bit of steel,” Jana said. “Give it here. You can have it back when I’m through.”

  “You going crazy,” Faiz said. “Old Black eating your brain.”

  But he fumbled in his pallet and came up with a thin band of metal, gleaming sharp along one edge and rusty dull on the other.

  Chiura cried when Jana pulled her hair to hack off the curls, and she’d only got one side of the kid’s head when they heard steps outside.

  “Sita Ram, help me!”

  Jana rubbed her hands in the dirt and smeared it over Chiura’s face. The tears and snot mixed with the dirt until Chiura’s round little face looked truly revolting. Jana rubbed some more dirt into the long ringlets she hadn’t had time to cut, spat on the dusty hair and patted it into muddy strings that hung down over the side of Chiura’s face. That was good—she looked almost ugly now, probably worse than if Jana’d had time to finish cutting her hair. She tossed the knife back toward Faiz and pushed Chiura into a corner.

  “You sit there and don’t make a noise!” she hissed at Chiura.

  The little girl pulled her knees up and sat rocking back and forth, eyes wide. She was probably scared to death that “Mama Jana” had been so rough with her. All the better, if it would keep her quiet.

  “I’ll give you a honey sweet when they’re gone,” Jana whispered, though she had no idea where she’d get one. “Just keep quiet now, Chiura, sweetcake, you don’t want them to notice you.” She squatted in front of Chiura, shielding her with her body.

  There was a clanking noise—that would be Siri Teku unlocking the door. Then light flooded in. It was full day. Jana felt a cold sweat of fear over her body. She didn’t want to believe in Kheti’s panic, but Siri Teku had to have some good reason for wasting all this work time. Time was credits, he always said, and here he’d lost a lot of time keeping them in the shed—how much she hadn’t realized until the door opened and she saw all that light. The golden rectangle of the open doorway hurt her eyes; she had been working day shift so long she couldn’t remember when she’d last seen so much sunlight. It had to be something big to make it worth his losing all those hours at work. Just for a moment she believed all Kheti’s horror tales about Didi Badini, and more, too.

  The man and woman who followed Siri Teku into the shed didn’t look evil, though. The man was a pinch-faced little gray fellow, no fangs or nothing, so Jana reckoned he couldn’t be the Piper. And she didn’t have much attention to spare for him after she caught sight of the woman. She was the most beautiful thing Jana had seen since she’d been brought to Anyag as a bondchild. To begin with she was clean, with no dust dulling the sheen of her smooth brown skin. And instead of being skinny and bony, she was plump and solid. And her clothes! The kameez was all pink and gold, and it was made of something so light and gauzy that it seemed to float over her body and caress her full curves like a cloud of butterflies; below the gold-embroidered hem of the kameez Jana could see the cuffs of deep pink shalwar, half hidden under gold anklets. Without meaning to, Jana made a small sound of longing and reached out, then snatched her hand back. She wanted to feel the fine stuff of the kameez, but she’d get it dirty. She was just a dirty little girl of the mines and Siri Teku would beat her if she messed up this fine lady. Maybe she’ll take me, Jana thought, and I’ll wear silk shalwar under my kameez and eat every day and…

  Didi Badini’s eyes met Jana’s for a moment. The eyes were not beautiful like the rest of her; they were cold and dark and hard, as if Old Black had sneaked up Above to look through the beautiful lady’s face. And when she saw the eyes, Jana remembered seeing Didi Badini before. Only she’d thought it was a dream. She’d come at night last time, inspecting the children by lamplight. Jana had rolled over and buried her head in her pallet, too tired to care about the dream-people talking and moving the lamp; in the morning Surya had been gone.

  “Too skinny, too plain,” Didi Badini said now to Siri Teku. “If that’s your best, you’re wasting my time.”

  “I’ve a big girl here, getting too big to drag the tunnels. Where’s Khetala?” Siri Teku demanded of the children.

  Jana hadn’t noticed where Khetala had gone, she’d been too busy with Chiura. But
Israr’s eyes flicked toward the corner farthest from the door, where several pallets of rags seemed to have been heaped up together, and simple Lata said, “She’s playing hidey, but I saw her.”

  Siri Teku kicked the pallets with all his force. Something gasped. He reached into the heap of rags, fumbled for a moment, and pulled out Khetala by one arm.

  “She won’t want me,” Khetala sobbed. “I’m too ugly. Look!” She stood in the sun and turned her face up so that the pink weal crossing one cheek showed.

  “Mmm,” said Didi Badini. “Stand still, girl.” She ran one hand over Khetala’s chest, felt her buttocks, and reached in between her legs. “Marked and used,” she said “And no more use here, as you said yourself. I’ll take her as a favor.”

  “She still owes on her bond,” Siri Teku said.

  Didi Badini looked amused. “Don’t they all?”

  She and Siri Teku haggled for a moment and agreed on a sum in credits that left Jana gasping.

  “No! I won’t go!”

  Siri Teku had let go of Khetala to wave both his hands during the bargaining; now she ducked between the adults and made for the door. Didi Badini’s fat brown arm flashed out, quick as a snake, and caught the fat braid of dark hair that hung down Kheti’s back. Kheti hit the floor on her knees, only the hand on her braid holding her upright.

  “Please,” she sobbed. “I’m ugly, see, you don’t want me.”

  Didi Badini’s smile was full of Old Black. “Some of my clients like them that way,” she told Kheti. “You’ll have more marks soon enough.” She nodded at Siri Teku. “Put the fight out of her. I’m not wrestling a screaming cat all the way back to Celtalan.”