The Unicorn Girl

by Anne McCaffrey

  “And all the other children there,” Acorna said. “That is why I thought of the Gorazde, you see. They say it is a good place to find cheap but durable clothes.”

  She proceeded to occupy the few minutes required for the skimmer to cross the city by saking Judit about her brother. Judit played down the misery of the first years on Kezdet, when she and Pal and Mercy had been bond-laborers with no hope of freedom, by saying truthfully that they had all three been sent to different places and she really knew very little of Pal’s life during those years. Instead she concentrated on tales of Pal’s progress through technical school and the stories he had told her about his work with Delszaki Li. It was a pleasure to talk at length about her beloved little brother to such an attentive audience, and Judit was almost sorry when they reached the Gorazde. She had been meaning to ask Acorna a few things about Gill…subtly, of course, so as not to betray how much more interested she was in him than in the other two miners who composed Acorna’s foster family.

  Once the skimmer pilot had set them down and had been requested to wait, Acorna changed from passive audience to taking charge of the expedition once again.

  “I think this is exactly the place I have been looking for,” she said, walking past a handful of clothing stalls to enter Sopel’s Sandalarium with its flashing lighted sign proclaiming, WHOLESALE, DISCOUNT SALE, AND GOING-OUT-OF-BUSINESS SALE EVERY DAY.

  A clerk hurried forward to serve them, every line of his demeanor announcing that he had never hoped to see two well-dressed young ladies from West Celtalan in Sopel’s Sandalarium. When he offered to measure their feet, Acorna informed him that this would not be necessary, as she knew what sizes she wanted. Judit gave a small internal sigh of relief; they really did not need the kind of attention that a close inspection of Acorna’s unusually shaped feet would draw. Acorna specified a range of sandal sizes that would fit anything from a toddler to a child of ten and selected a cheap and long-wearing style in recycled synthofoam. When the clerk mentioned a price that Judit thought far too high, Acorna glanced at her and immediately counter-offered for little more than the wholesale cost of the sandals. She pointed out the advantages of good relations with someone who was prepared to buy in bulk, gave the impression that she might be a buyer for some large consortium who could be enticed back by a very low price on this first order, and eventually acquired the Sandalarium’s entire stock in the requested sizes at less than half the price originally mentioned.

  “You see,” Acorna said when a slightly dazed clerk left to order porters to carry their purchases to the waiting skimmer, “I told you I would require some help with my parcels.”

  Almost as dazed as the clerk, Judit said the first thing that came into her head. “Where did you learn to bargain like that?”

  Acorna gave her an impish smile. “I have spent two years listening to Calum selling payloads of ore and drone buckets of iron all over this quadrant. The basic principles are not dissimilar—and I have always liked working with numbers.”

  “Working with numbers is hardly an adequate description,” Judit said with feeling. “Anybody who can juggle all those prices and quantities in her head ought to be looking at a career in gambling.”

  “Seven to four,” Acorna murmured, smiling at a private memory, “‘Nobble’ the favorite…I think we had better watch the sandals being loaded, don’t you? Mr. Sopel is not making as much of a profit as usual on this transaction; he may try to redress the balance by making a few slight mistakes during loading.”

  In fact, Acorna discovered no fewer than three “minor discrepancies” between her receipt and the goods being loaded on the skimmer in the first few minutes. With the discovery of the third shortage, she instructed the porter to inform Mr. Sopel that any more discrepancies would cause her to lose faith in his ability to conduct a business and would force her to take her credits elsewhere. Thereafter all proceeded smoothly.

  When the skimmer was fully loaded, Acorna directed the pilot to take them to the Tondubh Glassworks, with a sidelong glance to see if Judit would countermand her orders.

  “You promised Delszaki not to collect any more children,” Judit murmured with a warning shake of her head.

  Acorna lifted her long chin slightly. “I did not promise not to help them. Surely no one can object if I give a few things to make their lives easier?”

  And in fact, when Acorna swept into the Tondubh compound with the imperious air she had been practicing, she met with almost no opposition from the startled overseers. Judit was rather surprised to find that the Tondubh staff suffered from the illusion that Acorna was a galactically famous vid-star come to film a complimentary documentary on Kezdet’s “economic miracle,” but she said nothing to dispel the idea.

  “We do not film today,” Acorna said loftily, “so I amuse myself by bringing a few gifts for the children I saw here the other day.”

  The manager started his practiced spiel claiming that no children worked in the glass factory, but Acorna cut him off.

  “Of course, I understand perfectly, they do not work here,” she agreed with a complicitous smile and wink at the manager.

  “Exactly,” said the manager, returning the wink. “They are only hanging about here to run errands and beg meals from the generosity of the management. As long as that is understood, there can be no objection to the lady’s kind gifts.”

  “They will perhaps ‘run errands’ more swiftly if their feet are protected from the hot glass and broken shards in the factory,” Acorna said. “Let them come to me here and select sandals to fit each one.”

  The manager frowned. “I think they will not come. They are shy of strangers, gracious lady. It would be best if you left the sandals here for me to distribute.”

  Already he was calculating how much he could get from Sopal’s Sandalarium if he returned the merchandise still in its original wrapping—not full price, of course, but even a percentage of the discounted cost would make a nice little addition to his salary.

  But, although the child workers in the factory had scattered as usual when Acorna’s skimmer arrived, they were not that far away. A few of the braver and more curious ones had lingered to learn what they could of the new arrival, and they spread the word to the others that the whispered rumors were true: the Lady Epona had come to Tondubh! Who else would care to bring sandals to protect their burned and blistered feet?

  At first slowly, by ones and twos, the children crept out of concealment to receive their gifts from the Lady Epona. At the sight of the first boys’ burned feet, Acorna’s eyes narrowed to silver slits.

  “Distract that man,” she murmured at Judit, nodding at the greedy manager.

  Judit smiled sweetly at the manager, flirted shamelessly, and persuaded him to take her inside for a restorative cup of kava. The other overseers, not to be left out, crowded after her, and Acorna was left alone with the children for a few precious moments.

  As soon as the adults were gone, Acorna pulled off the scarf wound about her head. At the sight of the white horn rising from the tumble of silvery curls on her forehead, the children murmured in awe. A few of them dropped to their knees, all doubt removed; the younger ones clung to her skirts and begged her to take them away.

  “I cannot take you now,” Acorna said, her eyes-lits narrowing until they were almost invisible. “I have promised…and I have no place for you yet. But I will come back. And when I come, you will not hide? You will come to me?”

  The children were awed into silence as Acorna knelt before the first boy to claim his sandals and touched her horn to his scarred feet. When they saw the blisters and infected cuts disappearing under the touch of the horn, they were momentarily frightened. But little Donkin jumped and shouted in happiness.

  “They doesn’t hurt! They doesn’t hurt anymore! Come on, noodle-tops, get yours!”

  “Shh, shh,” Acorna cautioned Donkin, and the children quieted immediately.

  They were so pale, so quiet, so obedient! There was hardly any p
ushing and shoving as they lined up to receive their sandals and, an even greater gift, the healing touch of the Lady Epona’s white horn.

  By the time the last child had been cared for, Acorna was exhausted and shaking. She was relieved by Judit’s prompt reappearance from the manager’s quarters and hardly noticed Judit’s disheveled, flushed look.

  “Take me home,” Acorna whispered to Judit, “I am so tired.”

  “With the greatest of pleasure,” Judit said between her teeth. She gave Acorna a hand into the skimmer and leapt in after her, accidentally stepping on the manager’s hand as he reached in to wish them farewell. “West Celtalan Riverwalk,” she told the skimmer pilot. That would put them within an easy walk of the Li mansion—or a hundred other wealthy homes, so anybody questioning the skimmer pilot later would not be sure just where they had gone.

  But Acorna fell into an exhausted slumber on the flight back, and with resignation Judit altered her orders and told the pilot to take them to Delszaki Li’s private landing pad.

  “With pleasure,” said the pilot, “and won’t nobody find out from me where you went, neither! I thought as it must be somebody from the CALL.”

  “Delszaki Li has no connection with the Child Labor League,” Judit said.

  “Righty-ho,” the pilot said with a cheerful wink, “and I’m the president of Kezdet. Don’t you worry none, little lady. Truth to tell, I was just fixin’ to go in and get you, claiming some kind emergency, when you come on out of the offices. Nice girl like you hadn’t ought to be alone with the kind of scum they use to run those factories.”

  “You’re telling me,” Judit said with feeling. She straightened her tunic and twisted her hair back into its usual severe knot.

  “Pulled you about some, didn’t they? Like me to go back and beat ’em up?”

  Judit chuckled. “If you want to be helpful, my friend,” she said, “let’s not start by getting you thrown into a Peacetower. An anonymous skimmer could be useful from time to time.”

  “Here’s my call sign,” the pilot said. “Any time you want me, just take the nearest public comunit and put out this sign. Double the last two digits and I’ll know it’s you, see; then I’ll be there soon’s I can. If it’s an emergency, triple the last two digits and I’ll ditch my passengers and be there sooner.”

  The children were not the only ones to hear about Sita Ram, Lukia of the Light, and Epona: Didi Badini did, too, and she was livid. She asked a few questions of various informed sources and learned, to her astonishment, that no, there was no new bonk-shop opened with a Didi named Acorna. She was even more annoyed to learn that! In fact, she became obsessed with this Didi Acorna personage and traveled all the way to Anyag to question Siri Teku at length. He knew only that she had come in a rented skimmer—

  “To keep us from knowing her location, no doubt!” Didi Badini said, tapping her elegant foot and forgetting that the mud would get between her painted toes, done only that morning in silver: a color she intended to take off the moment she got back. Silver was definitely “out.”

  “Quite possibly, Didi Badini,” Siri Teku said, bobbing continuously in his desire not to alienate one of his better customers—although in the back of his mind was the thought that if the mysterious new young Didi could, indeed, heal his sickly children, it would be worth more to cultivate her patronage than placate this old fiend.

  More aggravated than ever, Didi Badini paced her apartment, ignoring the cool drinks and tasty tidbits offered to her. Only the news that a new patron awaited her inspection diverted her from her annoyance.

  The customer introduced himself as Farkas Hamisen, an off-planet merchant who had, he said, been told that Didi Badini’s house would show him the best Kezdet had to offer.

  He was a handsome young man, if one overlooked the ears that sat rather oddly on his head and did not seem to quite match the café-au-lait tone of his face. Didi Badini was far more interested in Hamisen’s expensive clothes and the jeweled ring that twinkled on his hand; she had no problem at all ignoring the ears, especially when he initiated the conversation by flattering her shamelessly. He could well believe that an establishment with such a lovely proprietor was the finest on Kezdet, he said, but it was hard to believe the owner did not outshine her merchandise. Perhaps she would do him the honor of an evening’s conversation, just to get acquainted, before they discussed business?

  Didi Badini smilingly agreed. Surely she could serve him better, she agreed, if she knew his tastes and personality.

  A few more fulsome compliments gained him entree into her private rooms, where poufs of silk-covered cushions invited visitors to relax at their ease. Hamisen praised the room as well and said that surely no establishment on Kezdet could boast such a lovely lady and such luxurious settings. He almost dared to confess the secret fantasy that had never yet been satisfied.

  “On Kezdet,” Didi Badini said, smiling, “anything is possible…for a price.”

  Hesitantly, almost shamefacedly, she thought, Farkas Hamisen confessed to a fascination with unusual girls. After some beating about the bush Didi Badini established that “unusual” meant deformed rather than very young.

  “You have come to the right planet, my friend,” she said, searching her memory for the children she’d recently rejected as too odd to appeal to her customers. There was that one-eyed child at Anyag…

  Still acting shy, Hamisen said that there was a particular deformity that had always excited him beyond measure, although he had only seen it in a dream. A Didi in the next street had attempted to satisfy him by offering a girl with an obviously false horn pasted onto her forehead, but of course he had been revolted by the trickery.

  “You want her?” Didi Badini gasped unguardedly. “I don’t believe it!”

  “You know of such a girl?” Farkas murmured. “Truly I was well guided by those who recommended your establishment.” In fact he had been touring the bonk-shops of Kezdet in no particular order, amusing himself with a girl at each one while at the same time he pursued this inquiry for Acorna, who would lead him to Rafik. “Do tell me about her.”

  “There are rumors of such a one,” Didi Badini said, thinking quickly. If she told Hamisen that the horned freak was setting up as a Didi on her own account, he would go straight to Didi Acorna and she herself would lose the lovely profits promised by his clothes and ring…as well as the pleasurable caresses with which he was entertaining her while they talked. She never “went” with clients anymore, but that didn’t mean she was averse to affectionate fondling of the kind that knowledgeable men and women exchanged. Just now he was stroking her hair, which she felt was her best feature: soft, silky, curly, and without a single white hair. He knew just how to do it, too, without catching his fingers or his nails, which she had noticed he kept properly manicured.

  “Only rumors?” he repeated, withdrawing the caressing hand.

  Then again, Didi Badini thought, if she professed too much ignorance he might leave and pursue his interests elsewhere. That must not be allowed to happen! Not only would she lose the money and the pleasure he promised, but the half-formed plan which was floating in her mind would never come to fruition.

  “Only rumors to most people,” she said, “but I have seen her, and I…might be able to find her again.” The thought of delivering her impudent new rival to Farkas Hamisen, drugged into a state of compliance, gave her far more pleasure than anything Farkas Hamisen could do with those elegant, long, brown hands.

  “Really? You must let me know if you learn anything else,” Hamisen said in a bored tone. The underlying message was clear: she would have to do better if she wanted to retain his interest. Didi Badini searched her memory for some scrap of information that would intrigue Hamisen and keep him close to her, without giving him enough of a clue to actually locate this girl.

  “Her bodyguard used to work for the Li consortium,” she said reluctantly. “There may be some connection there…but you would be well advised not to pursue it, my dear. Dels
zaki Li is powerful, corrupt, and utterly ruthless. It would be too dangerous for someone who does not know the ways of Kezdet to inquire into House Li affairs.”

  “A man does not shelter behind a woman’s skirts,” Hamisen said firmly. “How are you going to find out about the girl?”

  Didi Badini smiled and stroked his arm with one long, elegantly oval fingernail. “I have my friends…here and there. Amuse yourself with some ordinary girls tonight, Farkas—on the house, of course,” she added hastily, “and come back to me in a few days for more information.” She treated him to the sleepy smile that had beguiled the elder Tondubh into parting with more jewels than the glassworks could afford, back in the days when she still did her own work. “You will come back…won’t you?”

  He answered her question with one of his own. “You will find the unicorn girl for me…won’t you?”

  It was Gill who brought home news of the legends that permeated Kezdet through kava shop to bazaar and even to the sacred rooms of the Miners’ Guild. He had all he could do to keep from pounding a few faces in for the smutty suggestions about horn-nuzzling that went on. What had Acorna done to generate such speculation? Well, it would have to stop right now! Mr. Li’s house was impregnable, but Acorna had lately been given to such bizarre…escapades…even when she was supposedly being guarded and/or chaperoned by Pal and Judit.

  Then it occurred to him that maybe he had best join any more outings, to guard Judit as well as Acorna.

  The high-pitched laughter of happy children greeted him as he palmed his entrance to Mr. Li’s mansion. He stood for a moment, listening to the enchanting mirth. Laughter was a lovely sound and suddenly he realized that he could not make Acorna suspend her lifesaving activities. But the sooner they initiated the Moon project, the better…the safer.

  Rafik was busier than he had ever been in his life in the spacious office which Mr. Li had given over to him, and the use of state-of-the-art communications devices that allowed him to speed messages to an incredible number of destinations. He was not a member of his particular family without having an innate natural instinct for trading. He often wondered why he hadn’t gone into that respectable profession as his mother had wanted. Not that he felt himself at any loss in the bargaining and badgering that were part and parcel of making successful deals. In the odd moments he had, he decided that as a callow youth he had only been kicking over the traces to go a-mining. And yet, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do this now if he hadn’t done that. Kismet!