Acorna’s Quest

by Anne McCaffrey

  Markel’s eyes went wide. “How’d you know?”

  He ruffled Markel’s hair. “You were doing all you could in your fashion, Markie, lad, and your father was one of those spaced. It’s only logical that the ones who hurt worst would try hardest to get back at the murderers of their parents. Now, find out if they need to know where Dr. Hoa is hiding. I’d ask for Kerratz. Always thought he was the smartest of ’Zhuria and Ezkerra’s brood.”

  “No, Andreziana’s the one we want,” Markel said in his blunt fashion as he found the mouthpiece in his backpack and attached the speaker J-bar. “I need to speak to Andreziana. This is Markel.”

  Johnny Greene and Calum both gestured for Markel to patch in the Acadecki’s system so they could hear, too. Markel shook his head emphatically, but Johnny caught him by one ear and gave him such a malevolent glare that Markel capitulated just in time for them all to hear the contralto voice of Andreziana.

  “Where the hell have you been, Markel?”

  “Clearing the decks so you could act, of course,” the boy replied, laughing. “Caught ’em all napping, didja?”

  “No, we caught them hunting in the tubes for you. So we closed ’em off and gave them a dose of their own,” the girl replied.

  “S-spaced?” Markel looked slightly green.

  “We didn’t have a lot of choice,” Andreziana said. “They refused to surrender. I wasn’t going to lose more of our own people going after them in the tunnels, not to mention risking that they’d win a tunnel fight.”

  “No,” Markel said. “No, you—you couldn’t do that. It’s just…”

  “I’ll say this for those Palomellese,” Andreziana interrupted like someone eager to change the subject, “most of them were right with us. Seems that Nueva Fallona and her group weren’t that popular with their own people after all.”

  “So, what did you promise the Palomellese to get their cooperation?” Markel asked, accepting the change of subject.

  “They’ll take a landfall on Rushima and help undo the damage done for the chance to stay on.”

  “Won’t we have to go through the Shenjemi Federation for permission for that? At the very least, they’ll want to sue the Haven for the havoc caused,” Markel said, dubious.

  With an arm around Markel’s shoulders, Johnny positioned himself to speak through the J-bar. “John Greene here, ’Ziana, and congratulations on handling the retaking. That’ll all be on log, and I think we can reason with the Shenjemi. We’ve sent a message about the condition of Rushima, by the way….”

  “You did WHAT?”

  Her protest even shook Dr. Hoa, making him spill a bit of the tea he had been so happily imbibing. He held up a finger.

  “We’ve been down on the surface,” Calum said, speaking directly into the com unit of the Acadecki, “and promised the survivors that we would get a message to their sponsors. This is Calum Baird, pilot. By the way, do you have wounded?”

  “Sure we do.” The girl’s voice softened. “Did you think we could manage a bloodless revolution? Why? We’ve some medics….”

  “But you do not have a ki-lin,” said Acorna, elbowing her way beside Calum.

  “What the shards is a ki-lin?”

  At that point, Dr. Hoa angled his way between Acorna and Calum. “Very good, very unusual, useful, miraculous person. Saved me. Saved Markel, saved Calum. Save you pain and healing time.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Dr. Hoa—and this is the ki-lin.”

  Acorna took a deep breath. “For what now appear to be very sensible precautions,” Acorna said, her voice rippling with amusement, “I disguised myself as a procuress when my ship was captured by Nueva and her gang. I am, however, Acorna Delszaki-Harakamian.”

  If Johnny and Markel were jumping up and down in dismay at Dr. Hoa’s revelation, Calum was tearing at his hair over Acorna’s admission.

  “Harakamian?” There was a certain awed tone in ’Ziana’s voice. “Of House Harakamian?”

  “Delszaki?” added a baritone. “Not THE Delszaki Li?”

  “Yes, to both questions. How may I help you now?”

  There was a babble in the background, then a new person was speaking.

  “Look, I’m medical, but we’ve got some really badly off wounded on the infirmary deck and some people who’ll die if we can’t clear that gas out of their lungs,” the man said.

  “I’m on my way,” Acorna said, and gave a decisive nod at Calum, who was staring hopelessly at her.

  “C’mon, we’ll all go. Lock down your ship, Cal, will you?” Johnny Greene added. “Just in case there are some survivors creeping down to the hangar.”

  With some regret, Calum did as Johnny suggested. He had been thinking of trying to raise regular contact with Delszaki Li’s headquarters on Kezdet…just to allay any fears Mercy might have for his safety if the original spurt had gotten through…but Johnny was right. It was too soon to cry safe and far too soon to omit any possible precaution.

  Before they reached the end of the hangar deck, there was banging on the hatches that had been locked against Nueva’s group.

  “We’re coming, we’re coming,” Johnny Greene roared, deftly assisting Dr. Hoa up the steep risers.

  “I am better, much better,” Dr. Hoa kept protesting. “And what has been done can often be undone. With my process,” he added with a little smile, “we can set much right in little time.”

  “That’ll go down well with the Rushimese and the Shenjemi,” Johnny said with a wry grin.

  As soon as Dr. Hoa reached the bridge, ’Ziana, the late Andrezhuria’s daughter, greeted him with considerably more warmth than she accorded those accompanying him. One eyebrow went up at the sight of Acorna, but she politely did not comment on Acorna’s unusual appearance. Her face composed, ’Ziana was sitting in the bridge command chair, which dwarfed her slight figure. Her bandaged hands dangled from the armrests, but not far from the festoon of weapons hanging to her lap from the belt she wore. Not much taller than Calum, slender, with fair hair braided tightly in many small strands and tied together at the base of her neck, she looked her age, not the principal in a major coup. She certainly didn’t look as if she could have been capable of the deeds she and the other teenagers lounging around the bridge had recently planned and executed.

  “Dr. Hoa, is there anything you can do to help Rushima?” she asked. Her slightly accented Basic was delivered in the tone of a much older, self-possessed woman.

  “I do believe I can, Andreziana,” he said, as courteous as ever as, with a querying lift of his brows, he nodded toward one of the empty chairs on the port side of the bridge.

  “Go to it, Doctor,” she said, gesturing with one graceful, if bandaged hand. Blood had leaked down her forearm and clotted.

  Acorna sucked in her breath and looked at Johnny, who gave his head the slightest of negative movements.

  “Who’re the strangers, Markel?” ’Ziana went on, steepling her bandaged hands in front of her. It was a gesture, Acorna instinctively felt, that had been one of her mother’s.

  “Acorna.” Markel might have been introducing a reigning planetary leader for the pride in his voice. One of the teenage boys lounging around the bridge snickered. Markel bristled, relaxing when Acorna touched his shoulder. “You only show how little you know,” Markel said.

  “She’s the one can heal?” the lad said snidely. “What does she use? That horn on her head?” His hair had been cut into bristle which was dyed in uncomplementary colors. ’Ziana’s gesture silenced him, and he seemed to cave in over his diaphragm at her displeasure. He wore a sloppy bandage on one shoulder: the sear mark of the stun bolt was partly visible.

  So swiftly that no one could have stopped her, Acorna was beside him, her derided horn performing its miracle.

  “Hey, whaddya go and do that for?” The boy raised his unharmed arm to push her away, but she had already retreated.

  “Hey.” His tone was completely different. He peeked first at the now healed fle
sh, then pulled off the rest of the bandage and saw clean, pink skin. “Hey, how’d you do that?”

  “However she does it, I’ll have some of the same, if you wouldn’t mind, Acorna?” ’Ziana said, holding out her bandaged hands. “Can’t really use the fingerpads with all this on me.”

  Although Acorna was as delicate as possible in peeling back the wadded fabric, little flickers in ’Ziana’s eyes showed how painful the process was. Her hands were so badly burned they were weeping blood and serum. Acorna lowered the horn to each palm, then the girl’s torn wrists. Flesh seemed to flower instantly across the wounds.

  “Let me tell you, that is a relief,” ’Ziana said, briefly sounding her chronological age. “There’re injured down below who need a lot more help than I do…did. Thank you. And, you, Brazie, I didn’t hear your thank-you.”

  Brazie of the multicolored hair stammered out his gratitude, still fingering the now smooth ex-wound.

  “You’re both welcome. Anyone else?” Acorna asked, looking around at those who occupied the bridge.

  “Aw, it ain’t much,” one of those beside Brazie said, but his companions pushed him toward Acorna. Another pulled up the rags left of the back of his shirt and revealed encrusted welts. Acorna had never seen anyone whipped and beaten, but, when she maneuvered the boy into the light to assess his injury, she knew that that was what had been done to him. Calum uttered a low whistle.

  ’Ziana now turned to Johnny Greene and Markel. “I need to talk to you two,” she said, once again in that firm, uncontradictable voice. “You were within an ace of getting spaced, Johnny. Did you know? How’d you know to hide? And where did you hide?”

  Johnny settled himself in the chair just below her level, and Markel took a seat next to him. “Well, I figured I was running out of Nueva’s good graces. She was never sure where I stood with the First-Gen group, since they sort of picked me up because they were short a docking expert. Esposito and I had had a couple of run-ins….”

  ’Ziana chuckled. “So you had. Dom never liked you either.”

  “True, though I had no intention of cutting him out with Nueva. She wasn’t my type. But that’s all history, ’Ziana. Let’s talk about now. You’ve control of the Haven, but are there enough competent people left after two sets of wholesale slaughter to staff and crew a ship of this complexity?”

  “My mother didn’t raise me stupid, Johnny. Any more than Illart did Markie-boy here.” ’Ziana was slightly contemptuous.

  “Then you do have someone who can dampen the electromagnetic resonances in the navigation controls,” Calum said, pointing to some orange flashing lights on one drive control board.

  ’Ziana swore and swung down off the command chair to take a closer look.

  “If I could make a recommendation,” Calum said at his most tactful, “I think the problem is more drift than immediate danger, and I can do some calculations to see how much thrust you’ll need to apply, but this is one panel that should be manned at all times. And the life-support system seems to have been damaged from the look of the signals it’s giving.” He pointed to a board several positions down.

  “You a pilot or something?”

  “I’ve belted around the system for most of my life and never lost a ship,” Calum said. “All modern ships use about the same basic controls…just some are bigger’n others, like this one.”

  “He’s an expert and very experienced pilot,” Acorna said. “Approved and recommended by both Delszaki and House Harakamian.”

  “Who’s them?” Brazie asked, frowning in suspicion.

  “Only two of the biggest interstellar firms,” another lad said, and came up to Calum, extending one hand in greeting. “I’m Kerratz. My father was…” and Calum surmised that the father had been one of those spaced, “…teaching me his specialty. I’ve had a little time on the board, so I could take it over—if you’d do the calculations. I wouldn’t want to do them, and be wrong.”

  A girl, heavy-boned and wearing flashily dyed blue-and-orange hair, pointed to the life-support board. “’Ponics system suffered a lot of damage when we were trying to weld the access panels shut so they’d all die in the tubes.” Those deaths didn’t seem to bother her as much as the harm to the plants. “Want I should get a gang together and see what damage is done?”

  Calum turned politely toward ’Ziana.

  “Go to it, Neggara,” ’Ziana said, waving her off. “You help her, Brazie, Dajar, Foli. You’ve had a long enough rest now. And Rezar,” she added, pivoting on one heel to address a tall, well-built boy cultivating a fine mustache on his handsome face, “you take the com board. This bridge needs to be properly controlled.”

  Then she turned to Johnny with a “how’m I doing?” glance that was challenging.

  “What’s happening on the decks below?” he asked. “There may be some good ’uns among the Palomellese who can spell your folk.”

  ’Ziana didn’t much like that suggestion from the expression on her face.

  “Well, you’ll be standing long watches, then,” Johnny said with an indolent shrug.

  “You go find some loyal enough to help,” ’Ziana said. “I’m not leaving the bridge.”

  “I agree. You shouldn’t,” Johnny said, “but, if Acorna’s finished here and Calum can hang about with the technical advice, I’ll leave our ki-lin at the infirmary on my way down the levels.”

  ’Ziana nodded agreement, but, as Acorna walked away toward the door, her eyes spoke volumes of gratitude to the spacer that ’Ziana’s pride would never allow her to utter.

  “You’ve done well, ’Ziana,” Johnny said, then chuckled. “Nueva’s mistake was in not spacing the whole kit and kaboodle: First AND Second Generation.”

  “You’re damned right there,” ’Ziana said as she resettled herself in her command chair, “but she considered us ‘kids’!” She snorted as she steepled her fingers.

  “A mistake for several reasons,” Johnny said suavely. “How about communications below? Are they in working order?”

  “Most of ’em,” said Rezar, surveying his board. “Some holes, but call here to the bridge anywhere you can. I’ll patch you through.” He began running a diagnostic on the system.

  “You okay where you are, Dr. Hoa?” Johnny asked before joining Acorna by the lift shaft.

  “Oh, go on, go on, I’ve so much to set right I won’t miss you at all,” Dr. Hoa said, absently waving a hand over his head in the direction of the speaker, but focusing all his attention on the graphics in front of him. He was tsk-tsking over something as Johnny and Acorna left the bridge.

  “Surely those children cannot run a ship this size?” Acorna said.

  “Oh, I dunno about that, Acorna,” Johnny said with a grin. “Seems to me I heard that Cal, Gill, and Rafik had you managing a lot of basic controls before you were three years old.”

  “My species evidently matures more quickly than yours,” she said.

  “And those kids who put down Nueva’s coup were apprenticed, as a matter of course, to specialists once they turned fourteen.”

  “They can’t be much older now,” Acorna protested.

  “On the contrary,” Johnny said in a very droll tone, “they are much, much older…now.” With a hand under her elbow, he signaled her to jump to the level they were nearing on the shaft. “If they’re beginning to find out how complicated it is to do it all themselves, it’ll make my job easier.”

  “Finding someone a little more senior with enough experience to direct them?”

  “Precisely.” He pointed to starboard. “Infirmary’s that way.”

  Since she could hear the moans and sobbing, his direction was unnecessary.

  “I’ll come back this way and see how you’re doing. Even medics were not safe from Nueva’s wholesale spacing orgy.”

  “Calum?” Rezar asked. “Could you come look at this? I don’t know this kind of code.”

  Calum had been overseeing several panels for the appointed novice crew as well as giving Dr.
Hoa a hand with the math. [“Never my strong suit, Mr. Baird.” “Well, it is mine, and you’ve merely inverted the matrix that defines nonlinear diffraction-process interaction too soon—or tried to; the matrix can’t be inverted, so you have to transform it to this form first. See? Now you get the right answer.”]

  “That’s beamed at Rushima, which no longer has any com units. Broadcast on a wide beam so we’re catching the edges of it. Use the finer tuner and put it up on screen. No, this toggle.”

  The message immediately began blaring from the bridge speakers until Rezar figured out how to modulate its volume.

  “This is Blidkoff of Shenjemi Federation calling.” Even the tone sounded bored with the words. “Rushima, reply. Urgent. You must respond if you expect any aid.”

  “He sounds real interested,” Rezar said sarcastically.

  Calum glanced up at ’Ziana. “I’d say Rushima needs help from whatever source it can get it.”

  ’Ziana regarded him steadily. “But this ship caused the damage.”

  “Ah”—Calum held up one finger—“yes, my initial message to them said Rushima was under attack by the Starfarers.”

  “The real Starfarers”—’Ziana indicated herself—“are once again in control of Haven. Our…” she had to swallow before she could continue, “…mothers and fathers believed that peaceful protest would allow us to use some uninhabited world as a new home, since Esperantza was destroyed.”

  “You have been traveling a long time,” Calum said kindly.

  “The Shenjemi could demand reparations from us….” she said.

  “Not you…and you’ve logs to prove it,” he said, pointing to a ceiling device that was the visual log of all proceedings on the bridge. “I can answer as myself. Shall I? And we can sort the Haven’s part out later. We have to give some answer. The Rushimese are in a bad way down there.”

  “We’ve been in a bad way up here, too, Baird.”

  “Ah, but I can restore much of the normal climatic pattern in just a few days,” Dr. Hoa said, “after first inducing some more…extraordinary…weather to quickly counteract the worst effects of what has been done.”