Acorna’s People

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Very good,” Acorna agreed. “Our people are looking much improved. But we need to get them home where they can graze and rest and have the wounds to their spirits salved.”

  “I hope,” Aari said in a voice so tight that it came out rather high, “that their families will not fear them, too.”

  Acorna laid her horn against his shoulder. “Your family did not fear you. Maati was very put out we didn’t bring her along, in fact.”

  In the lounge and on the mess deck, the Starfarers were putting all of the gourmet selections in the Shahrazad’s replicators to the test, while Karina and the staff busied themselves at other replicators on other parts of the ship, fixing food for the youngsters to take on their journey home.

  Becker stuck his head through the onion-domed port, nodded to Aari and Acorna, and said, “Saddle up, crew. Time to go back in the sky now.”

  So they left Hafiz and the Haven in charge of the former prisoners, both human and Linyaari, and boarded the Condor once more, setting off for the coordinates that the hologram had given as those of narhii-Vhiliinyar.

  Acorna was a little surprised to see Nadhari Kando, Neeva and Virii, and ’Ziana and Pal already aboard. “I’m amazed Johnny Greene isn’t here, too,” she said.

  “He’s still back on the Shahrazad generating those messages with the coordinates, sending out fresh holovids every little once in a while just to keep Ganoosh and Ikwaskwan interested,” Becker told her. “I figure they’ve been traveling maybe forty-eight hours by now, but using my special navigational methods, we’ll be there several hours before them.”

  He was correct as, Acorna was learning, was usual. The Condor arrived at the Federation outpost well before the mercenary fleet. When the post commander heard the stories of the Linyaari ambassador, the legendary Nadhari Kando, and the young Starfarers, he was at first hesitant until Acorna said, “I can only bring you the words of my uncle, whom the Linyaari people regard as a sort of honorary kinsman and who considers all of my people to be under his protection while they are outside their own territory.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the Federation commander said. “And your uncle, can you give me a name?”

  “Hafiz Harakamian,” she said. “You may have heard of him. Patron Emeritus of the House of Harakamian? My other uncle Rafik Nadezda is the current patron and he naturally shares Uncle Hafiz’s concern. In fact, Mr. Kendoro and Ms. Kando are close personal friends of Uncle Rafik’s as well as mine.”

  The commander’s demeanor changed. “You’re Lady Acorna Harakamian-Li! At the behest of Mr. Rafik Nadezda, the Federation has been investigating certain crimes against it and unaffiliated races.”

  Acorna nodded.

  “And—uh—two other uncles—your parents seem to have had a lot of brothers, ma’am.” Acorna nodded. “Two other uncles were so insistent that we send Federation troops that there is a detachment on the way already. I’m afraid your uncles were so upset that they had to be forcibly detained to keep them from coming along. No civilians on troop ships, ma’am. I’m sure you understand.”

  “If you could just send them word that you’ve spoken with me and I am”—she started to say fine but then amended it to, “I have survived, Mr. Harakamian is safe, and we are among friends, I would appreciate it.”

  “Roger that, ma’am.” Within a few hours real Federation ships began arriving from outposts all over nearby quadrants, creating a formidable welcoming committee for Ikwaskwan’s fake ships.

  When Ikwaskwan’s troops arrived, bristling with weapons but speaking words of peace to what they fondly supposed to be the Linyaari home world, they were flanked by the real Federation ships, locked into tractor beams, and escorted to the outpost, after a brief skirmish ending in the Federation’s favor and providing so much salvage for Becker that he had to put it on the tractor beam to tow behind the Condor.

  “Now then, Aari, here’s something my daddy taught me about towing salvage. You always tow it at a thirty degree angle from your flight pattern. You know why that is?”

  “Perhaps so it does not hit your ship if you must suddenly cease acceleration or reverse course?” Aari asked.

  Becker looked disappointed, Acorna thought. He loved to lecture. “Very good. But that’s not all. You know what else?”

  “No, Joh,” Aari said.

  “Well, it’s the ions we leave behind in our wake, see. They discolor some of the metals, pock others, can completely ruin a good load of salvage so it’s not worth jack. This way, you tow it at an angle, you don’t get hit in the butt or ruin your cargo. Only problem is, we can’t tow through the worms and pleats so we gotta go the long way.”

  “Joh,” Aari said. “The scanners.”

  The scanners had picked up the cloaked vessel ahead of them, now uncloaking to turn on them. The comscreen never brightened. It didn’t have to.

  “Ahh,” Nadhari said in a hoarse and cracked voice. She had spent hours giving her deposition. “Ikky’s flagship.”

  Becker bared his teeth at her in the grin Aari had learned to mimic. “So, Nadhari, I heard about what this old boyfriend of yours did to you. How about we send him a little love letter?”

  Nadhari returned the grin with the first one of hers Acorna had seen since they left the biospheres. “Oh, Becker, sweetie, can we?”

  “For you, no sacrifice is too much,” Becker said. “It’s a good place to die—for them. We got black water behind us—everybody strap down.”

  Acorna reached for RK to secure the cat, as well, but he had made other plans. He lay inside the same harness that held the unhealthily thin form of Nadhari Kando.

  Becker said, “Nadhari? Pretty name. Makahomian, isn’t it?”

  A bolt of light snapped toward them.

  She nodded just before he said, “Okay, here it comes, three—two—one, reverse thrusters!”

  Acorna didn’t quite take it all in. One moment the ship loomed large on their screens and the Condor seemed to be standing still. The next moment, Nadhari’s smile turned down, everyone unstrapped themselves and Aari unpointed at the comscreen. And in the midst of it all, several tons of wreckage were slingshot from the tractor beam on their starboard side.

  After a moment or two the Condor slowed, and all movement reversed once more for a forward thrust. They reemerged from the “black water” just as the first red ball of light was dimming and the pieces of Ikwaskwan’s flagship were making that part of space a dangerous place to be.

  Nadhari Kando laughed and Becker winked at her. “Sending them a frag-load of salvage ricocheted their shot right back at them.” He shook his head regretfully. “Just like the sick sucker to explode in too many pieces to make it worthwhile to collect.”

  “I appreciate your sacrifice, Becker,” Nadhari said.

  “Then it was worth it,” he said, with grim satisfaction.

  Karina was the one who thought of the brilliant idea of taking some of each of the grasses favored by the Linyaari and putting them in the replicator. And belatedly, Becker and Aari remembered the sacks of seed that had been blocking the crew quarters before the KEN unit cleared them out to make room for the bones.

  With these resources, the Linyaari were soon restored to relative health.

  Karina again offered her services and Hafiz’s to Acorna for her spiritual training. Neeva, who overheard the offer, thought-spoke to Acorna, (Ask her to tell you how she manages to shield her thoughts so well, Khornya. When we first met her, just about the time we thought we had made contact, her mind became a complete blank.)

  “Karina, you were the first contact for my people when they came to fetch me,” Acorna said. “You learned thought-speech before I did, I’m told.”

  “Oh, yes,” Karina said, “And thanks to my heightened level of enlightenment, I was able instantly to communicate with your species.”

  “Didn’t you find it difficult at all? I certainly did—I have had so much trouble sorting out the thoughts of those around me from each other and not broadcasting every litt
le notion.”

  “I had just the opposite problem, to tell you the truth,” Karina said confidentially. “I would start receiving them and, knowing they were trying to reach me, I naturally made my mind completely open and blank to receive their thoughts—and then I could hear nothing at all.”

  “Hmmm,” Acorna said. “I’ll have to try that.”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘imagine that,’” Acorna replied. “When you were expecting just the opposite, I mean.”

  While everyone worked to regain the strength they needed to make the journey home, Acorna and her aunt talked.

  Acorna was almost startled to find that of everything that had happened to her, what she wanted to talk about most was Aari and what had been done to him. After her aunt’s ordeal, Acorna felt that she would understand what Aari had undergone. “Maybe you can make our people understand, help him fit in again,” Acorna said.

  “Do you think that’s still necessary?” Neeva asked. “Look. Does he seem to be having a hard time fitting in now?”

  Indeed, he did not, but was grazing with the others, listening to them talk and nodding, occasionally adding something of his own.

  “He seems fine now but when we get home, when everyone’s normal, will they be so upset by memories of their own ordeal that just seeing him—or me—might bring back, that they will be afraid to look at—well, especially him again?”

  “Khornya, we’re not all like that. You must realize that this particular crisis affected you and the people at home as well as us. We spaceborn and spacechosen are your kind, but because of circumstances, none of us stayed dirtside while you were there. You met only the most conservative element of our society. And the most fearful, because they look to the past for their strength. They have a strong aversion to change of any kind. And they don’t like anyone who is the least bit different. Don’t get me wrong. It is necessary that there be both traditional or agrarian, and progressive or technological and scientific Linyaari. The traditionalists give us our stability and sense of self and we—we give them the ability to continue to live. I don’t suppose they mentioned that it was necessary to partially reform narhii-Vhiliinyar to make it habitable for our people?”

  “Not in any detail,” Acorna said.

  “Well, it was. Thanks be to the Ancestors that Grandam was there to help you.”

  “And Maati.”

  “And Maati,” Neeva agreed. “My point is, you are one of us. Aari is one of us. Nothing can change that, ever, not distance or time or even the sort of thing that has happened to Aari—and almost to all of us. Wherever you are, wherever we are, you are still ours and we are still your people.”

  Except for the inclusion of the Condor, Acorna’s second homecoming was almost a reversal of her first. This time the bright Fabergé egg ships bounced toward narhii-Vhiliinyar rather than from it, and only one lone ship, the new one she’d seen the techo-artisans working on with the clan colors of Acorna’s illustrious clan ancestress, bounced up from the planet’s surface. Thariinye beamed at them from the comscreen until Becker switched it off.

  “I don’t like that guy,” he grumbled.

  The Linyaari band was there to greet more than one person this time, Acorna could see from the viewport of the Condor. Grandam and Maati alone separated from the crowd and walked across the field to wait for the robolift to lower, and Acorna and Aari to join them on the surface. The viizaar herself had extended the invitation to the welcome home fete to Becker as well, but if she had reversed her opinion of Becker, the same was not true of his opinion of her.

  “Bureaucrats,” he said. “They’re all alike.”

  Maati gave Acorna a brief horn touch and then held onto her brother’s waist with both arms until he picked her up in his and hugged her. Acorna touched horns with Grandam. “Perhaps we’d better leave them to catch up with us,” Grandam said.

  They walked slowly and silently toward the crowd. The returnees were being given wreaths of flowers by those greeting them, and there were many tears and much laughter. Neeva was explaining to Liriili that without the good or “Linyaari barbarians” their people would never have survived the bad or “Khleevi barbarians.”

  “In fact,” Neeva said loudly enough for all to hear, “we Linyaari now have a kinsman among the barbarians. Khornya’s uncle Hafiz, who fed us and helped us regain our health after our imprisonment, said that since he was Khornya’s kinsman, he felt that all of the rest of us were also members of his clan, a very wealthy and aristocratic lineage of merchant traders.”

  “Hmmm,” Liriili said, “It is wise to keep one’s assets in the family. Perhaps we should send emissaries back to this new uncle of our people to discuss a favored trade agreement.”

  “I believe that would please him a great deal,” Neeva said. “Some of us who spend much time off-world learning and bringing back technologies and trade items need to spend more time at home for a while, as we recover. This Harakamian is a genius at making holograms. Perhaps he could be persuaded to produce some hologramatic learning programs for the various guilds?”

  Liriili gave Acorna a guilty, but still slightly frosty smile. “Perhaps. Perhaps Khornya would care to discuss it with him on our behalf? Now that she has spent time among us, in my estimation she is ready to assume her own mantle as visedhaanye.”

  “Perhaps,” Neeva said.

  “But surely she will want to stay home and rest for a time, too,” Grandam said.

  At that moment, Acorna looked across the field and saw Maati walking slowly toward them, alone. Acorna fought her way through the crowd to the comscreen and hailed the Condor.

  “There you are, Acorna. If you can tear yourself away from that mob down there, you might want to join me and Aari and the cat again. The board here is lit up like a pinball machine all of a sudden. We have us some serious salvage opportunities and they won’t wait forever. Stay there or come along. What’s your pleasure?”

  Acorna, Grandam, and Neeva exchanged looks and thoughts. They were her people, it was true, but so were Uncle Hafiz, Rafik, Gil, Calum, the Kendoros, and so many others.

  On the comscreen, over Becker’s shoulder, she saw Aari’s face, regrets and sorrow mixing with anticipation of rejection and—just a little—hope.

  Grandam’s eyes twinkled.

  Acorna turned back to the Condor and then swung back to face Liriili again. “I’m honored by the ambassadorship, of course, but for right now, there is still something I must try to”—she glanced once more at the comscreen, the cat’s impatiently flicking tail, Becker’s welcoming expression and most of all, Aari, and said aloud, in answer to Becker—“salvage.”

  Glossary of Terms Used in the Acorna Universe

  aagroni—Linyaari name for a vocation that is a combination of ecologist, agriculturalist, botanist, and biologist. Aagroni are responsible for terraforming new planets for settlement as well as maintaining the well-being of populated planets.

  Aari—a Linyaari of the Nyaarya clan, captured by the Khleevi during the invasion of Vhiliinyar, tortured, and left for dead on the abandoned planet. He’s Maati’s brother. Aari survived and was rescued and restored to his people by Jonas Becker and Roadkill. But Aari’s differences, the physical and psychological scars left behind by his adventures, make it difficult for him to fit in among the Linyaari.

  Acadecki—the ship Calum and Acorna journey in to find Acorna’s people.

  Acorna—a unicorn-like humanoid alien discovered as an infant by three miners—Calum, Gill, and Rafik. She has the power to heal and purify with her horn. Her uniqueness has already shaken up the galaxy, especially the planet Kezdet. She’s now fully grown and searching for her people.

  Aiora—Markel’s mother, now dead.

  Almah—Rocky Reamer’s wife, now deceased.

  Amalgamated Mining—a vicious intergalactic mining corporation, famous for bad business dealings and for using bribes, extortion, and muscle to accomplish their corporate goals or cut their costs.

&
nbsp; Ancestors—unicorn-like sentient species, precursor race to the Linyaari. Also known as ki-lin.

  Ancestral Hosts—ancient space-faring race that rescued the Ancestors, located them on the Linyaari home planet, and created the Linyaari race from the Ancestors and their own populations through selective breeding and gene splicing.

  Andreziana—second-generation Starfarer, daughter of Andrezhuria and Ezkerra.

  Andrezhuria—first-generation Starfarer, and Third Speaker to the Council.

  Balakiire—the Linyaari ship commanded by Acorna’s aunt Neeva in which the envoys from Acorna’s people reached human-populated space.

  Balaave—Linyaari clan name.

  barsipan—jellyfish-like animal on Linyaari home planet.

  Becker—see Jonas Becker.

  Blidkoff—Second Undersecretary of RUI Affairs, Shenjemi Federation.

  Brazie—second-generation Starfarer.

  Caabye—planet in the original Linyaari home world system, third from the sun.

  Calum Baird—one of three miners who discovered Acorna and raised her.

  Ce’skwa—a captain and unit leader in the Red Bracelets.

  Child Liberation League—an organization dedicated to ending child exploitation on Kezdet.

  Clackamass 2—an abandoned planet near the Kezdet system, used as a landfill site.

  Coma Berenices—the quadrant of space most likely to hold Acorna’s ancestors.

  Condor—Jonas Becker’s salvage ship, heavily modified to incorporate various “found” items Becker has come across in his space voyages.

  Dajar—second-generation Starfarer.

  Declan “Gill” Giloglie—one of three miners who discovered Acorna and raised her.

  Deeter Reamer—five-year-old son of Rocky Reamer.

  Delszaki Li—the richest man on Kezdet, opposed to child exploitation, made many political enemies. Paralyzed, he used an antigravity chair. He was clever, devious, and he both hijacked and rescued Acorna and gave her a cause—saving the children of Kezdet. His recent death is a continuing source of sorrow to Acorna.