The Unicorn Girl

by Anne McCaffrey

  “We managed our repairs on the ship,” Gill said.

  “You,” Provola flashed back, “had to be portable. We don’t. We’re going to need an industrial-sized shop soon enough to fabricate the next generation of mining machinery, so why not build it now and save the cost of expanding later?”

  Gill put up his hands to register capitulation. “All right, all right,” he said pacifically. “You’re right; I’m used to small, quick operations, not to permanent base construction. I wouldn’t mind learning, though.”

  Provola gave him a sudden, flashing smile. “And I,” she admitted, “have more theoretical than practical experience. Are you going to hire on to the Maganos project? We’d make a good team…unless you have problems with a woman supervisor?”

  “I like women,” Gill said.

  “That doesn’t answer the question. I wasn’t asking what you like to do with your hands when you’re off duty.”

  Gill reached out for Judit and pulled her close to him. “My hands, and my off duty, are already committed, lady,” he said, “and I wouldn’t object to working for any student of Martin Dehoney’s…if that answers your question. Unfortunately, I’m not free to stay on Maganos.”

  “Why not?” Judit cried. She had just begun spinning a picture of how pleasant their life here could be. Delszaki Li had already shown her plans of the private living quarters he intended to allocate to the woman in charge of welfare and education for the rescued children and had hinted strongly that he would like her to be that woman. If Gill took a job on the mining side of the project, he could share those quarters…and he loved children. There couldn’t be a better man to restore the children’s faith after the horrendous experiences some of them had been through.

  But, of course, he hadn’t actually said he wanted to stay with her. He had only been putting an arm round her at every opportunity, and wanting her to go with him wherever he went, and…Judit swallowed her disappointment.

  “Can’t ditch my buddies,” Gill said. “We’ve always been a team, the three of us. Calum and Rafik need somebody with some muscle to do the heavy jobs, and somebody with some common sense to get them out of the crazy complications they’re always getting into. I’d be a real jerk if I asked them to buy out my third of the Uhuru just because I’m a little older than they are and feel like settling down in a cushy construction job.” The words were directed at Provola Quero, but his blue eyes were on Judit, begging her to understand.

  She swallowed again and nodded slowly. Of course he wouldn’t break up the partnership. She should have understood that was why he never said anything about the future, even when he was most enthusiastically demonstrating his desire for her company in the present. “I wouldn’t want a real jerk to…work on the project,” she said in a small voice. “But perhaps you’ll visit occasionally.”

  “As often as I can arrange it,” Gill said, a wistful look on his broad face. “Oftener.”

  It was cold comfort, but it was better than nothing, Judit told herself. Anyway, what did she have to complain about? She had been incredibly lucky in her life so far. And now, at only twenty-eight, she was being offered the chance to do what she loved most: working with children, designing their education, overseeing their welfare, and healing the invisible wounds that she herself knew all too well. It would be asking too much for the fates to throw in a fortyish, broad-shouldered, red-bearded Viking throwback as a life’s companion in that work.

  Hafiz Harakamian found the skimmer driver an invaluable source of information. Not only did he know the day on which Acorna was due to return from Maganos, he claimed to know the very hour of her return. But he also warned Hafiz that waiting for her at the shuttle port would not be a good idea.

  “Too many folks wants to see our little Lady of the Lights, now that word’s getting out about her,” he warned. “Goin’ to be a crowd at the port. If she comes out in it, you’ll never get to her; if she’s smart and gets Security to let her take a back exit, you’ll miss her like the rest of ’em.”

  He suggested that he bring Hafiz back to the Li residence at the exact time when Acorna was scheduled to return.

  “I have always preferred to be in place well before anybody else is expected,” Hafiz said with the firmness of a man who had survived the thirty-year Harakamian—Batsu feud and had negotiated a partitioning of the planetary business without, like the two elder Harakamians, losing his head…literally. “We will take our position outside the Li mansion two standard hours before the arrival.”

  At the time, this had seemed like an excellent idea. Before the two-hour safety margin was even one-third past, though, Hafiz Harakamian recognized that his tactical instincts had been impaired by too many years in the tropical clime of his home planet. Nobody had mentioned to him that Kezdet’s rainy season was about to begin. Or that the rainy season was accompanied by a biting cold wind from the northern mountains. And, since it had been warm and sunny until this morning, he hadn’t noticed that this particular skimmer had a leak in the roof and allowed an irritating draft to whistle through from one ill-fitting window to the next. He shifted his position so that the worst of the drip would fall on the driver and told himself philosophically that it was always a mistake to rely on hired equipment and staff, he should have brought his own people and transportation. But after the way young Rafik had cheated him over the unicorn girl, he had rather wanted to pull off this coup single-handed-the way he’d done in the old days, before he became head of House Harakamian. Just to let Rafik see that the old man wasn’t past it yet.

  The iron-studded front doors of the Li residence swung open, revealing the fantasy of thin-sliced, colorful Illic self-lighting crystals that illuminated the inner doors. Hafiz admired the play of lights and colors while at the same time registering that no other skimmer had pulled up; somebody was coming out, not going in. No need to do anything except slump down in his seat and be inconspicuous….

  A light tapping on the window beside him was the end of that notion. When he pushed a button to make the glass sound-permeable, it stuck. Cheap, rented equipment! He had to physically open the window. A fine cold rain slanted in, accompanied by a yellow hand holding a holo-card.

  “Mr. Li sends his compliments,” said the servant, who, Hafiz noted irritably, was protected by a rainshield extending at least a foot around his body, “and suggests that the head of House Harakamian might be more comfortable keeping him under surveillance from inside the house.”

  At least Delszaki Li knew how things should be done between equals. It would probably be insulting to hint that the sudden disappearance of Hafiz Harakamian would cause untoward repercussions upon several branches of the Li consortium. Hafiz insulted the servant anyway, and received a graceful reassurance that this was merely a social invitation, nothing more. Of course, the man would have said that anyway…. Hafiz grunted agreement and climbed stiffly out of the rented skimmer.

  “Wait here,” he told the driver.

  He could perfectly well have called up another and better-quality skimmer when he was ready to leave, but after the miserable hour he’d just spent, it suited him to think of the skimmer driver sitting and shivering in his drafty vehicle. Besides, in delicate business negotiations, there was always the possibility that one might have to depart in haste, omitting the usual polite formalities of leave-taking.

  The servant extended his personal shield to cover Hafiz on the short walk across the street. Once inside the double doors of iron and crystal, he was invited to hand over his lightly sprinkled turban and outer robe for drying while he took kava with Delszaki Li.

  The head of the Li consortium was older than Hafiz had expected, considering the energy with which he directed the galaxy-wide network of the varied Li manufacturing and financial interests. He looked with interest at the shriveled, yellow-faced man in a hover-chair, a blanket covering the wasted body whose absolute immobility betrayed his growing paralysis, only the snapping black eyes still showing the life that burned brightly
inside. The man was older than Hafiz by a generation or more, older than any living member of House Harakamian. Hafiz’s sense of danger went up a notch. Unlike some people, followers of the Three Prophets knew better than to underestimate the aged. In his long and successful life, Delszaki Li had undoubtedly used, analyzed, and countered every trick Hafiz knew, and then some.

  While they sipped the first small cups of hot, fragrant kava and murmured conversational nothings at one another, Hafiz felt his brain working furiously. There was no point in clinging to his first plan of snatching Acorna, claiming she was his wife by the Books of the Prophets, and removing her from Kezdet while the Guardians of the Peace were still asking the religious courts for a ruling. Not only had he lost the advantage of surprise, but he doubted his ability to fool Delszaki Li as easily as one could fool or bribe the Guardians. A straightforward, honest approach was more likely to be successful…that is, a reasonably straightforward and honest approach. His ancestors would reconstitute their corporeal substances if he let down House Harakamian by laying all his cards on the table at once.

  After the necessary exchange of condolences from Li on the loss of Tapha and apologies from Hafiz for the boy’s idiotic behavior, he made his first oblique approach.

  “Regrettable though the death of my son may be,” said Hafiz, reflecting on the matter with little internal regret whatsoever, “it is written in the Book of the Second Prophet, ‘When you embrace your wife or child, be aware that it is a human being you are embracing; then should they die, you will not be unreasonably grieved.’ As is enjoined upon me by my faith, therefore, I have put aside care for the dead and am now concerned for the living. Before his death, Tapha informed me that my nephew, Rafik, had brought to this planet my young ward, Acorna, a child whom he kidnapped from my home last year. These rash young men!” Hafiz sighed with a conspiratorial smile at Li. “They will be the death of us with their escapades and exploits, will they not?”

  “On contrary,” said Li, his black eyes twinkling, “I find escapades of young people most rejuvenating force in this ancient life. But Rafik has brought no child named Acorna here.”

  “Perhaps he changed her name,” Hafiz suggested. “She is unmistakable—a rarity, deformed, some would say, but in a most attractive way. Tall and slender, with silver hair and a small horn in the middle of her forehead.”

  Li’s face creased into a smile and Hafiz let out the breath he had not been aware of holding. Thank the Prophet, the old man was going to admit Acorna’s presence!

  “Ah, you are speaking of the one our people of Kezdet call the Lady of Lights. But she is not a child. She is a mature woman and no man’s ward.”

  “That’s impossible!” Hafiz protested. “I tell you, I saw the child less than two standard years ago. She seemed to be about six, then—I mean, she was six,” he corrected himself firmly, remembering that she was supposed to be his ward and that he would be expected to know her exact age. “Even on Kezdet, are children of seven considered adults?”

  “Ah. There is concept of chronological age, and there is concept of developmental age,” Li said serenely. “The one whom I know as Acorna is most assuredly a grown woman. Allow me to show you.”

  For a wild moment Hafiz thought that Acorna had been smuggled into the house by a back way and that Li was actually going to have her brought in; then the holo-paintings on the far wall dimmed, to be replaced by obviously home-made vids. The image of a graceful, six-foot-tall Acorna moved, life-sized, across the wall, plucking flowers in a walled garden, playing with a toddler, gracefully lifting a long, full skirt to run up a flight of golden limestone stairs.

  “Perhaps,” Li suggested, eyes twinkling at the astounded expression on Hafiz’s face, “is not the one you know as Acorna? Perhaps is coincidence of name and appearance?”

  “Impossible,” Hafiz said. “There can’t be two like that.”

  Nor could she possibly have grown so fast. The vids must be some trickery. He decided to forget the argument about Acorna’s age and press on to his second point. He had the skimmer driver to thank for the gossip that gave him this additional argument.

  “It was most irresponsible of my nephew to bring her to this superstition-riddled place,” he said, “and I shall speak severely to Rafik when I see him. She is in danger from hired assassins, some possibly actually in government pay. It is my duty to take her back to a place where she will be kept safe, loved, and cherished as the unique being she is.”

  “Perhaps is not wishing to be ‘safe, loved, and cherished’ in museum of rarities.” Li smiled. “Perhaps prefers danger and important work which only she can do.”

  Hafiz took a deep breath and counted to thirteen slowly. It would be most impolitic to accuse his host of talking nonsense. But what important work could a child like that be doing? This was just another lie to delay him, like those faked vids.

  He had only reached ten when the door burst open and a short, fair-haired young man burst in.

  “Delszaki, I think we’ve got it!” he exclaimed. “Probabilities on this latest run show a ninety percent chance that it’s somewhere in the Coma Berenices area—” He halted and stared at Hafiz with an expression of horror-struck recognition. “Ah, that is, never mind, I’ll come back later….”

  “Please.” Li stopped him with a single word. “Do be seated. I feel sure that Mr. Harakamian will be as interested as I in the results of your research.”

  The young man bowed and tried to surreptitiously brush the crumbs off his wrinkled coveralls. His eyes were red-rimmed, as though he’d been working without sleep for several nights.

  “Delszaki,” he said, “I don’t think you understand. This guy tried to kidnap Acorna once already.”

  “Excuse me,” Hafiz said, “I do not believe I have the honor of your acquaintance.”

  “Calum Baird,” the young man said. He wasn’t so young, now that Hafiz looked at him closely: late thirties, perhaps. It was the awkwardness and the exuberance that had misled Hafiz. “And we have met…at your home on Laboue…although you may not recognize me. I was Rafik’s senior ‘wife,’” he said with a demure smile. “The ugly one.”

  Hafiz burst into uninhibited laughter. “That rascal, how he has tricked me again and again! Truly a worthy successor to House Harakamian! How did he persuade you to put on a hijab? You do not look like the sort of man who takes a secret delight in putting on women’s clothing…although appearances can be deceiving. I certainly was deceived.”

  “Rafik talked me into it,” Calum said. “Rafik, as you may have noticed, can talk anyone into almost anything.”

  “Of course he can,” Hafiz nodded. “He is my nephew, after all. The Harakamian strain runs true in him, at least.” Tapha, on the other hand…Oh, well, Tapha was no longer a factor. “But I interrupt. You wished to tell Mr. Li something?”

  An almost imperceptible nod from Delszaki Li reassured Calum that it was indeed all right to go ahead.

  “I think we’ve pinpointed Acorna’s home world, sir. Once I normalized the astronomical data bases…”

  “Home world?” Hafiz interrupted in spite of himself.

  “Yes. Where her people come from. Of course, she wants to get back to her own race,” Calum said.

  “Her own race? But I thought…”

  “That she was human?” Calum shook his head. “No way. We don’t know much about her background, but the pod she was found in shows that she comes from an advanced space-faring race with technology far beyond our own in some ways.”

  “The pod she was found in,” Hafiz repeated. He seemed to be reduced to repeating phrases all the time. He didn’t like the feeling that everything was shifting and changing under his feet. “You mean there are others like her?”

  “I doubt,” Calum said, “that it would be possible to sustain a high-tech, space-faring civilization with a population of less than, say, several million at the absolute lowest estimate. The need for specialization alone would preclude any smaller grouping.” />
  “Several million.” By the Three Prophets, he was repeating himself! Hafiz pulled himself together. “You could have told me this before,” he said severely. “It might have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

  “I didn’t know where her planet was until this morning,” Calum protested. “Where it probably is, I mean. There’s only one way to be sure. Someone will have to go and see….”

  The look of naked longing on his face surprised Hafiz, but he did not have time to consider what it might mean. Another person had entered, as unceremoniously as Calum.

  “I might have known you’d be here,” Rafik snarled at his uncle as he barged into the room. “I turned around as soon as I heard a Harakamian ship had applied for clearance into Kezdet space. It didn’t take you long to track down where Acorna was staying, did it? Well, it won’t work! She’s not here, and you’re not getting her back to add to your museum!”

  “I am delighted to see you, too, my beloved nephew,” Hafiz said urbanely. “As for the matter of Acorna…perhaps we can come to some arrangement that will be satisfactory to both of us.”

  “Tapha’s ashes?”

  “Better a live nephew than a dead son,” said Hafiz with his benign smile.

  Rafik’s whole body tensed slightly. “Well, then. I was going to give them back to you anyway, you know. And the cremation was performed according to the orthodox rituals.”

  “I know that,” Hafiz said “Just as I know that you have not really let that Neo-Hadithian nonsense rot your brain and supplant your decent religious upbringing.”

  “How…” Rafik croaked.

  Hafiz smiled and gestured at Calum.