The Unicorn Girl

by Anne McCaffrey

  “One?” Pal began in outrage. “But that’s totally inadequate to protect—” He stopped and took a deep breath at the sight of the woman who had answered Li’s button.

  “I think you will find Nadhari adequate to any emergency,” Li said dryly.

  Pal nodded, dumbstruck. Nadhari Kando was an all but legendary figure in the Li household. Rumors said that before coming to work for House Li, she had been one of the infamous Red Bracelets of Kilumbemba, or possibly a commander of one of Nered’s elite shock troops, or maybe she had personally created and led the Army of Liberation that freed Anrath from its despotic rulers. Logic said a woman who looked no more than thirty could not possibly have done all those things, but when Pal looked at Nadhari, he could never decide which stories to discount; she appeared capable of having done all three before breakfast. Whatever she had once been, though, it had ended in an episode whose truth was unknown to anybody in House Li. She had been dismissed in disgrace for a savage combat action, or she had been sent to assassinate Delszaki Li and instead had fallen under the spell of his uniquely personal charm, or Li had saved her from summary execution at the hands of the Kezdet Guardians. Again, all three stories seemed perfectly possible.

  Five feet six inches tall in her bare feet, lean and as tough as a length of braided leather, Nadhari Kando was expert in three forms of knife fighting and six forms of unarmed combat—none of which she had many chances now to use in the line of duty, since she went everywhere armed with an arsenal of miniaturized state-of-the-art weapons that could appear in seconds from her tight black braids, her gleaming skin-tight red boots, or…Pal gulped and tried not to think about the other places where she probably concealed weapons. Rumor also said that Nadhari could read minds and that was why she always appeared somewhere where her opponent was not expecting her, just outside of his blows or behind his laser fire. But of course, nobody could read minds. That was just a superstitious story.

  He hoped.

  “I shall be honored to accept Nadhari Kando’s escort,” Pal said through lips suddenly gone dry. “If…that is…if you are sure you can spare her?” Nadhari’s primary duty was to accompany Delszaki Li on all public appearances.

  Li waved his good hand. “Nadhari is bored. Do not go out often enough or encounter enough assassins to amuse her.”

  The silent, black-braided woman in the door-way nodded once in confirmation of this statement.

  “Mission?” she queried tersely.

  “Ah…the Tondubh Glassworks,” Pal said. “Acorna will tell you all about it as we are going along.”

  Acorna’s sunny mood gradually dimmed as they moved into the gray, dry industrial district east of Celtalan proper, and by the time they reached Knobkerrie Mountain she was hardly talking at all. The desolate landscape, spoiled by decades of dumping industrial waste and punctuated by walled compounds enclosing factories and housing, seemed uglier and more barren to her than any airless asteroid.

  “Does it have to be like this?” she whispered as the skimmer banked and hovered over the compound bearing the Tondubh Glassworks logo.

  “Kezdet,” said Pal, “is ruled by the bottom line and the quarterly balance sheet. In any given quarter there is more profit in spoiling the land than in preserving it, just as there is more profit in buying new bond laborers than in keeping those you already have happy and healthy. If you don’t care whether your workers live or die, and if they are too ignorant and frightened to complain, then why bother to give them decent lodgings or attractive surroundings?”

  The skimmer settled gently into the space set aside for official visitors to the Tondubh facility, and Pal jumped out, ready with the story he had prepared to cover their interest in the facility. He spun the security guards a story about an off-planet vid-artist who wanted to feature Tondubh as one of Kezdet’s success stories, a concern that had contributed to giving this resource-poor planet one of the higher gross planetary products in the sector.

  “No vid equipment allowed in the plant,” the guard said.

  Pal gave in on this point after minimal arguing, since he had no idea what he would have done if they hadn’t insisted on this restriction; there hadn’t been time to procure the kind of recording equipment an intergalactically known vid-artist would expect to use. The guard reciprocated by unbending slightly and allowing as how they could arrange a brief guided tour for the lady, if she and her companions would just wait an hour or so.

  “No time,” Pal said, “her time on Kezdet is measured in hours. Of course, if it’s not convenient for us to see this facility, I’m sure the Gheredi Glassworks would do just as well. If you’d just give me a note of your name and number, so that I can explain to InterVid exactly why Tondubh proved unsuitable…”

  The mention of Tondubh’s biggest competitor on Kezdet, plus Pal’s veiled threat that he would see the guard took blame for letting this publicity opportunity go to the competition, got them inside the glassworks without more ado. As they passed the second security wall, Pal caught sight of a pair of slender, scarred bare legs winking out of sight around the corner.

  “Damn kids,” the guard said genially, “they’re all over the place, bringing messages to the workers, begging a bite of the hot meals Tondubh provides to the hands, generally getting in the way.” The roar of the furnaces within the main manufacturing facility almost drowned out his words. They picked their way over a floor covered with shards of broken glass. The heat from the open furnaces was like a blow in the face; all the signs pointed to a factory in full production, yet the immense room was curiously empty. Only a handful of emaciated adults squatted in front of the furnaces.

  “Do you not employ children, then?” Acorna asked.

  The guard looked shocked. “’Deed, no. Why, that would be in violation of the Federation Child Welfare Statutes! Mind you, I’m not saying an occasional one as is underage may not sneak onto the payroll; these people breed like flies and don’t keep no records. But Tondubh has always done its best to abide by Federation standards, madam. Get out of the way, there,” he roared at a boy who trotted into view with an iron rod taller than himself, the end covered with a blob of molten glass.

  “P-please, sir, I was just bringing the glass to my gang leader,” the boy stammered, the end of his sentence all but drowned out by another out-raged roar from the guard. “Don’t you know you kids aren’t allowed to do anything but carry water? Now put that glass down! You could get hurt, messing with hot glass!”

  The little boy dropped his rod with a clang. Molten glass spattered into the air; Pal and Acorna had to jump back to save themselves.

  “Sorry about that, madam. You see why it would be better for you to wait and take a proper tour,” the guard said. “It’s hard enough to enforce proper safety regulations here at the best of times, and with these brats infesting the place for what they can pick up, well, it’s no place for a lady like yourself, and that’s a fact. I’ll just escort you back to the skimmer now.”

  Nadhari glanced at Pal and raised one brow inquiringly while she shifted her weight in a manner he found ominous.

  “No,” Pal said under his breath. “We will go as requested.”

  Looking disappointed, Nadhari relaxed slightly.

  The guard watched while Pal took off and cleared the factory airspace.

  “That,” Pal said grimly, “is just one of the problems we have to solve. Not employ children, indeed! That factory is ninety percent child-operated, and everybody knows it. But they have guards and gates and delaying tactics, and the children are trained to hide when any strangers come. I had hoped that a party of three would not be enough to alarm them. I was wrong.”

  “I could have alarmed them,” Nadhari said in her gravelly voice, with a smile that sent a cold breeze along the back of Pal’s neck.

  “I am sure you could take on the entire security force of Tondubh Glassworks,” said Pal tactfully.

  “Piece of cake,” Nadhari confirmed. “Soft slugs. Poor defensive position.” />
  “But I think Mr. Li might be annoyed if we started a private war.”

  Nadhari nodded sadly.

  “I do not understand why the children hide,” Acorna said. “Don’t they want to come out and ask for help?”

  “They do not have much experience with strangers who make their lives better,” Pal said. “Usually it’s the other way.”

  “That poor little boy. The guard was lying about his not working there. Did you see his feet? They were covered with burns and scars. If he hadn’t run away, I could have healed them.” Acorna sighed. “I suppose, if they do not admit to hiring children at all, it is useless to ask if they have a bonded child laborer named Jana?”

  Pal agreed. He could have predicted this outcome to the trip, but it had appeared the only way to convince Acorna of the enormity of the task was to let her see for herself the kind of obstacles they faced. Now, however, he felt her disappointment as keenly as if it were his own.

  “There is one other place we might try,” he said. “I’ve been thinking…it’s true that Knobkerrie is the only treeless mountain this near Celtalan that has a factory beside it. But to a little girl like Chiura, who’s to say what counts as a mountain?”

  “There isn’t much else that could be considered a mountain,” Acorna said, looking down at the featureless landscape below the skimmer.

  “Some of the pit mines have pretty high slag heaps near the sorting bins,” Pal said, banking the skimmer slightly. “And one of the oldest mines—with one of the biggest slag heaps—is not too far from here. It wouldn’t hurt to pay a visit to Anyag. This time, though, we’re going to think up a better story.”

  “We are?” Acorna had been tremendously impressed by the speed and fluency with which Pal had spun his tale at the Tondubh Glassworks.

  “We’ll have to,” Pal said. “The children at Tondubh had plenty of time to hide while I was convincing the guard that they couldn’t afford to alienate a galactic vid-artist. This time we’re going to use a story that will make them want to keep the children for us to inspect.” He glanced at Acorna. “Good thing you dressed up this morning. But you need to be a little gaudier.” He guided the skimmer down toward a walled compound of courtyards and gardens, brilliant in the surrounding near-desert as an emerald in the sand. “Wait in the skimmer,” he said over his shoulder as they landed.

  A slim, pretty girl with long black hair ran out of the nearest arcaded passageway, calling excited greetings to Pal. He met her too far from the skimmer for Acorna to hear what they said, but there was no need; his exuberant kiss of greeting and the way he picked the girl up and spun her around in his arms told her all she needed to know about their relationship. They disappeared together into the maze of buildings and Acorna slumped in her seat, feeling remarkably foolish. Of course Pal had a girlfriend. She’d seen enough story-cubes to understand that this was the normal arrangement of human society. They spent twenty years or so growing, and then they were ready to mate. Gill was showing every sign of preparing to mate with Judit, and that didn’t bother her; why should she feel so depressed at seeing that Pal was in the same situation? Probably because there was nobody for her to mate with. Not that she had the least interest in the kind of sexual acrobatics displayed in Calum’s secret vid-cube collection, but it would have been nice to have somebody to share secrets and jokes with, somebody who came running out with a joyful face when you came to their house, somebody who would hug you and spin you around like that.

  Ridiculous to feel sorry for herself, just because she was the only one of her kind, when so many people had worse problems. Acorna glanced at Nadhari, who was sitting upright and watchful in the backseat. Nadhari was alone, too, and it didn’t seem to bother her. She didn’t even need to talk to people except about her work.

  Acorna shivered. She didn’t want to be quite that self-sufficient. How lucky she had been to be found by Gill and Rafik and Calum, instead of by somebody who would have sold her to a labor factory on Kezdet! Acorna sat up very straight and concentrated on remembering how lucky she was and what a good life she had. She managed to such good effect that when Pal reappeared and climbed into the skimmer, the first thing he said was, “What’s the matter?”

  “Not a thing,” Acorna said. “Not a thing. I don’t need to know what your plans are. I just do what I’m told.”

  Pal tightened his lips to conceal a smile. So Acorna could take a huff, just like any other young girl, when she felt left out and ignored! She might look different, but she was completely and gloriously female. And that thought pleased him inordinately. He couldn’t quite figure out why he should be so pleased to see her displaying signs of jealousy, but…well, it was nice to know that at least emotionally she was very human, indeed.

  “Irodalmi Javak’s family is very wealthy,” he said, “and her father would not approve if he knew that she was a secret sympathizer with the Child Labor League. He doesn’t approve of me either, but pretending to be a penniless and unacceptable suitor for her gives us an excellent cover for an occasional secret meeting—even if anybody found out, they’d just think I was sneaking into the compound to steal a few kisses.”

  “Oh.” Acorna digested this. “Then it’s just…pretense? You two certainly looked happy enough to meet!”

  “I am very fond of Irodalmi,” Pal said truthfully. “She is a good, brave girl and she risks a lot for the movement. But she has no use for boyfriends; she wants to get off-planet and study to become a starship navigator.”

  “That must be very sad for you.”

  “Nothing to do with me,” Pal said so cheerfully that Acorna began to feel much happier. “She’s got her life planned out, and I am developing plans of my own. Our ‘courtship’ is a convenient cover, that’s all. I didn’t want her to see you because the less she knows, the safer for all of us. But she lent me enough of her jewelry to deck you out in the necessary style.” Both his hands were fully occupied now with lifting the skimmer and piloting it back toward Anyag. He nodded at the dark green case he had brought out of Irodalmi’s house. “Open that, will you, and put the stuff on.”

  Acorna was dazzled by the sight that met her eyes when she lifted the lid of the case. A profusion of rings, bracelets, chains, and stick pins glittered in the sunlight that filtered through the skimmer windows. Most of the jewelry was in a heavy, ornate style of gold work that would suit neither the slender Irodalmi nor Acorna with her silvery coloring, but there was one ring of blue starstones set in platinum, and a matching chain with a very large starstones pendant. She put these on and longed for a mirror in which to check the effect.

  “How do I look?” she demanded of Pal.

  He glanced sideways and grunted. “I said, put it on. All of it.”

  “I do not know much of fashionable dress,” Acorna said, “but I think that to wear all this gold at once would constitute a vulgar display of wealth, as well as being most unattractive.”

  “Yep,” Pal agreed, “that’s Javak Senior’s style, all right. Irodalmi doesn’t care for the stuff herself. Says that if she wore her father’s gifts, she’d look like the senior Didi in a high-class bonking-shop. Which is what made me think of her. That’s precisely the effect we’re after. Now put the jewelry on. Please.”

  Acorna did her best to follow his instructions, but most of the rings designed for human fingers would not fit on her less-supple digits, and she ran out of room for bangles on her arms.

  “The larger bangles are for your ankles,” Pal instructed without taking his eyes from the skimmer’s instrument panel, “and can’t you thread some of the rings through that turban kind of thing you wear on your head?”

  “Try not to crash this thing in a lake,” Acorna said after following his instructions. “I’d sink like a stone. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to walk with this much jewelry hanging off my body.”

  “Excellent,” Pal said. “We want you to look extremely rich and extremely vulgar. Too bad you don’t wear scent. A heavy dose of musk and jasmi
ne essence would finish off the picture nicely.”

  “What picture?” Acorna demanded.

  “Just came to me,” Pal said, “in a sudden flash of inspiration. We geniuses often work that way. If Didi Badini is welcome at Anyag to inspect the children, why not Didi Acorna? Explains Nadhari, too,” he added. “Any Didi as rich as you’re pretending to be would naturally travel with a bodyguard.”

  “You want me to pretend to be a Didi!” Acorna exclaimed. “That’s a truly revolting idea.”

  “It’s a truly brilliant one,” Pal said. “Just leave the talking to me, and nothing can go wrong this time.”

  Acorna regarded him with some suspicion.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “you remind me very much of Rafik.”

  “Act arrogant,” Pal warned her just before they reached Anyag, “and leave the talking to me.”

  Acorna had no trouble following either of these instructions. Shock at the sheer unrelieved ugliness of Anyag, the gigantic slag heap and the piles of separated ore and the endless roar of crushers, kept her silent. The stench of the latrine trench behind the sleeping sheds kept her nose up in the air, and the unaccustomed weight of jewelry on her body forced her to move slowly. The effect was all Pal could have wished: she appeared to be an incredibly wealthy young woman with vulgar taste, slow dignified movements, and too much pride to speak a civil word to the mine superintendent. It was easy for him to believe that she was a new and unprecedentedly successful Didi looking for fresh young stock to build up her expanding network of houses. He all but fell over himself apologizing for the poor condition of most of the children in the mine and issued no orders at all to hide them.

  Pal demanded curtly to be shown to where Siri Teku’s gang slept, and the superintendent showed some relief. He had heard that Siri Teku had scored a coup from a labor contractor just last month, picking up a curly-headed, fair-skinned girl child who looked like just the sort of fresh young thing a Didi would buy off him at twice or three times what he’d paid for her. He started to apologize that Siri Teku’s crew was on day shift and would be unavailable right now, then stumbled to a halt as he decided that Siri Teku wouldn’t have been fool enough to send a pretty piece like that baby girl Below. He’d have her working Above on some easy task like sorting ore or sweeping tailings to not spoil her looks….