Acorna’s Search

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Yes, Captain. If my beloved niece is there, may I speak to her please? I thirst for the sound of her voice.”

  “I’ll have her call when she gets here. Mac went back to get her and Thariinye. Meanwhile, we need your help.”

  He sighed. Too often these days people needed his help. Too seldom did they offer lucrative favors in return. But he had the faith of his forefathers that all his good works would be repaid tenfold in the fullness of time. He just wished time would fill out more quickly. His heir and his board of directors had begun expressing concern about the state of his accounts lately, and questioning the vast withdrawals he had been making from corporate holdings.

  Karina wafted in. “Haffy? Is it Acorna? Has she news?”

  “Hi, Mrs. H.,” Becker said. “Like I was just telling Hafiz, we need some help down here. While they were rooting around in the caves here on the old home world, Acorna and Thariinye found this old city.”

  “Excuse us, Captain, Mr. Harakamian,” Yaniriin, who was part of the relay, cut in. “With all due respect, gentlemen, our Council was very reluctant to allow an offworlder such as Captain Becker to set foot on our world and even more reluctant to allow him to access certain highly classified areas. Please do not describe what you have seen to others over the com unit, Captain Becker. I know Mr. Harakamian will understand the need to maintain security.”

  “Uh—right,” Becker said. “Sure, Yaniriin, whatever you and the Council say. Anyway, Hafiz, Mrs. H.—she, Acorna I mean, discovered this—er—object which is probably responsible for the disappearances. Our belief is that it may have been screwed up by the Khleevi decimating the planet’s water supply. There is a—uh—hidden water source we can tap if we can get some irrigation equipment down here pronto to help stabilize the uh—process which is being triggered by the object which is making all the people go bye-bye. Yaniriin, was I confusing enough to suit you?”

  “That was admirably obfuscated, Captain Becker, thank you.”

  “Captain Becker, have I not made it clear that we will be fully restoring the planet’s resources as soon as the survey is completed to the Linyaari Council’s satisfaction? That aspect of the work is still some months away, however. Suitable equipment has been ordered but is not expected to arrive for several weeks. At any rate, it would not be employed until the terraforming process has been implemented.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about this object that made the people who were doing the survey to begin with disappear. We need the equipment now if we’re going to get them back. We need a lot of it.”

  “I regret that we do not have that sort of thing on hand at all times,” Hafiz said, growing a bit irked at Becker’s insistent tone. Most people were quite diffident to Hafiz Harakamian these days, and he was at a stage in life when he could choose to feel insulted if the diffidence was lacking. “From what you have been allowed to tell me,” he continued in an offended tone, “there is no guarantee that such equipment as you seek will be of any use whatsoever. You have only a little idea that it could help.”

  “Maybe, but do you have a better idea?”

  Silence followed.

  It was no use. Becker tried every argument he could think of, and appealed to Yaniriin as well, but Hafiz, remembering the last balance sheet he had seen, was unmoved. He had tried and tried to help the Linyaari and so far all he got was demands for privacy and more privacy…and no return as yet was—returning.

  “I think this conversation is now at an end, Captain Becker. You and the others must do the best you can with the lavish resources the House of Harakamian has already provided.”

  “Uh-huh. Yeah. Wait. Just a sec. Don’t hang up. I have an incoming call from Thariinye.

  “What? Huh? Yeah? Oh, holeee sh—I mean, damn. I should have known.”

  “I am signing off now, Captain Becker. I have an empire to run, after all,” Hafiz said with great dignity to the general vicinity from which Becker’s voice issued.

  “No, no, don’t. At least, I wouldn’t, if I was you. That was Thariinye. He’s on the way up to the ship with Mac, but they used the com unit to give me the news. Hafiz, Acorna’s gone.”

  “Gone? How so gone?” Hafiz demanded with indignation and suspicion brewing dangerously in his voice.

  “Disappeared. After Mac and I left she told Thariinye she was going down to the—uh—body of water I mentioned, to purify it, because it was—I’m sorry, Yaniriin, a filthy polluted swamp. Which we figure is part of the problem with the workings of the object. And why it’s behaving erratically and making people disappear. The absence of water and the contamination and what not. Acorna figured that out herself, so my guess is she did this on purpose. She was real upset about Aari being missing. Claimed she’d heard him hollering for help.”

  “But if the solution to this problem is untried, if you have not the equipment, why would she risk herself before a certain solution is at hand?”

  “I dunno. She’s a sweet girl, but kinda dumb sometimes. At least, she leads with her heart, not her head. I bet she figured she had some adoptive relatives who, once the situation was explained to them, would do anything within their power to help her return, and to bring back the others. Naïve of her really. Y’know, I tried to teach her better but she has this sentimental idea about people. Maybe wherever she is, she’s getting some sense knocked into her now.”

  Hafiz felt as if someone had just knocked something into him, but he was trying to control his tone, his demeanor, so as to conceal this from Becker. Then he turned and saw Karina. Her gauzy lavender robes were kilted to her waist, her dimpled knee bent to force the blade of a shovel into the soil surrounding his beloved exotic flowers. Her hair had come loose from its bindings and her tongue stuck out a bit from between her sharp little white teeth and her luscious lips.

  “What in the name of the Three Prophets and the Three Books are you doing, my beloved Djinn of Energetic Endeavor?” Hafiz asked, his intended tones of authority emerging in an alarmed squeak.

  “If you won’t have anyone else do it because we’re pinching pennies, Haffy, then I will personally dig up the irrigation systems in all of our gardens and send them to the Captain to save our dear Acorna. After all, if there is no Acorna, there is no need for any of this, is there? I will keep digging, although I feel quite faint already from hunger and overexertion.” She said this as she flicked a teaspoonful of dirt to one side and panted heavily, leaning against the shovel handle as if she might swoon.

  Hafiz modulated his voice and spoke in a tone that must have been much like that of one of the Three Prophets of his faith declaiming the Law. “Very well, Becker. Acorna must be saved. So let it be written, so let it be done. I have spoken. My people will strip my gorgeous gardens and we here will drink from common reservoirs and cease washing our clothing or our bodies until you have completed your task and our Lady of the Light and her people are safely among us again.”

  “Okay. That’s great. We’ll be on the lookout. Make it snappy though, will you? Gotta dash.” And the insolent junk man terminated the connection without so much as a verbal salaam.

  Hafiz had no time to get his feathers ruffled by that, however. Karina picked that moment to swoon gracefully toward the ground. Naturally, he found it necessary to cushion her fall. When he had assured himself she sustained no damage, he summoned every able-bodied staff member in his employ and began the destruction of his newly planted gardens. He consoled himself with the thought that he could use the equipment on order to replace that which he was sacrificing.

  Twenty-four

  Maati was now completely serious, her face set and her voice trembling to keep it from rising to a shrill whine. “How can they all be gone again? Oh, Khornya, it’s not fair. Aari can come back if he wants to, can’t he? I know we had a big fight and I acted like everything was his fault and I didn’t care about him but he can’t be gone already! I just got him back and I wasn’t done with him yet!”

&
nbsp; “I know the feeling exactly, Maati, but you mustn’t think it was your fault. Those people up there,” she jerked her head sharply upwards. “They did something to him—”

  “Did they hurt him?”

  “I don’t think they did, at least not very much, but the way they treated him must have reminded him of the Khleevi. You know how brave he is. Nothing else would have bothered him so much as that. I suspect he was trying to find you when I arrived. And I think that my arrival somehow or other sent him forward to our own time. Aari is probably waiting for us back in our own time, worried sick about us. So now we’ve got to get back again ourselves.”

  “Very sensible, my dear,” Yiitir said. “But how?”

  “If I can get it to work the way it did in our time, I can set the device on our own period, then come back to the sea where we will—how can I explain this?—think ourselves back there while using the water to conduct our thought-energy and combine it with whatever it is that drives the time switching device.”

  Yiitir shook his head. “I can’t see how that would work.”

  “Neither can I,” Acorna said. “And it might not, but it worked to get me here. It is the only way I know to get back. I feel we have to try it.”

  “You can’t go back up there,” Maarni said. “If the people who hurt Aari capture you, what will they do to you?”

  “Oh, really, yaazi,” her lifemate said. “This is the Hosts we’re speaking of, not the Khleevi. They won’t hurt the girl. Will they?” He addressed the last to the Ancestors.

  “They will not,” said Humiir, tossing his head so that his mane flew in a magnificent manner.

  Acorna realized that the Ancestors intended to go with her, and that was not what she had in mind. “Don’t worry. They all seem to have gone for the day. I’ll be fine. I’ll just slip up there, set the machine, and when I give the signal, my friends and I can dive into the water. The worst that can happen is it won’t work and we’ll all have to dry off again.”

  Finally the unicorns agreed to stay below in case the three Linyaari needed help, but they made Acorna agree to leave the passage open between their cavern and the upper stories of the building.

  Even though she knew the building was empty, she found herself creeping back along the corridor and slipping into the room dominated by the quicksilver swirl. At least there had been no need to turn on lights. They had left the entire first two floors glowing from the walls and ceilings too, Acorna saw now. Even the floors brightened with each footstep. In its own eerie way, it was beautiful.

  The control room was still deserted, and the map was as she had seen it before. She stood before it, memorizing every detail. It looked subtly wrong to be their own time, and there were details Aari could not know about the present time—the tunnel, for instance.

  She took a deep breath, and concentrated hard on the subtle alterations that would indicate the area as she had left it with Thariinye, Mac, Becker, RK, the tunnel, the city. When the map was as she thought it should be, she sent the thought to Maati and the others, (Okay, jump in the water. I’ll be right behind you.)

  She wouldn’t be, not exactly. First she was going to return the map to its former state, and then she would find Aari before taking him back to their own time. But there was no need to upset Maati and the others by telling them that.

  (We’ll wait,) Maati said. (You might get lost.)

  Maati knew her all too well, it seemed, but fortunately, the others did not. (Don’t be difficult, child,) said an Ancestral voice, followed by a distant splash.

  Acorna concentrated hard and the map briefly showed in miniaturized three-dimensional detail the landscape she had left ahead of her.

  She sighed deeply. The others should be safely back with Becker and Thariinye now. If they weren’t, well, they could be fetched along with the other missing people, but Acorna was pretty sure she’d done the necessary work to return them. She listened closely, hoping to hear the Ancestors’ thoughts indicate if her friends had vanished or not. Instead, she heard voices right behind her.

  “You see what I told you? He got loose! And now he’s messing about with the time device and he’s sure to get lost and there goes the future of our race!”

  Acorna turned from the map and faced such a large group of people that she was amazed she hadn’t heard them arrive. That’s what she got for listening with her mind instead of her ears.

  “Highmagister, that is no male.”

  “Even better!” the woman said. Her hair was a blue-white flame wound with sparkling stones that matched those on her dinner gown. Behind her ranged what appeared to be an entire party’s worth of guests. “We have his contribution—with hers, we will insure the future of our descendants.” Belatedly she smiled at Acorna, saying, in thought-speak. (Hello, dear lady, I am the High-magister HaGurdy and I believe in your time we are known to you collectively as the Ancestral Hosts although, of course, we are actually your ancestors as well. Have you come to find your friend? He must still be in the next room. Come along and we’ll take you to him.)

  (He has gone. He managed to escape in spite of what you did to him.)

  (Oh dear. Well, he was very excitable, and rather more timid than he appeared.)

  If thoughts had color, Acorna’s burned crimson. (He was not timid, you fool! He is among the bravest of our people. He endured and survived torture at the hands of the worst enemy the universe has ever known. It is to your discredit, not his, that you reminded him of that experience so strongly that he relived it while enjoying your hospitality. Why, you aren’t fit to parent another race. You aren’t even fit to entertain the Ancestors! Maybe they were better off where they were! Hosts, indeed!)

  (Why, you ill mannered, ignorant young ingrate!) the Highmagister said. (You are too stupid to realize that we are called the Hosts because we are each host to many different forms, not simply because we have invited a few unicorns to share our planet. Do you think this is the first time we have done this?)

  (No,) Acorna said. (I’ve already been told that you’ve bred your different shapes with other peoples on other worlds and then moved along. If your behavior was as thoughtless and careless of the rights of others there as it has been here, I’m not surprised you’ve moved a lot. Probably you’ve been thrown off the other planets.)

  The Highmagister changed form as Acorna watched, finally stabilizing as a towering creature with wild black hair, a sharp beak, and long scarlet claws. The sleeves of her gown and a black cloak were suddenly swept back by an invisible wind turning them into wings as she ordered, “Someone get that creature a sedative and prepare her. Her mind is obviously not going to be an asset in creating our descendants, but her body is a perfect match for the male’s and we might as well use his material with hers.” Four other Hosts began to close the distance between themselves and Acorna. They didn’t have to change. They were already large and frightening looking enough.

  Acorna was trembling with shock at herself and just how angry she had become.

  “Aari is my lifemate and his seed is welcome to my body but only as a gift from him personally. You will not use us in this way, without our leave and against our wills,” she said firmly.

  But though her words were brave, she felt quite alone, with Maati, Yiitir, and Maarni gone forward in time and Becker and the others unreachable. Her intent had only been to return her friends home, then locate and join Aari and do the same.

  “You are too ignorant to make a decision in this matter,” the bird-woman told her coldly.

  “I am not ignorant at all. I know that my race was formed somehow but—according to my people—it was not by some third-hand forced fertilization from the people who rescued our venerated Ancestors. I begin to wonder if your sort ever had anything to do with our beginnings. The stories of my people say that both sets of our parents were good and honorable.”

  She stated the truth as she saw it as forcibly as possible, hoping someone else would recognize it. The reactions of the others were unk
nown to her as she spoke, however. Her whole being focused on broadcasting her outrage. Nothing was left in her mind to receive impressions from the Highmagister or her people.

  The bird woman flew at her and the other four Hosts closed in on Acorna.

  As they rounded the silvery column, Acorna surprised herself by dipping her chin, putting her head down and preparing to sink her horn into the first Host who laid hands on her.

  But her head snapped up again at a sound that seemed to be drums. 1-2 3,4. 1-2 3,4.

  The Hosts scattered as a tight phalanx of Ancestors marched through the party guests and into the room. They halved the Hosts ranks down the middle, one half to the left, the other to the right of the column. When they stopped, the determined Ancestors, their chin whiskers twitching with the intensity of their purpose, stood between Acorna and the Hosts. Each half of the crowd was separated from the door by Ancestors standing sideways. When someone came too close, he or she was bumped, gently but firmly, right back into place. One of the Hosts changed into a small four-legged being and ran under the belly of the Ancestor restraining him, only to be met by another Ancestor’s horn and the inquiringly raised brow and narrowed eyes of a third Ancestor.

  (This has gone far enough,) Humiir broadcast. (High-magister, for all your words, it seems to have escaped your grasp that this child is our daughter and granddaughter and great-granddaughter—the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of us all, as her lifemate was our son, our grandson, and our great-grandson. If this kinship is not enough to grant her gentle treatment at your hands, then we must keep you from disgracing yourself by delivering her from you until other, wiser heads can prevail.)